Sta.sh
I have been a fan of comic books for years and two of my favorite characters, one Marvel and one DC, are always getting the short end of the stick.
Power Girl has had 2 series, She Hulk had at least 3, and both were cancelled because they weren't considered popular enough.
BULLSH#T!
I seriously think that the editors had no idea how create the comics for their supposed target audience.
They wrote books for a mainly female audience - FAILED ATTEMPT
Or horny fanboys - FAILED ATTEMPT
Then even tried to make them full-blown dramatic superheroes like their male counterparts - DOUBLE FAIL BECAUSE THEY AREN"T THEM
(Power Girl/Superman, She-Hulk/Hulk if you don't know your comic book characters)
Know what audience really appreciated these ladies?
Comic book fans who were tired of formulaic, predictable, massive world-changing story lines and heroes who have to make gut-wrenching decisions and miraculous saves.
These are people who wanted a fun read, a little sexy, a little tongue-in-cheek and a whole lot of fun.
They wanted the inside jokes and easter eggs.
They wanted the cameos from well-known and almost forgotten heroes and villains.
If their comic books were a TV show they would be Community or Big Bang Theory.
The runs with Jimmy Palmiotti (Power Girl) and John Byrne (She-Hulk) were probably the closest to having these ladies living to their full potential.
(Jeph Loeb is a close second when he wrote She Hulk versus Red Hulk story line)
Now look at what we get now...
Powergirl is an alt-Supergirl and She-Hulk is the Cathy Griffin of the Marvel Universe.
*SIGH*
I would kill for a decent writer like Dan Slott to write a Power Girl / She-Hulk crossover book.
Maybe illustrated by Amanda Conner and/or Frank Cho - they know how to draw strong and sexy females.
</ RANT >
I think David is one of the best writers in comics today; its just a shame that not all of h is stuff appeals to the generic comic reading public.
You, sir, continue to be awesome!
As you said, the stories in it weren't world-shattering story lines, just like his stories in X-Factor (which is still going strong, while managing to avoid all the heavy drama in the other X-Books).
I don't know any other writer I would trust to write a She-Hulk comic (I didn't have as much problems as others did with Dan Slott, but he was writing a mainly comic book, to coin a phrase, not a serious super-heroine comic).
. . .
Then I read that it's Babs coming back to the title. That her whole spinal injury went from being a strong, life altering point of character development, to "eh, it's not that bad, actually. More of a flesh wound really."
That naturally inspired a locally famous rant on Facebook form me, about how great it is that no matter how much of a creator pours his blood, sweat, and soul into a project. That you can create The Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, and The Killing Joke, and in the end none of it will matter as long as Warner Bros thinks that sales are down. Well not actually down, just not where the company would really like them to be. A sad day indeed for good story telling.
But okay, I'm curious. I give it a little time for all the number 1's to hit the torrent sites. Now before any hateraide get's splashed about, I usually save my money for nice hardbound trade collections, with fancy dust jackets to keep on a bookshelf, or baring that the regular TPBs take up just as much space. But I digress.
So I'm reading one issue # 1 after the other, hoping that because since this was kind of a big deal that each would sort of play off of each other, like ripples on a pond or something. But nope, it's actually more like looking at shattered mirror, but with a different face in every fracture doing something completely different from the other.
Gone is fresh faced Stephanie Brown completely, and Power Girl, a stellar stand alone title as well as a favorite read of mine. Reduced to pretty much being Mr. Terrific's girlfriend. Starfire is... Just so much porn without the actual pay offs of being porn, or being very interesting to read about. If you're gonna hyper charge a heroine's sex drive, at least make it funny for us to read about. She's an alien crap's sake, this shouldn't be that hard. The Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon is a better character, because the writers kept the "stuck on a world not her own" mentality while writing the show. Barbara Gordon, what is she like 33 now? Why the hell isn't she in the role of Batwoman as opposed to Batgirl? Even Dick Grayson came to the point in his life where he didn't want to be "the kid" anymore, why not so for Babs?
It's mistakes like these that keep comics in the shadows of not being taken seriously, as a medium in general by the public at large. If you want to attract new readership, then you have to write woman in comics a bit more seriously then simple write offs, superhero arm candy, over sexed teen fantasies, and grown women still okay with being called girl. Actually you can have all that, but you just have to write it smarter. Work smart, not hard. Shop smart, shop S-Mart.
Sorry for making this so long, Po. But I feel your pain.
(shudders)
sad but true
I definitely agree though, I'll admit I don't know that much about Power Girl but I've been a huge fan of She-Hulk for years I even still have a huge wall poster of her I bought almost 20 years ago. Every time they launch a new series for her I root for it hoping it'll succeed but alas. Now there's 3 Shulkies running around with more attention paid to the new girls and poor Jen is shoved into a corner.
When it comes to sexuality in media, a lot of people seem to say there should only be two options - in it's "place", which is the seedy dark allys of the internet (previously known as "that dark area of the video store behind the dark curtain"), or NONE... it doesnt belong anywhere else. Well, I cant stand porn, it's not hot to me and it's too limited in style for my tastes. I'd much prefer stuff like "Exposure" by Al Rio to that, or Jim Balent's work, or manga, where characters are sexy and actually have likeable characters and more to them than just the sexuality. A sexy character is far more sexy when there's far more to them beyond the sex, like things to really respect and admire, likeable characters, perhaps even relatable characters. Even if they're unrealistic, that's what I like. I like the escape and imagination and the stretch of the reaches of the human mind, even when it comes to sexuality. Maybe large, natural breasts larger than your head would be extremely out of place and even silly in something like Batman (even if there was an attempt at a logical explaination), but in Tarot, a story about friggen magic and witches, I cant understand a mind being closed to the idea. But that's Tarot. I also dont find Power Girl in the DC universe, size or outfit, to have ever been someone silly, impossible, out of place, or whatever, as far as looks go she's just always been her own unique self and adds to the variety.
But besides all of this... I'm just simply appalled at the idea of changing a character's design out of the blue, for no reason (hell, I wasnt even happy with Catwoman's latest design, but that's nothing compared to how I feel about the new PG). I mean it's one thing for Batman evolving from what he started out as and what he is now, I mean a lot of that is just attributed to technology and natural progression, but when it comes to Power Girl and She Hulk, they've always kept to a certain blueprint and not only how they looked but what they wore became part of their personas. To me, to tamper with the sexuality of a character is akin to suddenly changing an obviously hetrosexual character into a homosexual, just to be PC or something. I think to be good enough to work on a character and their story properly, you need to have actually been a fan of them to begin with, so that you know how to naturally progress the character forward, not change them into something they're not.
If you need to change a character, especially if it's a drastic change, just make an entirely seperate new one instead dammit. Let characters be who they want to be.