What to say of Scott Lobdell on Bat-Family titles? First, he messed up big time with Jason Todd’s characterization. Judd Winnick had established the interesting notion that Jason didn’t blame Bruce for his death, he only blamed him of not having cared enough to kill the Joker afterwards. That made a lot of sense and did not make Jason come across as petty, if written well. After all, how could he blame Bruce if Jason himself was the one who had run off on his own, disobeying Bruce’s instructions? Well never mind that, in the New 52, Scott Lobdell ignored that important aspect that made Jason interesting and relatable and showed us a flashback scene with Jason blaming Bruce for ‘letting’ him die!
He also gave us a bland and unrecognizable Tim Drake in the pages of ‘Teen Titans’. I picked up the title at first if only to follow Tim, my favorite Robin, but it quickly became clear this was Tim Drake in name only so I dropped ‘Teen Titans’. And now Scott Lobdell has announced that in ‘Teen Titans #0’, he’ll explain how Tim was, in fact, never Robin. (Despite that New 52 titles have already established he used to be one, so DC once again proves they have no idea what’s going on with their continuity. Didn’t take them long to mess it up!)
It seems to me that so far, every continuity change brought to the Bat-Family that I despised other than Barbara Gordon never having been Oracle (which I think we can blame on Dan Didio, who’s always championed the notion of putting heroes from the 70’s and earlier back in the outfits they used to wear) has been done under the pen of Scott Lobdell.
It’s stuff like this that makes me no longer care about what was once a rich history and continuity I loved being knowledgeable in.
O.k, so someone reblogged my recent article about Power Girl’s body type and added to it: “lol wtf? Curvy my ass. She was a skinny girl with ridiculously improbable breasts. Both versions fail to draw breasts realistically and to complain because basically, they’ve made them smaller? Don’t make me laugh. Typical male.”
I’ve got a few things to say about that comment. The first is that apparently she just glanced over my article, as I clearly stated there are some characters that I wouldn’t want to see as busty. So this isn’t a crusade to make all super-heroines busty or anything like that. I’m using this case because it’s the most recent. Before I had a blog, I nerd-raged at my local comic-book store about how Cassandra Cain/Batgirl was portrayed in this image:
See, to me that’s NOT Cassandra Cain and obviously the artist didn’t know about her and gave her a huge chest. No, Cassandra Cain looks like this:
But that’s an example from years ago already and it happened the time of one cover. There was no point to make a full article about that.
Tim Drake/Red Robin looks like this:
NOT like this!:
But again, this is from before I had a blog and just the time of one issue, not as a current ongoing series. Rob Liefeld recently drew 10-year-old Damian Wayne way too tall to be his age, but there’s no point in mentioning how Liefeld’s art is bad at this point, everyone is pretty much aware. So that’s why I addressed Power Girl. It wasn’t a ‘typical male’ agenda, she was just the most recent example.
Second, Power Girl’s body type isn’t unrealistic, as the reblogger claims. It’s not a body type that you’ll see very often, granted, but it does exist and there are women out there who look like that. I’ve previously dated a girl who was even more naturally endowed than Power Girl. The rest of her body type was average, she wasn’t chubby. (I’m not saying being chubby is bad, I’m just saying that a girl with an overall average build CAN be busty too!) One sad thing I’ve noticed is that the hate busty women receive often comes from other women. To the person who claims that busty women are unrealistic, you should check out this blog, Busty Girl Comics. It should educate you a bit, I hope.
And here’s where I’m going to add some oil to the fire, so to speak. I like naturally busty women. That’s the body type I feel the most attracted to. Does that make me a ‘typical male’? Does that make me a pig or a gross human being? I’d like to think it doesn’t, as I’ve always done my best to treat women with respect. I also know a lot of men who have VERY different preferences than I do when it comes to women, so I don’t consider my taste to be necessarily the ‘typical’ one! And to reverse this, I’m a man with a square jaw and an average height and build. When some female friends tell me their type is ‘a lean pretty boy’ or ‘a muscular tall guy’ (both of which I’m not) I don’t tell them they’re being ‘typically female’. Earlier as I was browsing my dashboard, a girl I follow mentioned in her blog how (to keep our examples comic-book-centric) she had a ‘crush’ on Frank Castle/The Punisher. I didn’t think “Of course, ALL girls like bad boys! How typically female!” (Heck, I even liked her comment.)
But that’s not even the point! My articles weren’t written because I like busty women. My gripe with body types as they are portrayed in comics is real. Maybe my preferences allowed me to notice this where others wouldn’t when it comes to Power Girl, but I don’t think it should make all of what I said invalid. I’ve pointed out Tim Drake/Red Robin, does that mean I’m into lean, athletic boys? No, it simply means I’m tired of the ‘all characters look the same way’ trope. I also think that dismissing my point by making a very sexist remark on my person when you don’t even know me was incredibly stupid, conceited and ignorant. (Hey, if you get to insult me, I get to point out how you acted!)
I’m loving most of the bat-books currently on the stands (including those these images come from!) but it needs to be said… The Bat-Family needs to stop being so physically abusive!
Don’t forget DC writers and editors! Readers have a long memory… Let’s just take an example (non-canon, but still) from 1965!:
Which gave birth to…
Wait a second… Maybe that’s what they want!!! Maybe they’re just trying to create new internet memes!!! O_O
Well, probably not. :p
