Last night, I watched newsnight on comic books and there was a woman on there that made me so angry and so annoyed that I feel I have to write about it.
The programme as well as others, had Kevin Smith on and were talking about Kick Ass among other things. This woman attempted to argue that women in comics (especially Hit Girl) were a sexist interpretation for men to drool over. I have not read Kick Ass but from what I heard and what i know about it, it is infact Mark Millar (the writer of Kick Ass) who is portraying a positive portrayal of women not this person on newsnight. She argued that the fact that Hit Girl is the stronger character and better at being a hero than the male character Kick Ass, made Hit Girl a sexist character. WHAT?! Am i the only one that cannot understand her reasoning?
Now, to prove that not all female characters in comic books look like the women in Sin City, I am going to focus on a character that I know a lot about: Mary Jane. Mary Jane, for me, is one the best characters in comic books out of both genders. Yes, in the Marvel universe, she may have the stereotypical look of big boobs, tiny waist etc, she is unbelievably strong. In Spiderman, I would argue that although Peter is the physically strong character, MJ is mentally strong. She is the one that keeps him going, she is the one that keeps everything going and not just that she is the one that is more successful in her job. From this, I am going to argue to an even greater extent that the ultimate MJ is even more of a positive role model for women. The Ultimate MJ does not look like the stereotypical sin city woman: she looks like the typical geeky girl. What is more, she is as intelligent as Peter as her nickname is Brainy Jane. What is more, recently, MJ has started to write for the school paper and was the one that split up with Peter not the other way round. Therefore, again, I would argue that MJ is the stronger character out of herself and MJ.
Anyway, if you didnt watch it, i player it. it was really good and if you think i'm wrong, leave me a comment. But thats my opinion
Monday 12 October 2009
Tuesday 18 August 2009
This story arc is going to change everything in comics...Please. Save Me From These Lies
I am sure anyone that likes comics is aware of something like this being said 'We have come to crisis point, nothing will be the same again'. Am I the only one who is absolutely sick of this?
Now, by this, I do not mean that I am necessarily sick of the use of a over arching crisis storyline. No, in fact I think (although there are too many of them), if they are done properly they work really well and can be very exciting for the reader. What I am complaining about is the lie that things will never be the same again and in my opinion, Marvel is more guilty of this then anyone else at the moment as it seems to use the crisis storyline just to pass the buck of power to another character for that year.
Lets go back a couple of years to the Civil War and analyse that. Before the Civil War, we were promised that things would never be the same again and straight afterwords it seemed as if this may have been the case. Spider-man had revealed his secret identity, Captain America was dead, Iron Man was in control of SHIELD, to name a few. Things actually seemed as if they had been shaken up. However, what happens a couple of months later: Spidey conveniently with the rest of the world forgets that he had told everyone that he and Peter Parker were synomous. I suppose you'll argue though at least the rest of the changes are still there so although it now seems a bit of a lie that things would never be the same (well at least for the Spiderman character), Marvel had kept their side of the bargaining right.
Wrong! Last year, we get the birth of Dark Reign with yet again the promise that things would never be the same again. I am not going to tell you the details about Secret Invasion but low and behold somehow Norman Osbourn was now the most powerful man in the Marvel universe and Tony Stark was on the run. Hang on...wait a minute, I thought that after the last 'huge' event with cival war things would never be the same again. Yet, two of the big changes were lost in less than two years after they occured and replaced with yet another 'huge' event to take its place.
Well, my learned reader at this point might argue that Cap is still dead so the civil war's impact is still there to some extent. WRONG! Cap is back with a new book Rebirth. So to me, this would seem that anything that the Civil War was meant to have 'shaken' up has been shook up and the juice has come out of the blender because it is now as if Civil War never existed.
Now, to be fair to Secret Invasion, I do think that it has sent the Marvel universe down a much darker path and has led to many new titles being produced. However, what have Marvel just annouced, what has just started? Do I even have to say it? Yep, another massive crisis has occured called The List and guess what the tag line has been 'that the Marvel Universe will never be the same again in 2010'. I might sound skeptical, but I'll believe it when I see it. The Likelihood is that Norm will be replaced by someone else till this time next year where we have to go through it all over again.
Unfortuantely for the Ultimate Universe, the infection spread to it this year with Ultimatum. Again, things will never be the same and we have seen huge deaths and changes with two new books coming out: Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Spiderman (rebooted), whilst the rest of the Ultimate line seems to have died. If these chages stick, they will have been huge changes that will have changed the Ultimate world forever but do we really believe that that will be the case. Now that it has started, more will come, I am assure of that.
In my opinion, the crisis idea is great but works best sparingly. Give it a good five years or so between each crisis. Let us readers get embedded into the lives of our favourite made up stars and then from there we will all be more shocked when something like this happens. Also it will actually let us see the characters live in a 'real' world for sometime. Unlike at the moment where they just seem to go from one crisis to another.
Now to me, however entertaining they are (and some are really good: I thought House of M in particular was awesome), we all know why both Marvel and DC do it: they make a huge amount of money. WE as the little brainless pets of the big two are, will go and buy them whatever happens and for some reason although we know that the changes will last only for about a year, we are all giddy with the thought that things will never be the same again. I am not saying I am innocent of this: i have The List on order and will be reading it, so you can argue I am a hipocrit for that reason. And when you think about it, if you were the editor of DC or Marvel wouldnt you do a crisis every year if they sell well especially in this climate? Of course you would. I just wish we didnt have to swallow the lies that things will change forever. You dont need to put that at the bottom to sell it to the comic book fans out there.
Now, by this, I do not mean that I am necessarily sick of the use of a over arching crisis storyline. No, in fact I think (although there are too many of them), if they are done properly they work really well and can be very exciting for the reader. What I am complaining about is the lie that things will never be the same again and in my opinion, Marvel is more guilty of this then anyone else at the moment as it seems to use the crisis storyline just to pass the buck of power to another character for that year.
Lets go back a couple of years to the Civil War and analyse that. Before the Civil War, we were promised that things would never be the same again and straight afterwords it seemed as if this may have been the case. Spider-man had revealed his secret identity, Captain America was dead, Iron Man was in control of SHIELD, to name a few. Things actually seemed as if they had been shaken up. However, what happens a couple of months later: Spidey conveniently with the rest of the world forgets that he had told everyone that he and Peter Parker were synomous. I suppose you'll argue though at least the rest of the changes are still there so although it now seems a bit of a lie that things would never be the same (well at least for the Spiderman character), Marvel had kept their side of the bargaining right.
Wrong! Last year, we get the birth of Dark Reign with yet again the promise that things would never be the same again. I am not going to tell you the details about Secret Invasion but low and behold somehow Norman Osbourn was now the most powerful man in the Marvel universe and Tony Stark was on the run. Hang on...wait a minute, I thought that after the last 'huge' event with cival war things would never be the same again. Yet, two of the big changes were lost in less than two years after they occured and replaced with yet another 'huge' event to take its place.
Well, my learned reader at this point might argue that Cap is still dead so the civil war's impact is still there to some extent. WRONG! Cap is back with a new book Rebirth. So to me, this would seem that anything that the Civil War was meant to have 'shaken' up has been shook up and the juice has come out of the blender because it is now as if Civil War never existed.
Now, to be fair to Secret Invasion, I do think that it has sent the Marvel universe down a much darker path and has led to many new titles being produced. However, what have Marvel just annouced, what has just started? Do I even have to say it? Yep, another massive crisis has occured called The List and guess what the tag line has been 'that the Marvel Universe will never be the same again in 2010'. I might sound skeptical, but I'll believe it when I see it. The Likelihood is that Norm will be replaced by someone else till this time next year where we have to go through it all over again.
Unfortuantely for the Ultimate Universe, the infection spread to it this year with Ultimatum. Again, things will never be the same and we have seen huge deaths and changes with two new books coming out: Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Spiderman (rebooted), whilst the rest of the Ultimate line seems to have died. If these chages stick, they will have been huge changes that will have changed the Ultimate world forever but do we really believe that that will be the case. Now that it has started, more will come, I am assure of that.
In my opinion, the crisis idea is great but works best sparingly. Give it a good five years or so between each crisis. Let us readers get embedded into the lives of our favourite made up stars and then from there we will all be more shocked when something like this happens. Also it will actually let us see the characters live in a 'real' world for sometime. Unlike at the moment where they just seem to go from one crisis to another.
Now to me, however entertaining they are (and some are really good: I thought House of M in particular was awesome), we all know why both Marvel and DC do it: they make a huge amount of money. WE as the little brainless pets of the big two are, will go and buy them whatever happens and for some reason although we know that the changes will last only for about a year, we are all giddy with the thought that things will never be the same again. I am not saying I am innocent of this: i have The List on order and will be reading it, so you can argue I am a hipocrit for that reason. And when you think about it, if you were the editor of DC or Marvel wouldnt you do a crisis every year if they sell well especially in this climate? Of course you would. I just wish we didnt have to swallow the lies that things will change forever. You dont need to put that at the bottom to sell it to the comic book fans out there.
Captain Jack is back, and back with a bang! Torchwood: Children of Earth
Bit late, with this, but anyway.
Hope you like
A couple of weeks ago, Torchwood returned and boy did it return with a bang! The programme has finally broken its way through biting tooth and nail to get on BBC One at prime time and low and behold it has finally done that. With everything at stake including the future of Torchwood, Russell T Davies (head writer) must have known that he had to produce something pretty special to get the show to continue on through it all like it battle tired, charismatic anti-hero Captain Jack Harkness and low and behold he has produced something that is even better than any fan’s expectations. This five part series I guarantee will be better than any film that comes out this summer with similar themes. Yes it really is that good! If we are all lucky, this will not be the last time we see Cap’n Jack and his plucky band of freedom fighters.
Day One
Day one truly was Captain Jack back with a bang as explosions flew left, right and centre. The first thing that Davies has done with expertise is cut down the fat of previous Torchwood seasons with characters Toshiko Sato and Dr Owen Harper feeling the chop at the end of season two. Davies has shown through Torchwood that he is never afraid to kill off characters however central they may seem and consequently this is to his credit. It leaves the viewer never knowing who is going to survive one scene to the next. Children of Earth sensibly revolves around Torchwood’s three most interesting characters: the enigmatic Jack, Gwen and Ianto. In Day One, earth’s children all stop at the same time only saying ‘we are coming’. Jack and the team try to work out what is going on with added complications with a bus load of kids in Scotland in the 60s and a mysterious 456 frequency that only the very select are aware of. As before with Torchwood, we learn a little more about the mysterious Captain: he has a daughter who has a son. The relationship between Jack and his daughter seems strained even more so as she realises that Jack only wants to be with his grandson to test him. Day One finishes with a stunning finale. Our anti-hero has been killed another two times (tot them up on the Jack death tally) where a bomb has been placed in his stomach. Only when he returns to the hub does the team discover the truth, let alone the fact that Gwen is pregnant. As the hero he is, Jack sacrifices himself literally pushing his loved one Ianto onto the elevating step. As Ianto leaves, the hub blows up, leaving Torchwood without a base and temporary without a leader. As viewers we assume Jack has survived: he is indestructible. Yet, Torchwood lost none of the excitement and tension. Furthermore, although it is assumed that Jack is still alive (as his trademark trench coat) what about Ianto and Gwen?
Day Two
In Day Two, the momentum does not slow down. With Gwen and Ianto now on the run from the government. The remains of Cap’n Jack are taken to a prison. As both Gwen and Ianto battle alone to discover where Jack is with help from Reese (Gwen’s husband) and Ianto’s sister, the viewer sees Jack begin to come back to life in a cringe worthy scene where Jack’s skin slowly grows back onto his skeleton. The torture is not over for Jack as he is locked inside a concrete crypt. Meanwhile, Lois Habiba decided to aid Gwen, telling her where Jack has been kept. Gwen and Reese create a battle plan to rescue Jack leading to gunfire. It seems there is no hope for Gwen and Reese till Ianto rescues Jack and makes an escape route for both Gwen and Reese. The final few scenes show the team back together as well as the promise that the aliens are coming tomorrow from the children with a suspicious character hugging a chamber for them to come.
Day Three
Day Three sees the team reassemble in an old Torchwood 1 facility. The team steal in order to survive. Whilst this occurs, Ianto presents Jack with a new trench coat. The episode ends with an unbelievable realisation that the 456 (the alien) needs the children for some reason. It would seem that they need them to live off. However, this is not the greatest revelation that leaves the viewer reeling. We discover that Cap’n Jack was the one that helped the aliens take the children in the first place in the 1960s.
Day Four
The day opens with Jack explaining himself how he was ordered to take orphaned children to the alien as it gave them the cure to a virus of some sort. However, this time, when the alien wants ten percent of all the children on earth, this time Jack has had enough and decides to strike war against the 456. Through the help of Lois Habiba, Jack and Ianto get in to see the alien. They threaten that they will bring a war onto the alien with all the people of earth against it. However, the war ends quickly with the alien attacking the building it was stored, killing all of the humans init including Jack and Ianto. As we all know, Jack comes back to life but Ianto does not have that pleasure. Yet again, Davies has shocked us all by killing a character that seemed to be so cemented into the Torchwood mythos that we did not think he could be at risk. Davies, like Josh Wheedon (creator of Buffy and Angel) has the ability to create characters that we care about and then rip them away from us by killing them.
Day Five
All hope seems to be lost. Jack is in jail and the government has decided to go with the alien’s demands. We also find out that the alien feeds off the children like a drug. Gwen is the last line of defence for Ianto’s sister’s children as she battles with all her life to save as many children as possible. Finally, Jack is released and has a plan that will save the children and earth if it works. However, he will have to risk it all to do so. The choice is simple: Jack looses everything that he has left or save the world?
Like in last year’s summer blockbuster ‘The Dark Knight’, Cap’n Jack seems to be destined to loose everything in order to make sure that the world survives. If ha hadn’t already, if this the first time you were introduced to the former time agent, surely after this phenomenal five part series you will now see Jack Harkness as one of the great heroes of the genre, rivalling Constantine and Angel for the classic brooding antihero
Hope you like
A couple of weeks ago, Torchwood returned and boy did it return with a bang! The programme has finally broken its way through biting tooth and nail to get on BBC One at prime time and low and behold it has finally done that. With everything at stake including the future of Torchwood, Russell T Davies (head writer) must have known that he had to produce something pretty special to get the show to continue on through it all like it battle tired, charismatic anti-hero Captain Jack Harkness and low and behold he has produced something that is even better than any fan’s expectations. This five part series I guarantee will be better than any film that comes out this summer with similar themes. Yes it really is that good! If we are all lucky, this will not be the last time we see Cap’n Jack and his plucky band of freedom fighters.
Day One
Day one truly was Captain Jack back with a bang as explosions flew left, right and centre. The first thing that Davies has done with expertise is cut down the fat of previous Torchwood seasons with characters Toshiko Sato and Dr Owen Harper feeling the chop at the end of season two. Davies has shown through Torchwood that he is never afraid to kill off characters however central they may seem and consequently this is to his credit. It leaves the viewer never knowing who is going to survive one scene to the next. Children of Earth sensibly revolves around Torchwood’s three most interesting characters: the enigmatic Jack, Gwen and Ianto. In Day One, earth’s children all stop at the same time only saying ‘we are coming’. Jack and the team try to work out what is going on with added complications with a bus load of kids in Scotland in the 60s and a mysterious 456 frequency that only the very select are aware of. As before with Torchwood, we learn a little more about the mysterious Captain: he has a daughter who has a son. The relationship between Jack and his daughter seems strained even more so as she realises that Jack only wants to be with his grandson to test him. Day One finishes with a stunning finale. Our anti-hero has been killed another two times (tot them up on the Jack death tally) where a bomb has been placed in his stomach. Only when he returns to the hub does the team discover the truth, let alone the fact that Gwen is pregnant. As the hero he is, Jack sacrifices himself literally pushing his loved one Ianto onto the elevating step. As Ianto leaves, the hub blows up, leaving Torchwood without a base and temporary without a leader. As viewers we assume Jack has survived: he is indestructible. Yet, Torchwood lost none of the excitement and tension. Furthermore, although it is assumed that Jack is still alive (as his trademark trench coat) what about Ianto and Gwen?
Day Two
In Day Two, the momentum does not slow down. With Gwen and Ianto now on the run from the government. The remains of Cap’n Jack are taken to a prison. As both Gwen and Ianto battle alone to discover where Jack is with help from Reese (Gwen’s husband) and Ianto’s sister, the viewer sees Jack begin to come back to life in a cringe worthy scene where Jack’s skin slowly grows back onto his skeleton. The torture is not over for Jack as he is locked inside a concrete crypt. Meanwhile, Lois Habiba decided to aid Gwen, telling her where Jack has been kept. Gwen and Reese create a battle plan to rescue Jack leading to gunfire. It seems there is no hope for Gwen and Reese till Ianto rescues Jack and makes an escape route for both Gwen and Reese. The final few scenes show the team back together as well as the promise that the aliens are coming tomorrow from the children with a suspicious character hugging a chamber for them to come.
Day Three
Day Three sees the team reassemble in an old Torchwood 1 facility. The team steal in order to survive. Whilst this occurs, Ianto presents Jack with a new trench coat. The episode ends with an unbelievable realisation that the 456 (the alien) needs the children for some reason. It would seem that they need them to live off. However, this is not the greatest revelation that leaves the viewer reeling. We discover that Cap’n Jack was the one that helped the aliens take the children in the first place in the 1960s.
Day Four
The day opens with Jack explaining himself how he was ordered to take orphaned children to the alien as it gave them the cure to a virus of some sort. However, this time, when the alien wants ten percent of all the children on earth, this time Jack has had enough and decides to strike war against the 456. Through the help of Lois Habiba, Jack and Ianto get in to see the alien. They threaten that they will bring a war onto the alien with all the people of earth against it. However, the war ends quickly with the alien attacking the building it was stored, killing all of the humans init including Jack and Ianto. As we all know, Jack comes back to life but Ianto does not have that pleasure. Yet again, Davies has shocked us all by killing a character that seemed to be so cemented into the Torchwood mythos that we did not think he could be at risk. Davies, like Josh Wheedon (creator of Buffy and Angel) has the ability to create characters that we care about and then rip them away from us by killing them.
Day Five
All hope seems to be lost. Jack is in jail and the government has decided to go with the alien’s demands. We also find out that the alien feeds off the children like a drug. Gwen is the last line of defence for Ianto’s sister’s children as she battles with all her life to save as many children as possible. Finally, Jack is released and has a plan that will save the children and earth if it works. However, he will have to risk it all to do so. The choice is simple: Jack looses everything that he has left or save the world?
Like in last year’s summer blockbuster ‘The Dark Knight’, Cap’n Jack seems to be destined to loose everything in order to make sure that the world survives. If ha hadn’t already, if this the first time you were introduced to the former time agent, surely after this phenomenal five part series you will now see Jack Harkness as one of the great heroes of the genre, rivalling Constantine and Angel for the classic brooding antihero
Bow Down to the New Blog
Hello People
Hope that your all well in that little ol'd place called cyberspace. I have had blogs before, but this one, this one bwha ha ha ha cough cough splutter splutter is the king of my blogs.
Hope you all enjoy it!
Hope that your all well in that little ol'd place called cyberspace. I have had blogs before, but this one, this one bwha ha ha ha cough cough splutter splutter is the king of my blogs.
Hope you all enjoy it!
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