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quietprofanity Sep. 10th, 2007 10:49 pm)
quietprofanity Sep. 10th, 2007 10:49 pm)I'm going to bring up a new corpse for feminist examination: THE (original) DARK PHOENIX SAGA!
Yay! Yay! (Cheer you bastards!) Yay!
First, a confession: I don't like the X-Men.
But when I say I don't like the X-Men, I mean I don't like the X-Men in that Storm was one of my childhood heroes, I dressed up as Mystique for Halloween one year and can recognize most of the pre-turn of the new century members ...
Why the cognitive dissonance? Well, first off, some of the fans make me kind of foamy. Mostly because most of them used to act (I don't see it as much lately) as if the X-Men were the sole occupants of the Marvel Universe and the Spider-Man/Avengers/FF, etc. were for STUPID, STUPID CHILDREN. Plus, they tend to like Wolverine ... who I only tolerate when he's not making me gag.
And yet, those are big reasons, but they're not the REAL reason. See, the X-Men are kind of unique in the Marvel Universe. They started off as this odd sort of cast-off of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby that at first didn't seem to have a whole lot of thought into it. (The first couple of issues seem really rough and rather re-hashing of other early Marvel stories. Warren sounds a lot like the Torch, Hank sounds like Ben Grimm, Jean sounds like Susan, etc.) But then it was re-tooled by Chris Claremont into this multi-cultural team/family ... and it really set a nice standard.
Because it seemed, or at least when I started learning about the X-Men in the early 90s, that each character was, to use a cliche, a beautiful and unique snowflake and each person can pick their own hero. Every character had a long and involved history and a specific set of powers, nearly totally independent of any other hero. If you wanted to you could spend a whole day learning and dissecting a character, whether it was Cyclops or Dani Moonstar ... somewhere in the big mix of mutants you could find your personal champion. And most likely they would feel just as alienated as you, earning both your sympathy as they earned their admiration. And of course they loved each other and isn't it wonderful how an African tribal leader can get along with a 13-year-old Jewish girl?
It's a wonderful idea ... unfortunately, it often seems to turn into BIG MUTANT HORDE facing BIG MUTANT THREAT and being totally powerless to defeat BIG MUTANT THREAT ... so they stand around doing jack shit or spend the issue being tied up while BIG CONFUSING MESS goes on and all seems lost but ... OMG! DEUS EX MACHINA (a.k.a. Wolverine) saves the day? Or does he? Find out in NEXT BIG MUTANT THREAT! (For maximum importance, tell this story over 12 different X-titles)
FYI, the Civil War: X-Men tie-in was a perfect example of this. That wasn't a story ... it was just another stepping stone in the weird, brain-bleeding quagmire that's become the X-books. It's kind of sad when I find Exiles, which is about characters from widely differing realities fighting together across multiple realities, easier to follow. And one of the things that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cyberweasel and I really enjoyed about Whedon's Astonishing, was that it was able to be divorced from most of this.
... But, I felt like it was important that I read the Dark Phoenix Saga because ... well, the older books have to have had some charm and at least the story is in one book, right?
Well, I read it recently and ... wow. I knew what would happen. I knew the basic outline of the tale ... but in quieter moments I'd sit back and reflect upon the story.
Two big things stuck in my mind.
One was that in some ways, this book doesn't quite pass what I see as common complaints of what women want to see in comics. It has the whole "Women must be sexy evil!" archetype (The White Queen and Jean Grey as the Black Queen), and the overall sexual seduction ... and possibly mindrape cues ... are pretty blatant.
And then there's the "Beauty" scene. Due to mental seduction of Mastermind, Jean Grey has become the evil Black Queen, and envisions herself as this sort of 18th-century noblewoman/dominatrix and the captured X-Men as revolutionary soldiers ... except for Ororo, whom she sees as a slave. In the scene I'm thinking of, Jean dangles Ororo's lockpicks in front of her, calls her "Beauty" (the English translation of her name), and then when Ororo speaks to her, Jean whacks her across the face with a whip and calls her ungrateful, says she should have appreciated being a slave to Jean because Jean was such a kind master ...
It's pretty upsetting. Okay, it's very upsetting. A long time agopapajoemambo and I were making fun of Scott's ruby quartz gimp mask (more on Scott later), but there's no sexy joke at the end of this. It inspired this visceral reaction in me ... challenged me to be alienated, extremely alienated, by a character who I knew earlier in the series had saved her teammates and the world in the past. It affected me far more than when she ate a sun and killed millions of aliens.
Cheap way to elicit that reaction? Maybe. Shock value? Most likely. Can the story work without it? Well, it has in other mediums, so yes. But it's also a fundamental betrayal of the X-Men's growing principles toward diversity. In this moment, Jean isn't just a evil babe in leather, oooo don't hurt me ... she's someone truly scary and capable of anything.
I have respect for women who want comics to be an escape for them. I think they deserve it and sometimes I want it, too. And I'm not black ... maybe if it had been Kitty who got slapped while Jean was wearing SS gear I would have felt differently. But I have to say, that moment stuck with me.
And oddly enough, while the story went on ... Claremont wouldn't let Jean fully become alienated from the reader. After he challenged us to think of her solely as "The Big Bad," and he did this through points of view shifts.
Most of the story is told through the point of view of Scott. Ah, Scott. Poor, poor, ineffective, wearing the gimp mask, only contributes to the story by pleading or by hearing Jean's thoughts or falling to the floor nearly dead after losing a battle. A lot of people don't like Scott, and I am one of them. He's kind of an easily-led stuffed shirt and his powers are lame. But regardless, we look through the story, see the disintegration of someone he loves before his eyes, while taking brief surveys of how Storm and Beast and Nightcrawler and Colossus feel about all this.
But Claremont won't leave Jean ... and he won't let us forget her humanity as she grows into this powerful, frightening (but very awesomely dressed) thing. When she goes to eat the sun, like it or not, horrified as we may be, we're with her through her elation at the growth of her own power and then ... as if she scares herself by what she's grown into, she runs away home. But she won't find peace there. She hears her family's thoughts and how they fear her ... and then her friends ambush her ... asking for explanations when maybe she barely knows herself ...
I may be projecting my own issues onto this story, as most of us do when we read anything. Some of you may think I'm full of bullshit. But I see this story as one in which Jean does reach her fullest potential ... and unthinkingly uses it to run not only her friends, but also her family over. The girl was one of the weaker members of the X-Men, back when she wore the yellow-and-blacks and then, suddenly ... she's not. She doesn't need her men to protect her, leaves the one she loves back home while she cruises through the galaxy. True, Mastermind may have pushed her ... but he only turned her into Black Queen, not the Dark Phoenix.
But the most pleasing part of the story is the end ... or maybe it's the most pleasing in that it's NOT like the X3 movie. Where Jean simply had some inner evilness and needed most awesome Wolverine to come around and give 'er a good killing. In this story, Jean gets to spend her last moments alive as Marvel Girl the hero and then, when she realizes she can never go back, when she progresses from Phoenix and Dark Phoenix again ... knowing she has committed a crime she never can repay ... she takes her own life, all on her own.
She saw what she did wrong, she took responsibility and died a tragic hero on her own terms.
...
I don't like the X-Men. But I like Storm, or how Storm used to be. I like those beautiful and unique snowflakes. And I like this story.
Whew! Okay, enough of that. Let's watch the coolest thing ever. Yay!
Yay! Yay! (Cheer you bastards!) Yay!
First, a confession: I don't like the X-Men.
But when I say I don't like the X-Men, I mean I don't like the X-Men in that Storm was one of my childhood heroes, I dressed up as Mystique for Halloween one year and can recognize most of the pre-turn of the new century members ...
Why the cognitive dissonance? Well, first off, some of the fans make me kind of foamy. Mostly because most of them used to act (I don't see it as much lately) as if the X-Men were the sole occupants of the Marvel Universe and the Spider-Man/Avengers/FF, etc. were for STUPID, STUPID CHILDREN. Plus, they tend to like Wolverine ... who I only tolerate when he's not making me gag.
And yet, those are big reasons, but they're not the REAL reason. See, the X-Men are kind of unique in the Marvel Universe. They started off as this odd sort of cast-off of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby that at first didn't seem to have a whole lot of thought into it. (The first couple of issues seem really rough and rather re-hashing of other early Marvel stories. Warren sounds a lot like the Torch, Hank sounds like Ben Grimm, Jean sounds like Susan, etc.) But then it was re-tooled by Chris Claremont into this multi-cultural team/family ... and it really set a nice standard.
Because it seemed, or at least when I started learning about the X-Men in the early 90s, that each character was, to use a cliche, a beautiful and unique snowflake and each person can pick their own hero. Every character had a long and involved history and a specific set of powers, nearly totally independent of any other hero. If you wanted to you could spend a whole day learning and dissecting a character, whether it was Cyclops or Dani Moonstar ... somewhere in the big mix of mutants you could find your personal champion. And most likely they would feel just as alienated as you, earning both your sympathy as they earned their admiration. And of course they loved each other and isn't it wonderful how an African tribal leader can get along with a 13-year-old Jewish girl?
It's a wonderful idea ... unfortunately, it often seems to turn into BIG MUTANT HORDE facing BIG MUTANT THREAT and being totally powerless to defeat BIG MUTANT THREAT ... so they stand around doing jack shit or spend the issue being tied up while BIG CONFUSING MESS goes on and all seems lost but ... OMG! DEUS EX MACHINA (a.k.a. Wolverine) saves the day? Or does he? Find out in NEXT BIG MUTANT THREAT! (For maximum importance, tell this story over 12 different X-titles)
FYI, the Civil War: X-Men tie-in was a perfect example of this. That wasn't a story ... it was just another stepping stone in the weird, brain-bleeding quagmire that's become the X-books. It's kind of sad when I find Exiles, which is about characters from widely differing realities fighting together across multiple realities, easier to follow. And one of the things that
cyberweasel and I really enjoyed about Whedon's Astonishing, was that it was able to be divorced from most of this.... But, I felt like it was important that I read the Dark Phoenix Saga because ... well, the older books have to have had some charm and at least the story is in one book, right?
Well, I read it recently and ... wow. I knew what would happen. I knew the basic outline of the tale ... but in quieter moments I'd sit back and reflect upon the story.
Two big things stuck in my mind.
One was that in some ways, this book doesn't quite pass what I see as common complaints of what women want to see in comics. It has the whole "Women must be sexy evil!" archetype (The White Queen and Jean Grey as the Black Queen), and the overall sexual seduction ... and possibly mindrape cues ... are pretty blatant.
And then there's the "Beauty" scene. Due to mental seduction of Mastermind, Jean Grey has become the evil Black Queen, and envisions herself as this sort of 18th-century noblewoman/dominatrix and the captured X-Men as revolutionary soldiers ... except for Ororo, whom she sees as a slave. In the scene I'm thinking of, Jean dangles Ororo's lockpicks in front of her, calls her "Beauty" (the English translation of her name), and then when Ororo speaks to her, Jean whacks her across the face with a whip and calls her ungrateful, says she should have appreciated being a slave to Jean because Jean was such a kind master ...
It's pretty upsetting. Okay, it's very upsetting. A long time ago
papajoemambo and I were making fun of Scott's ruby quartz gimp mask (more on Scott later), but there's no sexy joke at the end of this. It inspired this visceral reaction in me ... challenged me to be alienated, extremely alienated, by a character who I knew earlier in the series had saved her teammates and the world in the past. It affected me far more than when she ate a sun and killed millions of aliens.Cheap way to elicit that reaction? Maybe. Shock value? Most likely. Can the story work without it? Well, it has in other mediums, so yes. But it's also a fundamental betrayal of the X-Men's growing principles toward diversity. In this moment, Jean isn't just a evil babe in leather, oooo don't hurt me ... she's someone truly scary and capable of anything.
I have respect for women who want comics to be an escape for them. I think they deserve it and sometimes I want it, too. And I'm not black ... maybe if it had been Kitty who got slapped while Jean was wearing SS gear I would have felt differently. But I have to say, that moment stuck with me.
And oddly enough, while the story went on ... Claremont wouldn't let Jean fully become alienated from the reader. After he challenged us to think of her solely as "The Big Bad," and he did this through points of view shifts.
Most of the story is told through the point of view of Scott. Ah, Scott. Poor, poor, ineffective, wearing the gimp mask, only contributes to the story by pleading or by hearing Jean's thoughts or falling to the floor nearly dead after losing a battle. A lot of people don't like Scott, and I am one of them. He's kind of an easily-led stuffed shirt and his powers are lame. But regardless, we look through the story, see the disintegration of someone he loves before his eyes, while taking brief surveys of how Storm and Beast and Nightcrawler and Colossus feel about all this.
But Claremont won't leave Jean ... and he won't let us forget her humanity as she grows into this powerful, frightening (but very awesomely dressed) thing. When she goes to eat the sun, like it or not, horrified as we may be, we're with her through her elation at the growth of her own power and then ... as if she scares herself by what she's grown into, she runs away home. But she won't find peace there. She hears her family's thoughts and how they fear her ... and then her friends ambush her ... asking for explanations when maybe she barely knows herself ...
I may be projecting my own issues onto this story, as most of us do when we read anything. Some of you may think I'm full of bullshit. But I see this story as one in which Jean does reach her fullest potential ... and unthinkingly uses it to run not only her friends, but also her family over. The girl was one of the weaker members of the X-Men, back when she wore the yellow-and-blacks and then, suddenly ... she's not. She doesn't need her men to protect her, leaves the one she loves back home while she cruises through the galaxy. True, Mastermind may have pushed her ... but he only turned her into Black Queen, not the Dark Phoenix.
But the most pleasing part of the story is the end ... or maybe it's the most pleasing in that it's NOT like the X3 movie. Where Jean simply had some inner evilness and needed most awesome Wolverine to come around and give 'er a good killing. In this story, Jean gets to spend her last moments alive as Marvel Girl the hero and then, when she realizes she can never go back, when she progresses from Phoenix and Dark Phoenix again ... knowing she has committed a crime she never can repay ... she takes her own life, all on her own.
She saw what she did wrong, she took responsibility and died a tragic hero on her own terms.
...
I don't like the X-Men. But I like Storm, or how Storm used to be. I like those beautiful and unique snowflakes. And I like this story.
Whew! Okay, enough of that. Let's watch the coolest thing ever. Yay!