Posts Tagged ‘ Arsenal ’

…I’ve been crazily busy this week so I haven’t even been able to do the pull lists, let alone the quick reviews of the DCnU books, or anything else that I actually want to do, like, I don’t know, writing. The next few weeks don’t look too much better and this might be a bit of a drought through NYCC. I hope not, but we’ll see.

In any case, just a few quick thoughts on this week…

- Fringe is back tonight!

- I quite liked Catwoman. I get why people wouldn’t, but not one thing in the book seemed out of place with a Catwoman in my head (as opposed to the one I stopped reading about when Gotham Girls or whatever it was called started, on account of it being crappy). it’s not like Bruce and Selina haven’t had sex before, and the only real change is that now they don’t seem to know each other’s secret IDs so they keep the masks on. I have no problem with it. Now, is it a suitable entry point for a series that could have attracted a bunch of teenage girl readers if done right? That’s a whole other question…

- Similarly I have no problem with Starfire liking sex. Why? Because lots of people I know like sex. It’s fun. Not everyone is into monogamy, and the fact that readers are commenting that ‘she’s a whore’ or a ‘slut’ or whatever is more about them forcing their standards onto what they read. The same could be said, I suppose, for Red Hood etc etc writer Scott Lobdell and his editors – but I just happen to agree that just because people enjoy having sex doesn’t make them bad people. Oh, and another thing – she’s an alien so why on earth would she subscribe to human traditions or whatever? I actually enjoyed the comic. Again, not a good jumping on point but it worked for me – and honestly, I never liked Starfire anyway. She’s up there with Cyborg and Raven as ‘most boring DC characters ever’ for me.

- What else, what else? A lot of this week’s DC books were really, really quick reads. One that wasn’t was the Deadman-starring DC Comics Presents. I’d recommend that to new readers. Supergirl, too, although that was probably the quickest read of them all.

- I thought NuFacebook annoyed me before Mark Zuckerberg announced all the additional stuff yesterday. Now I may consider Google+ as an actual alternative – except I know that the majority of my friends and family will never move of Facebook at this point.

- I am becoming obsessed by collecting points on cards to use to get flights, and the like (so things like American Express points). I suppose that it’s just one step on from collecting comics, right?

- I’ll be going to NYCC this year, probably for at least some time on all four days but it occurs to me that I’m probably not going to be going to that many comics panels. My wife and son may be putting in an appearance (although as he’s not two yet it may be a bit overwhelming for me), and my niece – who’s an artist – is going to be hanging around too.

- I’ve been reading Becky Hawkins’ site recently (Frenchtoastcomix), mostly because she emailed me a pdf of her new minicomic, Coffee and Beer Money, and it’s really good. I don’t spend half as much time as I should reading stuff like this online, so feel free to point me towards places I should go.

This update was not as quick as it was intended.

I’m going out on a limb here by saying that I think I’m in the minority here, but I won’t miss Lian Harper and she may just be a better character dead than she was alive.

Over the past ten or fifteen years, very little has been done with Lian and Roy’s relationship aside from some scenes where Lian says something cute, meets Roy’s latest squeeze, is responsible for Roy feeling guilty about spending time super-heroing, or is the object of a tug of war between Roy and Cheshire.

The most interesting thing that was done with her was towards the end of the last Titans book where it seemed she was inheriting some of her mother’s proclivities, pushing a bookcase onto some of the kids who were hanging out with the Titans at the time.

Or I may be inventing that.

The point is that no writer has really used the character, or her relationship with her father to any great effect.

It’s difficult, writing a superhero as a parent. Balancing the fact that they have responsibilities to their children as well as to the world at large takes some finesse and, more crucially, isn’t always that interesting. I think it’s the reason that the last take on Wally West didn’t really take off sales-wise.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, I just can’t think of a time when it’s been done consistently and interestingly.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of any other superheroes who lost their children aside from Donna Troy (I’m probably just being a little dense and there’s dozens of them ). Whereas before, Roy’s philandering and running around in tights could be construed as immature and potentially irresponsible when he should be home looking after Lian, now there’s the opportunity to have him come through the other side of this as a much more interesting, mature character.

I’m not sure it’ll work, of course – a lot depends on how well written the Rise of Arsenal miniseries is, and how much those who hate the idea of killing off a child character are willing to give it a chance.

I am – and for the first time in years, I’m interested to see what Roy Harper’s future holds. Although I do think the losing of the arm on top of Lian was overkill…