Episode 1530 Talkback - Previews
Adam_Murdough
Posts: 506
Out with the old, in with the Previews! We go through the January catalog for items shipping starting in March. (1:31:29)
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Apparently it's going to give us two issues of Swamp Thing written by Len Wein and drawn by Kelley Jones, though, so it's not all bad.
On another note I absolutely HATE the new Spider-Woman costume. I always felt that her costume was one that was classic and timeless. No doubt my absolute favorite female costume in the whole of the Marvel Universe. Not too mention that Marvel making this change seems so blatantly a rip-off of DC's success with the new Batgirl costume that I can't help but lose more respect for Marvel editorial. I thought they had bottomed out with their incessant re-numbering of series but somehow they managed to sink to a new low.
Sorry just had to get that off my chest. Thanks for all the hard work guys and keep it up!
My work here is done
My favorite one involved a baseball game against the Devil, in which he hit a home run every time up. The way they beat him was to walk him intentionally - when he couldn't be at first base and at bat, he forfeited!
L nny
I don't think the new costume is particularly good or particularly bad. It's... okay. And for a character who hasn't had a different costume in a looong time, I'm more than fine with it. It is reminiscent of Batgirl's latest look, and that's not necessarily a bad thing but it does take me out of the story or whatever, because it causes me to think about "why" it was done.
What strikes me most about the debate is this notion that Spider-Woman's previous/classic costume was inherently sexy/sexist. I think this is a wholly recent notion that comes down to how a handful of artists have chosen to draw her over the last handful of years. I recall a particularly "booby" cover image drawn by Frank Cho. And then there was the 1-2 punch of the much-lamented Greg Land becoming her regular penciller and Milo Manara doing that one controversial variant cover.
But looking back on how she was shown and portrayed from the late '70s to the '00s, I don't remember Spider-Woman being played up in terms of sex appeal. At all. Yeah she had a tight costume, as did most superheroes male and female. But she wasn't portrayed as a sexpot the way, say, She-Hulk sometimes was.
So I'm not seeing how the costume change is some sort of correction for decades of unfair treatment or whatever. (Have some female characters been treated unfairly for long periods of time? Absolutely. Is Spider-Woman an example of one? No.) I mean, I'm cool with the costume change; on some level it's a nice change for what it is... and it will certainly discourage Greg Land from doing many porn-tracings for the artwork. But her previous costume is a classic for a reason: because it's a good and fairly simple costume. Ask any of the Spider-Woman cosplayers, who seem to have no problem dressing that way.
I'm currently reading a book called "Mass Media and Mass Man", which is a collection of essays from the 1950s. There's one essay titled "The Comics" by Leslie A. Fielder. Fielder stands up for comics and readily admits to being "surely one of the few people pretending to intellectual respectability who can boast of having read more comic books than attacks on comic books." Fielder goes on to recapitulate about how comics were then being criticized for their "negative influence". Along with the charges of encouraging criminal behavior (which we're all familiar with), Fielder notes that the comic book is attacked for "picturing women with exaggeratedly full breasts and rumps". Strange how that bit of critique usually gets left out of what we've heard about Wertham's criticism over the years, and now so many bloggers and Twitterers are turning into "school marm" types who want women covered up, wearing leather jackets and pouches like it's some weird hipster version of the '90s or something.
I know they're not real people, but sometimes I wish these fictional females could dress themselves without their every fashion decision being scrutinized so closely by other people.
It makes her look more like a teen-ager now.
I am actually excited to try the Jem comic. Being a child of the 80s with a slightly younger sister, I was exposed to a ton of the 80s cartoon/toy properties. To me, Jem was one of the better ones. I know many guys become Bronies, but not me. However if I was to ever follow a "girl" property, it would be Jem. It's pretty close to liking a female band in many respects, with some sci-fi elements to it (and the music actually wasn't bad). When I heard that the title was coming out, I was hoping for a Danger Girl style adventure team that was also a band, but this looks like it will be very girly (more so that even the original cartoon), but I'll still give it a try.
The Miami Vice comic was unusual. When you look at it, it's being created by a company called Lion Forge. Not that long ago, Lion Forge was creating some comics that were solely digital. They had produced (as far as known names) a Knight Rider comic, an Airwolf comic, a Saved By The Bell comic, and a Miami Vice comic. I read the first few issues of them (except for Saved By the Bell). The Miami Vice one took place in the 80s and the story and art were VERY different from what we are getting here (probably why this is being called a Remix). I REALLY liked the digital comic that I read. This comic has me a bit unsure, but I will be trying it. I don't know why they felt the need to change it. I'm afraid that if this isn't successful, then it might turn IDW away from producing the other ones they had done. I don't get why it had to change. I am hoping though that seeing this that we'll see those other Lion Forge licensed properties at IDW in the near future (hopefully not very different from what they did before).
Start getting those old "Strange Sports Stories" Pants. Some of them are pretty great.