Batgirl, The Most Repulsive Comic of 2011

At the end of 2011, the new Batgirl has completed its first arc, and while it's not too bad from a craft standpoint, the implications are so disgusting that it was easily the worst comic I read all year. That includes plenty of comics that WERE bad from a craft standpoint, and even more comics that had a decent level of craft but were based on profoundly stupid concepts. But none of these comics had as revolting a message behind them, and even if they did, their negative implications were immediately seized upon by the audience. The new Batgirl is vile, but a positive commercial and critical reception enable its vileness.

Again, the issue here isn't with the art or writing, at least no more so than any other comic. Adrian Syaf's art is exceptional, and he at least makes the book nice to look at. And Gail Simone's script is decently constructed, if not nearly as good as her work on Birds of Prey or Secret Six. But she's based the book around one of the worst representations of disability I've seen in recent years. This is a comic that deals explicitly with the fact that the character of Barbara Gordon was the rare character who was both a semiotic victory and a memorable, complex entity on her own-- then pisses all over it.

I've already mentioned the bullshit conceit behind this book, that Barbara Gordon can walk again and is using that opportunity to be Batgirl. Now that we're a full four-issue story arc into this comic, we learn how Barbara was cured; she went to a special clinic in South Africa, to receive an experimental surgery. There's the chance that her condition could deteriorate, especially with intense physical strain (the kind that comes part and parcel with crime-fighting), but she's doing it anyway. In Barbara's mind, she's received a miracle, and she has to use her second chance to help people.

It's a strong religious metaphor without the courage to attach itself to a specific religion. But worse, it's a miracle cure that reinforces the notion that Barbara was broken because she couldn't walk. It doesn't matter that it's from the fringes of real-world science instead of DC Universe Phlebotnium, it's still an awful plot device. Barbara can walk again, so she's using this chance to become the exact same person she was before being put in the wheelchair. Her time as Oracle is completely glossed over, with the only bit of past continuity explicitly referenced being when she was shot by the Joker.

Worse yet, the book has the gall to try to treat disability with respect. Barbara scoffs at how Alysia* talks about the loss of mobility as a pitiful fate, and talks about what the chair "lets you do". It's referenced that the word "cure" was a dirty word in the Gordon household, with her father having brought up the clinic with veiled language (so as not to offend Barbara's proud identity). But this means absolutely nothing because Barbara still took the cure, and still enjoys not only her life as an able-bodied person, but as a pinnacle of athletic skill.

Some might argue that it's Barbara's choice to take this cure, and to live the kind of life she wants without accepting limitations. Except Barbara doesn't have much respect for her own life, for the following reasons;

1.) Subjecting herself to an experimental and possible life-threatening surgery in order to walk again, as though the risk of being dead was worth the reward of being able to walk.

2.) Becoming a crimefighter despite being badly out of practice and physically/psychologically unfit for the task. Throwing herself onto the battlefield in situations that could (and, in fact, did) cost civilians their lives due to her incompetence.

3.) Refusing help from her ex-boyfriend and fellow Bat-sidekick Dick Grayson, brushing him off as an over-protective man and going off to fight the villain herself. (This isn't a feminist issue, it's an issue of someone close Barbara not wanting her to get herself killed out of stupid pride).

4.) Being yet another member of the Bat-Family, now in a role that hundreds of crimefighters do better (thanks to Batman, Incorporated). Grant Morrison's notion of Oracle as a cyber-crimefighting digital Batgirl was silly and rooted in very dated conceptions of the internet, but it at least gave Barbara a unique role suited to her skill-set. Here she's just one of the Bat-Grunts, albeit without the ability to handle her emotional baggage.

In short, the message of the new Batgirl is that being disabled limits what you can do, being "normal" is an ideal for which you should readily throw away your life, and disability is just a pit-stop on the able-bodied hero's journey. To this, I use the words of a still-active disabled character, played by an extremely talented actor with a disability (Peter Dinklage);

" [as a cripple] I beg to differ. Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities. "-- Tyrion Lannister, George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones

*the Ethnic Best Friend, because DC's books still have to belong to the white characters; so long, Cassandra Cain!

Matt Fraction And Nathan Fox Give Bin Laden A Taste Of Fear Itself

Go Here For The Story

Yesterday gave comics a surprising boost of notoriety when GQ published a comic strip version of Bin Laden's final moments. The comic was written by Matt Fraction, one of my favorite comic writers, while the art is by comic artist Nathan Fox. The two previously collaborated on Invincible Iron Man 500, where Fox illustrated the parts of Fraction's dystopian future where we saw Tony's son turned into a literal War Machine, under the control of the Mandarin.

This story is an extremely intense piece of comic storytelling, and effectively chronicles the Seals' raid on Bin Laden's final hiding place. What's most interesting about it isn't the portrayal of the Seals, but of Bin Laden himself. Here, the mastermind behind Al Qaeda is almost a sympathetic figure. He's the most infamous mass-murderer of the current century, his organization responsible for the deaths of thousands including both American and European citizens as well as his "fellow" Muslims. But in his final moments, he's just a sick, scared old man who's been hiding in the dark for years, thinking in clipped, frantic captions as he awaits the inevitable.

In the annotations, Fraction denies that he wanted to get into Bin Laden's head, for obvious reasons; what person, of any respectable political affiliation, would try to excuse this monster's actions? But Fraction isn't excusing anything Bin Laden did. If anything, he and Nathan Fox are using their chosen medium to make Bin Laden the concept see the errors of his ways. In the end, Bin Laden only brought misery to the world, and that includes his own kin. The look Fox put on Osama's face as one of his grown sons runs out to protect him and ends up dead says a lot; is Osama simply scared, or is there a hint of remorse for the fact that his child died for his own sins?

Some may interpret this as propaganda for the US, but it's really a great piece of storytelling that combats the ideals for which Bin Laden caused so many deaths. Bin Laden may have wanted to be a martyr who inspired an even greater wave of suicide bombings. But if Fraction and Fox's comic is his legacy, then everything Bin Laden did just led him to an undignified, pathetic end.

Read My Review, Then Buy This Game

Published by the fine folks at GameDynamo.com

I'm sorry I've neglected this blog, though between my new real world job, my online game writing job, and my work on Ruby Nation, you can probably see why. Still, it's easy enough to link to my review of the collected glory that is the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.

The Jeph Loeb Drinking Game

Note: Do not try this at home. This Avengers: X-Sanction preview alone will get you completely plastered.

--When a fight scene erupts for no clear reason other than to have a fight scene, take a shot. (Avengers vs. Lethal Legion)

--When a bunch of heroes or villains are assembled in an "iconic" arrangement, take a shot. (The Avengers are Marvel's Big Five-- Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk by way of the Red Hulk-- joined by the Falcon, presumably as a token. The Lethal Legion are veteran Avengers foes Living Laser, Grim Reaper, Whirlwind, and Radioactive Man. The latter of which hasn't been a conventional super-villain in a long time, instead acting as a loyal soldier for China).

--When a character makes a quip with the same amount of wit as a schoolyard taunt, take a shot. (Spider-Man: "Why is there never a jailbreak on nice, pleasant, warm nights in New York?" Wolverine: "Why is it you never shut up?")

--When a character goes into heavy-handed, mopey first-person caption narration, take a shot. (Cable's internal monologue about being a soldier).

--When the conflicts are revealed to be the acts of an ubermensch villain manipulating events with far more capability than they should be able to have, take a shot. (Not seen here, but with Loeb's history of using villains like Hush, Romulus, Ultimate Doctor Doom, The Intelligencia, and others, there's often a mastermind with unconvincingly extreme mastery).

--When a character is brought back to an "iconic" state in a way that defies everything previously established, take a shot. (This series is about bringing Cable back from the dead. Even though his absence wasn't exactly derailing the Marvel Universe.)

Now excuse me as I go into the ER for alcohol poisoning.

Ruby Nation Begins! Stuff You May Have Missed

Well, I've finished the prologue of my new webcomic, 13 pages total. It's complete with a new domain name, at therubynation.com . Similar to its predecessor, chapters will be followed by text pieces, so the next few weeks will see the start of the "Ruby in Therapy" interview series.

I designed the prologue to start the series with a bang, to go with an action sequence so readers immediately want to find out what's happening. If you don't understand the entire story and didn't read Ruby's World,, it'll reveal itself That said, there are some things that aren't immediately apparent from the pages, so I'll offer these useful notes;

1.) The characters wear superhero costumes now-- kind of. Ruby's dressed similarly to usual, but wearing a utility belt with the Ruby Nation Insignia on the buckle, while Jiro has a spy catsuit with a ninja scarf and combat webbing. These are designed more as custom military uniforms than superhero costumes, as I honestly hate spandex-- it's too often used as simply flat colors with no texture, rendering superheroes as nudes in body paint. Here it's more like stylized body armor, adding a bit of self-conscious fashion and accessorizing(since these are teenaged characters, looking cool is important to them, and is one of the few things they have left).

Think the paramilitary superhero look of the Ultimates and Metal Gear Solid, mixed with the individualized bling of Tetsuya Nomura (designer for Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts).

2.) The post-human antagonist her is named Moray. The name comes from the moray eel, a type of serpentine-looking fish with strong jaws and sharp teeth. I absolutely love animal motifs for superhuman characters, especially more obscure animals. Since Moray's ability involves columns of nanofilament bursting from his hands and enveloping/shredding everything they catch, it seems appropriate. As for more about him and his origins...you'll have to wait and see.

3.) There will be new characters on Ruby's side, as well. One of the strongest themes of the Ruby Saga is the challenge of maintaining one's ideals in a fallen world, to be optimistic despite all evidence to the contrary. The prologue sets up the inherent fatalism of the world, where there are no options for the characters that don't involve someone dying and someone grieving. This will be further examined in the coming chapters, because while it may be the way things are, is it necessarily the way things have to be?

5 Ways to Magically Cure a Disabled Character, Part 1: Conspicuous Assistive Technology

In the comments section of my Batgirl review, it was asked why Barbara never used the DC Universe's supertech or magic to fix her spine. This is a question that comes up often around this issue, and is valid. Granted, it's a slippery slope towards removing any sense of dramatic urgency from the world, when you can just Phlebotnium any infirmity away, but it stretches disbelief a bit too far when characters bemoan their tragedies but don't go for the genre solutions right in front of them.

Of course, as another comment noted, supernatural injuries would be treated by supernatural medicines, and every medicine has its side-effects. So I'm doing this series of blogs to examine the ways in which these magic cures can be used to further the story and explore issues of disability, rather than simply swipe them under the rug and pretend they don't exist.

NUMBER FIVE: THE CURE IS DEFORMING (I.E. CYBORG PARTS)

This might stretch disbelief as well, because if the universe has technology sophisticated enough to replace a lost limb with a superhumanly strong prosthesis, it could go just a little further and replace it with one that looks human as well. However, it's a good symbolic way to show that even though the character has regained their mobility, they remain affected by the experience. It also makes the notion of "fixing" a disability less appealing, because disability is a social construct. This is a reason given for why Barbara Gordon never asked her pals in the Justice League to make her a walking exoskeleton; a wheelchair is hardly as conspicuous as a clunky robot suit that gives the wearer enough strength to crush a man like a paper cup.

BEST EXAMPLE: Cyborg of the Teen Titans. Victor Stone's life was saved from a life-threatening injury by replacing most of his body with metal parts. However, Vic wasn't very happy about this, and the fact that his father did the operation further intensified his daddy issues. He was kicked off of his high school football team, was abandoned by his girlfriend, and basically got cut off from society. It wasn't until he met the Teen Titans that he found a purpose to live again, fighting alongside other outsiders, saving lives, and taking out his anger on people who had it coming. But he was still mostly robotic, his human parts limited to half his face and bits of his torso.

What's also worth noting is that even though Victor's new body let him be a superhero, it also had a spectacular downside; it ruined his ability to be an athlete. When Vic was human, he loved football, and trained intensively so he could get stronger and stronger. But his cyborg body was not only superhumanly strong, but limits were built into his mechanical muscles. Several stories touched on the fact that he didn't like how he was robbed of the ability to improve himself with exercise. An episode of the cartoon even had this as the central conflict (though it ended with Cyborg beating the villain through the power of determination, presumably because his meaty bits gave him a boost of strength....somehow).

Other Sci-Fi/Fantasy Examples:

Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4; The much-loathed replacement Snake from MGS2 got a major upgrade in MGS4, becoming a Cyborg Ninja. But he looked even less human than any of the other cyborgs, with claw-like hands, cloven feet, and the lower half of his head replaced by metal. At the ending he gets his combat limbs replaced with more realistic prostheses, but you can see all the seams. Raiden's most human appearance since his cyborganization still makes him look like a Ken doll.

Robotman from Doom Patrol: Poor Cliff Steele is an even greater extreme of the "disfiguring prostheses" trope; he's a brain in a jar, attached to a robotic body. Not only is he treated as a freak (even despite his heroic exploits; the Doom Patrol are some of the most Marvel-like characters in DC), but the amount of everyday human sensations that he's lost is profound. Cliff's described his predicament as phantom pain for his entire body.

Barret from Final Fantasy VII: The JRPG analogue to Mr. T lost his hand when being shot at by Shinra goons, the same goons who destroyed his hometown and killed his wife. The replacement for his hand was a huge cannon he used in vengeance. This is an odd version because Barret intentionally chose an intimidating weapon instead of a prosthetic hand, not caring about much beyond killing all of Shinra. In the Advent Children animated movie, he mellows out and gets a regular prosthetic, a metal hand that's conspicuous but actually functions like the original limb.

And again, you could just invent perfect replacements, but if it's a perfect transition, where's the story? An amputee might be pitied, but a cyborg is more likely to be feared and hated. It's a good metaphor for the way the experience of such trauma changes a person; once it's there, you can't be the same person you were, and others will pick on that.

Newsarama on Batgirl: Excerpts from Yours Truly!

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Vaneta Rogers of Newsarama regarding the Batgirl fiasco. I have hardly been quiet about this series of unfortunate events, but I was honored by the request. Vaneta's piece is up, which also includes quotes from Denny O'Neil, John Ostrander, and Professor James B. South.

It is a high honor to be quoted alongside these industry legends. :)