More First Wave: Justice Inc., The Spirit, Black Canary, Rima the Jungle Girl

[manofbats.insanejournal.com]

This was posted over at the Source.

Comments

[thebigapricot.insanejournal.com]

Oh goodie, they redesigned Canary and gave her an inappropriately stomach baring costume. Thanks DC!

[manofbats.insanejournal.com]

First, it's an AU story. Second, it's appropriate within the context of the story.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

It's kinda funny how so many people from widely different ends of the spectrum want women covered up.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

I don't care if she covers up...I just want her looking less like a hooker. Replacing those shorts (if it is shorts, it could also be a micro-skirt, which would be worse) with...just about anything would be a good start.

[manofbats.insanejournal.com]

It says in the description that she is biker. By biker babe standards she is a nun.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

I know biker chicks. (I know a pretty good number of bikers of both sexes.) Biker chicks wear long pants. Usually either full length leather pants, or jeans with leather chaps over them. I've never seen a biker wearing anything like that while on a bike outside the pages of Easy Rider magazine. And I can guarantee you none of those women wear that stuff when they're actually RIDING.

As a heroine, she's just unpleasantly hookerish looking.

As a biker, she's absolutely ridiculous - if she spills, even if she manages not to break her skull open, she's doomed, because everything from the waist down is getting torn to shit.

I'm willing to put the impracticality as bike gear aside, because that applies to the standard Canaries, too, and what's a little impracticality for a superhero costume? But trying to use it to defend the hookerishness brings out the laughing at it as biker kit.

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

You want . . . GA Black Canary . . . to be dressed decently????

Hello, here's the point ----->.

You've completely missed it.

[strannik01.insanejournal.com]

I don't presume to speak for other comm members, but for me, the objection isn't so much about skimpy costumes as it is about impractical skimpy costumes.

[manofbats.insanejournal.com]

In many ways that is worse.

[mari_redstar.insanejournal.com]

What do you think is funny about it?

I want women in tights, because I'm a woman, I've dressed as a superhero in public, and I like to be able to look at heroines and think "Nice costume, and a cool hero, I'd love to be the Black Canary", not "Man, that would be horrible to wear, being one inch of spandex away from flashing the people you're saving, having to shave your legs etcetera twice a day every day, I sure am glad I'm not the Black Canary." Presumably other people want women covered up for other reasons. So what?

Speaking of covering up the Black Canary, where's the love for her Golden Age costume, everyone? I've gone in that the last three Halloweens- leotard, blue tights, fishnets over them. You have warm legs, you can sit down without getting your bare skin stuck to the plastic chair, it's still got the iconic Canary fishnets, and reactions suggest that adding the tights don't exactly kill the sex appeal.

[thebigapricot.insanejournal.com]

I understand its AU, not sure why it's appropriate within the context of the story. If someone is fighting crime they really should cover up. Unless, of course, they can fire bullets from their navel.

[bluejaybirdie.insanejournal.com]

fire bullets from their navel

...I really want to see someone with this super power now. Preferably some hyper-masculine tough guy, because seeing him in a bellyshirt would be hilarious.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

You know, I could work that idea into a pretty neat super-powered assassin character. Maybe the bullets he fires are actually some of his tissue, so they never find a bullet bullet in the wound, and his tissue would just blend in. He'd be a great partner for the White Russian. (http://bariman1987.livejournal.com/8996.html)

[darkblade.insanejournal.com]

When the crime fighting is an outlet for teenage rebelion it makes a certain amount of sense to dress up in something that your parents wouldn't let you wear normally.

That said for all of the symbolic siginifcance the costume may hold it has no practical purpose other that giving the bad guys a nice target.

[arbre_rieur.insanejournal.com]

We're talking about someone whose signature visual feature is fishnets. The practicality boat sailed loooonnnngg ago.

[manofbats.insanejournal.com]

This.

[jelly_ace.insanejournal.com]

Well, the belleh is used for distraction, as in Huntress's costume.

[darkblade.insanejournal.com]

Yes because that totally went over well with this comm.

[balbaroy.insanejournal.com]

I dunno, I buy that for the Bat-Symbol, because it's made of armor plate or whatever. But the whole "Aim for the target!" thing doesn't make as much sense when it'd end up with your hero disemboweled.

It's kind of a fine line - while the most totemic, enduring costumes are often so because of their impracticality, at a certain point the weird little things about a character start messing with your disbelief. Sure, I can buy that Black Canary has a sonic scream which selectively follows physical law, but high heels make no sense to me.

[jelly_ace.insanejournal.com]

I was joking. What kind of distraction would a belly really offer?
...
...
Come to think of it, I would totally be distracted if a superhero has a face drawn on her belly.
...
...
Or if it has fur. And if the hero shouts "Scratch my belleeeeh."

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Or a singing belly button, like those creepy-ass 90s Levi commercials. That shit would stop me in my tracks.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

On that note, I pointed a friend to the 'Huntress wanting belleh scritching' exchange we had when her exposed belly was being discussed. The result. (http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/2722/huntresskitty.jpg)

(She said the pose made the mask too awkward to draw.)

[jelly_ace.insanejournal.com]

SCRATCH TEH BELLEH OF JUSTIZ! LOL

[kingrockwell]

Awful as the top might be, that skirt is way, wayyyy worse. The makeup mask is an interesting touch, but the outfit doesn't say "teenage rebellion" so much as it says "prostitute".

[aaron_bourque.insanejournal.com]

Which . . . didn't GA Black Canary go undercover as a criminal???

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; isn't that how she was originally introduced???