Why thank you, I FEEL fabulous too!

[icon_uk]

One page from preview of "Secret Six #16" currently visible here at Newsarama (But be warned that the preview pages are out of order)

And here we see the Phantom Stranger's new look, and he's never been happier



Okay, I'm fibbing, it's the return of Black Alice!

Comments

[leikomgwtfbbq]

P.S. I can't really explain why, but I rather dislike Black Alice. It bothers me, because I wish I could come up with some kind of actual reason. I can't, and I still dislike her. ARGH.

Usually, when I dislike characters, I like to be able to come up with a good enough reason to explain why.

[/pointless ramble]

[tsunamiwombat]

Possibly because she's spent most of her existance being emo and beating up superhero's trying to help her.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

Yeah, that's probably part of it.

I think another part of it is the fact that I have an irrational hatred of all emo-type heroes. I'm bored with them by now. I want somebody exciting and intrepid and interesting to star in my superhero comics!

And like ian_karkull said, she doesn't seem to have much in the way of clear motivation. Dull.

[ian_karkull]

I agree actually. There's something vaguely annoying about her that I can't quite put my finger on.

Maybe it's the combination of instant omnipotence, cliche goth girl look and apparent lack of any clear motivation that sets off the old alarm bells.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

You have a point there, like I said in a previous comment.

[raygunjill]

For me, it's that there's yet another skinny white chick with no pants in DC's magic user powerset while people like Empress get ignored. Simone falls into that pattern a lot, for example in Birds of Prey when she needed a martial artist she invented a generic Asian woman instead of using say, Onyx. It hardly counts a new character when you're just recycling the same old problems.

[icon_uk]

What martial artist woman did she create?

[raygunjill]

Judomaster, who had no real purpose or personality other than spouting banter that could have easily fit a number of preexisting characters.

[icon_uk]

Judomaster is an ex-Charlton character they probably need to keep active (since they had Bane break the back of the original in Infinite Crisis). Onyx is already DC property, so is less of an issue.

[raygunjill]

They don't have to keep Charlton characters active since they own them outright. It's not like Superboy or Supergirl where they go back to Siegal's family if they're not in print. The issue is that instead of using a black woman who already had a history with the Bat family and Birds of Prey, they chose to have a generic Asian woman added to the already overcrowded field. It's a trend in Simone's work that I find problematic.

[ian_karkull]

Thank you! I always have to surpress an over the top eyeroll when people demand the Simone' Judomaster back. That character was such an enormous cipher, nobody would have noticed any difference if it wasn't for the change in language.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

'Nother fair point. There are gobs of other already-existing magic characters to use that don't get enough attention, and would be really cool to read about.