The post wherein I sell out!

A brief update for those who care. I've decided to look into the monetize option that blogger has, obviously, as there are a bunch of adds. (Also, it provides me proof that people are reading the damn thing.) I've taken it one step further and will be doing the Amazon thing. Now, I'm only going to put links for stuff I believe in; for example, you probably won't see a link for the Superman/Doomsday dvd, unless they have it for real cheap. I doubt I'll add any of those widgets or anything. Anyway, I felt it was my duty to inform you all of my crass, shameless attempt at grabbing cash.

Agency and Voyeurism in Comics

Okay, this is a serious one, as opposed to the chicanery I've indulged in the past week. To be honest, what inspired the last entry was a realization about women in comics. I had wanted to write a bit about which female characters I thought had the best origins when I came to realize that, aside from Wonder Woman, most female superheroes have bupkes when it comes to origins, at least when compared to their male counterparts. For example, the notion of the "self-made man" is all over the place; you see it with Batman, Iron Man, and pretty much every inventor character ever. "I've created this amazing device; instead of patenting it and making a fortune, I'll use it to FIGHT CRIME!"

You don't see that as much with female superheroes. Generally, there's not much innovation when it comes to their origins. On the DC side of things, since so many of their notable female characters are tied to male characters, their origins mirror that of their male counterparts. For example, there's not much difference between the origin of Superman and Supergirl, except that Supergirl was a teenager and Superman acted like a dick upon first meeting her. "Oh, a cousin! I'm not alone anymore! This is the happiest day of my li- what's that? Live with me? Oh, no. No, no, no. That would put a crimp in my swinging bachelor lifestyle. It's the orphanage for you, missy!"

On the Marvel side of the coin, things are a bit different. There aren't as many female partners/ sidekicks to established male heroes; for example, there's been two (I think) characters named Spider-Woman, and neither one had an origin that had anything to do with the Webslinger. The only heroine that fits that is She-Hulk. Marvel's main problem is the Mutant Origin. At least freak accidents, when done right, can serve as a memorable part of the character's backstory. Look at Spidey, the Flash, Daredevil, and others. With the mutant thing though, characters were born with those powers. It's kinda dull. Granted, how a character's powers first manifest often substitute for an actual origin, but usually the powers are just there. How this comes up is that a lot of Marvel's key female characters are mutants: Storm, Jean Grey, Scarlet Witch, Emma Frost, Firestar (Spider-Man and the Amazing Friends 4 LIFE!!!), etc. There's almost no chance for agency when it comes to that part of the character's backstory.

Aside from the two listed above, you have basically three categories for where a given female character's powers come from: she's an alien (or whatever) that came to earth, the aforementioned freak accident, or she got her powers or equipment from a man. The latter might seem to be the least flattering of the three, but in the hands of a talented writer, it can actually work really well. A discussion on a message board I frequent brought up Marvel's The Wasp, who I should've thought of right away, as one of the earliest comics I ever bought featured a retelling of the origin of her and Hank Pym. (I didn't know that at the time of course; I bought it because the cover depicted Wonder-Man wrestling a group of Soviet apes, and as you are all aware I'm sure, Monkeys Sell Comics.) In a nutshell, Janet Van Dyne's father gets killed. Janet visits local shut-in and scientist Dr. Henry Pym. She says, "Give me some superpowers so I can avenge my father. You can make a costume, too, I suppose." Hank, amazed that a beautiful and spirited woman is talking to him, does so, and they become the Wasp and Ant-Man, respectively. The reason this was brought up was that someone on the aforementioned message board brought up the Wasp and Ant-Man in Mark Millar's Ultimates as an example of a bad grim n' gritty reboot. There, Janet has her powers as a result of *sigh* being a mutant, and Hank essentially just adapts all his technology from her body and passes it off as his own innovation. In one fell swoop, the poster argued, Millar managed to make both characters less impressive. Wasp lost all her spunk and, ultimately, agency in receiving her powers, and Hank became a opportunistic lout who isn't really responsible for anything he's accomplished.

As a whole, women in comics get the short end of the stick. Supergirl or Batgirl will never be portrayed as being equal to, much less superior to, Superman or Batman, as somehow that would make the male characters less special. ("When everyone's special, no one will be.") And of course, the now classic site Women In Refrigerators details the other misfortunes women characters are subjected to.

This isn't necessarily unique to comics, mind you. This kind of thing is present through all American media. Maleness (and whiteness, though that's a topic for a whole 'nother essay) is assumed to be the norm. A lot of the theories regarding are summed up beautifully in Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". For those of you who don't want to read all that (and I can't say I blame you; it's not the easiest text), I'll try to boil it down in my ham-fisted, easy-spoken way.


Essentially, in the context of a film, men and women characters have two separate roles- the man is the spectator, the women is the spectacle. In more everyday terms, the woman gets looked at while the man does the looking. Basically, men have the agency in a story while women are essentially props. Granted, that's a gross oversimplification, and there's a lot more that Mulvey discusses, but that's the important thing as far as this discussion is concerned. Remember it, because it's going to be relevant in a few paragraphs.

While Mulvey's essay is primarily concerned with films, a lot of it is applicable to comics. Comics are, after all, a visual medium, and there's a lot of overlap between film and comics. Look at the number of comic artists who do storyboards for films and tv series.

I bring up Mulvey because of a cover I came across recently, an issue of America's Best Comics. The covers would feature now-defunct Nedor publication's most popular heroes in zany predicaments or hijinx. These covers would have almost nothing to do with the interior stories. In that regard, it's not unlike DC's World's Finest Series; Batman & Robin do stuff with Superman on the cover, though there are no Superman/ Batman stories within the comic (though the format would change in later years). In fact, here's a handy side-by-side comparison....


















Now, I'm not one to overly analyze covers, unless I'm planning to make fun. However, when I came across America's Best Comics #27 from 1948, I actually found myself seriously interpreting what I was seeing. Take a look....



Here, we see the Black Terror, Nedor's most popular male character, posing for Miss Masque, the most popular female character. What's happening here is a total inverse of the typical male/female spectatorship roles. Masque is the one with all the active agency, while the Terror has assumed the role of passivity. It's certainly a surprising change of pace, especially considering other covers in the series; one depicts the male heroes presenting Miss Masque a beauty pageant award, while another shows them saving her from Wonder Woman-style bondage.

Granted, this doesn't invalidate the traditional roles of male/female agency; if anything, it only serves to further highlight the disparity that continues in superhero comics to this day. I mentioned both the Wasp and the trend of dead superheroines earlier, so I should not that in a recent story, the Wasp died and Hank Pym has assumed her moniker to uphold her legacy. It seems that no matter how far comics might progress, the industry is still capable of stumbling backwards.

Lois Lane: Feminist Icon

So, I decided to conduct a little experiment today. I would go through all of the covers of Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane (1958-1974) available at the Grand Comic Book Database and see how many of them deal with the subject of marriage, whether it be Lois marrying somebody or stewing that Lana or whomever is marrying Superman, and how many deal with, you know, her actual job at the Daily Planet. For the purposes of this highly scientific experiment, I would count any cover with a marriage specific word (such as Mrs., engagement, proposal, etc.) as one for the Marriage column. Contrary-wise, I would not count any cover where she's just standing around at the Daily Planet as one for the Job column, as anyone can stand there apparently; you wouldn't believe how many covers there are where Lana Lang is just hanging out there, but it's at least one.

Anyway, the results were as shocking as they were kind of predictable- out of 137 covers, 42% referenced marriage in some fashion, whereas only 4% showed her doing anything relating to her profession. The only real exception, if you can call it that, is this one right here....


That's right- Lois is trying to use her credentials as a journalist to convince a justice of the peace to marry her to Superman.

I kinda figured that early in the run there would be a lot of marriage covers, but the fact that it continued all the way through 1974, after The Feminine Mystique and everything else, was surprising. I mean, honestly! You'd think that at least someone on the Superman staff would've seen what Denny O'Neill was doing with the rest of the DC Universe at the time and get with the program.

And that doesn't even take into account all the covers where romance in a non-marriage context comes into play. The most disturbing of which is this one here. Yes, that's Lois, who has somehow managed to travel through time and space. And yes, that gentleman suitor is Jor-El, father of Superman. They actually wrote a story where Lois attempts to make time with the father of the guy she'd been trying to jump the bones of for a quarter of a century at that point. That's pretty freaky, even for the company that made one of Supergirl's boyfriends a horse. It's practically a Greek tragedy waiting to happen.

Granted, these stories were written by a bunch of white guys who assumed that's what the targeted female audience wanted. Granted, a big part of the allure of the Superman mythos is the romance between Clark and Lois. But still! Did they not think they could make an interesting cover story that focuses on her job? I mean, she's an investigative journalist who's constantly running afoul of gangsters, robots, supervillains, and God knows what else! But no. No, no, no. Apparently, Lois marrying a death row inmate is more appealing than anything they could come up with.

You know what would fix things for me? Wonder Woman covers! Now that's where DC got it right, because Wonder Woman is always portrayed in a way that is demonstrates strength, initiative, and above all dignity.



Oh, goddamnit.

My God, It's Full of Stupid: DC's Adventures of Jerry Lewis Part 3

Apparently, Jerry at one point deeply coveted the role of Mrs. Hannigan in the musical "Annie". Really, though, I think what this cover is depicting is Jerry as a shabbily dressed madam in a brothel, or possibly a cross-dressing pimp with none of the flair that pimps are known for. Let's look at the evidence: attractive women dressed in evening wear, references to "dates", and Jerry barking orders to the ladies. There's no mention as to what will should the ladies fail to bring him a hot pastrami sandwich, but I think we can all guess the probable outcome.



I'm looking at the expression on the face of Jerry's date, and I'm still puzzled. Is she amused at Jerry's childlike innocence? Disappointed that they didn't apparently make out? Is she sitting on a tack? She's tapping her finger, but she doesn't really appear impatient. It's all quite mysterious.


I like this cover, or rather, it neither immediately confuses or irritates me. Oh, to be fair, it's not very funny, but it's a quiet, dignified unfunny. Nobody is talking here in an attempt to say something obvious about an already absurd situation. The only really glaring thing here is the outfit that Jerry's date is wearing. It would seem the artist mistook "toga" for "something Pocahontas might wear".

The Abyss Stares Into Thee: DC's Adventures of Jerry Lewis Part 2

And now, it's time to continue with my searing expose of Jerry Lewis covers. After perusing the... "jokes", I guess you'd call them, you'll no doubt find the ultra-lined, grimacing, bepouched figure of a typical Rob Liefeld cover soothing balm by comparison. Here we go!


Ah, comics, providing racial stereotypes and cheap laughs for the benefit of affluent white Americans for decades. Also, check out Jerry's date- he's making time with Daphne from Scooby-Doo! Either she's moonlighting, or else Mystery Inc. thinks that Jerry is some sort of dangerous felon disguised as a horrific spectre and she's going undercover to bring him down.

I alluded to it in my previous blog entry's joke about hentai, but The Adventures of Jerry Lewis really seemed to be ahead of its time, as it is embracing manga tropes and models before manga had even come up with them. Here, Jerry appears to be the star of a harem manga. Harem mangas are characterized by a bumbling male lead who is constantly courted by a bevy of attractive female suitors. For good measure, Jerry randomly has magic powers in this one, which will no doubt lead to zany hijinx!!!






I found this image to be deeply unsettling; see if you can't figure out why. Ignore the awkward nursery rhyme reference and focus on the details here for a moment. Note the lack of motion lines surrounding the young lady, whereas Jerry and the baker have motion lines aplenty. Notice how she's not actually paying attention to anything that's actually happening in the scene. If you're anything like me, you'll come to the startling realization that SHE'S DEAD!!! Now, you might be saying, "Maybe she's just a mannequinn or cardbord standee or something?" I scoff at that. A far more outlandish, and therefore plausible, scenario is that Chef McKillspree over there drugged that poor girl, coated her in a sugary glaze or some sort of translucent candy coating, and baked her into a cake! I'm almost positive I've seen a Tales From the Crypt like that. And all of this in a Code-Approved comic too! Jerry's obviously the next victim, as he'll get brained over the head with a rolling pin and turned into a pan of delicious buttery croissants (because the French love both Jerry Lewis and croissants). It's like if TLC's Cake Boss were made into a movie directed by Rob Zombie. Scary stuff.



It's PLANE to see that Jerry's very foolish here!!!

...I'm sorry, these covers are starting to get to me.

Lessons in Pain: DC's Adventures of Jerry Lewis Part One

Sometimes, perusing old comic book covers are awesome. Other times, it leads to naught but heartbreak and sorrow. The Adventures of Jerry Lewis falls squarely into the latter category.

The title started out as The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, but, following the comedy team's breakup, the series focused solely on Jerry with issue #41. Here's an example of a typical Martin & Lewis cover....




The Adventures of Jerry Lewis would go on with Jerry as the solo star until it's cancellation with issue #124. That's over 80 issues, or 7 years worth, of Jerry. When you count the issues with Dean, that's a decade of Jerry. To put things in perspective, that's longer than the run of Garth Ennis's Preacher series.

Of those 80+ issues, you'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't make you die a little inside. Periodically, I'll post some of the best(?) of these. Be warned: these covers hurt me very deeply, and I was only looking at the covers. If for whatever reason you were to buy these and read them, I accept no responsibility for the madness that would most likely ensue.

This cover starts a formula that would be followed for the next 2-3 years. Hot chick? Check. Implausible scenario (aside from Jerry making time with aforementioned hot chick)? Check. Bad joke? CHECK.

First, please note the guard is about to whack Jerry in the noggin with a rolling pin; this is known as the "Wilma Flinstone Maneuver". Second, check out the skin tone of the princess. Appears someone needs a new tanning salon...

And finally for this installment, allow me to present Jerry's first, tentative foray into Japanese hentai.












That's all for now. I'll do more of these when I feel too much joy in my life and need to be reminded of the harsh, stark terror that is existence.

Racial Sensitivity via Superman Comics?

What you see there is one of the most insane covers from Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane. Granted, Lois Lane covers were never known for making sense, but this one, with its ham-fisted approach to topical issues, stands out.

Others have written about the story within Lois Lane #106 (by the way, the number one related search on Ask.com for Lois Lane #106 is "Lois Lane tied to a chair") but the thing that really gets me about this cover is the fact that Superman has a device that can turn white people into black people, or vice versa. One asssumes that it's either one of the many pieces of assorted Kryptonian bric-a-brac that has made it's way to Earth over the years or it's something that Superman built when he could've been preventing earthquakes or curing world hunger. Either way, why on Earth would you have a machine like that?

If it's something that Superman built, then it makes no sense. One might argue that it's so he can disguise himself, which is ridiculous. Superman's cunning Clark Kent persona consists of glasses and nothing else, AND IT WORKS CONSTANTLY. Also, it's not like he'd ever need to go undercover. There's few things he could learn incognito that he couldn't learn via a judicious application of x-ray vision and super-hearing.

That leaves it being a device from Krypton, most likely invented for the same reason that it's used in this story, to promote racial sensitivity. When thinking about that, however, I came to realize that this didn't make sense either, because there are no black Kryptonians. I mean, when was the last time you saw a flashback to Krypton that didn't look like a science-fiction version of the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog? Never, that's when!

Then it dawned on me- the white populace on Krypton used this on everyone else in a bid for Kryptonian racial supremacy. No doubt bands of Ku Klux Kryptonians were riding out, rounding up everyone who didn't fit Jor-El's insane vision of a model society. It's scary stuff when you think about it. It makes the destruction of Krypton seem less a freak accident than the just act of an angry and vengeful god. In fact, go to Hell, Krypton!