Huntress and Arsenal. 1 page from outsiders volume 3 issue 12

[requiem2adream]

I have a question about Huntress and Arsenal's one night stand so of course I turn to the lovely ladies and gents of scans_daily to hopefully find the answer.

The first I heard of it was in BoP: Dinah, Babs and Helena are meeting in a park to discuss whether or not they can work together as a team and the subject of Helena's one night stands with Dick and Roy comes up and Helena has the brilliant line 'Archers... they pull a mighty bow but they're quick to let fly'. Which of course pisses Dinah off royally and nearly ends the team before it even begins.

I went back and read the Outsiders issues where Helena takes Roy's place on the team while he recovers from being shot, thinking that would be where I could find the Huntress/Arsenal stuff (I'm a massive Huntress fan and I've been trying to track down and read pretty much everything she's been in because yes I am obsessive) but apart from the kiss at the end




there's not really any interaction between the two and certainly no sexy times going on between the pair.

So folks my question is this: is this the first time it's ever referenced or is does the Helena/Roy stuff happen in different issues to the ones I've been reading? 

Comments

[icon_uk]

The implication I get from this is that they've only just had their sex-but-not-a-thing during this time period.

[harpers_child]

i've always found roy's whole "i grab every chance to sleep with amazing women" thing to be very much my own sentiments. although given the way he's staring at nightwing's ass maybe he should drop the women part of that line. no need to limit yourself to just the women, roy.

[ajremix.livejournal.com]

I actually had to re-read Roy's last line because it first sounded like a muttered self-flagellation from a guy knowing he can't get what he wants.

[julian]

I've had them as "ongoing thing that happens mostly in our minds" for awhile now. There's some Outsiders stuff (5-6 years back, now?) where they have one of those "Fights as substitute for sex" things that's quite somethin'.

[thelazyreader]

Funnily enough this may be one of the most natural one-night-stands in superhero comics, because Huntress and Arsenal are like opposite-gender versions of each other in the 'will sleep with anyone who's hot' aspect.

[requiem2adream]

I don't see that about Helena at all.

Of all the men she's been linked with - Charlie, Dick, Roy and Thomas - she didn't sleep with a single one of them 'because they're hot'.

Well, except Roy. I don't know WHY she got with Roy which is the thing that's bugging me most about the way it's just kind of dropped in at the end of her time with the outsiders.

As for the others, well they ARE hot of course but there where other reasons for her to be with them apart from just hotness.

[kirke_novak]

I have absolutely nothing of substance to add, except for: BRITTANA! \o/

[requiem2adream]

I don't know, I think that's pretty substantial in and of itself XD

[shadowpsykie]

am i the only one who thinks Dick is a little jealous

maybe its just this community but his "Is there anyone you WONT sleep with" came out like either "Roy, YOU bitch, i thought i was the only one," or "Dammit Roy, why won't you LOVE ME!"

[joasakura]

You're never the only one.

;D

[requiem2adream]

It's never just you.

[wasabi.livejournal.com]

Certainly not. In my personal canon that was the main reason Dick swings off in a huff.

[icon_uk]

Nope, you are definitely not alone there...

[darrylayo]

Whoa dude, am I supposed to read that page "manga style?"

The reading order is all over the goddamn place.

[sharky_chan]

All I can say is Helena's waist is really freaking me out in those panels. It's like the artist learned anatomy from Liefeld comics and forgot her internal organs. She'll probably need those at some point...

[ravenous_raven]

Never just you. I kept on looking at it from the 2 angles pictured, thinking it was the shading or the color of the costume, but when a girl's waist looks like it has the same diameter of the bicep of the guy she's kissing, there are serious art issues.


At least it's an archer's bicep and not, say, Plastic Man. Yay for the small things?

[darrylayo]

Holy god, how did I miss that??

I think that in looking over the art, the blackness of the cape created a visual "mass" there and I completely missed that her waist is about the size of two forefingers.

That is really shameful.

[aaron_bourque]

This was before the threesome with Hal Jordan and Lady Blackhawk, right?

[big_daddy_d]

Yep. Waaay before that. Like...4 or so years ago. Maybe 5, can't remember. I have the trade so i need to go back and check the date. Plus note that Roy still has two arms there. Well at least one of them isn't a robot arm.

[requiem2adream]

It's from way back when Helena had barely joined the Birds. Cover date is July '04.

[heckfiresinferno.blogspot.com]

Huh...lemme guess, Winick wrote this, right?

[requiem2adream]

Winnick did indeed write this.

Quite possibly what I find most offensive about this issue, far more than the idea of Helena sleeping with Roy, is that Winnick has her talking like an extra from Cluseless ('Aw man it's all under my costume and stuff. Dude.') and she apparently only has one comeback in her vocabulary ('eat this, hero.') which she uses twice in as many pages.

Score zero for meaningful and snappy dialogue, Winnick.

[tsunamiwombat]

No one seems to be able to characterize Helena correctly when it comes to romance and sex...

Also, ew, Soulpatch

[requiem2adream]

I don't know about no one.

Simone and Rucka do a pretty good job of it IMO.

But to be honest Simone and Rucka are pretty much the only writers that seem to understand how to write Helena at all.

[jaybee3]

As I've said before - this one scene did more damage to Huntress's reputation (and is the primary source of the "She Gets Around" mention she's in under TV Tropes) since prior to this she was never presented as a casual sex with no feelings kind of person (she had a one-night stand with Dick yes but there were hardly "no feelings" there and Devin Grayson even seemed to be building up to something more when she had Dick when he visited her at New Year's).

Now, thanks to Winick, all of a sudden she'll go to bed with anyone - whether it be Roy or Josh the parking attendant who treated her like a piece of meat (though I think Gail was actually using that to move Helena away from this characterization). Prior to her "guest" appearance in Outsiders she had not only never seen to be the slightest bit interested in Roy - she had never had scenes with him, and after this (aside from the BoP mention which seemed like another Gail meta-comment on this Outsiders thing) she never mentions him again - and has had no scenes with him since.
Winick basically brought her onto the book just for this. So she could be used as a sexual sparring joke between Roy and Dick (who've both slept with her - ha, ha, right, Judd). It's not even about her.

Winick does that a lot. Reading back the Lost Days of Red Hood mini he sexed up Talia more than she had ever had been before (she has sex with nameless minion AND Jason in story where she's a supporting character) and the whole point of the story seemed to be getting to Jason and Talia having sex. Literally that was the climax (pardon the pun) of the entire mini-series and what it seemed all to be building up to. And just like this Outsiders story it was a story about the GUY where the woman in question is basically used as a prop and nothing more.

In case anyone missed I really, really, REALLY hate this story.

[whitesycamore]

Winick basically brought her onto the book just for this. So she could be used as a sexual sparring joke between Roy and Dick (who've both slept with her - ha, ha, right, Judd). It's not even about her.

Except that if anything, the exchange seems to be about Roy and his promiscuity. He's the one getting negative judgement from Dick, however mild it might be. Dinah and Helena's joking over Roy was in much, much poorer taste than anything Dick and Roy said - particularly considering Dinah's relationship with Roy.

prior to this she was never presented as a casual sex with no feelings kind of person

Not everyone agrees that that is such a terrible thing to be. I actually find Simone's portrayal of Helena's sexuality far more offensive. I'd take a happy slut any day over a woman who sleeps with Josh just because she has low self-esteem, then decides to "reform." Ugh. Then again, I've always hated the trope that women only sleep around because they have emotional issues.

[jeyl]

So the moral here is that monogamy is bad?