Sunday Grab Bag of Failastic Fail: Marvel Divas, Marvel to Ruin She-Hulk Film
At this point, with rare exceptions, every time Marvel opens its mouth to talk about the state of women and female characters in the industry, I instinctively tense up, because I know that my soul is going to hurt by the time I get two sentences in.
Let's start off with Soul-Crushing Failure #1: Megan Fox tapped to play She-Hulk in upcoming film. Nothing against Megan Fox, but she's not exactly who I picture as Jennifer Walters either in her Jen form or as She-Hulk. Even worse? Nicolas Cage is heavily involved in the film, and I'm going to just, you know, throw out a few choice quotes from Nicolas from the article:
"The 'Transformers' star is favourite to portray the giant green female in the big screen adaptation of the popular comic book series about The Incredible Hulk's cousin.
A source said: "'She-Hulk' comics are popular so it's only natural that the character makes the transition to the big screen.
"The idea is to make She-Hulk sexier but even more savage than the Hulk, which is why Megan is the big favorite for the lead. She'll be green of course and will have to hang on to a few more pieces of clothes than the male version when she transforms!"
If the movie goes ahead the 22-year-old actress will play lawyer Jennifer Walters, who dramatically transforms into the powerful monster when she is angry.
Comic book fan Nicolas Cage recently admitted he wants his 'Ghost Rider' co-star Eva Mendes to be considered for the part.
Nicolas - who is closely involved with the production of the movie - said: 'I'm working on 'She-Hulk' and I'd like to see Eva play her. It would be her in a bikini just kicking a lot of a*s, throwing cars. I'm trying to put that together as we speak.'"
The gateau of fail here! So many moist, rich layers of fail! It's like having a three-star Michelin chef BAKE YOU YOUR OWN CAKE OF FAIL. So that's the summation, in Nicolas Cage's mind, of the essence of She-Hulk: hot, bikini, throwing around cars. Not emphasizing Jen's smarts, savvy, and overall awesome levels of personal resilience. Look, he might as well have said that it's going to be a film where Megan Fox shows as much T&A as possible with maybe one or two gratuitous courtroom scenes where Megan Fox attempts to articulate intelligently, and these would be thrown in just to placate people who might have a basic attachment to certain elements of Jen's comic canon.
Marvel thinks that She-Hulk comics are so popular that they cancelled her series just a few months ago so that Fred Van Lente could write miniseries about the future!daughter of Bruce and Thundra who remorselessly hunts down saber-toothed tigers for dinner in a future dystopia where, of course, a female-dominated society is presented as evil. Although I like Fred Van Lente, this is not the way to get me to read your comic, sir.
I'm almost hesitant to post about this next Soul-Crushing Failure, because I can already feel my neck muscles clenching, but Marvel's decided that it makes perfectly good sense to do a miniseries called, I shit you not, Marvel Divas. They're doing their best to publicize it.
Behold Marvel Divas:
J. Scott Campbell did the cover. As you can see, it approaches a critical mass of abject and all-encompassing failure. J. Scott Campbell is obviously giving the late Michael Turner some serious competition in horrific execution when it comes to female anatomy:
✔ Overtly sexualized poses crafted to appeal to the male gaze
✔ Implausible anatomy that is OFF the Turner scale
✔ Vacuous expressions
Wow, a trifecta!
But wait! Are you ready for some cognitive disconnect? Marvel is making noises that this series is marketed towards female readers.
Let's see what Marvel's official position is on this new venture, shall we? This from the April 9th MyCup o' Joe column on MySpace:
This also seems like the perfect time to announce our Marvel Divas limited series, beginning in July, from Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tonci Zonjic, featuring some of the Marvel Universe’s greatest female heroes in a way you haven’t seem them before.
I’ll let Roberto explain:
“The idea behind the series was to have some sudsy fun and lift the curtain a bit and take a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines. In the series, they're an unlikely foursome of friends--Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar, and Photon--with TWO things in common: They're all leading double-lives and they're all having romantic trouble. The pitch started as "Sex and the City" in the Marvel Universe, and there's definitely that "naughty" element to it, but I also think the series is doing to a deeper place, asking question about what it means...truly means...to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.) But mostly it's just a lot of hot fun."
Gaia on a goddamn pogo stick, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, please stop talking if that's your serious pitch for the series, because you thrust your fabulous Gucci loafer so far inside your mouth that it's just performed a spontaneous tonsillectomy. Sex and the City in the Marvelverse? I'm not opposed to more romance in mainstream superhero comics -- in fact, I'm in favor of more romance, since both Marvel and DC have been hating on couples so much of late -- but this really reads like an instinctive reaction by male writers and editors when asked the question "what would a comic series aimed at female readers be like?" Well, Sex and the City, of course! Because girls want to read about female heroes and their sexual/romantic misadventures! (Disclaimer: I actually do want to read about female heroes and their sexual misadventures, I just don't want to read about it this way, particularly when the emphasis is on titillation rather than substantive stories about Monica Patsy Walker shopping at Good Vibrations or whatever.)
When Marvel tries to pitch a mini about male characters that are having "hot" and "sudsy" fun in the dating game, then I'll shut up.
Who wants to bet that Firestar gets cast as the Charlotte, Patsy gets cast as a Carrie, Felicia gets cast as a Samantha, and that leaves Monica as the Miranda. Because it makes perfect sense to template a show about four wealthy white women and their romantic escapades over the very wholesome and young Firestar (who is kind of the Mary Marvel of the Marvel universe), the very much romance-aversive Black Cat (unless you're Spider-Man), the very practical former maritime cop Monica, and the woman who married Satan's son, went insane, and committed suicide (I call that Insta-Fridging Via Insanity). Look, I know that Marvel is now recasting Patsy Walker back to her carefree teen roots and taking a lighter approach with her, but to gloss over everything that happened to Patsy Walker after she became Hellcat and joined the Avengers does a bit of a disservice to her character.
Interestingly, when you google "marvel divas," almost ALL of the reactions you see are negative. I mean, I haven't seen this much of a negative reaction to an upcoming move by Marvel since One More Day.
Don't believe me? LOOK:
Jezebel.com says they hate it already.
Hardocre Nerdity gives it a thumbs down.
Rich Watson over at Pop Culture Shock is too embarrassed to post the cover.
Major Spoilers says uh uh. The comments are equally negative about it.
The comments on Robot 6 are a chorus of 'oh no you did NOT.'
Even Marvel's *own message boards* cry fail.
This brief and dismissive post over on Geek Girls Rule also cracked me up.
In conclusion: would gag self again, F-!
This reminds me when Marvel tried to market Emma Frost's solo series towards young women, and while this was a laudable idea, the porntastic Greg Horn covers were SO hideous that Rory Root of Comic Relief once told me that when teen girls came into his store, he wouldn't show them the series because of the covers.
Random change of subject: since I was chatting with rushin_doll this morning and I brought them up, here, have the ensemble that presaged electroclash by, oh, a decade of so AND always had great visuals to boot:
Future Sound of London - We Have Explosive:
FSOL - We have explosives
Uploaded by maryK
FSOL's "ISDN" release is still one of my favorite electronic releases EVER. They were so ahead of everyone else ten years ago.
Let's start off with Soul-Crushing Failure #1: Megan Fox tapped to play She-Hulk in upcoming film. Nothing against Megan Fox, but she's not exactly who I picture as Jennifer Walters either in her Jen form or as She-Hulk. Even worse? Nicolas Cage is heavily involved in the film, and I'm going to just, you know, throw out a few choice quotes from Nicolas from the article:
"The 'Transformers' star is favourite to portray the giant green female in the big screen adaptation of the popular comic book series about The Incredible Hulk's cousin.
A source said: "'She-Hulk' comics are popular so it's only natural that the character makes the transition to the big screen.
"The idea is to make She-Hulk sexier but even more savage than the Hulk, which is why Megan is the big favorite for the lead. She'll be green of course and will have to hang on to a few more pieces of clothes than the male version when she transforms!"
If the movie goes ahead the 22-year-old actress will play lawyer Jennifer Walters, who dramatically transforms into the powerful monster when she is angry.
Comic book fan Nicolas Cage recently admitted he wants his 'Ghost Rider' co-star Eva Mendes to be considered for the part.
Nicolas - who is closely involved with the production of the movie - said: 'I'm working on 'She-Hulk' and I'd like to see Eva play her. It would be her in a bikini just kicking a lot of a*s, throwing cars. I'm trying to put that together as we speak.'"
The gateau of fail here! So many moist, rich layers of fail! It's like having a three-star Michelin chef BAKE YOU YOUR OWN CAKE OF FAIL. So that's the summation, in Nicolas Cage's mind, of the essence of She-Hulk: hot, bikini, throwing around cars. Not emphasizing Jen's smarts, savvy, and overall awesome levels of personal resilience. Look, he might as well have said that it's going to be a film where Megan Fox shows as much T&A as possible with maybe one or two gratuitous courtroom scenes where Megan Fox attempts to articulate intelligently, and these would be thrown in just to placate people who might have a basic attachment to certain elements of Jen's comic canon.
Marvel thinks that She-Hulk comics are so popular that they cancelled her series just a few months ago so that Fred Van Lente could write miniseries about the future!daughter of Bruce and Thundra who remorselessly hunts down saber-toothed tigers for dinner in a future dystopia where, of course, a female-dominated society is presented as evil. Although I like Fred Van Lente, this is not the way to get me to read your comic, sir.
I'm almost hesitant to post about this next Soul-Crushing Failure, because I can already feel my neck muscles clenching, but Marvel's decided that it makes perfectly good sense to do a miniseries called, I shit you not, Marvel Divas. They're doing their best to publicize it.
Behold Marvel Divas:
J. Scott Campbell did the cover. As you can see, it approaches a critical mass of abject and all-encompassing failure. J. Scott Campbell is obviously giving the late Michael Turner some serious competition in horrific execution when it comes to female anatomy:
✔ Overtly sexualized poses crafted to appeal to the male gaze
✔ Implausible anatomy that is OFF the Turner scale
✔ Vacuous expressions
Wow, a trifecta!
But wait! Are you ready for some cognitive disconnect? Marvel is making noises that this series is marketed towards female readers.
Let's see what Marvel's official position is on this new venture, shall we? This from the April 9th MyCup o' Joe column on MySpace:
This also seems like the perfect time to announce our Marvel Divas limited series, beginning in July, from Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tonci Zonjic, featuring some of the Marvel Universe’s greatest female heroes in a way you haven’t seem them before.
I’ll let Roberto explain:
“The idea behind the series was to have some sudsy fun and lift the curtain a bit and take a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines. In the series, they're an unlikely foursome of friends--Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar, and Photon--with TWO things in common: They're all leading double-lives and they're all having romantic trouble. The pitch started as "Sex and the City" in the Marvel Universe, and there's definitely that "naughty" element to it, but I also think the series is doing to a deeper place, asking question about what it means...truly means...to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.) But mostly it's just a lot of hot fun."
Gaia on a goddamn pogo stick, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, please stop talking if that's your serious pitch for the series, because you thrust your fabulous Gucci loafer so far inside your mouth that it's just performed a spontaneous tonsillectomy. Sex and the City in the Marvelverse? I'm not opposed to more romance in mainstream superhero comics -- in fact, I'm in favor of more romance, since both Marvel and DC have been hating on couples so much of late -- but this really reads like an instinctive reaction by male writers and editors when asked the question "what would a comic series aimed at female readers be like?" Well, Sex and the City, of course! Because girls want to read about female heroes and their sexual/romantic misadventures! (Disclaimer: I actually do want to read about female heroes and their sexual misadventures, I just don't want to read about it this way, particularly when the emphasis is on titillation rather than substantive stories about Monica Patsy Walker shopping at Good Vibrations or whatever.)
When Marvel tries to pitch a mini about male characters that are having "hot" and "sudsy" fun in the dating game, then I'll shut up.
Who wants to bet that Firestar gets cast as the Charlotte, Patsy gets cast as a Carrie, Felicia gets cast as a Samantha, and that leaves Monica as the Miranda. Because it makes perfect sense to template a show about four wealthy white women and their romantic escapades over the very wholesome and young Firestar (who is kind of the Mary Marvel of the Marvel universe), the very much romance-aversive Black Cat (unless you're Spider-Man), the very practical former maritime cop Monica, and the woman who married Satan's son, went insane, and committed suicide (I call that Insta-Fridging Via Insanity). Look, I know that Marvel is now recasting Patsy Walker back to her carefree teen roots and taking a lighter approach with her, but to gloss over everything that happened to Patsy Walker after she became Hellcat and joined the Avengers does a bit of a disservice to her character.
Interestingly, when you google "marvel divas," almost ALL of the reactions you see are negative. I mean, I haven't seen this much of a negative reaction to an upcoming move by Marvel since One More Day.
Don't believe me? LOOK:
Jezebel.com says they hate it already.
Hardocre Nerdity gives it a thumbs down.
Rich Watson over at Pop Culture Shock is too embarrassed to post the cover.
Major Spoilers says uh uh. The comments are equally negative about it.
The comments on Robot 6 are a chorus of 'oh no you did NOT.'
Even Marvel's *own message boards* cry fail.
This brief and dismissive post over on Geek Girls Rule also cracked me up.
In conclusion: would gag self again, F-!
This reminds me when Marvel tried to market Emma Frost's solo series towards young women, and while this was a laudable idea, the porntastic Greg Horn covers were SO hideous that Rory Root of Comic Relief once told me that when teen girls came into his store, he wouldn't show them the series because of the covers.
Random change of subject: since I was chatting with rushin_doll this morning and I brought them up, here, have the ensemble that presaged electroclash by, oh, a decade of so AND always had great visuals to boot:
Future Sound of London - We Have Explosive:
FSOL - We have explosives
Uploaded by maryK
FSOL's "ISDN" release is still one of my favorite electronic releases EVER. They were so ahead of everyone else ten years ago.