FLASHPOINT: LOIS LANE AND THE AMAZONS OF GOR, and SECRET SEVERING

[jlroberson]

So I'm reading through the various absolutely wonderful DC FLASHPOINT event series that I have absolutely no complaints about. I think it's a great idea to spend the summer turning over your whole line to people from DCU Online who can't draw anatomy without Poser. For this is the 21st century, and no more Grandpa Pencils. I for one welcome our tracing overlords. And besides, how best to make sure people BEG for your relaunch?

That said, I felt I really needed to bring your attention to the standout achievement of the bunch: LOIS LANE AND THE AMAZONS OF GOR. I think they put it out under a slightly different title. It's just that, especially as someone whose business it is to draw women, I found so much to learn from in this expertly-wrought master class in female anatomy, perspective, and how clothes drape. Behold these four pages drawn by Eddie Nunez, and love them. LOVE THEM.

As you can see, Howard Chaykin has NOTHING on Nunez when it comes to realistic treatment of dresses on the body.

I especially find her incredible disintegrating paper dress to be clever. Best of all, nothing causes the ripping. She merely runs. Look at the page before and the page after. And look at that thigh in the first panel! Is that a muscle? Does he think there's anything between a woman's front and back?

And that pose in panel 2: DRAMATIC. EVERYBODY DO JAZZ HANDS! Her, and the little boy in the exact same pose in the panel below her.

And I really love the sense of mystery. Like how exactly it's clinging to her crotch. As it does in each and every panel.

Also, where does she keep her phone? A question no one wants answered.

Because Nunez has the genius to realize that clothes are just a few more lines you draw on a naked female body.

And the last two panels! WOW. SHE KNOWS BOTH HIS NAMES. It's like at first she was calling out to another Jimmy drowning, and then wanted to avoid confusion.

But here is the crowning achievement.


Look at the Amazon dressed up for a GOR cosplay party. DC, at the least, there are plenty of competent artists who know how to draw sexy women, if that's what you want, WITHOUT making me vomit. Yet you have the genius to not employ them.

And I am absolutely sure there's no reason to even think about a female readership with a Lois Lane book of any kind. KUDOS. Lois Lane fans, REJOICE!

I am full of admiration and my heart is filled with love.
And please, do not call it Trashpoint, because that would be rude. It should not remind you of ULTIMATUM. Not at all. hate them or despise them, never let it be said DC lacks the courage to ruin its characters. The problem is that only produces a sales spike when those characters are well-known, and the kind of ruining isn't...this kind.
And please don't take anything I say to mean that FLASHPOINT all has the quality of an afterthought, carelessly dumped on the market for...what exactly? To provide some new toy designs?
SPOILER BELOW:

And DC certainly loves their female readership, as we all know, because over in SECRET SEVEN, sadly written by the great Peter Milligan, they also give us this image of a murdered and mutilated character specifically designed for young girls--a character who herself is twelve years old inside(and says so in this story, so this isn't even an adult version; I also submit that even though this is an AU, the otherdimensional nature of both characters makes that a little irrelevant). A character they haven';t bothered to use for years. A character who has innocence to her. Oh, you know she had a target on her face at that moment. Look, it was Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, here in bed with Dext--I mean Shade.

Total genius, this. I don't think it's stupid, or vile, at all. And certainly not any kind of deciding moment for me, leading to me not wanting to look at DC Comics at all.

(all artwork (c)2011 DC Comics)

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Comments

[marco]

I just don't know what to think or how to feel about this... I just know that I don't want to pick up this title. That dress is really killing me though.

[jlroberson]

It's of one use: to be studied and memorized as How Not To Do It.

[lucky_gamble]

Thanks. I almost forgot the mediocre filth some writers and artists published in comics presently. That wasn't sarcasm =/ Also, i'm not jumping the gun on the Amethyst bit. We've seen characters "die" in one issue then power up or wake up the next. That still doesn't stop it from being skeevy.

[jlroberson]

Well, exactly. I'm not complaining because "oh no this major change to my precious character" because this will mostly be retconned out anyway. As with the Plastic Man thing, I'm questioning why do this to these characters, these SPECIFIC relatively innocent ones, at all. Why make me see this happen to Amethyst. Why make me think of Plastic Man as a chestburster.

Thing is, what with all the DCU Online people doing most of these(like Nunez) I expect it to be off-key at best. But MILLIGAN? That breaks my heart. This isn't even such a strange thing for his Shade. But using Amethyst this way is absolutely wrong.

[fifthie]

And I am absolutely sure there's no reason to even think about a female readership with a Lois Lane book of any kind.

If they hadn't thought about it, they couldn't have so scrupulously prevented it from happening!

[lilacsigil]

Wow, the only fully clothed women on these pages are either Mom (in very tight clothes) and possibly the baby. The only naked or tightly clothed men are...gee, none of them.

I like the bra effect on Shade's costume, though. A subtle reminder that he was a female character here that would be the entire top of the costume.

[jlroberson]

And don't you love how Jimmy is a manly hero man here and Lois is the damsel in distress?

Of course, we also find out that Jimmy was some kind of badass secret agent, because Lois has to have a way to communicate with Cyborg(Jimmy's camera).

Speaking of which, am I then only one who simply can't take seriously the idea throughout Flashpoint I'm supposed to be impressed by Cyborg? Has Cyborg got this massive fan base I've never heard of? Because he's always, all the way back to the 80s, kinda bored me.

[fifthie]

I don't habitually quote factualopinion.com here, for the same reason I don't habitually mix my matter with my anti-matter, but:

Take this comic, for example. That cover-depicting a badass looking chick facing off against a bunch of random DC characters, one of whom (the Demon Etrigan) any normal human has no chance against and should, by rights, be shit-their-pants-terrified of, and yet Lois is packing a nine, all set to fire at their prime time. If anything shows promise--if anything shows an understanding on DC's part that they could actually win some people over to liking their comics and not just buying them in a state of depressed "maybe this time they won't use a weight bench to rape my favorite female character" dejection like some pop culture abuse victim, it's the comic this cover has on advertisement, the comic that's about the take-no-shit scarf wearing lady who plans to shoot some motherfuckers in the face for jacking up her trip to London. And hell, it's by Abnett and Lanning! They wrote all that cosmic Marvel shit that I know at least one person liked, I'll bet this is going to be the pickle I eat, not the pickle I boink the dog with! How could they fuck up this kind of touchdown?



Oh neverfuckingmind

[jlroberson]

Well, I'd never heard of this blog before, and reading it now, I think I will be reading it again. Thanks.

[fifthie]

I'd say it's the 100% pure Colombian of hating comics but it's really more the newfangled cut with flesh-eating bacteria Columbian of hating comics.

So I mean, enjoy with caution!!

[fifthie]

Warning: Couple of kinda graphic photos at link!

[perletwo]

....they brought back Amethyst. My Amethyst, who I read when I was actually effin' twelve, and a girl I might add - so they could a) draw her badly and b) do THIS to her? THIS??????!!!!!??????

GRRRRRR. Urge...to KILL....RISING....must...control....FIST of DEATH....

[jlroberson]

And over in the main Flashpoint series Kubert Boy thinks those circles are a rockin' 70s necklace.

[lilacsigil]

I like rockin' 70s (or here, rockin' 80s!) Shade!

[equinox216]

"I... I think I KILLED her."

By punching the Kool-Aid Man to death? By knife-fighting a Glidden Paint sales representative? By coming in second to Eel O'Brien in a race with Snake Plissken in the third in the series, "Escape From Cluemaster's Duodenum"? Because your HANDS are covered in vermilion and the rest of the LANDSCAPE (which I'm comfortable including the woman in, since she was evidently only brought back to serve as a terrain feature) is covered in random black crap.

I don't know who anyone in that picture is, and I STILL hate it.

[terabient]

WOMEN DO NOT WORK THAT WAY

And could these "Ancient Greece" costumes be any more cliched?

[misterbug]

Thank god for Jimmy Olsen. If that brave, resourceful lad hadn't reverted to his Water Elemental form, that poor man would have drowned...or...um...

Ah. Never mind.

[endis_ni]

Wait... as in this Amethyst?

Seriously?

Okay, that, right there, is well out of order. Sure, she was a small but shining part of my childhood, but basically I'm getting pissed off by DC's current mania for horrifically killing/corrupting any innocent little girl characters they have on the books.

Mary Marvel, Lian Harper, Amy Winston, it's starting to look like a trend, and a desperately skeevy one at that. And what makes this worse is that these are characters who'd probably quite appeal to young girls as readers just coming to comics. So they're not just retroactively telling Ickle Ni to fuck off, they're doing it to my niece's generation as well.

Dear DC, there's nothing wrong with innocent. There's nothing wrong with sweet. And there's nothing wrong with young girls either.

Try to remember that.

Ni.

[dr_jekyl]

I don't mind Cyborg, but I think his sudden preeminence is due entirely to the Hal Jordan effect. But that might just be me being cynical.

[jlroberson]

Yep, it's that Amethyst. And as mentioned: in the story itself, she says she's twelve inside. Not an "adult" Amethyst. The very same one you remember.

Motto on all you say there. This is just sad. And it's shocking, sure. It's "I'm throwing this across the room and not buying any more" shocking, though. It's DO NOT WANT shocking. I'm not sure DC knows the difference.

[jlroberson]

What is meant by the Hal Jordan Effect, at least in respect to Cyborg? Please elaborate.

[thebigapricot]

We talked about this on the last 3 Chicks podcast. Not a good book and putting Nunez on it, who draws every woman with same giant boobs, was a poor choice. I was really looking forward to Lois having her own mini, but outside of the first few pages with Lois barking at Perry, this was not their finest hour.

[jlroberson]

Or generic, or unimaginative, or more like "I've never looked at a WW comic in my life and was given this assignment at the last minute and GOD I hate drawing."

[jlroberson]

Link to podcast? I'd like to hear this. (no, I've never heard the podcast, my apologies, I mostly just listen to Deconstructing Comics and Mindless Ones, so thanks for letting me know of another)

[silverzeo]

Wow, even in an alternate timeline, Amethyst gets Fridged... come to think of think it. Why even bother mentioning her anymore? It's like all the nods to Jason Todd before he's return...