And in the end
I was re-reading Batgirl #24, and god, I hope someday I'm able to revisit this series without getting a little teary-eyed because this was, for about the course of the fifteen months or so when I followed the title every month, my #1 pick-me-up, the one thing that never failed to cheer me up. I do not know how Stephanie Brown replaced Barbara Gordon as the Batgirl of my heart, except that I now think of the DCnU and realise that Barbara's Robin is now Damian, and a part of my heart just shrivels up and dies.
It is a difficult time to be a Bat-fan, in some ways-Snyder's Batman might be on fire, but for those of us who had fallen in love with a particular set of characters and relationships in a status quo that was never going to last (I realise now, reboot or no), and who are, perhaps, less used to reboots/cancellations/resurrections the way long-term comics fans undoubtedly are, the Batverse doesn't feel like our Batverse anymore. Barbara's Robin is Damian and Damian's Batman is Bruce and Stephanie and Cassandra are god knows where, and that is very, very painful. Equally painful is the knowledge the Black Canary and Oracle, as I knew them, were probably never friends that way, or that Huntress, as I knew her, no longer exists. It's only the end if you want it to be notwithstanding, fandom is hard.
It's also a difficult time to be a Barbara fan, in some ways-because I am, Barbara's girl through and through, and even the loss of Oracle won't change that, even if I despair over how much they have erased along with it. Apart from Wonder Woman, Barbara is the only female character of the DCU to have any sort of legacy, and it isn't coincidental that both Diana and Barbara's legacy's have been severely affected in the DCnU-with the erasure of Donna Troy, with the seeming disappearance of Diana's supporting cast (even STRIFE-yes, I refer to her in ALLCAPS now-cannot make up for the loss of Phillipus or Artemis), with the erasure/benching of all the three women who wore the Batgirl suit after Barbara, with the re-writing of the history of the Birds of Prey (from what we've seen of it).
It was, therefore, a bit of a surprise when I finally picked up the new Birds of Prey and found myself enjoying it tremendously: it is easily one of the best-written and most enjoyable books of the Batverse right now, right after Batman and Batwoman, I think; more enjoyable than Batgirl, which has picked up tremendously after the first couple of issues, and certainly far more entertaining that Nightwing, which I have been mostly meh about. I adore Starling, and the sexuality reveal just adds to my love for the title. Her friendship with Dinah is a wonderful, wonderful thing-a neat flip of the earlier Babs-Dinah relationship where Dinah was the carefree risktaker and Barbara was the cautious, controlled one. I found Katana endearing right from the beginning, but the last issue, with her little fight scene with Dinah and statement of friendship, just sealed my love. And, strangely, Poison Ivy's presence in the team actually works-the set-up with the possible double-cross is very intriguing. It's not Chuck Dixon's epic love story, and it isn't Gail Simone's Barbara and Dinah and Helena (and Zinda and everyone else), but it has female friendships and it has a team, and that will do for now.
I will also admit to shamelessly shipping Dinah/Evelyn. The subtext is certainly there, and while I was earlier held back by my Babs/Dinah OTPness, I've now come to accept the fact that Barbara and Dinah as I knew them don't exist anymore. (This is not to say I won't ship Babs and Dinah once more once we get to know these characters a little better, note.)
Wonder Woman, of course, has been an utter joy-despite my various misgivings, I've enjoyed the title thoroughly. In some ways, #5 was the least intriguing issue so far, a fall after the high of #4. Some of it had to do with the art: Chiang is missed, and while Akins did his best to capture Chiang's style, I'm not happy with his faces-they're often wonky and all wrong. Some of it had to do with the story itself, which is, understandably, a setting-up of Act 2. But I expected more emotion from Diana about the loss of her family, I think, and in the absence of Chiang's expressive faces, the statement about her 'old family' and 'new' felt less powerful than it should have. I am not very intrigued by Lennox so far, either-am, in fact, rather annoyed that he isn't Artemis (I'm not going to shut up about this anytime soon). Diana and Zola's scene on the bridge, however, was lovely-a very clear statement of who Diana is, and what her mission is, and the last scene was simply priceless. This might be frowned upon by certain sections of the fandom, but Diana is and should be a strategist, and that involves cunning, that involves avoiding pointless combat and death of innocent people by using her brain. I loved it, especially since it highlighted how angry she is with Hera at the moment.
PS: DIANA'S GUN SHOOTS LOVE BULLETS, YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID.
I'm not sure I'm going to finish reading the Huntress mini right now. I thought I was reading about my Huntress, and I wasn't-I feel a little cheated to be honest. This will, of course, change if the new book is good and I grow to like Helena Wayne, but right now I need some time to mourn the Huntress I loved.
+
netgirl_y2k has written fabulous DVD commentaries of Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle (Morgana/many female characters) and Walk Softly and Carry a Large Stick (Cara/Kahlan), with wonderful insights into the characters that you should run to read right now. Or read the stories first, if you haven't already.
High D'Haran Love Poetry by
nike_ravus (Legend of the Seeker, Berdine/Raina): This is not a pairing I normally read, because I don't care about the bookverse and I don't know the characters at all, but the writer introduces them as 'their TV-show version incarnations. These are the girls who would hang out with our Cara and (sometimes) put up with her shit', which is really all I needed to know. At 20K words, it's a sharp, intriguing - and at times disconcerting - look at the world of the Mord'Sith, and a consideration of the eternal problem: "How do Mord'Sith fall in love? No really, how?" Read this right now, and go shower your love upon the author so that she writes more stories in this fandom.
http://swatkat.dreamwidth.org/308032.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth
It is a difficult time to be a Bat-fan, in some ways-Snyder's Batman might be on fire, but for those of us who had fallen in love with a particular set of characters and relationships in a status quo that was never going to last (I realise now, reboot or no), and who are, perhaps, less used to reboots/cancellations/resurrections the way long-term comics fans undoubtedly are, the Batverse doesn't feel like our Batverse anymore. Barbara's Robin is Damian and Damian's Batman is Bruce and Stephanie and Cassandra are god knows where, and that is very, very painful. Equally painful is the knowledge the Black Canary and Oracle, as I knew them, were probably never friends that way, or that Huntress, as I knew her, no longer exists. It's only the end if you want it to be notwithstanding, fandom is hard.
It's also a difficult time to be a Barbara fan, in some ways-because I am, Barbara's girl through and through, and even the loss of Oracle won't change that, even if I despair over how much they have erased along with it. Apart from Wonder Woman, Barbara is the only female character of the DCU to have any sort of legacy, and it isn't coincidental that both Diana and Barbara's legacy's have been severely affected in the DCnU-with the erasure of Donna Troy, with the seeming disappearance of Diana's supporting cast (even STRIFE-yes, I refer to her in ALLCAPS now-cannot make up for the loss of Phillipus or Artemis), with the erasure/benching of all the three women who wore the Batgirl suit after Barbara, with the re-writing of the history of the Birds of Prey (from what we've seen of it).
It was, therefore, a bit of a surprise when I finally picked up the new Birds of Prey and found myself enjoying it tremendously: it is easily one of the best-written and most enjoyable books of the Batverse right now, right after Batman and Batwoman, I think; more enjoyable than Batgirl, which has picked up tremendously after the first couple of issues, and certainly far more entertaining that Nightwing, which I have been mostly meh about. I adore Starling, and the sexuality reveal just adds to my love for the title. Her friendship with Dinah is a wonderful, wonderful thing-a neat flip of the earlier Babs-Dinah relationship where Dinah was the carefree risktaker and Barbara was the cautious, controlled one. I found Katana endearing right from the beginning, but the last issue, with her little fight scene with Dinah and statement of friendship, just sealed my love. And, strangely, Poison Ivy's presence in the team actually works-the set-up with the possible double-cross is very intriguing. It's not Chuck Dixon's epic love story, and it isn't Gail Simone's Barbara and Dinah and Helena (and Zinda and everyone else), but it has female friendships and it has a team, and that will do for now.
I will also admit to shamelessly shipping Dinah/Evelyn. The subtext is certainly there, and while I was earlier held back by my Babs/Dinah OTPness, I've now come to accept the fact that Barbara and Dinah as I knew them don't exist anymore. (This is not to say I won't ship Babs and Dinah once more once we get to know these characters a little better, note.)
Wonder Woman, of course, has been an utter joy-despite my various misgivings, I've enjoyed the title thoroughly. In some ways, #5 was the least intriguing issue so far, a fall after the high of #4. Some of it had to do with the art: Chiang is missed, and while Akins did his best to capture Chiang's style, I'm not happy with his faces-they're often wonky and all wrong. Some of it had to do with the story itself, which is, understandably, a setting-up of Act 2. But I expected more emotion from Diana about the loss of her family, I think, and in the absence of Chiang's expressive faces, the statement about her 'old family' and 'new' felt less powerful than it should have. I am not very intrigued by Lennox so far, either-am, in fact, rather annoyed that he isn't Artemis (I'm not going to shut up about this anytime soon). Diana and Zola's scene on the bridge, however, was lovely-a very clear statement of who Diana is, and what her mission is, and the last scene was simply priceless. This might be frowned upon by certain sections of the fandom, but Diana is and should be a strategist, and that involves cunning, that involves avoiding pointless combat and death of innocent people by using her brain. I loved it, especially since it highlighted how angry she is with Hera at the moment.
PS: DIANA'S GUN SHOOTS LOVE BULLETS, YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID.
I'm not sure I'm going to finish reading the Huntress mini right now. I thought I was reading about my Huntress, and I wasn't-I feel a little cheated to be honest. This will, of course, change if the new book is good and I grow to like Helena Wayne, but right now I need some time to mourn the Huntress I loved.
+
netgirl_y2k has written fabulous DVD commentaries of Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle (Morgana/many female characters) and Walk Softly and Carry a Large Stick (Cara/Kahlan), with wonderful insights into the characters that you should run to read right now. Or read the stories first, if you haven't already.
High D'Haran Love Poetry by
nike_ravus (Legend of the Seeker, Berdine/Raina): This is not a pairing I normally read, because I don't care about the bookverse and I don't know the characters at all, but the writer introduces them as 'their TV-show version incarnations. These are the girls who would hang out with our Cara and (sometimes) put up with her shit', which is really all I needed to know. At 20K words, it's a sharp, intriguing - and at times disconcerting - look at the world of the Mord'Sith, and a consideration of the eternal problem: "How do Mord'Sith fall in love? No really, how?" Read this right now, and go shower your love upon the author so that she writes more stories in this fandom.
http://swatkat.dreamwidth.org/308032.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth