Genius vs. Genius: Bishie hair, two PhDs, one hot MESS
Look, this is just a hot mess.
Everyone has bishie hair, the inks are heavy, Jocasta's pose is awkward, Cassie's looking a bit...more mature, as we shall say.
But I can't decide if this is completely batshit awesome or horrible. I am literally in no man's land about this, deeply buried in a philosophical and existential conundrum.
This is what happens when two scientific geniuses -- geniuses of the highest possible order of magnitude for a baseline human -- decide to do the superhero equivalent of slapfighting via the Scientific American message board.
Two panels from Mighty Avengers #25 - Dr. Hank Pym vs. Dr. Reed Richards:
So I guess Reed is back to superdickery. *sigh* Oh, Slott, why? However, the concept of Reed saying that to Hank and Hank immediately deciding that the Avengers are going to science!fight Reed with subterfuge and covert tech snatching? That's a storyline that I will enjoy, even if it involves two teams that I love pointlessly fighting each other.
Go on with your bad self, Hank.
You should all be reading Gail Simone's Secret Six. You really, really should.
Why?
Because you get to see Bane go all urbanely apeshit, that's why:
Yes. That is Bane beating a dead man with said dead man's own severed arm. (Also, Floyd and Thomas in that last panel. Floyd's still lighting up in the middle of a melee and Thomas is still rocking his Stubble of Sexitude™. GAWD. So. Funny.)
There's a wonderful sequence in Secret Six #10 that made me go all woobie. Really, that's just fantastic. Gail's writing an increasingly intimate friendship between Bane and Scandal, and I'll go on record publicly saying that it's so nice to see a writer depict a very intense friendship between a lesbian and a straight man that remains platonic but still clearly shows that they have affection for each other. Look, she gets into bed with him to hold him all night while he goes through withdrawal. That, my friends, is a species of devotion. (Also, she wears pink boxers! Wooohooo, Scandal!)
Perhaps it's beyond friendship at this point; Bane and Scandal might now regard each other as family (or are well on their way to so doing). They have insane chemistry together as companions and comrades in arms; under Gail's pen, they're both sophisticated, intelligent, wildly articulate, and I love that they both have similar speech patterns that call to mind an almost formal Victorian sensibility in expression. Gail writes an awesome Bane, I never thought that I'd grow to love Scandal the way that I have (well...not always, but mostly I love her), and I can sit back and enjoy the fact that while Bane may have more than platonic affection for Scandal, he deals well with the fact that she's gay and that the intimacy they have is going to be in a whole other country that's completely separate from romantic.
Yet part of me still ships them like burning. Is that wrong?
So weird that Secret Six, a book about a bunch of completely and gloriously twisted anti-heroes who have spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law, gives me the biggest emotional jolt of the week. I don't love everything in this book, but it's so entertaining when it's good that it's worth forking over my cash for an issue each month. (I lost it for forty-five minutes straight over the Ragdoll in Robin drag sequence.)
Also, Ragdoll remains hot. Gail, Gail, Gail, when do we get another Hawkgirl cameo? I still want to see Kendra vs. Ragdoll in a cultured snark off! (jellied, are you still out there? Help a girl out and echo the Ragdoll love!)
Everyone has bishie hair, the inks are heavy, Jocasta's pose is awkward, Cassie's looking a bit...more mature, as we shall say.
But I can't decide if this is completely batshit awesome or horrible. I am literally in no man's land about this, deeply buried in a philosophical and existential conundrum.
This is what happens when two scientific geniuses -- geniuses of the highest possible order of magnitude for a baseline human -- decide to do the superhero equivalent of slapfighting via the Scientific American message board.
Two panels from Mighty Avengers #25 - Dr. Hank Pym vs. Dr. Reed Richards:
So I guess Reed is back to superdickery. *sigh* Oh, Slott, why? However, the concept of Reed saying that to Hank and Hank immediately deciding that the Avengers are going to science!fight Reed with subterfuge and covert tech snatching? That's a storyline that I will enjoy, even if it involves two teams that I love pointlessly fighting each other.
Go on with your bad self, Hank.
You should all be reading Gail Simone's Secret Six. You really, really should.
Why?
Because you get to see Bane go all urbanely apeshit, that's why:
Yes. That is Bane beating a dead man with said dead man's own severed arm. (Also, Floyd and Thomas in that last panel. Floyd's still lighting up in the middle of a melee and Thomas is still rocking his Stubble of Sexitude™. GAWD. So. Funny.)
There's a wonderful sequence in Secret Six #10 that made me go all woobie. Really, that's just fantastic. Gail's writing an increasingly intimate friendship between Bane and Scandal, and I'll go on record publicly saying that it's so nice to see a writer depict a very intense friendship between a lesbian and a straight man that remains platonic but still clearly shows that they have affection for each other. Look, she gets into bed with him to hold him all night while he goes through withdrawal. That, my friends, is a species of devotion. (Also, she wears pink boxers! Wooohooo, Scandal!)
Perhaps it's beyond friendship at this point; Bane and Scandal might now regard each other as family (or are well on their way to so doing). They have insane chemistry together as companions and comrades in arms; under Gail's pen, they're both sophisticated, intelligent, wildly articulate, and I love that they both have similar speech patterns that call to mind an almost formal Victorian sensibility in expression. Gail writes an awesome Bane, I never thought that I'd grow to love Scandal the way that I have (well...not always, but mostly I love her), and I can sit back and enjoy the fact that while Bane may have more than platonic affection for Scandal, he deals well with the fact that she's gay and that the intimacy they have is going to be in a whole other country that's completely separate from romantic.
Yet part of me still ships them like burning. Is that wrong?
So weird that Secret Six, a book about a bunch of completely and gloriously twisted anti-heroes who have spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law, gives me the biggest emotional jolt of the week. I don't love everything in this book, but it's so entertaining when it's good that it's worth forking over my cash for an issue each month. (I lost it for forty-five minutes straight over the Ragdoll in Robin drag sequence.)
Also, Ragdoll remains hot. Gail, Gail, Gail, when do we get another Hawkgirl cameo? I still want to see Kendra vs. Ragdoll in a cultured snark off! (jellied, are you still out there? Help a girl out and echo the Ragdoll love!)