Damsels in distress

Hot on the heels of the announcement that the Spider-Man film franchise would feature a teenage reboot akin to X-Men, I read an article filled with reactions from comic book professionals. One response was from seasoned artist Gerry Conway who said:

"I also was never fond of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. Again, a terrific actor, but she didn't strike me as the right casting for MJ -- MJ, in my view, is a woman who's cursed by the expectations others have for her based on her appearance. She should appear to be a vaguely slutty babe, and whatever one might say about Dunst, wonderful actress that she may be, a babe she's not.... [S]he should present as a Bad Girl, as misunderstood and underestimated by the world as Peter is. Recasting these actors can only improve the impact of the franchise."

It made me start to think about the role of the romantic interest in the realm of action/adventure. What does it take to be the leading lady to a leading man? When you are the non-powered, ever present damsel-in-distress, what qualities do you need to compliment your stalwart hero?

Lois Lane

Indisputably the most iconic damsel-in-distress in comics, Lois may in fact be the most recognizable D.I.D. in the world. On one level, Lois is the ultimate gold digger. Often in the comics she either dates or has dated Lex Luthor, indicating her preference for powerful men. The irony in her character is that she is chasing the world's most powerful and inaccessible man while ignoring the shy, honest, and intelligent Clark Kent sitting at the desk next to her.

What works about this relationship is that Lois Lane may shoot for the most powerful man on Earth, but she is tough enough to deal with him. Lois is someone who thrives by adversity. She is a hard-nosed journalist who believes in truth, justice, and the American way.

Lana Lang

Superman's childhood love interest was usually used as a foil against Lois, but in the overall Superman mythos, she represents Clark's youth in Smallville. She is his first love and there will never be another like her, but ultimately, Clark has to grow up and leave behind the simple life he had probably imagined before gaining his powers.

Mary Jane Watson

As Mr. Conway pointed out, there was always something a bit slutty about MJ. This is not meant to disparage her. There is nothing wrong with being slutty, but she showed up at Peter Parker's door with the words, "Face it, Tiger, you just hit the jackpot!" She is a model and actress who has always wanted to be a model and actress. Essentially, she is someone who is really extroverted and an exhibitionist... as compared to Peter who is quite, humble, and often happy to go relatively unnoticed.

This dichotomy is not something addressed much in the Spider-Man mythos. Mainly, they focus on the usual problem with superheroes being late for dates thereby making their girlfriend mad. But seeing as Peter Parker is quite definitely a science geek while MJ is a drama queen, there is a lot of tension to be exploited in this relationship.

Gwen Stacy

Adding another layer of complexity to their relationship is Peter's relationship with Gwen Stacy. Although I'm not old enough to have read much about her before she died, the significance of Gwen Stacy has echoed long after her death... largely because of it. Even in the issue where Peter marries Mary Jane, he spends his last night as a bachelor thinking Gwen Stacy was the real love of his life that he lost. Seeing as fans and writers alike seem to have mixed feelings about his relationship with Mary Jane, maybe Spider-Man is just not a character who should have a single love.

Again, although I didn't read the original comics, subsequent comics have portrayed Gwen as a bright light in Peter's often miserable life. Consequently, Peter looks back at this relationship and has to wonder if he missed the one girl for him.

Carol Ferris

Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan's lady love was actually his boss. A strange situation to be in, Carol was constantly stringing Hal along while chasing Green Lantern, echoing Lois Lane's relationship with Superman.

The dynamic is an interesting one. In many ways, Hal is more of an old-fashioned guy than the other superheroes. He is a soldier and a test pilot practically oozing machismo, so it's interesting that the woman of his dreams was a young woman who ran a major aeronautics company. It isn't really surprising that Hal had trouble trying to get her to settle down and commit to him.

Iris West

The Flash's lady love was one of the few who didn't have her eye on a certain spandex clad local hero, despite her being a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper. Her only really purpose in the story was to ironically call Barry Allen the slowest man on Earth because he could never keep appointments while saving humanity as the Flash.

Steve Trevor

Our only male entry in "damsels-in-distress," Steve Trevor definitely qualifies. This career military officer had his eyes on Wonder Woman from the beginning, but overlooked the dowdy, bespectacled Diana Prince.

Like Hal Jordan, he reversed gender expectations by chasing after the unachievable woman. Through her rejection of Steve, Diana was demonstrating that she did not want to be subordinate to a man... although she would be subordinate to a woman and had occasional thoughts of having Steve subordinate to her.

Princess Leia

Possibly the best damsel-in-distress ever! She is the whole motivation of the first and best Star Wars film perfectly demonstrating the trope of the princess captured by a dark and evil king in an inaccessible fortress. She lies to her captors, insults her rescuers, then steals a blaster and starts taking command. She also likes to kiss her brother and bang scruffy looking men.

Angelina Jolie will be playing her in the remake.

Alexandra DeWitt

Kyle Rayner's girlfriend was created to give him a sense of revenge and is used as short hand for misogyny demonstrated through harming female characters to motivate male characters to avenge them. Personally, I think it's kind of a silly thing to get upset about.

Most Modern Playboy Award

And the award for pop culture icon least needing a significant other to define him goes to... Batman! Here is a man who has never been awkwardly paired with any woman consistently throughout his many incarnations. The first comics featured his girlfriend, Julie Madison; the first movie co-starred Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale; Talia had his baby; and Catwoman married him in an alternate universe, but no one can really tie him down.

Although I may be forgetting someone...

Poetry

Separated.

Words fail me.

My voice seems a weak, discordant thing.

Mangled, quiet, confused.

Echoing in my head repetitively.

Betrayed by words

Frightful things

Can kill you

But never in your power

A source of deception

Self-deception

Delusion

To own a thing by naming it

To capture its essence in a sound

Reduced the sound to abstract symbols

And train your mind to think the word was greater than the reality.

----

Alone.

I live a life with a cardboard cut out.

A place holder.

An imaginary friend

Who I forget is there.

I lie in bed at night with pillow on either side of me

Large pillows that feel like another body next to me

Which ever side I want to sleep on

I have a pillow to hold.

I can't sleep without the sound of a running ceiling fan.

It drowns out all other sound

Like a heart beat or another breath.

I never cook

But I love to cook.

I love to experiment with cooking.

But when you don't have much money

And only yourself to feed

There is no need to impress anyone

And I don't feel the same sense of satisfaction

From delighting my own taste buds.

I take a lot of pleasure from the emotions of others.

I live vicariously through them.

I love to watch TV shows or movies with friends.

Their laughter makes things funnier

Or maybe I'm just laughing at how hard they are laughing.

Women get more emotionally involved with films.

It is fun when they become emotionally attached to entirely fictional events.

I'm a little too detached, I think.

Without company, television and movies aren't much fun.

The conversations I miss most of all.

Our conversations seemed to go on forever.

Or is my memory wrong?

Were there many uncomfortable silences

Or periods when we were just plain boring?

I don't remember it that way.

I remember long-winding conversations spiraling to and from every point

From irrelevant pop culture to social observations to spiritual philosophy

Nothing left unexplored

And no end in sight.

The mornings are always disappointing.

I never remember a dream

But wake with my mind racing

On trivial things

The same things I think of when I'm awake.

Morning wood tempting me

I sometimes resist.

But usually I lie deep under the covers

My sore eyes struggle to focus on the alarm clock

I wake up way too early.

I always wake up way too early.
Waking, like sleeping, is a waiting game.

Staring at the clock for hours

Negotiating the minutes in my mind

But I always wait as long as possible

Gathering the blankets close around me to protect me from the morning air

Finally, I crawl out of bed frozen and with a haze in my brain.

I stumble into the bathroom

My eyes adjust to harsh white light.

I try to focus on the tub

And spot the daily trail of ants seeking water.

I try to drown as many as possible with the shower head.

It's an ugly way to start the day.

And I spend the time thawing

Trying to prepare for a new day

And knowing that when it is over

I have this to look forward to the following morning.

Showers are a much better thing to share.

A cramped, awkward, and dangerous shower shared

Is far better than a spacious one alone.

Someone to wash your back for you

And tweak your nipple when you aren't expecting it.

Warm, wet bodies.

Nothing quite like the sensation of a warm, wet, naked hug.

And is it my imagination

Or are people more beautiful in the shower?

----

Vanilla girl

She's a good girl.

I love her deeply.

The sweetest laugh.

Adoring eyes.

The brightest smile.

She thinks the world of me.

And attributes to me wisdom

That I doubt I have.

She holds me with affection

And fears I'll one day leave.

I hold her closer.

Protecting her like porcelain.

But all I want

What I really need

Is for her to hold me down.

I don't need much.

I don't want much.

A word.

A whisper.

Not a slap

But a tug on the leash.

A subtle reminder

That she holds me

Owns me.

Not because I let her

But because my heart does.

Only then can I be free.

That she would but think to claim me.

That she would choose to have me.

If she could only know

The power she possesses over me

If only she would claim it.

I long for the strength of surrender.

The feeling of purpose and dedication.

With the love that such a close bond must engender.

But I can only love you as a father does

Protecting but never nurturing.

Always guiding, but never guided.

Always responsible.

Always carrying the burden.

----

Floundering

What a wonderfully descriptive word

Like a fish lying on the dock

Desperate to return to the water

But not possessing a single muscle capable of navigating the alien landscape.

By chance alone

His floundering might enable him to reach the water

But when chance and strength fail

The fish stops struggling

Only a few flips and flops

More instinct than ambition

Until it is just trying to breathe

Eyes open

Always.

Fantasy Comics

When I was a kid, I loved sword and sorcery tales... or "fantasy" as it was referred to in an overly simplistic way. (Really, aren't they all fantasies?) Maybe it was growing up in the country with acres to tromp across and sticks to act as swords, or maybe it was the hero's journey and exploring the world.

In any case, I would rarely write any similar stories, but mostly worked in science fiction or superheroes. But there are a couple ideas I've had bouncing around in the back of my head for a while...

The first is the story of a child hero who used to travel to a magical world of war and wonder (i.e. Harry Potter, Alice, or the Narnia kids). However, after puberty hit, he found that he could no longer return to that world and was stuck in his normal boring life where nothing he did really mattered. He tried to convince people of his childhood adventures, but all that came of that was being put on medication. So now our hero is in his late teens/early twenties and plagued by depression when the barrier between worlds starts to come down and evil creatures from the other side invade his world.

I'm not sure how I want to tell this story. I was thinking about having a different protagonist. Possibly a young girl who finds the young man and he acts as her guide. So his sub-plot would be about trying to reconcile who he was with who he is.

I was also thinking about how this world crosses over with ours. I was watching a special feature for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus when Terry Gilliam said something that interested me about how the villain of the piece corrupts the beauty of the fantasy world... and in the sketches, you can see a great staircase leading down to a beautiful river where a beautiful girl in a gondola is slowly floating down to an area in the river filled with scum, a tire, a shopping cart, and assorted other junk.

It occurred to me that the story could be about a battle between the fantasy world of childhood and the corrupt pragmatism of the "real world." Sort of "what it could be" versus "what it is." In that sense, it would fit the theme of the male lead personally and the story becomes something of an attempt to recapture the imagination he lost... possibly through the girl, if she is the protagonist.

The other idea I have falls along similar lines, but not so similar that I could combine the two. I've often questioned why the creatures of the fantasy genre are confined to medieval history and wondered what would happen if you followed such a world through the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Wild West, and straight into present day. I imagined elves confined to reservations and "integrated" elves forming gangs in inner cities or just becoming bums. Then you would have dwarves, trolls, ogres, etc. When teenage girls get into magic, they really can fuck things up. There is a black market for things like unicorn horns or dragon's scales.

The protagonist of this story would be a cop, but in this world, the cops are like paladins. They look pretty much like a normal cop, but they know magic and carry enchanted items. Their badges have been enchanted with powers of protection, so when they refer to it as their "shield" it has a double-meaning.

Like the other one, I'm not sure where this would go, but I'd like to keep it in the crime genre with tongue-in-cheek fantasy references. The villain I imagine would be a sorcerer either collecting ingredients or carrying out a hit list. Maybe there would be an FBI investigator stepping on our hero's toes.

Anyway, I think these would both work well as comics and I'm surprised there aren't more fantasy comics. The genre lends itself to the medium very well with visually distinct creatures, heavy doses of action, and the ability to include lengthy exposition or character development.

Food for thought.

Life

Just something I found at imgur.com

Day dream

I've been having a reoccurring day dream where I'm a caveman at the dawn of man with pretty much nothing to separate me from any other animal. Not a single square inch of the Earth has been colonized, built upon, or even irrigated... not that I would know it. It is a time before words, much less laws, where all is feeling and emotion. There is no marriage or dating. We lie with whoever we want with no preconceived expectations. We hunt, fight, and live... but do not think. Not in the traditional sense. We feel and live by our emotions unrestricted by logic and reason.

Then I give that caveman a shave, separate him from his tribe, place him in an office and set him in front of a computer to answer tech support calls all day.

I have another reoccurring day dream. I'm a caveman raging and smashing everything around me because I don't know how to get home. I punch the computer screens. I overturn the desk. I stand on the rubble and scream furiously.

And everyone looks at me like I'm wrong.

Wonder Woman and the Philosophy of Submission

Comicbookresources.com has been running a continuing article on Wonder Woman, supposedly to draw interest to the prominent, but rarely popular, character. Of course, I've ignored most of it, only glancing about for an article that talks about her controversial origins.

And I finally found one. Enjoy.

Everyone talks about Disney princesses...

... and what kind of example they set for young girls.

Well, what about Disney princes and young boys?