Photo reblogged from Fuck Yeah Comic Relationships with 213 notes
Batman is knitting. While wearing slippers. Your argument is so invalid it doesn’t even exist.
I wish I had found this image while Allison still ran the knitting circle, Batman knitting would’ve made for a pretty awesome ad campaign.
Source: idratherbeloislane
(Spoilers and fanboy ranting ahead for Batman: The Widening Gyre)
I am trapped inside for the next day or so due to a case of pink-eye, so I’m using that as an opportunity to catch up on my comics. Since Kevin Smith’s Batman mini-series FINALLY had the end of its first volume released a few weeks ago (after a 4-month delay), I read the last 3 issues in one sitting, and WOW, this may be one of the worst and most offensive comics I’ve ever read. Now, I generally am not a big Kevin Smith fan, but his previous Batman mini-series was decent and the first 3 issues of this mini were enjoyable. I liked that he brought back Silver St. Cloud as Batman’s girlfriend (she remains to this day the only person to realize Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person because the lower halves of their faces are identical), the new character Baphomet was generic but there’s been far worse, and the art by Walter Flanagan had improved significantly from the Batman: Cacophony miniseries.
So what happened? The book took a significant turn for the worse at the end of issue 4, when Smith first made Silver St. Cloud come off as silly and vapid, wandering around the Batcave with her hair in pigtails while wearing one of Batman’s costume shirts. Seriously. That scene’s followed up by a jealous and needy Catwoman confronting Batman about his relationship with Silver after stalking them. To be fair to Smith, this characterization of Catwoman would fit with how she acted in Pre-Crisis continuity when Batman dated Vicki Vale (Batman #355, and I am a big enough geek that I knew that issue was somewhere between 350 and 370 before I looked it up), but Catwoman’s character has completely changed since then, and she’s no longer desperate for Batman’s love/approval. Let’s not even talk about her wearing the old skirt/cape costume because Batman told her it looked good before. Ugh. The issue concludes with Batman making out with Catwoman (and presumably doing more) despite being with Silver, something that is EXTREMELY out of character and obviously a dirtbag move.
I should’ve just stopped reading there, but I was curious and was hoping for a Catwoman/Silver St. Cloud showdown in the next issue. Nope. Bruce and Silver go off to Aspen for a vacation, where he pointedly does not tell her about Catwoman. Once they’re back, Catwoman reappears, wearing her Julie Newmar costume with no panties (seriously, she ACTUALLY says “Did I mention I’m not wearing any panties?”) in an attempt to turn Batman on and complains about someone calling her a cougar and making her feel old. I just… sigh. I can’t see how Smith or his editors think this is an acceptable way to write the character. Batman wimps out on telling her they have to stop being together and runs away after the Bat-signal appears, which is lame but not completely out of character so I can let it go even though it bugs me.
Issue 5 is also when Baphomet starts becoming a total Mary Sue. Both Batman and Robin are totally impressed with him, and he manages to take down the Joker in under a page. He’s got a Batman-esque origin and its obvious by the end of the issue that we’re in for a Batman identity reveal by the end of the series. That happens in issue 6, but not before Baphomet talks about how he wants to kill The Joker, which you know, should maybe send up some warning flags about the guy but which Batman easily dismisses. Of course that’s all some pathetic foreshadowing of the surprise ending, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Issue 6 is where the series really crosses the line into complete awfulness. Both Batman and Silver are written like idiot teenagers, Batman’s special gift to her (a unique flower made just for her) is a copy of the gift Batman gave Superman in Superman Annual 11, a particularly famous story by Alan Moore, and I know this is really nitpicky, but Smith gets the Latin wrong for the flower’s name, since “Argentum Somnium” would translate to silver dream, not dream of silver. Batman proposes marriage in a scene that is terribly overwrought and just lame. Did I forget to mention that Silver still doesn’t know about Batman sleeping with Catwoman two issues ago? Yeah, because keeping an affair secret while you propose marriage to someone is totally something Batman would do.
It only gets worse from there. Silver has nicknamed Bruce “Deedee” throughout the series, and when Alfred jokingly calls him by that name, she reveals that it’s short for “double digits” since that’s how many orgasms he gave her when they first got together. Eww in general, and EWW to telling ALFRED of all characters that. He’s like Batman’s dad. It’s just gross and inappropriate for this kind of comic. Speaking of gross and inappropriate, I haven’t even gotten to the scene where Batman attempts to make Baphomet feel better by revealing that he pissed his pants while confronting mobsters in Batman: Year One. That scene is an extremely important and well-known one, so to retroactively add that in for no real reason is just Smith being a douche and trying to make Frank Miller’s story joke-y. It’d still be bad if the joke were funny, but Smith has really been reduced to laughing about Batman peeing his pants. How does this man get work?
And guess what? That’s not even the worst thing in the book, as you can tell from the image above! Batman gets a suspicion out of nowhere that Silver is really an evil robot, so he rips her out of a car by her hair, telling her to “Shut up!” after she says “Bruce! Stop it! You’re hurting me”, so he can make sure she’s real. Domestic violence is always the best way to start off your engagement, right? I was at least figuring that Batman’s paranoia and violence would provide an out for Smith to not marry them, but NO! Silver immediately forgives him and says she understands. GAH! I don’t think I should have to tell you why all that is intensely problematic.
We get another moment of Catwoman acting like a jealous bitch when she finds out Batman is engaged, but that’s to be expected at this point. The final idiotic moment of the book happens when Batman shares his (and Silver’s) identity with Baphomet, who is then revealed to be Onomatopoeia in a “surprise!” moment that makes almost no sense (although to be fair, it happens on the last page so there will probably be some attempt at an explanation next issue). This is made even better by him slitting Silver’s throat, leading to a potential “fridging” as the end of her character. It’s obvious from this series (as well as lots of other things) that Smith has no idea how to write female characters, but I didn’t think he’d sink that low. Then again, I thought that about most of the series after issue 4, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Photo reblogged from Fuck Yeah Comic Relationships with 506 notes
(via wundagore)
There’s no real reason I’m reblogging this, it just made me smile.
Photo reblogged from DC Women Kicking Ass with 37 notes
Also Black Canary and Catwoman by Bruce Timm
I don’t think we’ve seen too many Canary/Cat brawls. They’ve teamed up a few times in BoP. But this is so fun.
This drawing is awesome, especially the grin on Catwoman’s face, but it makes me sad that Justice League Unlimited rarely made use of the Batman family (or that Black Canary never made a cameo in Batman: The Animated Series). How much better could the all-female brawl episode “Grudge Match” have been if it also featured Catwoman and Batgirl? A LOT BETTER.
Photo reblogged from Hell Yes, Catwoman with 9 notes
Catwoman head turnarounds by Darwyn Cooke
Seeing the Darwyn Cooke redesign of Selina Kyle always makes me wish I could go back in time and get young Elizabeth Taylor to come play her in the next Batman movie. It would be perfect! I don’t think there’s any current female actress who could pull off Catwoman, which along with Christopher Nolan’s extremely poor representations of women in his Batman movies, makes me cautious about wishing for Catwoman in the next movie.
Source: larsworld
Photo with 8 notes
Does Catwoman really need a costumed side-kick? Really? This is not going to end well. I guarantee she’ll be killed off within 5 years (and probably tortured and maimed, since DC can’t resist doing awful things to their female characters, but that’s a way bigger issue that I don’t want to get into right now) and ruin several stories before her demise.
Catwoman HAS had other “sidekicks” in the past though, so it’s not unprecedented. There was Arizona, a teenage runaway, in her Showcase ‘93 feature, and Holly in Batman: Year One and Catwoman vol. 2. Holly is actually a pretty good character, but she’s damaged goods because of the awful Countdown mini-series and has disappeared. The difference is that neither of them had separate (and laughable) costumed identities, and Holly was more than a sidekick, really the head of the supporting cast in the last Catwoman series. Creating this new character was wholly unnecessary, and a poor choice. With Catwoman no longer having her own series, there’s little chance the character could even be developed into anything beyond an annoyance. And just look at that costume. Ugh.
Comic books are one of the few things that consistently make me happy, I rely on them to brighten my days, so when they piss me off instead, it’s a bad time. Add in that Catwoman is one of my favorite characters and that DC has been messing with her pretty badly for the last couple years and you get some FANBOY RAGE.
