Somebody, back me up here

Daredevil's armor was actually pretty cool-looking, regardless of any other factors (story quality, time period, etc.)

Homosexuals in Comics

It’s rare for a comic book character to be openly homosexual without the company making a huge, “look how open minded we are” spectacle of it. About 9 months ago, DC Comics announced that its new Batwoman character was, in her civilian identity, an openly lesbian woman. They announced this via press release to major news outlets. This reeked of sensationalism to me at the time, largely because her being openly gay was apparently the only interesting thing about her character - almost as if “lesbian” was a character trait (and maybe it is, actually, but that’s not quite the debate they were shooting for).

This sort of general, all purpose “look at our homosexual character, we are progressive” sensationalism has been common for some time, since about 1991 when Marvel Comics outed their first character (Northstar; who since gone on to become the “gay character of the month” for many writers). It’s actually a shame that this is the most commonly known usage of homosexuals in comics, since on the opposite side of the coin, some writers have actually managed to bring homosexuals into comics in ways that don’t make them seem like circus attractions.

In the pages of DC Comics “Manhunter”, longtime superhero Obsidian is being used as a supporting character, and has been outed in the pages of that comic. This is significant, simply because the character has been around for such a long time, and is not simply a “nobody” hero noone cares about - he’s actually a character that readers were interested in beforehand. Usually, homosexuality is reserved for new characters or characters noone cares about. Also of significance is this isn’t being done in any overt or exploitative manner - he’s simply been shown with his boyfriend from time to time, and readers just put two and two together. They even kiss, which other gay characters in comics don’t get to do. This is actually huge - it shows a willingness to treat homosexuals as actual, three-dimensional people, and importantly, in an industry generally known for slight misogyny and shallow characters.

Sure, the world won’t exactly be changed by how comics portray people. But this is indicative if a general shift of pop culture, and more significantly, a piece of pop culture aimed at young males & adolescents. Rather than treating anyone different as Different, they are starting to be treated as simply existing. I’m a supporter of Memetic theory, which refers to the idea of information and ideas being propagated & spread via cultural diffusion (short version). Presenting these concepts & ideas through pop culture is a very easy, common method of spreading a meme (which can be an idea, belief, clothing or music trends, any idea or concept), whether the author intends to do so or not. The meme of acceptance is spreading.

Another fascinating comic, which came out over 10 years ago, is called Enigma (again from DC Comics). It was an eight issue miniseries, which, underneath the comic book plot trappings, is actually a story of a 20-something man coping with the fact that he’s gay and, ultimately, coming out of the closet. To this day, Enigma remains the most sensitive & thought provoking portrayal of homosexuality that I’ve ever read or seen - and this is in a comic book.

Yes, this same company is responsible for Batwoman, the Openly Lesbian Crimefighter, so we have a bit of a ways to go. But it’s one piece of an overall culture shift, and that takes time.

Comics this past week

X-Factor 17 - Another great issue of a great series, although I am glad that the "rounding up his errant dupes" plot is finally getting shifted aside. It was beginning to get a bit same-y. At least this final dupe did bring back the old subplots as to the true nature of Madrox's powers, presumably just in time for some buildup to issue 25. Otherwise solid issue. A+

JSA 4 - Likewise, another good issue, although slightly corny this time around. Then again, nothing I wouldn't expect from a Geoff Johns pet project comic. Cyclone seems like she'll be an annoying charcter, but I'm interested to see where they're going with Damage, and I want to see what's up with Sandman's new status. So, only black clouds on the horizon here is the JLA crossover, since I don;t read that comic and it's two or three more issues for me to spend on. But ah well. A

52 week 46 - Much as the esteemed Tim Callahan pointed out, a big chunk of this issue was clearly written by solely by Morrison, and damn does it increase my enjoyment. "He has the power of seven gods on his side." "Well, I'm an atheist, and I have the power of SUPER-SCIENCE on my side!" Simply wonderful. Although, I'd like to know how the powerless Clark Kent figured out Luthor's trick. Anybody? A- (the minus is because I still don't care about anyone's plot but Black Adam's)

Type O Negative Dead Again, Again

OK, I'm sick of studying, so here this comes tonight instead.

I've been really trying to fight my brother Ed on the whole "Pete has reverted to catholicism" thing, but it's pretty damn hard to deny. It's annoying, especially after all the years of brilliant anti-religious rhetoric from him. But fine, the guys got to live his life and it's not his job to make me happy. I still dig the music on this album, and Pete's voice is still freakin' amazing, so all's forgiven on my end.

As for the music, it's definetly a lot less atmospheric and moody than Type O usually is. It doesn't have the sense of overwhelming, foreboding presence Type O is so good at delivering (with notable exceptions being A Profit of Doom, and September Sun). This means a greatly reduced keyboard presence as well. Fortunately, they make up for this by delivering their most riff-heavy, catchy album in ages. There's a ton of riifs on this album that sound like they could have jumped straight out of early Black Sabbath, which is just fine by me. It actually sounds as if they've toned down the moody elements but pushed forward their influences: Sabbathy riffs and Beatles-esque choruses ("Leave her.... Leave her alooo-ooooo-oooone"). Maybe slightly less imaginative than I'd want from Type O, but they're talented enough that it's still an awesome album.

So bottom line: I wish the lyrics weren't so catholic, and I'm kinda dissapointed in Pete for that. There's no really angry songs or painful songs, but it's kinda hard for me to fault the guy for not having had a shitty life the last 4 years. He's just writing what's on his mind. Musically, it's a more straightforward, heavy abum than we've come to expect from Type O, and that won't be to everyone's tastes. But if you like their Sabbath/Beatles hybrid sound, you'll love a lot of the music on this album.

Favorite Songs: Tripping a Blind Man, A Profit of Doom, September Sun, An Ode to Locksmiths

Long time

Haven't posted in...two weeks. Busy two weeks - I wrote a couple of papers, read a whole big chunk of the DSM-IV, as well as a few related reference/case study books, and continued working at both River Oak and Valley High School. Small note of pride: I'm running an Impulse Control group, by myself, designed by myself, with High School students (first time I'm working with HSers), and it's going well thus far. I rock.

Comics I bought last week:
Well, since bitching about 52 a few weeks ago, it's been pretty good the last month. Last week's issue with Black Adam kicking all kinds of ass was awesome, if repetitive from the week prior. I read this at work with a kid and he thought it was awesome too. A-

Teen Titans 44: Eh, this was fine, I guess. I read the whole thing in about 5 minutes. Felt like it was too quick; I'll be dropping this at the end of this arc, which I'm only going to see through because I'm already reading it. Kid at work didn't care so much about this one, either. C

Civil War: The Confession: It was a light week, so I broke my Bendis boycott and checked this out. Gotta say, another pleasant surprise Between this and the Casualties of War one-shot, those two tie ins provided a better story between them then the entire main Civil War series. Not to mention, the two specials shed a ton more light on Iron Man's character & actions than the main series. The second story with the Cap/Iron Man argument was a tad weaker than the first, but Iron Man's monologue throughout the first story was beautifully done, and makes up for it. A

After my midterm Friday I'll be picking up this week's comics, doing a review of those, and probably a few more thoughts on the new Type O album.

My Wednesday fix

52 Week 44: Woah, best issue of 52 in months. An issue full of Black Adam kicking ass in righteous indignation is pretty hard to mess up, I guess. And it even ends with the promise of further righteous ass-kicking in the near future, so huzzah. Big thumbs up to the 52 crew this week, for once. Finally got rid of Black Adam's whiny lovey wife so he can rule with an iron fist again. A

The Authority #2: Hey, I forgot about this series. Wonder if WildC.A.T.S. will ship an issue soon too? This is way more like it than the last issue; Morrison's back on form here. It doesn't wuite read like a Morrison comic, especially not the way you'd expect a Morrison Authority comic to read, but it was fun in unexpected ways. It almost seems obvious, in retrospect, to try this storyline, but it's something few writers could really pull off without naval-gazing. Another A.

Captain America #25: OK, I didn't actually buy this. But I did drive to 3 stores looking for it. So I'm writing about it, goddamit. I guess Marvel's claims that the whole story could be read within the pages of the main Civil War comic might have been an "exaggeration", eh? Seriously. Oh well, rather than play around with the potential of having Cap have a nice meta-textual moment where he realizes how outdated he actually is, they're just going for the stunt and killing him. That way, when he gets brought back, it can be a huge marketing fiasco & "return to glory" so he can go back to being boring. Yay. Why was I gonna buy this again? Oh yeah, I'm a sap.

Type O Negative - Dead Again

I have heard the new Type O Negative album a week early. I won't say how because you never know who's gonna pull a Metallica these days.

It's a very surprising album - a good portion of it seems to be a throwback to the early days of type o, with lots of fast-paced songs and the guttural vocals of Carnivore and Slow, Deep & Hard. They're still singing plenty, though, which is good because Pete Steele has one of my all-time favorite clean voices. The clean:guttural vocal ratio is probably about 65:35. Overall, though, this is probably their fastest-paced album since the first one; they still have the dirgey sections of some songs, but they're much sparser than they have been.

I can't comment on the lyrical content much, since I don't have the lyrics. I won't speculate too much until I actually have them in front of me, since my interpretations could be off. What I can hear of the lyrics to "These Three Things" has me worried: Pete's concern for the souls of unbaptised babies smacks uncomfortably of religion . Can the man who wrote "Angry Neurotic Catholics" have reverted to his god? Hopefully not; I'll know more in a week. Musically, though, it's a solid and suprisingly different album. It still sounds like Type O, but it's not "by the numbers" Type O (which still would have been fine). 16 years in and they're still going strong, a rare achievement in music these days.

Busy day

At my internship today, I actually managed to see a couple of kids one-on-one for a significant amount of time each, about socio-emotional stuff rather than grades & transcripts. That was a nice change of pace. I drew a weird comparison between two if them, though, that got me thinking (in relation to an earlier post I did).

Both girls discussed trauma, both recent and past, with me. One has experienced a lot of personal pain & violation (the type that sickens me & makes me want to be a vigilante). Like a lot of these kids, she was made to feel guilty about this by the people she loves and who are supposed to protect her (personal aside: fuck them). She has my respect: she is confused and troubled now because she knows, instinctively because she is intelligent, that this is unreasonable: she cannot possibly be to blame for things that were done to her when she was too small & helpless to stop them. She appears to have also made the conscious decision to try & succeed despite her setbacks; she's fallen behind already but wants to push forward now.

What I loved about this conversation is that not once did god come into it. I was expecting her to say that she knew god loved her and didn't want her to fail. She may believe this, but the fact that it didn't come up yet seemed to indicate that she is relying on her own internal processes, which is what we discussed. She is moving on her own will & intelligence, not an imaginary one. She is coping, although still with great difficulty.

The other girl came to my office crying over the recent death of a good friend. She knows that her friend is happy & safe now, because he is with god. She believes that he doesn't want her to be sad, which, if he could have offered opinion prior to his death, I'm sure he would agree with. Her coping stems largely from the belief that he is safe with god, and that god gives her strength. She is coping though, she is dealing with the death of her friend in the way she knows how & ultimately is positive for herself & her family. Who am I to tell her she's wrong? I think that her friend is simply dead. He is not with god, in all likelihood. But thinking this makes her feel better. It's not a maladaptive coping mechanism, because she still grieves and misses her friend - it just allows her a small amount of hope & comfort.

It's odd to me; they're both drawing, basically, on their own inner strength to cope. The girl who believes in god is interpreting that strength as coming from god. Really, it's coming from within, she's just convinicng herself otherwise. Does that make it any less genuine than the other? I don't know.

Comics this week

Adding letter ratings this week, until I decide to stop...

52 week 43: An issue I was actually looking forward to for once, because of the update on Animal Man. As it turns out, almost nothing was revealed about him, although we did get to see a particularly cool new use of his powers. So that was a nice moment. I was annoyed that the bulk of the issue went to a different plot, but at least it was Black Adam's storyline. Although, once again, a "big moment" has occured that I simply didn't care about at all because of the uneven buildup in this series. C

X-Factor 16: Really, really good one-off issue, continuing Madrox's storyline of collecting all of his errant dupes, this time with a new twist. I don't know quite where PAD is going with Monet & Siryn's subplot, but at least I'm interested, and the main plotwas more than enough to keep me interested thi smonth. I don't think this series has had a bad issue yet. A

Action Comics 846: Certainly not worth the ridiculously long wait, but judged on its own merits, a solid issue. Adam Kubert can do no wrong as far as I am concerned, anyway. Other than this issue feeling a little bit thin (again, considering the wait), I enjoyed it - every time Zod spoke, I imagined Terrance Stamp's delivery which enhanced my enjoyment. Fun issue. B-

Eternals 7: Did I miss an issue? It feels like they made this huge leap in between issues 6 & 7 and I somehow got left out of the loop. Another very thin-feeling comic this week, and an unfortunate anti-climax to such a good series. I'd been really enjoying it up till this issue, but this just didn't feel like any sort of conclusion to me, not to mention that it felt like the plot suddenly changed in between issues. Confusing, and not in a good way. C-

Fallen Angel 13: PAD's all about the shades of grey moral dillemas this week, it seems. Another good issue of a generally good series, although this is several issues in a row of this storyline so I'm glad we're moving on. I'm also glad the next storyline appears to be offering something a little bit different, as some of the stories are starting to feel a bit same-y. Still, a good issue on its own. B