The Pulse

Zinda Blake, the Lady Blackhawk, is a character I was introduced to through Birds of Prey. Since I'm not terribly clued in on Golden Age characters , I did some background reading, and found the following picture on a Blackhawks fansite.
This image is from Who's Who Update 1987, with art by Brian Bolland, the man who drew many of the Blackhawk's adventures. Not an unusual drawing, and the artwork is reasonably good. Yes, Zinda's outfit looks more dominatrix than fighter pilot, but this was the Golden Age, so I could let it pass.

Until someone drew my attention to the bottom left corner.

Um, yes. So thats Lady Blackhawk parachuting down in a miniskirt while the rest of her team (all men) stand on the ground and cheer.

While that is wrongness enough, there is still the question of why anyone whose job description includes parachuting would hang around in a short skirt. Looking through old issues, I found that she did this quite often.

Yes, gasping is an appropriate response.And the leather mini isn't the only fetish.

But then, superheroines aren't really known for sensible outfits. Parachuting in a skirt may be silly, but so many others like Supergirl and Marvel Girl actually fly around in barely-there skirts. At this point I will remind people of the time when Lady Blackhawk temporarily gained superpowers.

See the men stare.
OK, I'll stop now.

Finally, as an aside - notice the funny Oriental man hanging on to her chest. That's Chop-Chop - one of the worst examples of racial caricatures in comics. Maybe I'll do a post on him later. But only after one on Supergirl's skirt.

This is a scene from Fantastic Four #532, by the supremely talented J. Michael Straczynski. There's not much backstory here. Just that the Four are going through hard times, especially Sue, who is afraid that Child Services might take away their kids.

Anyway, like a good hubby, Reed decides he has exactly what the doctor ordered.


And in case you've forgotten - Reed's power is... STRETCHING.

Bwa-ha-ha!

No wonder Sue never left him for super-hunk Namor.

For those of you who remember reading this post - Frank Miller's rewriting of the origin of the Dynamic Duo in All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, ruffled quite a few feathers. Not only for its depiction of Batman as a complete and utter arsehole who thinks nothing of kidnapping, terrorising and beating up an already traumatised kid,








but also for turning intrepid reporter and Bruce Wayne's one time love-interest, Vicki Vale, into a sex kitten.

I won't go into the details right now, but there were some who suggested that the artwork was that way because of how Jim Lee draws all his characters - gorgeous and hyper-sexualised. And its not like we don't have shots of hunky Bruce Wayne. Frank Miller may be a number of things, they said, but he's not a misogynist.

Ahem! Recently, a copy of Miller's storyboard instructions to Lee were published. And they are, well... incriminating, to say the least. Here, for your viewing pleasure - once again - are the offending pages from All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder #1, but this time with accompanying commentary from Mr. Miller himself. The highlighting is mine.





"Nothing Vulgar". Nope, nothing at all. Frank Miller respects wymmyn, and don't you forget it. Here's what a popular webcomic had to say on the issue.


Ha! Nothing to say, Frank? How about - "I'm shameless, Jim!"

Always Remember...

Tags, memes, the works. They ask you to list everything from the number of books you own to your most embarassing moment. Everyone who's anyone has been tagged. But now I present a meme that has escaped the notice of the Great Indian Blogsphere. This is the "Always Remember" meme that is exclusively for comic book readers. Its a little hard to explain, so I'll redirect you to the page of the man who started it all. Here is a compilation of all contributions to date. After you read a few, I think you'll get the drift.

Unfortunately, I haven't been tagged by anyone. But the Gamesmaster plays by his own rules. So I have decided to add my own two bits to this. Here's my contribution.

And what's a meme without some taggees? Since I can only pick those who know their comics well, I pass this on to Apna Bhai Anang, Abhimanyu I-know-Neil-Gaiman Das, and the wonder twins Momo and Bini.