What should I read next? Comic edition

Hey everybody!  It’s been weeks since I last posted, sorry about that.  Lots of exciting things happening at work (moving things around, new displays, new programs, new committees) and I’ve been distracted.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a list, in no particular order, of comics that I think are fun and would recommend to anyone who asks.  Some of these are currently printing, most of them should have at least one trade collection by now.

1. Matt Fraction’s run of “Hawkeye”.  This series follows Clint Barton around during his non-avenger time.  What’s life like for the purple archer?  How do his neighbors in Bed-Stuy (Brooklyn neighborhood) feel about him?  How does he handle his personal relationships?  What fallout did he and Kate Bishop (the other Hawkeye) have to deal with in the wake of Hurricane Sandy?  The art was kind of Art Deco-y to me.  Simple, but fantastic.  Fraction’s writing was stellar.  You can get this in trades.

2. Ms. Marvel.  The new teen superhero from Jersey City, Kamala Khan  is a Pakistani-American who is obsessed with superheroes (she writes Avengers fanfic).  We get to see her dealing with all the normal teen angst: who am I?  How do I deal with my family and their expectations?  OMG, how do I talk to my crush? Peer Pressure.  The desire to fit in.  And on top of that, she gets exposed to Terrigen Mists and becomes an Inhuman with polymorphic and fast-healing powers.  Her first nemesis is “the Inventor”, a clone of a historic New Jersey denizen (some may call his historical counter-part a villain).  This series is currently running new issues and has a trade collection available of the first story arc.

3. Loki: Agent of Asgard.  This series follows the Marvel version of Loki (fitting, as it is a Marvel comic).  Old Loki, the nefarious villain has died and been replaced by a new, benevolent, well-loved kid-Loki.  Something happened to that Loki and we are now following a chic young teen(ish) Loki, with a swanky apartment and a new agenda: he wants to erase his villainous past and become a Hero.  To do so, he makes arrangements with the All-Mother triumverate of Asgardia (Odin is MIA at the start of this series), he will do missions for them, and for each one, they will erase the story of one of his misdeeds from existence.  Loki is hilarious, and makes friends with Verity Willis, a mortal Midgardian capable of seeing through any lie.  He also gets into shenanigans with Thor, Dr. Doom, Sigurd, Lorelai, and the Enchantress.  This series is currently running and has a trade collection of the first story arc.  Also, there is a fairly important side story for this is the Thor and Loki storyline following the Original Sin event.

4. Harley Quinn by Palmiotti and Connor.  The fan-favorite clown of Gotham leaves her old life behind and moves to Coney Island.  Our beloved Harley sees herself as a bit of a do-gooder.  She’s back to practicing Mental Health, she’s saving all of the pets, putting kidnappers in their place, being a landlord and friend to a crew sideshow carnies.  Of course, she’s still kind of psychotic and goes to her Roller Derby match with an oversized mallet, launches pet poo at her enemies from the roof of her building, and generally follows her violent urges.  We get the occasional visit from Poison Ivy, and one arc with Power Girl, but mostly Harls is off doing her own thing, and it’s fantastic.  There are lots of hilarious special issues to go along with the standard run, which is currently printing.  There is also a trade collection of the first arc.

5.  Lazarus by Greg Rucka.  Rucka creates a brand-new dystopic future in this series.  We mostly follow Forever, the Lazarus of House Carlyle.  The world’s governments have more or less collapsed, to be replaced by a handful of ruling families.  Those with the money, power, and influence rule their territories with an iron fist.  Carlyle made their mark with Biotechnology, and Forever defends their holdings and their right to rule against any who would stand against them.  Full of interesting characters and plenty of cautionary tales about our possible future.  This series is currently running new issues and has a trade collection available as well.  I recommend the single issues over the trade, until the special edition is released, because Rucka’s back matter is fantastic and illuminates more of the world the story is set in, as well as sheds light on where he gets some of his ideas, and how we might be in danger of ending up in a world like Forever’s.

Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the premiere party for the Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. Exhibit at Discovery Center Times Square.  I got to hear a scientist from NASA speak, then I went and explored this awesome new exhibit.  Now, I have to admit, this battlestation was not yet fully operational (Star Wars joke, deal).  And many of my fellow attendees were a bit. . . disappointed that the exhibition wasn’t finished.  But thanks to my stage management experience, I was able to see past the hastily pinned curtains, missing floormats, and half-functioning tech to see what this exhibit was going to be when it was finished (which, it hopefully is, it opened to the public last Friday).  And what it is going to be is freaking awesome.  When you enter the exhibit, you are in an airlock with your fellow STATION recruits and greeted via video by a high-level SHIELD agent.  He briefs you on what to expect, then warns you not to break anything.  The airlock is opened and you are brought into a conference room, where you are shown a video demonstrating who each of the Avengers are and why the Avengers Initiative was created.

Then it’s onto the cool movie and tv props and science exhibits.  First, we see the uniforms of some of our favorite SHIELD agents.  Namely: Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanova, and Clint Barton (if you don’t know who those last two are, I’m not sure we can be friends).  Then we’re treated to some memorabilia from the SSR days (the agency that pre-dated SHIELD and created Captain America).  Then we see the pod that created Cap and learn about the genetics of a super soldier.  How can he do what he does?  Then you can test yourself against Steve Rogers.  There is an arm-powered pedal machine, to test your upper body strength against the metrics the computer shows for Cap.  There is a BMI scanner that compares your physiology to that of Cap.  There is a biometrics station that uses your pulse and electrical current to test your ability to remain calm under stress, and it compares it to Cap’s test results.  The last two stations are a grip-test machine and a reflex test.  The reflex test is a touch-screen showing a battlefield simulation.  You must tap enemies to target them, as fast as you can, but are penalized for targeting team mates and civilians.

There is a room for the Hulk, where you can scientifically measure the force of a punch from the hulk.  You can also check a computer station that will show you brain scans of Bruce Banner and the Hulk and you can see how the physiological changes impact his neurological make-up. (Fascinating stuff, no?  I LOVED it!)  The next corridor displays some Chitauri weapons, a Chitauri in stasis, Loki’s helmet and scepter, and retro HYDRA gear.  Then we’re treated to a large astrometrics lab (which also holds Thor’s armor), where we can search through space and chart the stars in a scientific search for Asgard.  This bit didn’t work, and I’m not sure how it would.  I get my myths and comics mixed up on occasion.  So while I know that Asgard is another dimensional realm of existence in legend, I can’t remember if it coexists on our plane in the comics.  I don’t think so, so I’m not sure how we’ll find it.  The final room is dedicated to Iron Man.  We see the Arc Reactor that powers the STATION, and one of Tony’s Iron Man suits.  Additionally, this room holds a flight simulator.  By standing in this simulator, you use advanced eye-tracking software to pilot an Iron Man suit and fight off an attack.

The people working the exhibit were amazing.  Friendly, excited, engaging, and helpful.  If you get the chance, and are in the area, definitely check this out.  They welcome groups and have a teacher’s guide handy.  Which I would love to get my hands on, and maybe develop a library program to complement the exhibit.

Where are all of our female superheroes?

Today’s post was sparked by a stubby little article I read on Emily’s Facebook wall last week.  It was a bit of speculation concerning  an interview with Kevin Feige (President of Production at Marvel Studios) from moviepilot.com.  In the interview, Feige was asked about a movie with a female super-hero lead (Captain Marvel, maybe?).  His response was non-committal and mostly amounted to no.

I poked around a little more and keep finding rage-inducing pussyfooting from the studio execs.  They’ll be happy to acknowledge Thor 3, a Doctor Strange movie, and a re-vamp of Fantastic Four (which presents another interesting set of issues, which we won’t get into today), but heaven forbid we get a movie about a girl.  And one of the most irritating things is that we have an established girl-character (oh, btw, I use “boy” and “girl” for adults, “man” and “woman” feels weird in my head) in the current Marvel movies: Black Widow.  She’s been around for several movies, and has been in more Marvel movies than any other Avenger.  In fact, her and Hawkeye are the only two Avengers we’ve met so far WITHOUT their own movies.  So why don’t we get a Black Widow standalone?  Well, mostly because studio execs are afraid of girls (I mean, look at the track records: how many times was Buffy cancelled?, where is a Wonder Woman movie?, how about a DC girl-hero CW show?, anyone remember Young Justice getting cancelled because the viewership was primarily tween and teen girls?).

Of course, the reasons we’re given aren’t much better.  Taken from a slashfilm.com and a screenrant.com article: we’re unlikely to see a Black Widow solo for two reasons (both articles are allegedly quoting Feige).  The first is (paraphrased) “she does such a good job as an ensemble character!  It’s not fair to remove her from a proven formula!”  The second is pathetic: (verbatim) “I don’t think we’d get the quote unquote credit for it”.  Wait.  What?!  You don’t want to do a Black Widow standalone because you “won’t get credit for it”?  The only reason you’d consider a girl-lead flick is to “get credit for it”?  I am ashamed.  Fortunately, there’s plenty of buzz that Scarlet Johansson is poking the bear for her own movie.

Meanwhile, we’re still not seeing a Captain Marvel movie, or a Wonder Woman movie, or maybe Storm getting a solo story?  I know there aren’t a lot of solo girl-characters out there, but the X-MEN world is full of badass ladies.  Let’s pick one of them and give her a solo movie.  Anyone want to watch a movie about a telepathic ninja who can manifest psionic weapons?  How about a mutant sorceress who claims rulership over a dimension of hell?

I know that a few of you are trying to point out that we got a Cat Woman solo movie a few years back.  And that totally doesn’t count.  One, it wasn’t really the same character, it was Halle Berry in Bondage gear.  Two, that’s been forever ago!  Let’s get some current stuff happening!  Let’s get some awesome characters in a great storyline that can get new people interested in comic books!

And, just in case I haven’t convinced you that execs are afraid of girls, both as lead characters and as viewers, I’d like to point out that Marvel is super-excited to be giving us a new ensemble movie and have been promoting the crap out of two of the characters more than the others.  They are: a talking raccoon with a big gun, and a walking, talking (barely) tree.  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen!  It is easier to write and sell a talking raccoon and a mobile tree than it is to accept that women are just as awesome as men (or more so, if the ratio of my friends is any indicator).

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The articles mentioned above can be found at:

http://moviepilot.com/posts/2014/03/18/ms-marvel-no-female-lead-marvel-movies-yet-1280310?lt_source=external,manual,manual

http://www.slashfilm.com/captain-marvel-movie/

http://screenrant.com/avengers-2-black-widow/

The new Ms Marvel!

OK, I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, because I wanted to talk about it a bit, but not ruin it for anyone. I’ve decided it’s been long enough, if you haven’t read it by now, why are you waiting?

The new Ms. Marvel series debuted February 5, 2014 (even though the indicia says April, because Marvel likes to mess with our heads).  I love this standard cover.  I was sick the Wednesday it was released, and I ended up with one of the variant covers, which is pretty spiffy (costume design sketches, so I appreciate it a little extra).  But I still prefer this one.  Very simple, but it shows us a bit about our new heroine.  We get clues about her heritage, we get to see she has her own sense of style and design, and we know she’s a student.  And that’s just the first glance.

Anyway, onto the content.  The new Ms. Marvel isn’t quite Ms. Marvel yet.  We meet Kamala Khan in a convenience store in Jersey City (which, I’ll admit is weird.  I’ve always kind of wanted to see Marvel heroes live and work and fight crime outside of NYC, but Jersey isn’t what I had in mind.  I know, I’m a bit prejudiced against NJ).  She is with her friend Nakia, and another friend (we assume), Bruno.  We know Kamala’s family is from Pakistan (possibly Karachi, based on her conversation with a hallucination towards the end of the book), but she was born in America.  Nakia’s family is from Turkey, and they seem to want her to try to assimilate more.  We don’t know much about Bruno, but he does seem to care about Nakia and Kamala.

Kamala is still just a regular kid for most of this book.  Much of her introduction shows her dealing with the usual teen stuff of not fitting in, her parents not understanding her, etc.  There is the added struggle of identity.  Her family is Muslim and her parents are immigrants.  She wants to have their respect, and acknowledge her culture, but she also wants to go to health class, she writes Fan Fic about the Avengers, drools over bacon (but doesn’t eat it), and wants to make friends and go to parties, or in her words “be normal”.  Kamala sneaks out to a party, where she has a bit of a bad experience, and as she leaves, some weird fog rolls in.  As she’s walking in the fog, she begins to hallucinate Ms. Marvel, Captain America, and Iron Man.  They speak Urdu to her (I kind of wish at this point that Urdu was one of the languages I can figure out) and talk to her about her feelings, her struggle for identity, and her desire to be a superhero.  The book ends with her waking up/breaking out of something and looking like the old school Ms. Marvel, complete with blonde hair.

I’m really excited to see where this book goes.  We’re getting to see one of the youngest stand-alone superheroes (possibly the youngest now that Spider-Man Prime has grown up a bit.  How old is he currently, anyway?), and not only that, but this superhero is a girl, and from an immigrant family.  Following her through her trials and growth is going to be amazing.  And, we’re finally seeing a mainstream comic series aimed at teen girls!  This issue wasn’t one that I feel particularly attached to, but that’s mostly because it was just introducing us to our characters.  And at this point, I realize I haven’t mentioned Zoe Zimmer.  I already hate her.  Bruno refers to her as the “concern troll”, because she’s a micro-aggressive skinny white girl who thinly veils her racism and perceived superiority behind concern and “friendliness”.  I’d really like to slap her when we see her interactions with Bruno, Nakia, and Kamala.

I’ve gone on a bit of a ramble, but I hope my point is clear: this series is promising and exciting.  If you’ve been trapped under a rock and have only recently freed yourself, please proceed directly to your local comic shop and buy this book.  Meet our characters and get excited about it.  Then pre-order the next book and wait impatiently with me for the next one.