Alan Kistler's Universe

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Something has happened. I'm not sure what exactly. I'm not sure where and how it began. But it's there, clearly. Something has happened to the women at Marvel. They have lost their respect. Not only the respect they have from writers, but also from other characters and themselves. And I am seriously disturbed and bothered by this.

First of all, I'm a huge fan of women. Not just because I like to date them (though that is true). My grandmother was a huge factor in my upbringing and over the course of my life it just so happens that most of my friends have been female. Yes, I crack sex jokes and flirt without meaning anything by it and with certain friends (male and female alike) I will pretend that I am a chauvinistic pig for three seconds in order to get a laugh from those same friends. But when you get to the serious matters, I don't like women being put down or looked on as less than human.

Years ago, Gail Simone first coined the phrase "woman in the refrigerator syndrome", in reference to an issue of Green Lantern where the hero's girlfriend Alex DeWitt, a very interesting and strong character, was killed off and had her body stuffed into a refridgerator simply to provide a shocking moment for the readers and a motivating force for the hero to finally get serious about his new life. Simone pointed out that this kind of things happened in comics and media all the time. For a while I thought it started lessening at least. Now? Not so sure.

At Marvel, the X-titles and She-Hulk seem to be all about women power. Characters such as She-Hulk, Rogue, Emma Frost, Mystique, Wolfsbane and others continue to kick ass and take names. Are they sexy? Several of them, yes. But they own it. They're strong and interesting and all pretty cool.

But then we get things like that Mary Jane statue.

Until recently (due to editorial decisions beyond my comprehension), Mary Jane Watson was the wife of Spider-Man AKA Peter Parker. When introduced, she was hot and sexy, yes. And she owned it. She was a woman well aware of her beauty and charm and in total command of it. She didn't go around sleeping with any guy she met to make herself feel powerful. In fact, she made damn sure she never settled for anything less than what she was sure made her happy and whole and she would never allow herself to be a victim.

She is also incredibly smart and intuitive and on several occasions has forced her husband Peter Parker to face truths about himself and his world that he didn't let himself see (such as when she questioned if his career as a crime fighter was merely survivor's guilt mixed with a death wish). A great role model, I think.

And then this statue came out.

What the Hell is that? I mean, many of my friends are girls and I've seen them do laundry on occasion. And I can tell you that I do not recall them ever positioning their clothes to be so far away or at such a low height that they have to pose in such a way. In fact, they usually make sure that their clothes are within comfortable reaching distance. Plus, they have these things called "knees" which allow them to bend rather than stand up straight and lean their torso over in such an unnatural fashion.

And frankly, in my opinion, if Peter handed his dirty costume to MJ, she'd probably laugh and toss it at his head as she said, "Do your own damn laundry, I have enough clothes to wash on my own!" But hey, that's another conversation entirely.

Then there was the now-infamous cover for Heroes for Hire, a title which stars a group of government enforcers and has several women on the team. In this issue, as implied on the cover, the female members find themselves in a bad situation (one that brings Hentai to mind).

Marvel tried to explain that this cover wasn't meant to imply a scene of women chained up, undressed and ready to be sexually assaulted by slimy phalluses, it was meant to show that the alien monsters known as the Brood were coming because the Brood have tails so there.

Um, yes, they do have tails. They also have legs and sharp, sharp teeth. Why didn't we see a bunch of Brood faces at the bottom of the cover instead of just their tails? Why not show the female heroes (all of whom are excellent fighters) standing back-to-back, surrounded by Brood on all sides but still ready to go down fighting? Why are we showing them not only captured but undressed and looking completely powerless and afraid?

Another prime example of women losing respectability happened soon after Storm of the X-Men married the Black Panther. For years, Storm has been one of the strongest women in comics. For a long time, she was the only one who could tell Wolverine "chill out and shut up" and get away with it. Even when she temporarily lost her powers, she was able to beat Cyclops in combat and prove herself worthy to lead the X-Men in the field. And because she is so damn powerful, she never backed down from a fight, though she would also be sure to avoid it if possible not out of fear but simply because she understood that fighting rarely gave you a result you truly desired.

After she married the Black Panther, there were a few instances where she was spoken down to by others who saw her as the king's consort and she seemed to take it. She may have been insulted, but she didn't really speak up for herself. Very odd, considering this woman was once worshipped as a goddess and has the healthy ego to prove it. And then, during Civil War, in a tie-in written by Richard Hudlin, Storm found herself facing a cyborg-clone of the thunder god Thor. Rather than tear into him with the fury of her own lightning and thunder, Storm acted rather doubtful of her own abilities and was only too happy to back off and let Marvel's Hercules handle the situation, cheering him on from the sidelines rather than lending a hand. I remember scratching my head and thinking "Was Storm replaced by a really cowardly Skrull? 'Cause if not ..."

If you're an Avenger these days, it's a bad time to be a woman apparently. In New Avengers, written by Brian Michael Bendis, B-list super-hero Tigra was recently attacked. And by "attacked", I mean she was blinded-sided by C-list villain the Hood who shot her and then savagely pistol-whipped her in her own bedroom. She was then told to do as she's told or else her mother would be hurt. This was all video-taped by the villain called Jigsaw, who stood nearby, so that other super-villains could watch and cheer later.

Tigra can be overpowered and blind-sided, yes. But she's no pushover. She worked for a while as a New York cop, she has years of experience in fighting super villains and world conquering aliens alongside the Avengers and has had training sessions with Captain America himself, one of Earth's best fighters. And with her retractable claws, animalistic fighting instincts, enhanced healing and resiliency to injury, and superhuman strength/speed/agility, she's given formidable opponents such as Spider-Man a fair fight.

So why didn't we see her make a decent effort against this guy? Why did she give in so sheepishly instead of shouting "Screw you, SHIELD is just a phone call away! Touch my family and I'll kill you!" She has super-human strength and recovery abilities, why did she cower and shriek when she was smacked with a gun? Why did she shudder and beg this guy to stop?

The Hood has no superhuman strength or resiliency. With his hood and cape, he can turn invisible when he holds his breath, defy gravity and occasionally summon a demon form which has claws (but again, not superhuman strength or resiliency). Why didn't Tigra, realizing her life was in danger, claw the little bastard across the throat and then throw Jigsaw (who doesn't have any superhuman powers at all) out the damn window? And come to think of it, why was Tigra so surprised by his attack? She has superhuman senses that allow her to see into the infra-red and recognize a person by their scent. Even if the Hood's mystical cape was able to hide his scent along with his visibility, Jigsaw had no such protection.

A few women friends of mine who read this scene said that the nature of the attack (in a bedroom, video-taped, having the woman on her knees and begging) made them feel as if they were watching a rape. That's definitely not a good thing when readers react that way. 

And finally, we have the government-sanctioned Mighty Avengers team led by Ms. Marvel. Bendis writes this title as well. In the first story, the evil artificial intelligence known as Ultron (once responsible for killing an entire European country) takes over the form of Tony Stark AKA Iron Man. Integrating with the technology in Tony's body, Ultron not only takes control but also transforms Tony into a naked copy of the female hero called the Wasp.

Rather than take the situation seriously, the Wasp's first reaction is to think about how the appearance of this copy reflects on herself. Right, cuz never mind that one of your worst enemies is back and your teammate Iron Man may have suffered brain-death by being possessed, you're so shallow you can only focus on how this affects you and what people think of you.

The transformation itself seems to be nothing more than an excuse to have a naked, somewhat silvery girl on the cover and in the story. Why would the machine mind of Ultron decide that it would be a good strategy to become a woman? And this physical transformation has no lasting effect on the story or characters, as evidenced when Tony is returned to normal later and has no side-effects from what should have been a traumatic experience. In fact, he jokes about it the next issue as if it were just one of those days. Dude, your entire physical form was taken over by an evil robot, physically re-alligned to match the form of your friend and teammate, and was then shunted back. Have a reaction!

Ultron seems out of character entirely in the book and then makes the story worse by needlessly killing the wife of the hero the Sentry. The fact that she is resurrected by Sentry before the story-arc is even over only makes the scene pathetically pointless, as it shows that her death was purely for shock value and was not meant to have any impact or consequence on our characters or the story arc. I guess I should just be thankful she wasn't literally found in a refrigerator.

Ms. Marvel is put in charge of this team, which is a good choice because she has years of experience not only as a super-hero but as a military espionage agent. She was buddies with Wolverine and is quite powerful, able to give folks like Iron Man a good fight if she wants. She's fought alongside the X-Men and the Avengers and has helped save the world on several occasions. She's had a career that involved her traveling through outer space more than once. She's seen and done it all and it's made her a formidable woman. Yet in every issue, her thought bubbles depict her as having little to no idea what she's doing.

And then the latest issue. The Mighty Avengers team attacks the castle of Victor von Doom, one of the biggest terrorists in the Marvel Universe, made interesting because not only is he a man who mixes both science and sorcery in his attacks but also because he is a villain who does his best to seem like an aristocrat, abiding by a personal code of honor and constantly emphasizing that he is more enlightened and civilized than you.

In the story, Doom captures the Avengers pretty easily (not too surprising, as he is Doom, after all). And when Ms. Marvel demands some answers, he barks "You mean nothing to me! You are a fat piece of furniture I may need for trade! So shut your cow-mouth or I'll remove your face by hand before I stop your whore's heart!"

This is absurd. Not only is it needlessly insulting towards women in what is, let's face it, a super-hero comic that should appeal to a younger as well as older audience. Not only is it needlessly over the top with not one but three anti-female statements in one panel. But on top of that, it is completely out of character for Doom. He speaks as an aristocrat, almost akin to an evil Hamlet. When he loses his temper, he proclaims things such as "Silence, lest I cast you into oblivion with the barest effort!" or "Be still, woman! Or you shall know the full power of he whom men call DOOM!"

The "cow-mouth" dialogue would almost be understandable if it were coming from the Captain America villain Crossbones (a gangbanger and a rapist) but not from a an elitist snob who is monarch of his own European country, super-villain or not. A fat joke would be beneath him. It speaks of sloppy/lazy writing rather than someone sitting down and thinking "Okay, knowing Doom as a character, what would be his natural response to this?"

Oh, but it gets worse. Amazingly, it gets worse! Because Ms. Marvel's thought balloon has her admit that her feelings are actually hurt by these remarks. Her feelings are hurt! She was in the military! Surely she was yelled at by drill sergeants every damn day of training! She's fought alongside Wolverine and against world-conquering monsters. Why would such stupid and infantile remarks get to her?

And what's worse, it must be obvious that they do because then Wonder Man assures her "You're not fat." Why? Why doesn't he respect her enough to figure hey, she's Ms. freaking Marvel, she can blast a hole through concrete and she's the leader of one of the most powerful teams on Earth, I'm not gonna coddle her like a thirteen-year-old who just got dumped.

Yes, I know, DC is not without its faults either. My friend Laura Hudson (writer for the magazine Comic Foundry) once told me about a female comic book customer who was a huge Green Lantern fan but was too embarrassed to buy issue #18 because of its cover featuring the villain Star Sapphire in a very racy pose (and her new, more revealing-than-ever, outfit).

Looking at it, I can understand the customer's basic problem but also think it's not really that bad when you consider that the action is definitely in character for the villain (who is very much about using her sexuality and dominating men).  Still, perhaps the costume or the pose shouldn't be that bloody blatant. Comics have female readers too, after all, and this can be taken into consideration without being unfaithful to a character's personality and habits. But while this cover may be a tad embarassing for some, I think it's a far cry from what happened to Tigra.

Despite this, DC seems to treat its female characters better all around. The women on the Justice League are capable, powerful people, Power Girl leads the Justice Society, Wonder Woman is brave enough to fight super-villains even in her non-powered human identity. Manhunter is a very good read featuring a woman federal prosecutor who balances being a super-hero with being a single mom. And Rene Montoya, a former detective of the Gotham City Police Department, has shown how cool she can be now that she's taken on the mantle of the hero called The Question (and she's certainly sparked discussion among several due to her on-again, off-again relationship with Batwoman).

And check out this cover from a later issue in Green Lantern. Like the Heroes for Hire cover, it basically involves a female in bondage. But see how different the scene is? Thanks to the expression on her face, her stance, and the length of her chain, we don't see a victim here. She may be captured, but as far as she's concerned she has the power, she has the control and she'll be damned if someone else thinks they can take that away.

It is possible to show a woman being captured or defeated without insulting them too. 

I'm not saying I'm against sex in comics. I never lost respect for Black Canary because she enjoyed a relationship with Green Arrow. I never thought Mary Jane was a tramp for wearing the occasional sexy underwear for her husband Peter. I know that sex sells and that there's a reason many women have more revealing costumes than men and are somehow never cold. While I think it would make sense for them to wear pants, you won't find me saying that Wonder Woman and Power Girl are anti-female because of their wardrobe.

But this stuff at Marvel, I don't know. As I said, the majority of their titles seem fine. I don't see this kind of sentiment in X-Men, X-Factor, She-Hulk or Fantastic Four. So it's not the majority of the company. But it's happening enough that it bothers me and it's especially disturbing to see it happening in both of the main Avengers titles, since those teams are supposed to be Earth's A-list super-hero groups in the Marvel Universe and get lots of readers since they involve characters such as Wolverine, Iron Man and Spider-Man.

I don't think Bendis hates women, as some do. He did an excellent job with the series Alias, starring detective Jessica Jones who remains an interesting character, and he has introduced and revived some good female characters, not only with Jones but also with the ninja Echo and the original Spider-Woman. But this recent writing just feels lazy. Like putting a rape scene in a crime movie because it's the easiest way to get people to hate your villain. Maybe it's because he's writing so many comics at once now. But you know what?

Laziness is definitely no excuse.

- Alan Kistler ...

... is a pinball wizard,

'sgot such a supple wrist!

Next Column: Life is very hectic right now, so I have no idea. Let me figure it out at my own pace, eh?

Quote of the Week: " 'Let me help.' A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over 'I love you.' "

The quote from the previous column was from the Fourth Doctor in Doctor Who: Planet of Evil.