The Shrine

So theres a new comic coming out called Marvel Divas.

“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."

Is it going to be good?? I hope they focus more on the being women in a
male dominated industry instead of Sex and the City shit. I will probably be picking this up.

***Update: Awesome Boyfriend Bovine showed me the ways. Here is the pic

Sounds like desperation to me.

But doesn't chris get the inside scoops on these things? He should know more about it, maybe, perhaps.

Well, I love me some J. Scott Campbell art. He was always one of my favorite artists. (He drew the image you linked). If he were penciling the series, I'd buy it regardless of the story, but I'm guessing he was just did a one-shot piece.

I'm sure Chris will have heard of this. It could be awesome. It could be horrendous. It depends who writes it and how serious they take it.

It sounds like a desperate attempt to get females to read comics. However, females are always drawn with a minimum of D-cups to appeal to a male audience, especially in the Marvel universe (DC and Image, too). I'm surprised they didn't throw in a E-cup like Polaris. This sort of obvious ploy to males is thus insulting to women, because they see right through that.

Then again, Sex in the City was an unrealistic piece of trash, but when the star is a horse, you can tell that they aren't doing the same thing as this one is in the attractiveness dept. If they all starred a bunch of D-cups, it would have never taken off with women viewers (which was a majority of the audience).

They would be better off trying to make comics like Y: The Last Man, a semi-realistic series about how women would rule the world.

Lox wrote:Well, I love me some J. Scott Campbell art. He was always one of my favorite artists. (He drew the image you linked). If he were penciling the series, I'd buy it regardless of the story, but I'm guessing he was just did a one-shot piece.

I'm sure Chris will have heard of this. It could be awesome. It could be horrendous. It depends who writes it and how serious they take it.

only covers. But Abnett and Lanning are writing it and they have been fucking gold over the last few years. They wrote Annihilation, are writing War of Kings (essentially Annihilation 3) They write Nova (one of the best books there be) They also write Guardians of the Galaxy which is equally as awesome as Nova.

They had the swimsuit editions back in the 90s so there is some precedence for them to exploit the females. Sounds a bit contrived to me, though

Zeus wrote:They had the swimsuit editions back in the 90s so there is some precedence for them to exploit the females. Sounds a bit contrived to me, though

Dan and andy writing. that's all that matters. You can do great chick books that aren't sexist. (Gail Simone and Greg Rucka are gods when it comes to this) Seriously though, I'm giving the book a shot because of the creative team and I know that these kinds of books can be good. As long as it is a good character piece rather than trying to hard. something that the writers have never been guilty of so It's a good shot that the book could be good.

Hey Lox. did a miracle just happen. Is there someone else on the boards who actually might know comics? because if that's the case then FUCK YEAH! Finally someone might get half thejokes I make....
and now just because. A list of great femal character centered books over the last decade that don't run on sexism.

Birds of Prey (Only under Gail Simone)
Wonder Woman (Greg Rucka)
Wonder Woman (Gail Simone)
Supergirl (Sterling Gates, Jamal Igle)
Manhunter (Marc Andreyko, also one of the best books ever written)
52 Aftermath the 5 books of Blood, Final Crisis Revalations, Detective Comics (Greg Rucka all of these follow each other up as the story of the new Question and Batwoman. Who is awesome.)

there are a lot more but these are the abslute best of the femal character centered books. although I have high hopes for the Powergirl series coming out soon

Those are Campbell tits alright. Gen 13 flashbacks ahoy.

SineSwiper wrote:It sounds like a desperate attempt to get females to read comics.

Given Marvel's tradition of drawing female characters and the fact that the sales pitch has the word "naughty" in it, it sounds more to me like a desperate attempt to get MALES to read comics.

That being said, however, Firestar is on my short list of "favorite Marvel characters of all time", so I might have to give it a try.

Chris wrote:Hey Lox. did a miracle just happen. Is there someone else on the boards who actually might know comics?

It sounds like it!

Sorry guys for not including the info on who was behind making it. I didnt realize that there are some hardcore comic fans who would actually want names.

As for me knowing comics....I am no where near Chris and Lox's level of knowledge but I am a fan. I mostly read X-men related books, currently reading Messiah Complex and I just finished Decimation:x-men The 198 (the cover is amazing). Lamest thing I have ever bought: Dazzler series with my friend in high school. Still have it.

I agree with SineSwiper there should be a comic on how woman are in power. It would nice to see men oppressed for a change.

Thanks for the list of good Girl comics Chris. I will definitely be checking some of them out.

I loved Dazzler. Not that I ever bought her series, but I thought the writing with her and Havok in the X-Men around that time was a nice, light-hearted diversion from the usual glowers and sulking.

Chris wrote:Dan and andy writing. that's all that matters. You can do great chick books that aren't sexist. (Gail Simone and Greg Rucka are gods when it comes to this) Seriously though, I'm giving the book a shot because of the creative team and I know that these kinds of books can be good. As long as it is a good character piece rather than trying to hard. something that the writers have never been guilty of so It's a good shot that the book could be good.

Hey Lox. did a miracle just happen. Is there someone else on the boards who actually might know comics? because if that's the case then FUCK YEAH! Finally someone might get half thejokes I make....
and now just because. A list of great femal character centered books over the last decade that don't run on sexism.

Birds of Prey (Only under Gail Simone)
Wonder Woman (Greg Rucka)
Wonder Woman (Gail Simone)
Supergirl (Sterling Gates, Jamal Igle)
Manhunter (Marc Andreyko, also one of the best books ever written)
52 Aftermath the 5 books of Blood, Final Crisis Revalations, Detective Comics (Greg Rucka all of these follow each other up as the story of the new Question and Batwoman. Who is awesome.)

there are a lot more but these are the abslute best of the femal character centered books. although I have high hopes for the Powergirl series coming out soon

I take it you don't think much of Marvel's writing of female characters.

Captain Marvel? Rogue? Storm? Firestar? Namorita? Danielle Moonstar? Wolfsbane? Magik? Karma (apparently one of the first lesbian characters ever in print, which I didn't know about)? I mean, I'm only going off the era of Marvel I actually read thoroughly, which was roughly 1988-1992 or so, but I never remember thinking that Marvel's female heroes struck me as particularly disempowered...

(This is a particularly badass picture of Magik, by the way:)

<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e ... jpg"></img>

And yes, I know that these characters didn't have their own long-running series, but something like half of them had limited series runs. I'm not a big DC fan so I'm not qualified to judge on the runs of the comics you mentioned, but back when I was reading comics regularly, DC was still damn near straitlaced in some of their attitudes.

I mean, back in the day, DC used to print shit like this:

<img src="http://superdickery.com/images/stories/ ... jpg"></img>

And this:

<img src="http://superdickery.com/images/stories/ ... jpg"></img>

And THIS, for crying out loud:

<img src="http://superdickery.com/images/stories/ ... jpg"></img>

And half of the rest of <a href="http://superdickery.com">Superdickery</a> as well.

I mean, I'm probably dating myself a bit here, because I really haven't given two shits about DC in years, but still, it just strikes me as odd that you don't have any Marvel comics on your list.

because dude. the best of the girl run books are at DC for the last few years. Marvel has done jack and shit for the most part with female focused books. Their Ms. Marvel was pretty good but I'm giving books that focus on female main characters. Which Marvel has none of for the most part. Although the recent Hellcat miniseries that just finished was every kind of awesome. It's Hellcat.....in Alaska! I should have brought in that one but I wanted to list long and consistent runs.

Gail Simones Birds of Prey is one of my favorite titles of all time. Great strong characterization and an all female cast that took a lot of stereotypes of girl books and turned them on their head. Not to mention turned black canary into the ultimate badass she should be. If you read the Gail Simone run of that book from start to finish it's one of the best female centred books ever written.

Greg Rucka wrote Wonder Woman as a political genius. She was an amabasador for her nation. Lived in an Embasy and saw war as the last option. great action in some issues but others were quiet character beats that took wonder woman from being somewhat 2 dimentional to being an amazingly deep character.

Gail Simone is writing Wonder Woman the same way. And she got left with a shit status quo by that jackass hack who made Greay Anatomy who fucked up the ffranchise. But Gail is awesome. And has fixed almost every problem I had with the book for the 3 years between her and Greg. It's a great book again. Exploring what makes the character tick.

Manhunter by Marc Andreyko is one of the best books I've ever read. The main character goes through more character growth in the short length the title was allowed to run than other characters get in 50 years. It's really an amazing book as the main character is a completely unlikabel chain smoking bitch who you hate in the first few issues but grows so much over the first year of the book that it's amazing to see such a well fleshed out character in superhero comics.

The problem is that most of the good femae centric books are there.

Supergirl was a terrible fucking book but the new creative team is writing her as a character trying to make a life of her own rather than a flying pair of tits.

Well, I'm out of it, so I'll take your word for it.

Sassafras wrote:I agree with SineSwiper there should be a comic on how woman are in power. It would nice to see men oppressed for a change.

Well, one, Y: The Last Man is an actual series, and one that most everybody here highly recommends. (It's 10 volumes in trade format, and more than worth the time.) Two, as implied by the title, all of the men, save one, are wiped out, so there's no men to oppress.

BTW, based on the good shit I've read so far, Marvel and DC can BOTH suck a dick. Vertigo is where it's at!

SineSwiper wrote:

Sassafras wrote:I agree with SineSwiper there should be a comic on how woman are in power. It would nice to see men oppressed for a change.

Well, one, Y: The Last Man is an actual series, and one that most everybody here highly recommends. (It's 10 volumes in trade format, and more than worth the time.) Two, as implied by the title, all of the men, save one, are wiped out, so there's no men to oppress.

BTW, based on the good shit I've read so far, Marvel and DC can BOTH suck a dick. Vertigo is where it's at!

Vertigo is where it's at. there are a lot of great books right now. AIR is a book that's wierd but beautiful. the 8th issue just came out and the first trade as well. brillinat book. Unknown Soldier is another great and politically relevant book coming out now taking place in Africa. There is also DMZ which is another great book essentially about manhattan during the second Civil War. You also have Northlanders which is a great series of Viking tales where every story arc stands on it's own and has a different and great artist. Young Liars is like getting skullfucked it's so damnably insane that it's awesome. So many great books from vertigo and the independant companies. But marvel and DC do put out some great stuff.

SineSwiper wrote:

Sassafras wrote:I agree with SineSwiper there should be a comic on how woman are in power. It would nice to see men oppressed for a change.

Well, one, Y: The Last Man is an actual series, and one that most everybody here highly recommends. (It's 10 volumes in trade format, and more than worth the time.) Two, as implied by the title, all of the men, save one, are wiped out, so there's no men to oppress.

Good Sir I have heard of Y: The Last Man and have not yet read it. Im not that impelled to read it as the general storyline makes me want to yak. I guess I should have worded that sentence differently. I support your statement that "They would be better off trying to make comics like Y: The Last Man, a semi-realistic series about how women would rule the world". I just added my vengeful desire to oppress men into the mix.

I fucking had a hardon the size of the Empire State for DMZ, and I've just started reading Northlanders--really great stuff, and some solid, almost creepy artwork. I'm starting at the Lindsfarnie (sp) story arc, which is evidently an excellent place to begin (as the comic book guy at my local store reccomended.)

I've always read the first volume of 100 Bullets. Man-oh-man is that some good shit right there.

RentCavalier wrote:I fucking had a hardon the size of the Empire State for DMZ, and I've just started reading Northlanders--really great stuff, and some solid, almost creepy artwork. I'm starting at the Lindsfarnie (sp) story arc, which is evidently an excellent place to begin (as the comic book guy at my local store reccomended.)

I've always read the first volume of 100 Bullets. Man-oh-man is that some good shit right there.

kinda sad the last issue of 100 bullets came out. great book. Brian Azzarello is a fucking madman genius. some of the stuff he's got coming up is mind bendingly awesome.