A-Force: Marvel's all-female superheroine team

[shevek]

Has anyone been following the new Marvel title A-Force? Set "in a world where.." the dominant superhero team is entirely female.
Main characters are She-Hulk (she has so long deserved to be the leader of something..), Captain Marvel, Dazzler (with a punky Tumblr-girl hairdo), Nico Minoru, Medusa, and new heroine Singularity (a pocket universe which attained consciousness and is somehow female). Writer G Willow Wilson describes their planet as a "feminist paradise". As a Muslim who feels she must wear a hijab in most of her public photos, she would of course know about those kinds of things..(she's the creator of Kamala Khan). Two volumes, eight issues so far. Could anyone see movies coming out of this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Force

[lionbadger]

1. In the same way that giant robot/mecha suits in a movie make it automatically awesome, anything with Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel is automatically awesome

2. G willow wilson's Miss Marvel stuff is great, doubt this board is the target audience, but it's great comicy stuff

3. I could see Netflix somewhere in the future doing an A force thing, maybe not with the exact same line up, but possibly including a version of She Hulk and Medusa

[Imagineer]

Marvel really pissed me off with Secret Wars, especially Battleworld. It killed several Marvel titles that were getting really interesting. It was irredeemably stupid and arbitrary and desperate. I hope it brought Marvel a lot of new readers because they lost me for the duration. I'm pretty sure I added post-stupidity A-Force to my subs the last time I was at the shop but that was weeks ago.

The last She-Hulk run was entertaining. I'd watch the hell out of a Jennifer Walters legal dramedy.

[Gus Goreman, Jr.]

The title rubs me wrong ... I mean, an all super heroine team called A-Force sounds a lot like an all super heroine team called FemForce. I realize there may only be a very generous estimation of 8-10 people that may have actually heard of AC Comics flagship title but it just seems like the big guys are stepping on those little guys.

[shevek]

Yeah, you're right about FemForce receiving far too little acknowledgement, but remember, but again why would "Muslim feminist" G Willow Wilson
bother to recognize a pioneering superheroine team whose physical assets are on display..when her own superheroine team plays it down so much.

Dazzler looks like she blogs on Tumblr. Nico Minoru looks like an insouciant Asian cosplayer. Medusa still looks fine but Wilson has reduced her several cup sizes. Captain Marvel's battlesuit and dyke hairdo are indicative of the feminist burqas that many female superheroines are confined in nowadays (the more colorful comicbook answer to TV's dark jacket), although 'awesome' she may still be, the second-wave feminist Ms. Marvel is history.

It's really only She-Hulk who doesn't give a fuck that she's been wearing a glorified bathing suit for the past 30 years..because if you say anything about it she will crush your skull into a wall. That's why it's great she's the leader and not someone else. Yes I think a lot of us would watch the hell out of a show where we got to see Jennifer Walters turn into She-Hulk one or two times per episode..maybe sometimes breaking a few bonds while doing it. The She-Hulk transformation is the equivalent of an orgasm, no other major character displays anything like it (and minor ones that do, like Rampage or Red She-Hulk, are ripoffs). Who wouldn't want to see that regularly? (Probably won't happen much in A-Force, but imagine a pron parody called O-Force!)

Other than maybe the Caitlin Fairchild transformation in Gen 13 (which unfortunately only happens once in her life) there's no better transformation
in animated superhero cartoons than the She-Hulk changing in the FF show.

The transformation in the earlier FF series is pretty much just a straight-up climax:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTr3gClwArQ

The transformation in the newer one is less so..but watch for Sue Storm's excitement, as if she wanted to get it on with the newly buff Jennifer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD0ckuecw6M

If nobody's ever seen it, the never-finished movie by Garrett Gilchrist "Shamelessly She-Hulk", is the only real full-length attempt to seriously address this character in a fan film. It basically recreates the story of the very first few issues of She-Hulk (I remember buying them when they came out!).

The fun battle with Titania where the untreated footage reveals the stunt double.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyWUpA3 ... 7DC58789F3

Here's one transformation from the film. Kierstyn Elrod, who plays She-Hulk, is seriously beautiful and it's a shame she didn't get much other work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q24jTXwizZs

And here's the other, during the climactic scene with Trask. They also adorably ship her with Zapper at the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRvYnYM-Jqg

[Imagineer]

Dazzler looks like she blogs on Tumblr. Nico Minoru looks like an insouciant Asian cosplayer. Medusa still looks fine but Wilson has reduced her several cup sizes. Captain Marvel's battlesuit and dyke hairdo are indicative of the feminist burqas that many female superheroines are confined in nowadays (the more colorful comicbook answer to TV's dark jacket), although 'awesome' she may still be, the second-wave feminist Ms. Marvel is history.

It's really only She-Hulk who doesn't give a fuck that she's been wearing a glorified bathing suit for the past 30 years..because if you say anything about it she will crush your skull into a wall.

Well when you describe it like that... it sounds like a team book that a father would be happy to find his tween daughter reading.

There are probably a dozen artists on DeviantArt who'd be happy to do a commissioned piece where Dazzler looks like she works the pole, Nico Minoru looks like Yaya Han cosplaying Nico Minoru, Medusa looks fine in an open-cup bra and thong, Captain Marvel's suit makes TBFE's Sunder look matronly, and She-Hulk stuffs into Sue Storm's "4" windowed suit.

[shevek]

Well there's a happy medium, and that happy medium was how the characters (except for Nico, I don't know that much about her?) *used* to look, and none of what you propose above describes that..except in the world of authoritarian leftist prudery.

For example, Dazzler went through three previous outfits, essentially. What was wrong with any of them, really? Alison Blaire was meant to be a beautiful woman, and A-Force reimagines her as what looks like a punky snowflake.




So did Ms. Marvel (if you count Binary), and what was wrong with any of them? I say nothing...third-wavers would rationalize patriarchy, sexism, objectification, anything they can, into a character that is *imaginary* and depicted as *one of the most powerful heroes in her universe* (so she's not exactly marginalized or disenfranchised).
Carol Danvers was written to be smart *and* stunning..but there's an internet full of these images that no longer exist in any current comic..correct?




btw...isn't it interesting how the animated movies (like DC's latest few features) have become so much more adult-themed...and the comic books are moving more and more towards the Tumblr-girl audience that protests and makes DC back down when Batgirl variant cover seems too violent? (maybe tens of thousands would have bought the cover..but we'll never know because a few hundred internet protestors won the day).

Maybe that's the way they try to service both crowds? BTW, Shulkie stuffed into a FF uniform quite nicely..watch the entire episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1nAuJm9a7o

Classic depiction of Ms. Marvel (and Rogue):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8k7hlN5l9w

I'd be interested to know if anyone (presumably people on this forum enjoy reading female heroines) has read the A-Force books and has any opinions on the writing of G Willow Wilson. I've read enough of the Kamala Khan stuff to know that the book has one main agenda: empowering girls "of color," most specifically Muslims, while giving Islam a contemporaneous, normalized appearance. I'm not saying that either is a bad thing (we need all the talent we can get in the U.S. these days..and if there turns out to be a strong modern strain of Islam in the U.S. that's a good thing for cultural stability)..I'm just saying that the agenda is quite upfront and apparent. I'm wondering if A-Force also has an agenda as well....

[Mr. X]

Ok this is something I'm not understanding. Why is it if men make a comic with a mostly male team its OK to complain there aren't enough females and its OK to demand quotas when the creators never intended to be biased, they just made a team. But its called sexist. However when a woman makes a team of only women without even one token male that is NOT sexist but empowering and acceptable and a "feminist paradise"?

I'm not understanding why some things are considered community property requiring quotas while other things can be private and exclusionary. Main stream comic authors are not intentionally making male only teams and nearly all teams include women.

[batgirl1969]

I like the name PSY-Control......of course an all female group of powerful sexy girls...some lesbian...soe bi...some straight....bringing a great sexual tension to the team! Of course the name is code for .....well you know!!(add a U&S)

[Heroine Addict]

I like the name PSY-Control......of course an all female group of powerful sexy girls...some lesbian...soe bi...some straight....bringing a great sexual tension to the team! Of course the name is code for .....well you know!!(add a U&S)

You may not have intended to do so, but I think you've inadvertently answered Mr X's question about the lack of all-male teams. It comes down to a bunch of muscular buddies in tight costumes looking very gay. Just imagine the cover in the opening post with an all-male line-up. It would look very, very gay indeed.

While there may be a considerable straight male market for girl/girl homoeroticism, I don't see boy/boy fantasies having much appeal with straight females beyond a few slashfic writers. Rather than being part of a "feminazi" conspiracy, we see the all-girl teams because the largely amoral publishers want to sell some comics.

Comics featuring a bunch of ripped hunky buddies in skintight spandex would come in for the same sort of ridicule reserved for Top Gun's volleyball scene.

[Imagineer]

It's possible that the creators and publishers of this particular comic book don't think it's necessary or even worthwhile to seek a happy medium between empowered women and women objectified for the male gaze, for this particular comic book. It's also possible that they think they've found it. *shrug*

[shevek]

I'm sure they have thought they'd found their happy medium...a medium that lies far to the left within their own agenda. Yeah, I know *shrug*. Nothing we can do. That's why this forum exists so we don't have to wade through lots of hardline-PC fantasies like you would have to these days entering a well-stocked comics store. (I made the mistake of buying the collected Dial H by China Mieville recently..I should have known better..they spend several pages discussing how politically incorrect it would for the dialing hero to go out and fight crime transformed into an American Indian warrior!).

Artist Kris Anka says on her Twitter that she's glad she made Captain Marvel "buff". Here is what her vision (a cover variant) of A-Force looks like: a jacked CM, an even more jacked She-Hulk, a plus-sized Medusa, a razor-thin A-cup Dazzler with the dyke-punk hairdo, and the only member that seems to have something close to what was once considered the default female shape in comics is the one made out of space-time!



(Although if there was sexual tension within the team, that would at least be one good thing that would come out of it..Speaking of which [spoilers ahead] anybody see the first lesbian sex scene that the CW's ever done [as far as I know], last night's Clexa hottitude on The 100? These actresses straight-up steamed the screen like it was porn. But then the writers shot down the shipping dreams of Tumblr girls everywhere by killing Lexa 5 minutes later! In an accident! Damn.)

[Mr. X]

You may not have intended to do so, but I think you've inadvertently answered Mr X's question about the lack of all-male teams. It comes down to a bunch of muscular buddies in tight costumes looking very gay. Just imagine the cover in the opening post with an all-male line-up. It would look very, very gay indeed.

There isn't a lack of all male teams. What there is is when a team is mostly male there is constant complaints its not diverse enough. Not enough females. Or the females are tokens.

So my question is why can women have an all female team without condemnation but men cannot have a team without condemnation. There have been plenty of male only teams without any gay jokes.

The other point is in the past when a team ends up being mostly or all men that isn't intentionally designed by the writers. I doubt any writer says "lets make them all men and no yucky girls". Just so happens they take popular characters and make a team out of them. Hulk, Cap, Iron Man, Thor for example.

But when an all female team is made its INTENTIONALLY made to include ONLY women.

So which is worse?

[ksire_99]

You may not have intended to do so, but I think you've inadvertently answered Mr X's question about the lack of all-male teams. It comes down to a bunch of muscular buddies in tight costumes looking very gay. Just imagine the cover in the opening post with an all-male line-up. It would look very, very gay indeed.

There isn't a lack of all male teams. What there is is when a team is mostly male there is constant complaints its not diverse enough. Not enough females. Or the females are tokens.

So my question is why can women have an all female team without condemnation but men cannot have a team without condemnation. There have been plenty of male only teams without any gay jokes.

The other point is in the past when a team ends up being mostly or all men that isn't intentionally designed by the writers. I doubt any writer says "lets make them all men and no yucky girls". Just so happens they take popular characters and make a team out of them. Hulk, Cap, Iron Man, Thor for example.

But when an all female team is made its INTENTIONALLY made to include ONLY women.

So which is worse?

Well you never know if one of them could be transgender.

I can see it now...Former Olympic Hero, life changes forever at the hands of doctors. He/She now has super media powers and claims to be reviled but preservers to become a national hero! or is it heroine?

[Heroine Addict]

Can you name a male-only team (four or more superheroes in an ongoing series) from the last thirty years? The only one that springs immediately to mind is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they're not humanoid.

If you're talking about how teams were selected up until the modern age, then the characters were mostly male as the comics were bought almost exclusively by young males. These days, most comics are bought by adults and approximately half the audience is female.

[Imagineer]

vadimfv: You describe that team like there's something wrong with it in the minds of anyone but those with a sexual-objectifying agenda.

As for wading through hardline-PC fantasies... are you saying that finding straight-male-oriented comics with hot chicks in sexy costumes and poses isn't worth it? That's just lazy, man.

Always look on the bright side of life. Zenescope and Aspen are keeping the dream alive, check them out.

[Mr. X]

If you're talking about how teams were selected up until the modern age, then the characters were mostly male as the comics were bought almost exclusively by young males. These days, most comics are bought by adults and approximately half the audience is female.

That's one of my points. A mostly male team is not created to be sexist. Its done to appeal to the market which is mostly male. So my point is its pretty mean to ridicule comics like this for lack of diversity and to accuse writers of nefarious endeavors when in fact there is nothing of the sort.

But then a female author flat out creates a book that is all female in a "feminist paradise" and this seems to be perfectly fine.

Can you name a male-only team (four or more superheroes in an ongoing series) from the last thirty years? The only one that springs immediately to mind is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they're not humanoid.

Taaa Daaaa! My point. No one can make an all male team... so why can an all female team be made? Where's the token male on this team? Where's the demand for quotas?

Also YES TMNT introduced a FEMALE turtle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_%28 ... Turtles%29

Why can't people just make the comics they want without cries of foul play or demands of quotas? Why is it only certain groups can do this and other groups are kept on a short leash?

[Heroine Addict]

I put it to you that the publishers are amoral, rather than driven by an ideological agenda. An all-male team with a bunch of muscular buddies in tight costumes would look very homoerotic and probably not sell very well. An all-female team only exists because Marvel thinks it will sell.

Marvel just want money-spinning properties. They are not the comics division of the ACLU.

[Camvoy]

Needs more Hellcat. Maybe throw in some kind of Snapper Carr mascot type guy just to piss everyone off.

[Mr. X]

Marvel just want money-spinning properties. They are not the comics division of the ACLU.

There's always an "out" isn't there.

[shevek]

Camvoy - As part of the latest reboot (Marvel Now! or whatever the hell it's called), Hellcat has her own book, where she serves as an investigator for
Jennifer Walter's law firm. This could be a great idea, but of course she has lost all semblance of shapeliness and become a flat-chested teenager. Sorry, but I don't think it's just about what sells..there's an agenda where they hire feminist writers & artists (in this case, Kate Leth and Britney Williams) who eradicate all possible prurience.

Kate Leth, for example, has worked on queer comics like Lumberjanes, the carefully "inclusive" cartoon series Bravest Warriors, and has a podcast where like-minded females (such as A-Force's Kris Anka) air their progressive thoughts. The motto of her website is "Comics. Queers. Cats." She's done more conventional stuff in the past, true, but as her career strengthens you can see the feminist emphasis grow.



Britney Williams was brought over from her work on Legend of Korra, which was certainly a good story, but whose ultimate goal was to 'ship' a lasting
bisexual relationship in a saga that never displayed evidence of one throughout its entire run. Not that there's a big problem with an ending like that necessarily, but when you look at how Williams portrayed Korra (not a hint of prurience whatsoever) and then transfers the same prudish values to Hellcat, who was previously one of the sexiest Marvel characters, well there you go.



It's a new clique of Tumblr girls (who grew up working in comics stores and resented the sexy female representations) to replace the old comics boys' club. You think I'm exaggerating? Mr. X, at least, can see it for what it is..only a couple steps away from the friggin' Burka Avenger. As recently as 2009, Hellcat was portrayed like this (and even at that point, the male writer was bombarded with accusations of misogyny):



(speaking of which, somebody needs to get some Firestar and Monica Rambeau costumes up in some SHIP vids. don't lie... you know you thought
Angelica had the hot bod when you watched Spidey & Friends...)

Now, with an all-female SJW writing team, Hellcat looks like this:




There's one thing that redeems all this nonsense..and that's that Kate Leth is a big fan of Image's Sex Criminals, the adult fetish comic book where the two main characters (man and woman) have the power to stop time when they orgasm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Criminals

Somehow, that's also a feminist premise. The reason why is that these third-wavers are sex-positive and all about exploring the boundaries of anything consensual..but they're also super skittery about image representation (so-called objectification). i.e. feminist comic artists can draw whatever they want, and it's fine because it's done by a woman, but if a man wants to draw a sexy woman, he must be condemned on Twitter for being a pig). I just recently found out about this book and I'm going to scope out the tradepack collections when I return to the comics store, and not buy the second volume of Dial H.

Sorry if this was such a photo-essay..but when you said Hellcat you got me all riled up....mrrrow! (RIP Primal?)

[Heroine Addict]

Bear in mind that Wonder Woman is literally the only superheroine to sustain her own book throughout all eras of comics. There simply wasn't an audience to buy the Silver-Age versions of Batgirl and Supergirl. There wasn't an audience who would keep buying Spider-Woman in the long term. Most superheroines were supporting characters in male-oriented comic books. In the case of Batwoman and her successors, this was explicitly to put the prurient "not gay" label on Batman and Robin.

I contend that Marvel is catering to a largely female audience with these titles. There's a market and they want to tap into it. We may not like the visual style much, but it's not necessarily intended for us.

Seriously, how much demand was there for Dazzler in her jumpsuit and roller skates?

Likewise, we may not like DC's cartoonish and less sexy new versions of Batgirl and Black Canary. But bear in mind that the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl never had an ongoing title until 2011. And Black Canary's one and only attempt at an ongoing solo series lasted for 12 issues in 1993.

These characters were changed due to a combination of male apathy towards them and the rise of female comic buyers. I don't see Harley Quinn or Catwoman being altered anytime soon. As both characters remain extremely popular in their current form.

[RedMountain]

If you're talking about how teams were selected up until the modern age, then the characters were mostly male as the comics were bought almost exclusively by young males. These days, most comics are bought by adults and approximately half the audience is female.

That's one of my points. A mostly male team is not created to be sexist. Its done to appeal to the market which is mostly male. So my point is its pretty mean to ridicule comics like this for lack of diversity and to accuse writers of nefarious endeavors when in fact there is nothing of the sort.

But then a female author flat out creates a book that is all female in a "feminist paradise" and this seems to be perfectly fine.

Can you name a male-only team (four or more superheroes in an ongoing series) from the last thirty years? The only one that springs immediately to mind is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they're not humanoid.

Taaa Daaaa! My point. No one can make an all male team... so why can an all female team be made? Where's the token male on this team? Where's the demand for quotas?

Also YES TMNT introduced a FEMALE turtle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_%28 ... Turtles%29

Why can't people just make the comics they want without cries of foul play or demands of quotas? Why is it only certain groups can do this and other groups are kept on a short leash?

That's really the underlying issue with equality. No one wants to be equal. They say they want equal rights/treatment, but then they don't want to give up the double standard and advantage that their "inequality" gives them. One of the biggest issues in the world today.

[lionbadger]

That's really the underlying issue with equality. No one wants to be equal. They say they want equal rights/treatment, but then they don't want to give up the double standard and advantage that their "inequality" gives them. One of the biggest issues in the world today.

I mean, this is possibly one of the dumbest bits of double think I have read this week.

"People who are living in a situation of inferiority and say they want equality don't really want equality because it would mean the advantages of their inferiority are swept away"

The underlying issue here is 99% of guys are "beta" males, on any scale that matters, but admitting that would be ego crushing (I'm typing this and I'm thinking not me, 1% Badger right here!) so we all pretend we've got it good when really it's just a bunch of old guys with a shit ton of stolen or inherited cash and goons who have it good.

And everyone else realises that they are getting fucked, literally if you 50% of the population and figuratively if your grandparents weren't crafty europeans (but only north europe at that!)

But us guys, no, even when fed into a 10 fcuking pointless meat grinder on the whims of literal pensioners, we're not going to admit we've got it as bad as the girls, cause we can at least have them and probably get an extra 50 cents an hour to keep us happy.

But then something tiny, like A Force comes along and it triggers "equality rage" proving everything I've said. Proving everything because if I was wrong then we'd all be just "Hurrah! lycra and tits!" not "meh, why do the girlies get an all girl comic (a fucking comic?) it's equality gone mad, whine whine whine"

So yeah, either murder your rich dads and ally with the girlies or enjoy the sweetart. But whining that a bunch of people are trying to get themselves onto a level playing field after centuries of being fcuked just makes us sound like children.

and breath, breath, breath

okay, having proof read that, I will go take some pills and have a lie down.

(Keiron Gillen put it better than me anyway.)

[shevek]

Lionbadger, with such excellent whiteknighting, perhaps the problem is that you've already taken one too many blue pills j/k

Seriously, whether or not there's an oppressive 1% making the lives of beta males everywhere miserable (a la Bernie Sanders' campaign message) is
rather irrelevant to this topic. Because whether you're rich, middle class or poor, comics characters are what you look to for fantasy escape..i.e. it's not the real world.

The point here is that there's nothing wrong with an all-female comic...we already said that FemForce did it quite some time ago. it's the observation that the third-wave of intersectional feminism (the kind that first reared its head with the Women In Refrigerators list back in 1999) is ascendant in the media industry. Such politically correct attitudes are all about "safe spaces" and other such coddling. To draw an analogy..the gay conservative intellectual Milo Yiannopoulos recently gave a lecture at a major university in my area. At a previous recent Milo lecture at Rutgers, protestors stood up, shouted and threw blood all over the room during the event. That didn't happen here.. but instead, a group of students complained that there weren't any "counselors" that attendees leaving the event could talk with in order to sort through their feelings of being "hurt", "uncomfortable" and "unsafe" (not my adjectives - I pulled them directly from the student newspaper) regarding the fact-based talk that Milo gave. So these students reserved the very same room that Milo had talked in, and three days later announced a "safe space" where people could go to sort out their feelings. The student newspaper was asked *not* to take photos within that safe space (i.e. the press bowed to censorship so that no Melissa Click lefty-authoritarian had to rise and proclaim "we need some muscle here" to throw out photographers).

That's totally fine for the segment of the market that agrees with that approach (which I assume would be mostly Generation Y beta females)..but that attitude isn't just staying within those specific books but becoming pervasive within the two major companies (see Sana Amanat's TED talk if you believe otherwise
..and watch this Aug 2015 news report on the Rise of the Female Superhero that I also posted in the Supergirl thread: https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/rise- ... 07033.html

So...it's up to the beta males as to whether they'll 1) acquiesce (i.e., whiteknight) and expand that safe space to virtually the entire industry (so that the industry winds up with some kind of tacit Comics Code about what is and isn't PC in sequential storytelling) or 2) create their own counter-safe-spaces (I would definitely consider this forum being a fringe version of one) within that industry. Personally I like storytelling approaches that are edgy enough to include both some feminist aspects and some peril and grimness as well. i.e. a balance can be struck, but it's not a balance that the ascendant generation of third-wave comic book creators are likely to agree to in many cases.

[Heroine Addict]

Honestly, what is the issue here? A large number of women are buying comics now. DC and Marvel are catering to that market because it's good business.

I agree that university "safe spaces" are abused as a means to place extremism beyond criticism in the exact place where people should be learning to question ideas. However, comics can't really be considered a "safe space" as their existence is decided by market forces. No business is likely to succeed catering to screeching feminists or crybaby meninists. The vast majority of comics readers, male and female, are just moderate normal people who want to enjoy the art form.

This sort of "reds under the bed" hysteria doesn't help anyone.

[Mr. X]

A-Force isn't just an all-female comic, but a "safe space" for third-wavers and their allies to not have their 'feelings' hurt about superhero characters. It's quite clear that's the case from the backgrounds of those creating it.

So can men then have a "safe space" and enjoy the things they want? Again I'm not understanding how turning things into distinct groups with distinct special case rules has anything to do with fairness. A comic is made and focuses on men's desires and screams abound from people demanding equality and equal representation. "Where are the women". "Where are the minorities". "where's the LGBT". Why is it when some people make something its somehow community property that everyone has a say in? Yet other groups can have "safe spaces". Sorry, not seeing the "fairness" or "equality".

Instead of an elaborate set of exceptions how about one yard stick to measure everyone.

Honestly, what is the issue here? A large number of women are buying comics now. DC and Marvel are catering to that market because it's good business.

The issue is why is it when men make comics catered to men they hear no end to complaints. By all means women can have comics for women but allow AND DEFEND the right to everyone else to also have comics for the audience they want to sell to. How many times do we have to hear about Spider Woman's butt or Star Fire's bikini on the cover of a comic? What some people do is NOT community property that every gets a say in. ALLOW everyone to make their niches and DEFEND those right to do so.

But this absurd hypocrisy that when group A does it... its bad and lets demand every group be represented yet when group B does it its lets celebrate their right to have a safe space.

Our community has to be in the shadows. even the fans who just like a little bondage have to hide. Why? I thought EVERYONE gets to come out of the closet.

This sort of "reds under the bed" hysteria doesn't help anyone.

There is no paranoia. That's childish white knighting you're doing claiming everyone else is paranoid. We producers know FULL WELL all it takes is some angry SJW to start chomping on us and VISA and other companies are more than willing to shut us down to get some man merit badge. When I see people like Anita Sarkesian or Zoe Quinn in front of the UN asking for gov regulation of video games and comics and the internet itself in the name of safe spaces that scares the shit out of me cause we know that becomes real at some point. VISA shut down multiple providers in Britain a few years back just cause of one copy cat murder case based on a snuff site story. A lot of companies including my own got shut down and lost lots of money.

You cannot deal with this issue by RIDICULING AND GUILTING AND INFANTALIZING others to push them back into the shadows. Yes as a producer its pretty easy to get the dogs turned on you and get you shut down. So stop with your "nothing to see here" "move along" dialog.

[Heroine Addict]

You're conflating several things there. VISA didn't suddenly decide to turn away money because of campaigning SJWs. British law changed on owning "extreme pornography", so VISA chose to cover its own ass.

But you seem to be piecing together events to form your own narrative. Correlation does not imply causation.

[Mr. X]

You're conflating several things there. VISA didn't suddenly decide to turn away money because of campaigning SJWs. British law changed on owning "extreme pornography", so VISA chose to cover its own ass.

But you seem to be piecing together events to form your own narrative. Correlation does not imply causation.

ABSOLUTELY NOT. The VISA campaign was directly driven by one mother's outcry campaign in the UK. Visa routinely changes with the wind. Its not just a legal change. Again with your "move along. nothiong to see" mentality. Did YOU get shut down by visa? Did you?

So that whole Spider Woman pose debacle NEVER happened? I think its you trying to sweep things under the rug. Its you living in 1970 not treating women as your equal and treating them with the sexism of lowered expectations. Sorry but they aren't the little ladies who need help. That's condescending and infantalizing them.

You also cannot seem to track an discussion. Its pretty apparent there are strong SJW voices that have effect on these industries.

The point is simple. If one group gets a safe space... ALL groups get safe spaces. Or basically people should be able to do as they please and cater to customers as they please and its NOBODY'S business. Gays have a great saying... mind your own business. And SJWs need to mind their own business. Some people are not the village mule.

[Heroine Addict]

So, in summary, you want comics to operate some sort of apartheid with titles designated as being exclusively for men or for women, for gays, lesbians, specific ethnic groups?

Seeing as most titles sell somewhere in the region of 50,000 copies, fragmenting the market sounds like a guaranteed money-spinner!

[tallyho]

No one has over stepped the mark yet but this is just a friendly reminder to all parties to keep it civil chaps and chapesses.
Just a pre-emptive strike on my part before things get heated. Carry on

[Heroine Addict]

Bah! MH has only been gone five minutes and you're already wearing the dadpants.

[tallyho]

Hey don't knock it, I found five bucks in the back pocket.

[shevek]

It seems like it's a controversial topic to discuss.

[Mr. X]

We could very easily get to the point where it will be increasingly difficult to have "nice things," as it were.

When the boot of tyranny is on your throat it matters not if its a left or right boot. Jack Thompson or Anita Sarkeesian... pick your meddler.

The adult industry always ends up being the whipping boy from both sides. ending female objectification or ending "smut"... what difference does it make.

[4havokk]

The beginning of the end of creative story telling and the beginning of blatant agenda setting. I can already guess how it will be. 1. All women are peace loving mentors. 2. All men are corrupt in their vary nature and the women who are with them are forced to be with them or they are just confused and submissive. 3. The female criminal element will all be victims or activists some way or another, because it would go against the group think to have a woman criminal character chose a life of crime because she got bored one day. 3. All the big time criminals will be white males. 4. A little girl will always be rescued by one of the heroines but never a little boy.(and if one is he is bound to be a minority. (Didn't mean to sound racist on that point but check it out, it is the current trend.)

[Heroine Addict]

I, for one, am glad that we can have this civil discourse in a thread about A-Force, where it's totally relevant. I have to come down somewhere in the middle but still quite a bit more on the side of Mr. X. Because, Heroine Addict, it is *obvious* that there is an sjw crusade against entertainment that doesn't meet the utopian third-waver agenda and the "progressive stack" (to borrow a term from a recent Sargon of Akkad video) hierarchy of oppression, and that it *is* having an effect on those industries..for example it got that Batgirl variant cover nixed and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

In the 1980s, such moral crusades made unlikely allies of the Christian Coalition and Tipper Gore, when both condemned explicit music lyrics. Today, that coalition is further strengthened by a kind of "red-green-brown alliance" (to borrow the French political term for a tacit coalition opposing global capitalism, Zionism and American world power) where if you want a negative opinion on Spiderwoman's ass pose, you can get an anti-objectification stance from right-wing Christians, left-wing feminists, *and* an occasional hijabi or imam or two. It's not just "market forces"..it's who's in charge of the company (e.g. the likes of Sana Amanat) and their personal viewpoints on the subject. We could very easily get to the point where it will be increasingly difficult to have "nice things," as it were.

Of course market forces come into that. Marvel is not an independent company, but rather a brand within Disney. If sales figures drop too much, Sana Amanat will be fired. If publicity stunts adversely affect perception of the whole Marvel brand including the infinitely more lucrative cinematic universe, Sana Amanat will be fired.

How did that music censorship thing work out? Wasn't the ultimate outcome removable advisory stickers on the front of CDs? Mainly due to the fact that people were buying the "obscene" music in huge numbers and true censorship could have genuinely hurt the industry.

The availability of "nice things" is often due to people actually wanting "nice things" in large numbers. Back when comics were bought almost exclusively by boys and men, very few superheroines could sustain an ongoing title for long. Wonder Woman is literally the only superheroine with a publishing history to rival Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Captain America and the other DC and Marvel icons. Most of the others were team players or little-seen supporting characters. It's shocking how few appearances Barbara Gordon actually made as Batgirl in the two decades before she was crippled.

You may not be happy with the current version of Hellcat, but the previous "Divas" mini-series wasn't popular enough to get people clamoring for more of the same. It's very easy to place 100% of the blame on feminists when, in actual fact, consumer apathy has been the single biggest killer of sexy superheroines.

Bear in mind that most of us are in this niche because we fetishize the superheroines from those old TV shows and comics. We look at them primarily because they're sexy. But we're a tiny minority with a slightly odd fetish. If somebody wants to redesign Hellcat for a general audience, our views probably won't be taken into consideration.

Our community has to be in the shadows. even the fans who just like a little bondage have to hide. Why? I thought EVERYONE gets to come out of the closet.

Well, any attempt to "come out of the closet" in the real world would require you to overcome a huge amount of prejudice and openly argue that fantasies involving forced sex don't necessarily make someone a rape threat. Good luck with that!

Bear in mind that homosexuals have fought for decades to overcome the bigoted assumptions that they're all child molesters, that they "choose" to be gay and that they can "turn" other people gay. Only in very recent years have homosexuals been granted anything close to the same legal status as heterosexuals. And certain politicians - such as presidential hopeful Ted Cruz - would still like to reverse all that progress.

So, if you want change, it won't happen overnight. And you'll have to campaign hard for it. EVERYONE doesn't just get to come out of the closet easily.

[shevek]

No..the outcome of the explicit lyrics sticker imposition in the 1980s is that now it has become normalized. It is now a "normal part of music-buying life". And regularly, "edited" (censored) versions of explicit albums come out with the content removed. It was not a reversal, like happened with the comics code (which was regarded as harsh patronizing family-values Christianity that later was overturned by the libertinism of the boomers)...it became part and parcel of music sales, and it was a first salvo in the censorship going on today. Also, you can't compare the simple times of the 1980s to now: with the stickers, sure, people could flock out and buy music with the stickers on them if they wanted to defy the censorship..the only thing that would happen would be the big-box store might not carry the album and so the little indie store would benefit from defying the ban.

Very different story today thanks to the Internet. Things like Twitter blocking, online harrassment campaigns, hashtags, de-platforming, Youtube video flagging, doxxing didn't exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, but companies didn't have diversity training, safety policies, and internal censorship committees like they do (the institution of which was often imposed by outside activist pressure, although they'll refuse to admit it). They hadn't targeted other industries yet, like comics and video games, yet. There wasn't the worldwide geek culture yet, and massive convention attendances like now, nor (as HA points out) a market in which almost 50% of comics or video game buyers are now female (as is essentially the case now). There was also no internet anonymity, allowing attacks to happen without recourse.

You're right..it is virtually impossible for people such as ourselves to come out of the closet and make our case, especially in the current condemning environment of the authoritarian left dominating discourse at every turn. My point is that we may be on the permanent losing end of the stick..there's
no guarantee that the 'pendulum' will ever swing back our way - this might the last gasp for us..except within the tiny niche that we now inhabit. And Bob help us if the third-waver harpies find out about this last niche! Remember, we're talking about an industry that's already legally required (right?) to post a physical address of producer operations at the end of most of these videos - the 'doxxing' and witch hunt would be short and brutal.

There is no dialogue, no compromise, no middle road possible with these kinds of people who have an endgame utopian vision of scrubbing the world of patriarchy. Here's an example: I recently stumbled across a Twitter account where someone was posting as the actual comics character Kitty Pryde (one of my fave Marvel characters), and about half of the tweets were about some kind of Social Justice Warrior topics. I tweeted to that account that I thought it was a shame that one of the most admired Marvel characters was being exploited to spread political messages from the authoritarian left. Whatever anonymous coward ran that account immediately blocked me..but not before disparaging me for not being active enough on Twitter.

[Dogfish]

You may not be happy with the current version of Hellcat, but the previous "Divas" mini-series wasn't popular enough to get people clamoring for more of the same. It's very easy to place 100% of the blame on feminists when, in actual fact, consumer apathy has been the single biggest killer of sexy superheroines.

Literally this. So much this. Pretty much only this.

Where there is a market for sexiness, it sells. It sells like hot cakes. The audiences for comics don't want it now, so it's not on offer.

[Mr. X]

Well said vadimfv. 1980 is not today. We didn't have twitter or the internet to destroy people in 1980. No getting people fired for saying the wrong thing about LGBT or not having some quota of women.

I don't agree sex is not wanted. Its being purposely kept down. Nothing magically changed about heterosexuality. What did change is availability. In 1980 all you had was a sexy comic book cover if you were a fetish-ist. Now you have the internet and 100s of places to go. Playboy didn't stop centerfolds cause men lost interest. They stopped cause 1) men can get better stuff on the internet and 2) Playboy has been slowly entry-ied to the point that the message has been co-opted. Same with hotels not offering adult material. Why rent a crappy porno in the hotel room when you have internet access and can get what you want.

[shevek]

I have a new term for the legion of SJW creators de-sexifying comic books:
The Militia of Ms Marvel Automatons (from issue #5).



So shall it be!

[lionbadger]

it is *obvious* that there is an sjw crusade against entertainment that doesn't meet the utopian third-waver agenda and the "progressive stack" (to borrow a term from a recent Sargon of Akkad video) hierarchy of oppression, and that it *is* having an effect on those industries..for example it got that Batgirl variant cover nixed and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

but this is demonstrably bollocks

We're onto what? 13th Marvel film and we've go no female characters of any substance, we've got no "minority" characters in anything other than vague sidekick roles. I mean, Samuel L Jackson is only Nick Fury because Mark MIller got pissed off at the bland lack of realism in avengers and changed the character. (what 2018 until a black lead? 2019 until a girl with some story? and these are kid's films)

I hear people saying "oh, this special interest group is besieging the world of comics" and honestly all I hear is "boo hoo hoo all I want is a constant stream of superman fighting lex luther and anyone who tries to do something different is a heretic"

I stand by my assertion that the root of this whole lashing out is that guys are squeezed from above but can't deal with that so they have to lash out anyone lower down the pile trying to scramble up, instead of making a temporary alliance of convenience.

[Dogfish]

it is *obvious* that there is an sjw crusade against entertainment that doesn't meet the utopian third-waver agenda and the "progressive stack" (to borrow a term from a recent Sargon of Akkad video) hierarchy of oppression, and that it *is* having an effect on those industries..for example it got that Batgirl variant cover nixed and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

but this is demonstrably bollocks

We're onto what? 13th Marvel film and we've go no female characters of any substance, we've got no "minority" characters in anything other than vague sidekick roles. I mean, Samuel L Jackson is only Nick Fury because Mark MIller got pissed off at the bland lack of realism in avengers and changed the character. (what 2018 until a black lead? 2019 until a girl with some story? and these are kid's films)

I hear people saying "oh, this special interest group is besieging the world of comics" and honestly all I hear is "boo hoo hoo all I want is a constant stream of superman fighting lex luther and anyone who tries to do something different is a heretic"

I stand by my assertion that the root of this whole lashing out is that guys are squeezed from above but can't deal with that so they have to lash out anyone lower down the pile trying to scramble up, instead of making a temporary alliance of convenience.

Hang on, there's Black Widow. She sometimes needs to be rescued so I suppose she counts as important.

[Dogfish]

Well said vadimfv. 1980 is not today. We didn't have twitter or the internet to destroy people in 1980. No getting people fired for saying the wrong thing about LGBT or not having some quota of women.

I don't agree sex is not wanted. Its being purposely kept down. Nothing magically changed about heterosexuality. What did change is availability. In 1980 all you had was a sexy comic book cover if you were a fetish-ist. Now you have the internet and 100s of places to go. Playboy didn't stop centerfolds cause men lost interest. They stopped cause 1) men can get better stuff on the internet and 2) Playboy has been slowly entry-ied to the point that the message has been co-opted. Same with hotels not offering adult material. Why rent a crappy porno in the hotel room when you have internet access and can get what you want.

This is the thing though, erotica isn't being purposefully kept down. It's vast, it's everywhere. People complain that a handful of female characters aren't being drawn in a sexy way like they used to be. But now there are -thousands- of people drawing sexy comicbook characters online -all over the place-. A fan of sexy comicbooks has never, ever, at any point in history been better served than right now. The idea that the comics written for and marketed towards children and adolescents are not sexy enough anymore, and this is some great loss to adults who were demonstrably not buying those comic books anyway when there is just vast acres, untold gigabytes of porn out there, that's just being greedy.

The internet has brought All The Porn. If the trade off for this has been that comic books are having to rely on things like relateable characters and good storylines to sell to their intended demographic then I think we'll survive. I mean if you want comic books to be porn, then, y'know it's not like they don't exist.

Important to remember too, if comic books had continued to pander to their hardcore fans they'd have gone under years ago. The 'hardcore fans' of comic books weren't buying them.

[Mr. X]

Important to remember too, if comic books had continued to pander to their hardcore fans they'd have gone under years ago. The 'hardcore fans' of comic books weren't buying them.

Yes it was the movies that brought them back. But even there I would imagine the hard core fans stopped cause the comic moved so far away from the core character as to alienate fans. we see this with the popularity of the Captain America movie that stuck with the original character origin. Deadpool stuck to the original to a large degree.

I'd prefer the naughty stuff be in the adult arena.

My complaint is about how if one group makes a comic its attacked for all sorts of social justice reasons like that group owes a quota to everyone yet when another group makes a comic they can brag its exclusive to that group and they don't get flak.

I just want the flak and fake griping to go away. I see the complaints of lack of diversity and sexism not as legitimate complaints but as a tool used by mean people to just ruin someone else's shit. Its called being a fealot - fake zealot. Someone who uses a fake moral high ground as an excuse to just grind someone into the dirt. Complaining about comics written by men while letting women pass for the same or worse grievances is clearly not holding to ones ideals. And special casing everything is the tactic of people with no true integrity.

[Dogfish]

Important to remember too, if comic books had continued to pander to their hardcore fans they'd have gone under years ago. The 'hardcore fans' of comic books weren't buying them.

Yes it was the movies that brought them back. But even there I would imagine the hard core fans stopped cause the comic moved so far away from the core character as to alienate fans. we see this with the popularity of the Captain America movie that stuck with the original character origin. Deadpool stuck to the original to a large degree.

I'd prefer the naughty stuff be in the adult arena.

My complaint is about how if one group makes a comic its attacked for all sorts of social justice reasons like that group owes a quota to everyone yet when another group makes a comic they can brag its exclusive to that group and they don't get flak.

I just want the flak and fake griping to go away. I see the complaints of lack of diversity and sexism not as legitimate complaints but as a tool used by mean people to just ruin someone else's shit. Its called being a fealot - fake zealot. Someone who uses a fake moral high ground as an excuse to just grind someone into the dirt. Complaining about comics written by men while letting women pass for the same or worse grievances is clearly not holding to ones ideals. And special casing everything is the tactic of people with no true integrity.

Stuff is attacked but it still gets made. You can't be telling me comic book fans didn't complain back in the day as well. Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons has always been accurate in that regard, comic book fans are always complaining, they just complain about different stuff now.

I get the idea that complaints about representation and sexism must get annoying when you've had to listen to them for a long time, but if you think that's bad, I'm fairly sure having no representation and having to put up with garbage sexist storylines, across pretty much the entire cultural canon of western civilisation, is much worse.

It's a Catch 22 though. If you don't think issues of sexism and representation matter, then why complain about it when things change. And if you do think they matter, then you kind of have to accept that they need to change. I get that there's an argument for 'If this was X before it should be X now and X forever' but seriously, that's an awful way to think about art and creativity. The appeal to tradition, to what went before, is fatal for creativity. You end up with a production line.

[Mr. X]

I get the idea that complaints about representation and sexism must get annoying when you've had to listen to them for a long time, but if you think that's bad, I'm fairly sure having no representation and having to put up with garbage sexist storylines, across pretty much the entire cultural canon of western civilisation, is much worse.

And there it is. Ok if I make a comic book WHY am I obligated to represent everyone? And worse why can another author make a comic book and only represent women? Again we're back to the assumption that some people and their work are community property that we can demand equal representation from.

In no way is anyone obligated to represent anyone else especially now a days where the internet exists and you can self publish and you're not trapped with Diamond publishing as a monopoly. Sure if we're talking 1980 where ONLY Diamond publish books and there wasn't enough black heroes I could see a complaint.

And you assume everything is a "garbage sexist storyline"? why? Isn't this A-Force a "garbage sexist stroyline"? The author flat out admits that by referring to the world as a feminist paradise. And to claim sexism is across the "entire cultural canon of western civilisation" is pretty absurd. Now I see where the bias comes from.

It's a Catch 22 though. If you don't think issues of sexism and representation matter, then why complain about it when things change.

Makes no sense. I complain that it makes no sense to complain about sexism when ONLY one group does it. In fact it reeks of dishonesty and double standards and using a fake righteous excuse just to bully someone.

I get that there's an argument for 'If this was X before it should be X now and X forever'

Strawman. Not arguing that. I am arguing about people bitching X is sexist then NOT bitching Y is sexist when Y flat out admits is sexist. Who do only SOME PEOPLE get safe spaces? Why can only SOME PEOPLE have special material that caters to them bout OTHER PEOPLE are community mules that everyone has a say over?

The appeal to tradition, to what went before, is fatal for creativity. You end up with a production line.

Again I never made an appeal to tradition. I am asking why one group can be constantly criticized for not having diversity when another group gets a pass. I am complaining about the blatant double standard. Two weights, two measures.

Breaking up society into special groups with special rules is the opposite of fairness. And its absurd to claim all of society has been sexist.

[Heroine Addict]

You may need to define the "groups" you perceive here? It's not a matter of Men's comics and Women's comics as virtually all Marvel and DC titles are pitched at a general audience. Fragmenting that audience would be a disaster.

Let's face it, the comics industry has been a massive sausagefest for most of its existence, with a few token heroines thrown in to appease the homophobes who feel self-conscious buying a comic with a group of spandex-clad hunks on the cover. Now we have a few comics attempting to redress a historical imbalance and people complain of men being discriminated against in some way.

Are you really going to be so churlish about an all-girl group when over 80% of all superheroes ever created have been men?

[Dogfish]

Ahh multiquotes. My one weakness. Anywho, this is directed to Mr X, hope it can be pieced together.

If you make a comic book you are not obliged to represent everybody. However, creating a comic book does not instantly grant you immunity from criticism. That's basic freedom of speech. Somebody creates a thing, freedom of speech. Somebody then tells them whether or not they like it, or if it could do better, also freedom of speech.

Again it's worth bearing in mind the representation is there because the money was there. Comics aren't a charity. We are seeing some diversity in modern comics today only because it pays. The obligation is capitalism.

And of course there is sexism across the entire canon of western culture (and the others too). It's so deeply embedded that pointing it out can feel like pointing out water to a fish. I mean even if you believe that in the modern day women have achieved equality it's worth bearing in mind that our culture is thousands of years old and women have been underdogs in that since pretty much forever. I mean you can't seriously think that thousands of years of culture isn't skewed against women just because they've got the Internet just right now?

The community mules thing comes down to who owns characters and so on, and at this point it's everybody. The USA doesn't have real folklore, so it invented superheroes. And copyright law is what it is, but those characters are part of the culture of the USA, and the western world at large. Like Robin Hood or King Arthur, you've got Batman and Superman. Everybody has a stake in them, because they are so ubiquitous in the culture. The specifics of the comic books aren't so important, but they are still important.

Society is already broken up into special groups with special rules. You can't dismantle those groups and those rules without acknowledging they exist and believe me, if you were in one of those groups that the rules say need to be held back, then you'd know about it.

[Mr. X]

Ahh multiquotes. My one weakness. Anywho, this is directed to Mr X, hope it can be pieced together.

If you make a comic book you are not obliged to represent everybody. However, creating a comic book does not instantly grant you immunity from criticism. That's basic freedom of speech. Somebody creates a thing, freedom of speech. Somebody then tells them whether or not they like it, or if it could do better, also freedom of speech.

Not looking for immunity from criticism. I am looking for integrity from the people doing the criticizing. I am looking at the hypocrisy.

Again it's worth bearing in mind the representation is there because the money was there. Comics aren't a charity. We are seeing some diversity in modern comics today only because it pays. The obligation is capitalism.

That's fine IF the market is there. I am debating the attitude by some that they are OWED diversity. No one OWES them anything. And its a bit absurd to demand diversity from group A then ignore it from group B.

And of course there is sexism across the entire canon of western culture (and the others too). It's so deeply embedded that pointing it out can feel like pointing out water to a fish. I mean even if you believe that in the modern day women have achieved equality it's worth bearing in mind that our culture is thousands of years old and women have been underdogs in that since pretty much forever. I mean you can't seriously think that thousands of years of culture isn't skewed against women just because they've got the Internet just right now?

First off this is a whole nother discussion but suffice it to say the vast majority of men ALSO had no rights up until WW1. Men could not vote either, only property owners could vote. And women NEVER had to serve in military to get the vote.

Yes I believe your statement is false. If anything BOTH sexes practiced sexism in history. Both demanded roles from the other. There is no "skewed against women". All you are doing is confirming my point that social justice is just petty revenge.

Everybody has a stake in them, because they are so ubiquitous in the culture.

Voila the community property argument... sorry but no. Make your own characters. You have the internet.

Society is already broken up into special groups with special rules. You can't dismantle those groups and those rules without acknowledging they exist and believe me, if you were in one of those groups that the rules say need to be held back, then you'd know about it.

Yup some mighty fine equality right there. Special groups with special rules... just exemplifies the concept of equality. That's why I think equality arguments are BS. Again you're just confirming the obvious bias that is out there. Group A must be diverse... group B can discriminate... and we call that equality.

I am not the village mule. I am not a utility. I am not universal property. I am not obligated to anyone.