Lana Lang (Insect Queen)

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Jessica

Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Superboy v1 #10 (September/October 1950)
Created By: Bill Finger and John Sikela

Biography:

Lana had a normal childhood in bucolic Smallville. Well, except that she kept getting rescued from robots and stuff by Superboy. And sometimes she put on a ring given to her by an alien and became the superpowered Insect Queen. Oh, and she could never quite prove her suspicion that her somewhat dull boyfriend Clark Kent was actually Superboy in disguise. But otherwise, normal!

As an adult, Lana moved to Metropolis and spent about a decade alternately competing with Lois Lane for Superman’s hand or teaming up with her to try to prove that Clark Kent was Superman. She eventually became Clark’s co-anchor on WGBS-TV’s evening news program and began a literally starcrossed romance with be-pantied space hottie Vartox.

Post-Crisis, Lana spent her adolescence pining for her childhood BFF Clark, whose level of reciprocation varied depending on which major retcon we’re talking about (four since 1986!). When she saw him on the news as Superman, she recognized him instantly, but kept his secret, even under torture from Lex Luthor. In return, Clark helped Lana when she was possessed by the alien Insect Queen.

Eventually Lana gave up on Clark and married his childhood best friend, Pete Ross. Their premature baby was kidnapped by Brainiac, who wanted it for a new host, but Brainiac only managed to age the baby to term before Superman recovered it. In gratitude, Lana named the baby Clark.

When Pete became vice president under President Lex Luthor, Lana obviously became Second Lady (Vice First Lady?), and then First Lady when Luthor was impeached for reasons of supervillainy. Lana decided that being in such a high profile marriage was a great time to try to rekindle her romance with Clark. Her attempts failed – and so did her marriage.

A civilian once more, Lana became CEO of Lexcorp for some baffling reason. Desperate to keep Lexcorp from going under, she sold Kryptonite to the government as “dirty bombs” planted all over the world, which she detonated in order to force a bunch of Kryptonian refugees off the planet. Clark, understandably, was pissed. To make amends, Lana used Lexcorp resources to help Superman fight Atlas, violating Lexcorp policy and terminating her employment

After a brief attempt to reconcile with Pete and Clark Jr., Lana returned to Metropolis as the business editor for the Daily Planet. She took Supergirl under her wing, and the newly christened “Linda Lang” moved in with her “Aunt Lana.” Their relationship was strained when Kara discovered that Lana had been lying about her health – she was possessed by the Insect Queen again – but after Kara helped cure Lana, the two reconciled.

So What’s So Great About Her?

You really have to wonder what the writers think they’re accomplishing with Lana most of the time. She’s either the skimpily dressed free spirit to Lois’s jealous hausfrau, Clark’s wistful “one who got away,” or a woman scorned (you know, the one Hell hath no fury like?). Nine times out of ten, it makes at least one of the players in the love triangle look bad; eight times out of ten, it makes all of them look bad.

Because, I mean, you get this woman who, on the one hand, is totally whackadoodle – she names her son after her ex! She tries to rekindle a romance with him while they’re both married to other people and she’s under constant watch by the Secret Service and the media. Like, even Martha has called her out on her whackadoodleosity. She’s also kind of a crap mom – she seems to forget about little Clark Jr. for years at a time. (Pete Ross, Sad Sack Ex-President and Single Dad would be a great one shot, though.)

And yet Lana’s also been one of Clark’s staunchest allies, keeping his secret identity even under torture and risking her life when he’s the one who needs rescuing. She’s crazy smart and competent – the lady ran one of the biggest corporations in the world, and Perry White was after her for ages to become the business editor of the Planet. She’s been like a daughter to Martha despite her non-relationship with Martha’s son (and in fact told Clark once that Clark Jr. was named in honor of Martha’s maiden name, which is obvious baloney, but it’s still a nice thought). Recently, she’s even been portrayed as having a friendly, if slightly tense relationship with Lois, which is lovely to see.

Moreover, she was a truly warm, loving fake aunt to Kara, and at a particularly rough time in Kara’s life. For once, Lana was allowed to take a major part in a Superperson’s life without any sort of agenda or baggage – she simply reached out to someone who needed help. I’d imagine that’s the kind of compassionate spirit that would’ve attracted Clark to her in the first place.

Look, comic book writers, no one in the whole world ships Clark and Lana*, and we’re all tired of Lana thrusting herself increasingly desperately between them. Instead of writing her as if her life ended the minute Clark looked at another girl, how about letting her have a life? Trust me, she’s a lot more interesting when you do.

*I expect angry comments from Clark/Lana shippers within 30 seconds of posting this.

BONUS FUN FACT: Your bloggers once cosplayed as Lois and Lana to great acclaim, by which I mean we harassed everyone we saw dressed as Superman. I was Lana, so don’t be hating on my girl, okay?

Notable Appearances:

Superboy v1 #66-208
Action Comics v1 #259-469 (sporadically), 479-598 (regularly), 644, 645, 655, 667, 673, 678, 679, 697, 700, 722, 745, 746, 764, 791, 794, 798, 800, 806-808, 811, 817-825, 830, 831, 839, 850, 873, 882
Superman v1 #78, 97, 137-284 (sporadically), 317-423 (regularly), 655, 663, 666, 667, 671-673, 679
Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #7-134
Adventure Comics v1 #167-383, 453, 455, 492-497
Superman Family #164, 165, 167, 168, 170, 177, 191-195, 203, 213-216, 220, 222
DC Comics Presents #11, 14, 32, 50, 53, 54, 65, 71, 73, 79, 81, 85, 91, 92, 97
New Adventures of Superboy #1-54
The Man of Steel #1, 6
The World of Smallville #2-4
Superman v2 #0, 2, 8, 9, 13, 21, 22, 41, 45, 57, 63, 67, 68, 73, 76, 79, 100, 148, 150, 155, 156, 162, 174, 176, 183, 186, 189, 219
Adventures of Superman #430, 436, 442, 448, 450, 457, 462-465, 470, 481, 487, 494, 535, 560, 585, 597, 600, 611, 640, 646, 647
Superman: Birthright
Superman/Batman #49
Superman: Secret Origin #1, 2
Supergirl v5 #34-59

Posted in Civilians, DC, Superman | 4 Comments

Monica Rambeau (Captain Marvel/Photon/Pulsar)

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Mackenzie

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 (1982)
Created By: Roger Stern & John Romita, Jr.

Biography

You know how it is: You’re minding your own business, doing your job, and all of sudden you’re being zapped with extra-dimensional energy by a supervillain. At least, that’s how Monica Rambeau went from being a cargo ship captain with the New Orleans Harbor Patrol to becoming a superhero. And a card-carrying Avenger, no less! This would be like acting in your high school performance of The Glass Menagerie and seguing directly into winning an Oscar. Zero to A-list!

The media chose Monica’s first superhero alias, Captain Marvel, and despite the fact that many of the Avengers were friends with the original, deceased Cappy M, they uncharacteristically (for comics and for, um, Avengers) decided not to be assholes about her keeping the name. In fact, she even led the team for a while, but eventually had to take early retirement when overexertion temporarily wiped out her powers and nearly killed her.

Once she was back in action, she mostly focused her energies on fighting the good fight in space rather than her former rogue’s gallery of, like, zombies and Dracula (which was kind of random considering her own powers were in no way supernatural). Monica did, however, continue serving with the Avengers as a reserve member, and she led the Nextwave team, where she could not stop bragging about leading the Avengers back when. Can you blame her? If I were her, I would have that tattooed on my forehead.

Her days as Captain Marvel are long over, though. When the son of CM 1.0, Genis, showed up and wanted the title for himself, Monica let him have it out of respect for his dad and dubbed herself Photon instead. A few years later, Genis decided that, no, just kidding, now he wanted to be Photon. Monica realized it was so not freaking worth it and switched to Pulsar, but at least half of the time she just goes by Monica Rambeau, presumably because it’s the only name Genis can’t justify stealing from her. Besides, being Monica Rambeau is plenty awesome enough.

So What’s So Great About Her?

When the original Captain Marvel, an alien who just happened to look like an incredibly Aryan Earth dude, died of cancer in 1982, it was considered incredibly revolutionary for a hero to not only succumb to mundane, natural causes, but for a hero to die at all. He certainly wasn’t the first of his ilk to pass away, but he was definitely one of the highest profile to do so. So you have to admit, it was pretty brassy of Marvel to replace him almost immediately…and with a woman of color no less.

Granted, some of this was absolutely out of necessity. You know how there’s a Captain Marvel at DC too? One who never appears in a comic actually called Captain Marvel? That’s because Marvel Comics owns the copyright to do such a thing, and to keep it, they need to actually publish something with the name Captain Marvel in the title every once in a while. Which they will never, ever stop doing. It’s their special little way of saying, “Suck it, DC.”

But still, they certainly could’ve just not killed Mar-Vell off (this is for-serious his name. COMICS!) or passed the name off to another dude or a Valkyrie-type blonde. Hell, there was already a blonde, stacked Ms. Marvel waiting in the wings who could’ve easily taken the role. (And in fact, she finally has—make sure to check out the awesome-sounding new Captain Marvel series!) Instead, they gave it someone who is part of one of the most underrepresented demographics in comics—black women.

I’ve written before how no black women joined the X-Men between Storm’s 1975 introduction and Shard in 1994. Similarly, there’s a general deficit of black women superheroes throughout the Marvel Universe as a whole. It’s plain to see why—Native Americans can wear feathers and beads, Asian heroines can slip into their sexy dragon lady dresses. What stereotype could black women possibly wear? (Please don’t punch me in the face, I’m being facetious.)

They at least tried to make up for the fact she was part of an extreme comics minority by making Monica so freaking awesome. I seriously love her. I love that she became Captain Marvel while she was an actual boat captain. I love that her costume is traditionally space-y and not overt-sex-bomb, and I love that her hair actually looks like what you might see on the head of an average black woman (side-eyeing you, Storm). I love that she had no idea there was even another Captain Marvel before her when she took up the cape. I love that everyone realized she was so great that she joined the Avengers immediately, and I loved that her mentors were Captain America and Wasp, since come on, women need to help each other out now and then. In fact, Monica took up the leadership reins immediately after Jan, so there was a decent stretch of incredibly cool women leaders of the Avengers.

The only problem, though, is that people never really understood what to do with Monica. It’s bizarre to me that a hero with space-derived powers, the successor to an alien, got her start battling magical villains and Dracula. It took literally (read: not actually literally) forever for someone to go, “Oh, huh, I guess she can fight in outerspace, I guess.” And she also just kind of faded away after a while, appearing sporadically from the mid ‘90s through early ‘00s. They even screwed her over and reverse-awesomed the situation by giving her name back to an Aryan alien dude, only one who was much, much more of a douche than his dad. (His sister, also a later Captain Marvel, is like 400% cooler.)

Luckily, Nextwave happened and reminded everyone that Monica is great, leading to a slew of sudden appearances. She was also front and center in Marvel Divas, which served to spotlight a bunch of lady hero besties that had fallen by the wayside in terms of maintaining a strong Marvel presence over the years. It’s a great start, but can we please get some more Monica on the page? I don’t care if she’s Photon or Pulsar or what—as long as she’s Monica to the core.

Notable Appearances

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16
Avengers #227-294
Doctor Strange (vol.2) #60
Marvel Team-Up #142-143
Solo Avengers #2
Marvel Fanfare #42
Captain Marvel Special #1
Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #9-10
Avengers #329-333
Starblast #1-4
Captain Marvel (vol.2) #1
Avengers: Unplugged #5
Avengers (vol.3) #16-18; 36-38; 46; 48; 53; 55; 501-503 (renumbered)
Avengers: Infinity #1-4
Nextwave #1-12
Marvel Divas #1-4
Firestar (vol.2) #1
Heralds #1-5
I Am An Avenger #2

Posted in Avengers, Heroes, Marvel | 4 Comments

Scandal Savage

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Jessica

Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Villains United #1 (July 2005)
Created By: Gail Simone and Dale Eaglesham

Biography:

When Scandal was a little girl, her father, the immortal Vandal Savage, placed her at the end of two long lines of grown men armed with clubs, and told her that unless she made it to the other end, he would kill her mother. When Scandal fell, Vandal gave her two weapons – the deadly, double-pronged Lamentation Blades – and let her try again. This time, she made it.

As an adult, Scandal was recruited by the mysterious Mockingjay to be the field leader and go-between for the Secret Six. She led the Six on missions against the DCU’s top baddies, including dueling alternate universe Lex Luthors, and her own father, Vandal Savage, who wanted Scandal, his only legitimate heir, to sire him a grandchild. Scandal, being not-so-much down with hetero boots-knocking, refused, “killed” her father – always a temporary solution with Vandal Savage – and returned to her lover Knockout. However, their happiness was cut short when Knockout was killed by Infinity-Man.

Scandal worked through her grief with a lot of drinking, a lot of stabbing people, and a tentative relationship with a stripper named Liana. She also developed a platonic father-daughter relationship with her teammate Bane, even after he took over as leader of the Six. The team continued to look to Scandal during their various misadventures anyway, including a quick jaunt to Hell, where Scandal rescued Knockout. She then proposed a polygamous marriage to Knockout and Liana, which they accepted.

Scandal hasn’t been seen since the reboot, but I wouldn’t worry about her too much. She’s very, very hard to kill.

So What’s So Great About Her?

When I was five, my father took me to see The Little Mermaid. I was terrified of Ursula, and by the time “Poor Unfortunate Souls” rolled around, I was practically hysterical and had to be taken out of the theater.

When Scandal Savage was five, her father told her to stab a bunch of dudes wielding clubs. So she did. She’s made of sterner stuff than I am, is my point here.

Despite the endearingly disastrous ends to all of their adventures, Scandal was a good leader for the Secret Six: she’s smart, strategic, and indispensable in a fight. She never gives up, even when she’s been shot multiple times (of course, it helps that she can regrow her organs), and she’s always willing to do what needs to be done to protect her team, such as when she shoots herself up with the addictive, rage-inducing Venom in order to prevent Bane from having to take it.

And yet out of all the amoral-badasses-with-soft-squishy-centers on the Six, Scandal is the squishiest. She’s still willing to kill to save her mother – she initially takes the job leading the team to protect her, in fact. She’s clearly fond of her entire team, even when they hit on her, (Deadshot), shoot her (Deadshot again) or sleep with her girlfriend (dammit, Deadshot!). She’s willing to sleep – just sleep, platonically – with Bane to help him banish his nightmares. She was madly in love with Knockout, and quickly becomes smitten with Liana’s warm, affectionate spirit. She’s a marshmallow! A marshmallow who will totally stab you.

She’s also not only one of the few lesbians in comics, but as of the end of Secret Six, one of the few characters in comics in a polyamorous relationship. And she’s of mixed race, with a Brazilian mother and a, um, Cro-Magnon father or whatever the hell Vandal Savage is. Needless to say, she’s pretty much unique.

The current Suicide Squad is, by all accounts, godawful, but adding Scandal Savage to the lineup couldn’t help but improve it. Just watch out for Deadshot, Scandal! He’s been kind of problematic for you.

Notable Appearances:

Villain United #1-6
Secret Six v2 #1-6
Birds of Prey v1 #104-109
Secret Six v3 #1-36

Posted in Antiheroes, DC, Secret Six, Villains | 3 Comments

Meggan Puceanu Braddock (Meggan/Gloriana)

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Mackenzie

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Mighty World of Marvel (vol.2) #7 (1983)
Created By: Alan Moore & Alan Davis

Biography

Born to a British Traveller family, Meggan initially didn’t know she was a shapeshifting mutant. When she grew fur to protect herself from the cold, her family assumed she was a monster. Unfortunately, Meggan was keenly sensitive to her family’s horror and responded by shifting into an increasingly scary form. They kept her in seclusion, with television in place of real socialization.

Eventually, she made a run for it and ended up meeting Brian Braddock, aka Captain Britain. It was love at first sight for Meggan, but it took some shapeshifting on her part (into his ideal of feminine beauty) to catch his eye. They embarked on a long relationship that included him freaking out when she flirted with other guys, to the point of breaking a rival’s leg. What a prince!

Along the way, they became founding members of Excalibur, the premier British superheroing group. Over the years, her powers grew exponentially, increasing to the point where she could control the elements, and she also gained better control over them. She married gross old Brian, despite having Nightcrawler and Colossus around as less awful romantic possibilities, and even ruled an alternate realm with him as king and queen for a while.

Then House of M happened, creating a rip in the fabric of reality. (Is reality made of out calico or something?) Meggan and Brian were part of the small group sent to fix it, and she sacrificed herself to give the others time to make the repair. Once everything was fixed, though, most people didn’t really remember what had happened, and Brian was left distraught over his wife’s seemingly random disappearance.

Well, it turned out she was in Hell. For some reason. Brian even went there and encountered her, but totally just left her there because he thought she was just an illusion. Even though Marvel dudes saunter down to Hell to get their honeys, like, every other Tuesday. (See: Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Hellstrom and Hellcat.)

But no matter! Meggan found her own way out, first by making an alliance with Pluto and leading armies of demons and then by thwarting Dracula’s vampire invasion of Britain. You’d think all this would be a major self-esteem boost and Meggan would realize she was way too good for Brian and kick him to the curb, but alas. They happily reunited. I still hope Brian has some splainin’ to do.

So What’s So Great About Her?

Ohhhhh, Meggan. I think a lot of us have had a friend like her. Like, that friend who’s super-sweet and, well, maybe not the brightest? And she’s dating that total tool that you side-eye like crazy, but she seems genuinely, totally happy with him, so you don’t really know if you should urge her to dump his ass? I mean, I feel like I had at least four friends like that in college alone. (I always urged the dumping.)

For whatever reason, I always end up surprised by just how terrible Captain Britain is, and has always been. I think I have a picture in my mind of how he should be, and I manage to brainwash myself into believing it’s so. But leg-breakings and, um, Hell-leavings aside, Meggan has always been deeply in love with and devoted to Brian. The only times her eye ever strayed were during periods where he was neglecting her. You can’t knock her loyalty.

In fact, she’s so focused on him that she literally remade herself for him. (Weirdly, Brian’s lady ideal—and thus Meggan—looks a lot more like him than his own twin sister does. It’s kind of gross.) Before that, she made herself the monster her family saw her as.* I’m so sad for Meggan that most of the emphasis is placed on what she physically looks like. How the hell is this supposed to tell us who she is? I found a great quote once in a novel that’s name I can no longer remember that goes, “My body is the clothes my mind wears to town.” I wish more people had this mindset.

Because whether Meggan is an elfin beauty or a wolf girl, she’s a kind soul who loves deeply and takes great pleasure in life. She watches too much TV, especially BBC fantasies (my kingdom for a story that shows her at a Doctor Who convention) and is insecure sometimes but can take care of herself when she needs to. She’s a really intriguing, awesome person who is stunningly powerful—not that this is often remarked on, probably because she comes off as harmless and a little dim most of the time—and I wish there was more focus on this.

* Which, okay, don’t get me started on the depiction of Romani people/Travellers in comics. I sometimes think writers have no idea that these are real cultures and not just fictional witches/child-stealers/something else offensive. I’ll give Meggan’s family a pass for not knowing she was a mutant, since being born with powers is pretty rare and her generation is the first where mutants were relatively common anyway, but they obviously have TV. Did they not see reports on flying people and go, oh, snap, we were abusing our child for naught? But I guess this is a step up from the depictions of Pietro and Wanda Maximoff being raised in archaic Romani covered wagons and wearing waist-sashes and bangles like they’re Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notre Dame, at least.

Notable Appearances

Mighty World of Marvel (vol.2) #7; 13-16
Captain Britain (vol.2) #5; 7-14
Uncanny X-Men Annual 1987
Excalibur Special Edition #1
Excalibur #1-125
Excalibur: Mojo Mayhem
Marvel Comics Presents #31; 34-38; 75
Sensational She-Hulk #26
Excalibur: The Possession
Excalibur: Air Apparent
Excalibur: XX Crossing
Excalibur Annual 1993
Colossus #1
Excalibur (vol.2) #1-4
Avengers (vol.3) #80
Uncanny X-Men #462; 464
Captain Britain and MI-13 #6-9; 14-15; Annual #1
Age of Heroes #1
Secret Avengers #22
Uncanny X-Force #21-22

Posted in Heroes, Marvel, X-Men | 4 Comments

Eve Eden (Nightshade)

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Jessica

Like Mackenzie, I apologize for the hiatus – I was also moving, though not in the same state. But the Dimestore team is fully back in action!

Publisher: First Charlton Comics, then DC Comics
First Appearance: Captain Atom v2 #82 (September 1966)
Created By: Joe Gill and Steve Ditko

Biography:

Eve and her brother Larry didn’t think much of it when their mother told them they were going on a trip together – until she took them to the Land of Nightshades, where she had been queen until a demonic entity called the Incubus forced her to flee. Mama Eden wanted them to know about their birthright, but their return was a mistake, as the Incubus reappeared, killed the queen, and captured Larry. Eve used her burgeoning shadow powers to escape, but vowed to return and rescue her brother.

As an adult, Eve began working as a government agent and made a deal with the Suicide Squad: if she did a certain number of missions for them, they’d give her a team to go back to the Land of Nightshades with to rescue her brother. To her horror, however, Eve discovered that Larry had been killed with their mother; his body was a mere shell, possessed by the Incubus. Even worse, her teammate June Moon/Enchantress’s split personality was actually the result of June being possessed by the Succubus, which now took over Eve’s body and got ready to get busy with the Incubus in order to create the grossest baby of all time. Luckily, Eve’s will was stronger than Larry’s, and she absorbed the Succubus and her powers instead.

Once the Suicide Squad was (temporarily) disbanded, Eve drifted for a bit before joining the magical superhero team Shadowpact along with her old buddy June, who had apparently gotten her powers back from Eve somewhere along the way. Still, Eve’s powers had grown as well: she could now manifest creatures out of shadow which could operate fairly independently of her, and once saved thousands of Chicagoans from a volcano by rapidly teleporting large chunks of the city to the Land of Nightshades.

When last seen pre-reboot, Eve had rejoined the Suicide Squad under Amanda Waller.

So What’s So Great About Her?

I’ll be honest: part of my love for Eve stems from her origin as a Charlton character and my bizarre affection for Charlton’s terrible, terrible comics. The more I read with her, though, the more I realized that she’s basically Melodramatic Sparkle Action Barbie. I mean, she:

1. grew up in the lap of luxury as the daughter of a Senator, which in the DCU is apparently a hereditary title full of intrigue and opulent mansions,

2. was also secretly a magical princess who

3. can turn into shadows and

4. trained as a secret agent, becoming a key member of a badass covert government organization, before

5. joining a team of wizards in order to fight the temporarily-deranged physical embodiment of God’s vengeance.

I mean, it’s like the most ridiculous episode of Passions ever. Her hair is made of shadows (it’s full of secrets)! The government has her phone number on tap for emergencies! Even her love interests are ludicrously, delightfully over-the-top: a badass government agent with a secret past, a dude made of radiation, and another dude who wears a cloak made out of damned souls. (“Must have cloak made out of damned souls” is one of my dealbreakers on OkCupid.) Someone give this woman a solo series, stat!

In all seriousness, though, Eve is a really impressive example of sheer fortitude. She spent months infiltrating a terrorist group, forced to watch unflinching as they killed hundreds of people, in order to eventually apprehend them and protect her country. She spent years battling the control of the Succubus and never succumbing to the temptation to use her powers for evil, which, as I’m sure June would tell you if she were real, is no easy task. She survived essentially losing her soul…annnd then the writers kind of forgot to finish the story and tell us how she got it back, but knowing Eve, I bet it was badass. She’s been through hell, and unlike certain other folks with shadow powers (ahem, Todd Rice), she’s never once let them get the best of her. (Sorry, Todd. I still love you!)

Basically, Eve is James Bond meets Sailor Moon meets Mandy Moore’s character from Chasing Liberty meets Dracula. Except cooler. And there’s no reason for her not to show up in the DCnU, so let me know when she does, DC. I promise I’ll buy it.

Notable Appearances:

Captain Atom v2 #82, 85-89
Suicide Squad v1 #1-7, 11-21, 23-26, 32-38, 50, 51, 53-55, 57-59, 61-67
Secret Origins #28
Captain Atom v3 #14, 22, 23, 30, 49
Eclipso #14-18
L.A.W. (Living Assault Weapons) #1-6
Day of Vengeance #1-6
Day of Vengeance: Infinite Crisis Special
Infinite Crisis 2, 3, 5, 6
Suicide Squad v3 #1, 8
Shadowpact #1-25
Reign in Hell #1-8
Justice League of America v2 #54-56

Posted in Charlton Comics, DC, Heroes, Shadowpact, Suicide Squad | 3 Comments

Karen Page

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Mackenzie

Apologies for the hiatus—I was busy moving. But today, Marvel posts resume, with…

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Daredevil #1 (1964)
Created By: Stan Lee & Bill Everett

Biography

Like many actors, Karen Page took a day job to pay the bills, becoming the secretary for the Nelson & Murdock law firm. Luckily, this place had a special benefit: a super-hot boss (that’d be Matt—sorry, Foggy) who was also into her. She also kind of dug Daredevil, Hell’s Kitchen’s resident superhero. When it turned out that the two dudes in her life were one and the same, it seemed like a dream come true, but Karen turned out to be rather reasonably worried about Matt constantly. They broke up, and she moved to California to try acting full-time.

At first, everything was looking pretty rosy—Karen landed and sweet gig on a soap opera almost immediately. But soon, she found herself struggling with a crippling heroin habit and making porn to pay for her drugs. At her lowest point, she actually sold Daredevil’s secret identity for a hit of heroin. Despite this, Matt helped her overcome her addiction and they got back together, though it remained an off-and-on relationship. She rebounded as a popular radio DJ, but she was often overcome with guilt over her betrayal of Matt.

Eventually, she was used by the villain Mysterio in a convoluted plan to destroy Daredevil. She was told by Mysterio (disguised as a doctor) that she was HIV positive, creating extra anguish for her and Matt. Which got even worse when she ended up being killed by Bullseye, thus becoming Matt’s second lady friend to be killed by him, and the second to die in Matt’s arms.

So What’s So Great About Her?

If there were an award for Most Screwed-Over Character in Comics (Love Interest category), Karen Page would be an extremely serious contender. What began as a relatively innocent, standard Stan Lee set-up—lovely lady underling secretly pines for her boss, who is secretly a superhero and is also secretly pining back—really spiraled into a tornado of sadness, didn’t it? Prepare to be shocked, but the person responsible for transforming Karen from a receptionist turned soap star to a heroin-addicted porn star was none other than Frank Miller.

It’s safe to say that Miller is a controversial figure at comics, but most fans do agree that the reveal of sweet Karen Page as a heroin addict selling Matt’s identity for a quick fix is one of the most jaw-dropping moments in the history of comics. And I’m not one to say that comics can never have their female characters go down a bad road. But may I just suggest that the power of the moment is somewhat tempered by the fact that it appeared the very same month that The Dark Knight Returns debuted, featuring Catwoman as a drugged brothel madam?

Still, I guess it could have been a lot worse. Karen ended up redeemed. She suffered surprisingly little shame for what went down and even started up with Matt again. (Can we nominate him for Most Forgiving Superhero while we’re still on an awards kick? Because if someone went around and sold my deepest secret for a high, I’d never want to be in the same room with them again, let alone make out with them.) She learned from her experiences and became an advocate, using her radio talk show as a platform to speak out against addiction. So, let’s see…Karen was a smart, awesome woman with three very successful careers and a relationship that managed to stay relatively stable (by comics standards, people) despite throwing addiction, betrayal, and superheroing into the mix. The obvious thing to do was kill her off.

It’s so agonizing that a character as quietly cool and strong as Karen was murdered to make Daredevil sad. We’re not even given a definitive answer as to whether Karen was actually HIV-positive—Mysterio hinted that it could have just been an extra touch of agony on top of the pain sandwich.

And to top it off, after a B-list villain not even from his own rogues gallery easily found out his identity and had his longtime lover murdered right in front of him? Daredevil did not stop dating. Screw you, comics.

Notable Appearances

Daredevil #1-86; 100; Annual #1
Ghost Rider (vol.2) #13-15; 17; 19-27
Daredevil #138; 227-263; 294-375
Daredevil (vol.2) #2-8; 59
Daredevil: Yellow #2-6

Posted in Civilians, Daredevil, Marvel | 2 Comments

Cir-El (Supergirl/Mia) Cirl-El (Supergirl/Mia)

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Jessica

Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Superman: The 10 Cent Adventure (2003)
Created By: Steven Seagle and Scott McDaniel

Biography:

Imagine that you’re going about your day when you witness a supervillain attack. (In the DCU, they call that “Wednesday.”) Suddenly a perky teenager with super-strength and a really awful costume leaps into the fray and saves everyone’s bacon. When asked who she is, she announces that she’s Supergirl, Superman’s daughter.

Now imagine that you’re married to Superman.

Lois was understandably unhappy about the sudden arrival of the extremely plucky Cir-El, even though Cir-El insisted that Lois was her mother – or would be. See, Cir-El had been brought to the past by the mysterious Futuresmiths, who now insisted that she die to ensure that their dystopian future would come to be. Clark, of course, wasn’t about to stand for teen-murdering, daughter or no. He rescued her and took her under his wing as family of a sort, even when the S.T.A.R. Labs DNA test revealed her to be his daughter…but not Lois’s.

During her brief stint as maybe-Supergirl, Cir-El got to team up with a bunch of different heroes: once with Superboy, Power Girl, Natasha “Steel” Irons, and the Batkids in an effort to rescue Superman and Batman from the Lex Luthor-controlled White House; another time with Traci 13 and Natasha again to save Superman from an angry ninja ghost. Like you do.

But eventually the truth came out: Cir-El was not Kryptonian, and not Clark’s daughter, by Lois or anyone else. She was an angry young woman named Mia who lived on the streets and hated her chipper alter ego. Knowing Clark would never hurt his own child, Brainiac had grafted Kryptonian DNA and false memories onto Mia to pass her off as Superman’s daughter as part of a long and convoluted scheme to take over the world using nano-tech-spiked coffee. Yes, really.

Determined to prevent this, Cir-El leapt into a time portal to prevent herself from ever existing, and the whole adventure was erased from everyone’s memory, including the readers’. (She did, however, get one last hurrah when Bizarro’s time traveling machinations allowed her to team up with Linda, Power Girl, and both pre- and post-Crisis Karas.)

So What’s So Great About Her?

Poor Cir-El. It’s hard to be the Supergirl who comes between Peter David’s wonderful series starring Linda Danvers, and the long-awaited return of Kara Zor-El to modern continuity. The fact that her plotline is incoherent and her costume looks like she got it off the sale rack at Capezio’s doesn’t help.

Still, I can’t help but like her. Part of that is my natural instinct to like anyone calling themselves Supergirl, of course, but mostly it’s because she brings something that’s sorely lacking in comics: sweetness. She wants to help her dad. She wants to be friends with everyone. She always expects the best from people, and even with her memories of hailing from a dystopian future, she has trouble watching people be hurt. It’s refreshing.

Of course, even with that sweetness, and a certain naïveté that makes her seem younger than sixteen, she’s able to make the ultimate sacrifice. That’s remarkable, coming from someone who’s just a figment of Brainiac’s cyber-imagination.

Then, of course, there’s Mia, who was depicted as kind of a scruffy, cranky urchin in Superman and a tough-as-nails goth girl so angry at what Superman represents that she got a bloody S-shield tattooed on her forehead in Action Comics. As ludicrously wannabe-cool as forehead tattoos are, either depiction is a pretty strong contrast with perky Cir-El, and it would have been nice to see that explored further before she was wiped from continuity.

Cir-El probably won’t be resurrected any time soon, but she while she was around she was a unique if bizarre take on the Supergirl brand. As brief as her time in comics was, I think she got her last wish: she made Superman proud.

Notable Appearances:

Superman: The Ten Cent Adventure
Superman v2 #190-193, 195, 197-200
Action Comics v1 #807-808
Superman/Batman #5, 24, 25

Posted in DC, Heroes, Superman | Leave a comment

Yrra Cynril (Fatality/Star Sapphire)

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Jessica

Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Green Lantern v3 #83 (February 1997)
Created By: Ron Marz and Darryl Banks

Biography:

The oldest child of the rulers of the planet Xanshi, Yrra Cynril was sent by her folks to be trained by the Warlords of Okaara, which is like finishing school for alien princesses with fabulous hair. While she was offworld, her planet was destroyed by a yellow bomb, thanks in part to a screw-up of John Stewart’s (accidentally destroying a planet is like a rite of passage for Green Lanterns). Oopsies!

Grief-stricken and vengeful, Yrra christened herself Fatality and dedicated herself to destroying all Green Lanterns. However, Hal Jordan had already kind of beaten her to the punch during his wacky mass-murdering Parallax shenanigans, so Fatality had to settle for beating up on Kyle Rayner, which was fun until she lost an arm in a fight with a tentacled alien monster. Comics!

Rearmed in both senses of the word by the Qwardians, Fatality showed up a few more times to attack Kyle, then-civilian John, and Jade. Along the way, she lost the other arm and was given another prosthetic by Earth authorities. She spent some time bumming around Earth as a generic villain (and had her ear bitten off by Scandal Savage) before heading to the Vega system to become a bounty hunter.

After a brief stint in the Sinestro Corps, she was captured by the Star Sapphires and imprisoned in a love cocoon (not a metaphor), which replaced the vengeance in her heart with love. Sure, why not? She tracked down John, laid a wet one on him, and told him she forgave him. Most recently, she joined up with Kyle’s makeshift rainbow corps as their Star Sapphire.

So What’s So Great About Her?

You know what’s kind of weird? How even though there are like fifty planets with aliens who look just like humans in the DCU, they’re all either non-human colors (blue, green, purple, etc.), or white. And by “kind of weird,” I mean “super racist.” Aside from the vanishingly rare minority members of the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Forever People’s unfortunately-named Vykin the Black, Fatality’s the only alien I can think of who resembles an actual Earth minority, Tolkien ears aside. She’s also one of maybe half a dozen black supervillainesses in the DCU, which is a weird thing to shoot for equality on, but it’s nice to see a black woman in comics who’s not the lost princess of a made-up African country or a teen superheroine’s sassy best friend.

No, what Fatality is is a warrior – the most doggedly determined one ever. There’s something both admirable and incredibly endearing about her determination to WREAK VENGEANCE even after losing both arms and an ear; she’s like Monty Python’s Black Knight (“It’s just a flesh wound! I’ll bite your legs off!”). Then, too, there’s the fact that she goes after Green Lanterns – you know, the guys with the rings that can do anything? – with pointy sticks. And wins.

I’ll be honest – I have basically no interest in all this rainbow Lantern Corps stuff, and when I hear about Star Sapphires I mostly hear “blah blah 1960s sexism blah blah skimpy outfits blah.” I wasn’t thrilled to find out that Fatality is now among their ranks (or to see that she looks a lot more white now).

But I am glad that Fatality is getting a big role in the current Green Lantern books, because she’s an interesting and incredibly tough character, and she deserves plenty of focus. If the whole Star Sapphire concept can be redeemed, I have no doubt she’s an excellent character to do it with.

And heck, even if it can’t, that won’t stop her from kicking ass. Nothing else could!

Notable Appearances:

Green Lantern v3 #82-85, 111, 112, 121, 123, 131, 132, 141, 142, 147, 156, 176-178
Villains United #1-3
Salvation Run #3, 5, 6
Justice League of America v2 #13-15
Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #3, 4
Green Lantern Corps v2 30, 46
Green Lantern v4 #36, 38, 40-42, 44-46, 52
Blackest Night #1, 7, 8
Blackest Night: Green Lantern #1
Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #2

Yrra is currently appearing in Green Lantern: New Guardians.

Posted in DC, Green Lantern, Heroes, Villains | 2 Comments

Selene Gallio (Black Queen)

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Mackenzie

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: New Mutants #9 (1983)
Created By: Chris Claremont & Sal Buscema

Biography

Selene looked pretty good for a 17,000-year-old. Her beauty secret: being a psychic vampire who fed upon the life-forces of others. (She was an External, a very rare type of immortal mutant.) She tooled around the ages, being generally evil. One of her bad-guy plans was to eat the souls of everyone in ancient Rome, which luckily didn’t succeed.

But she did like Rome enough that she created Nova Roma, an isolated town in the Amazon with residents who believed themselves to be the descendants of actual Roman colonists. (This was retconned into being Selene’s very recent brainwashing of kidnapped people and then unretconned, and I’m not sure what the official story is now. Let’s just go with this.) She had a good time being worshipped, marrying some dudes, having some kids, eating some souls. It was all a lark until the New Mutants, one of whom was her own granddaughter, Magma, knocked her into some lava.

When she resurfaced in New York City, Selene joined that most evil band of Georgian cosplayers, the Hellfire Club, a semi-secret society of rich, powerful, influential, corset-loving people (and mutants, and sometimes robots). She quickly rose to the high rank of Black Queen and set her sights on running the whole stupid chess game analogy, thus earning the contempt of several of her fellow Hellfireans, including Emma Frost, the White Queen.

Eventually, Selene started a group of young mutants, the Upstarts, to go on a murderating spree—one of her major targets were the Hellions, Emma’s group of teenaged students; their deaths haunt her to this day. This reign of terror only ended when she was nearly killed by one of the Upstarts herself. Killing the other few Externals and absorbing their energy was the only thing that perked her up. After all, the best part of waking up is an immortal soul in your cup.

At the pinnacle of her crazy, Selene gathered some of her new pals (mostly lost, confused souls, like Blink and former Hellion 2.0 Wither) to join her in resurrecting millions of dead people in Genosha, a mutant haven that was destroyed a while back. She started absorbing all these newly awakened souls, becoming an actual goddess for like a hot minute before X-Force’s Warpath stabbed her in the chest and ended the party.

So What’s So Great About Her?

I can’t believe I’m actually going to write this, but here goes: Selene is the less classy version of Emma Frost.

Because whereas Emma, for all her (ahem) “frostiness,” can actually feel things on occasion, Selene has exactly zero time for any of that—she will (and has) straight-up murder a dude immediately after he declares his centuries-long love for her. Emma is devoted to her students and snarlingly protective of them. Selene seduces deeply troubled teenage boys when it suits her purposes. Emma is capable of wearing pants for long stretches of time. When Selene wears pants, you get the sense that she looks at it as an amusing yet rare diversion, like cosplaying or wearing that fedora you spent way too much on at Anthropologie just once.

White Queen, Black Queen—the two women are obviously intended to be foils, to be funhouse mirror images of each other in some ways, and thank God for that. There are comparatively few recurring female villains in the Marvel Universe, and so it kind of sucked to see one of the more interesting ones, Emma, be redeemed and on the side of good. Selene, by nature, cannot be redeemed. If she does, she’s dead (again—I have no doubts she’ll be returning someday). She’s just going to keep on absorbing people’s souls like it ain’t no thing, and that’s awesome. It’s good to have a majorly scary, powerful baddie be a woman, and a repulsively evil one at that.

Because seriously, Selene is like a force of nature, and I’m glad the recent Necrosha plot made that clear and got her back on track. I’m fond of the Hellfire Club and its gaudy ridiculousness, but it never made any sense for a 17,000-year-old vampiric mutant to waste her time navigating the social and political intrigues of it all. Just freaking eat them, Selene! You’re allowed wear a corset even if you don’t join their special club! You can totally buy one at JCPenney!

Notable Appearances

New Mutants #9-11
Uncanny X-Men #183-184
New Mutants #22-23
Uncanny X-Men #189
Firestar #3-4
Uncanny X-Men #207-210
New Mutants #51; 53-54; 61; 70-75
Captain America #369
Marvel Comics Presents #78; 89
Uncanny X-Men #283; 301
Excalibur Annual #2
X-Man #7; 13; 16-17; 20-23; 28
X-Force #53-54; 75; 94; 96-99
X-Men Unlimited #33
Uncanny X-Men #452-454
New X-Men (vol.2) #32
X-Force (vol.3) #11; 19; 21-25
X-Necrosha #1
X-Men: Legacy #231

Posted in Marvel, Villains, X-Men | 1 Comment

Elizabeth “Betty” Cooper

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Jessica

And now, the second half of our Valentine’s Day feature!

Publisher: Archie Comics
First Appearance: Pep Comics #22 (December 1941)
Created By: Vic Bloom and Bob Montana; her modern look was created by Dan DeCarlo

Biography:

Betty Cooper lives in Riverdale, Anywheresville USA with her parents, Hal and Alice, and her cat Caramel. She has an older brother, Chic, who lives in New York, and an older sister, Polly, who lives in San Francisco. Though she likes and is liked by pretty much everyone in the entire world, her absolute best friend is Veronica Lodge, the richest girl in town.

Betty is a straight-A student and aspiring writer with an above-average IQ. She’s won numerous academic awards and had her writing published in several magazines. She’s also athletic: she specializes in gymnastics and cheerleading, but also excels at baseball, softball, basketball, racecar driving, scuba diving, karate, swimming, and surfing. She can outrun the fastest male athletes at Riverdale High. She sings backup and plays the tambourine in the moderately-successful band The Archies, but can also handle herself on the guitar, banjo, keyboard, saxophone, cello, bongos, and maracas when necessary. She enjoys cooking, baking, gardening, and sewing, and often mimics Veronica’s designer outfits with her own creations. She loves animals and children and has worked as a babysitter, camp counselor, lifeguard, and Girl Scout leader (because, of course, she’s also good at woodcraft). She also enjoys spending time with the elderly. She loves the environment and is a skilled mechanic. I’m 99% sure she poops apple pies and bleeds pure patriotism.

Also there’s some boy named Archie who she likes. Whatever.

So What’s So Great About Her?

Betty was the first female character I’d encountered who was good with cars. I didn’t read superhero comics until college, but in elementary school I was alllll about the Betty and Veronica Double Digests, and I distinctly remember being surprised that Betty was always fixing Archie’s car. Cars were boy things, and even though Betty was good at sports, she wasn’t a tomboy – she wore dresses and liked sewing and shopping and writing “Mrs. Betty Andrews” 400 times on her Trapper-Keeper, which were definitely girl things. How could this be???

I didn’t understand it, but I liked it – Betty was always my favorite Archie character. And now that I’m an adult, I like it even more! Betty likes traditionally feminine activities, but that doesn’t make her stupid or frivolous, and she likes traditionally masculine activities, but that doesn’t make her any less of a girl. Revolutionary!

Sure, there are a heck of a lot of problematic aspects to the way Archie Comics handle female characters, and Betty embodies many of them: the fact that her niceness makes her undesirable, her obsession with Archie, her competition with Veronica, her tendency to be simultaneously violently jealous and a doormat, and the vague ookiness of perfect teenage girl Americana being embodied in someone so frankly, well, Aryan.

But she’s also one of the only female characters in mainstream American comics that actually targets young girls. And unlike Veronica, who I also love but who is not particularly intended to be a role model, Betty is intended to be – and most of the time is – a shining example of what girls can do. Seriously, there’s no skill that Betty doesn’t have or can’t attain. When she doesn’t know how to do something, she learns it. When she can’t afford something, she raises the money or makes it herself. She embodies good cheer, compassion, and resourcefulness, and those are all important things for girls to see. Betty’s supposed to be “ordinary” in comparison to Veronica’s glamour, yet she shows us that so-called ordinary girls can be extraordinary.

Oh, and speaking of Veronica – yeah, she and Betty fight over Archie. They also, at the end of the day, value each other more than they value Archie. Behind the shallowness of their relationships with Archie lies a real, solid friendship.

Betty’s not exactly a realistic character, but she’s not meant to be – she’s a cartoon. But she’s a cartoon who has shown millions of little girls over the past 70 years that they can excel in any area they choose. If her greatest flaw is bad taste in men, well, we all make mistakes, right?

Notable Appearances:

Nearly everything ever published by Archie Comics? Seriously, she’s in everything, but here are a few of her starring titles:

Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica (1951-1987)
Betty and Me (1965-1992)
Betty and Veronica Digest/B & V Friends Double Digest (1980-present)
Betty’s Diary (1986-1990)
Betty and Veronica (1987-present)
Betty and Veronica Double Digest Magazine (1987-present)
Betty (1992-2012)

Posted in Archie Comics, Civilians | 1 Comment