C’MON! If YOU had won, I’d do a lapdance for YOU!*

caesar

* this is a lie.

On a not derailing the thread note, I did read and enjoy Northlanders. I like the way it sets up the dynamic between Norse paganism and Christianity, and the title of the next installment, “The Cross and the Hammer”, has totally sold me on the continuation of this theme next issue. Here’s hoping.

I find Miller is recycling a lot of his old material, lately. That whole ‘city is a woman’ thing was done in one of his Sin City comics, and better (though i rather liked it in batman as well). And the cadence of the dialogue, where everyone repeats what they say about three times…”They didn’t miss a thing. Not a thing. Not a goddamn thing.” It’s jarring to see such noir-esque Sin City trappings perforate a Batman comic.

And as for the misogynist thing; dude. Jim Lee draws hot chicks. That’s part of his deal. Yes, that doctor had to have a mini-skirt, because Jim Lee drew her. Frank Cho is another common offender of this act. These guys like drawing girls hot, and in sexy clothes/positions. I don’t think it’s meant as a slight against womankind. I think it’s more like, they enjoy drawing and looking at the female form.

As for the characterization in regards to misogyny, well, you complain that Catwoman is beaten up and needs Batman to save her, but then gloss over the fact that Black Canary beat the crap out of a ton of dudes and didn’t need anyone to save her. Similarly, you call Black Canary overdressed but don’t have anything to say about how Catwoman’s and Batgirl’s costumes are completely tasteful. Can’t have it both ways, man.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this book is sexism-free. But I highly doubt Frank Miller is attempting to put out a misogynist manifesto here.

Out of curiosity, have you ever read Miller’s Sin City stuff? I’m interested to see what you think about that. He draws a lot of naked chicks in that one, but they’re not weak characters — but then again, a lot of them do get in trouble and a man usually saves them. I’m not sure if that’s subconscious sexism, Miller’s preference for type of story, or just a function of writing crime noir comics.

And wow, man, Alan Moore, misogynist? The thought of that never once crossed my mind.

Jimmy Olsen is always getting saved by Superman too, for reasons similar to Lois. Maybe I could infer some kind of gay sexism stuff in there if I tried hard enough.

I think Isaac had it right; superhero comics are all about someone being in trouble — sometimes men, sometimes women, sometimes the hero him/herself, and disturbingly often, the entire world is in danger. There needs to be some action based conflict, otherwise it’s not really a superhero comic…it would be a soap opera like Strangers in Paradise (which is really good, mind you).

On an unrelated note, I think Bone is one of the best comic books ever.

http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/lois-lane/

So, it turns out Frank Miller is just continuing a proud DC tradition.

Conversely you could argue that this is problematic, however, because even though Lois Lane appears to be strong and independent, she still ultimately depends on a man – the message being that despite women’s entrance into the professional realm, in essence nothing has changed in terms of men and women’s roles with respect to each other. If you take that a step farther, you could argue that this was done specifically with the intent of reassuring a largely male audience of this social fact. Hard to know for sure, but that seems a probable feminist reading of this.

If there wasn’t something in distress, it wouldn’t be a superhero book. It would be one of the Archie comics. But not those rare Archies where a character has fallen in a river and someone has to save them. That rarely happens though. That’s a very special episode of Archie.

Yorick is constantly in distress himself, too.