WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN??

[brooms]

Tom Brevoort has a Formspring and he's actually pretty good at answering questions.

In his most recent batch of replies, he tackled things like the recent CATWOMAN/STARFIRE controversy and why Gambit isn't invited to more poker games.














(If you don't remember her, go here.)

Comments

[abriel]

Okay, okay, point. I worded it wrong. I should have said when Moonstone was working her way through the team. Which, even though it's a bit more empowering, is still sexualized cheesecake. Or at least some might see it that way.

Not saying that I had a problem with it. But I know many people did.

[salinea]

It was definitely...



well I'm not gonna lie, I love Moonstone, and Dark Avengers is the first thing I read with her; so obviously I don't have a huge issue with it :p

but it's certainly a negative stereotype in many ways (and only made a modicum amount of sense) though the reasons it's a negative stereotype are also rooted in the sexist way culture views female sexuality etc.

[abriel]

Well Bendis's crappy writing and his horrible characterization of her didn't help. He took away her intelligence, her craftiness, her signature sarcasm, and everything good about her character and all that was left was the woman of the team who served as eye candy for the book, and all there was to her character was the fact that she was sleeping around. Thankfully she's getting better under Parker's pen--much better--but under Bendis, eegad. And I forget who it was that was writing Ms. Marvel during "War of the Marvels" but Karla's characterization there was just awful. When you forget about one major power that features heavily in the set that your character has (in Karla's case, intangibility), you fail as a comic writer.


(Yes I love Moonstone too, in case anyone can't tell :P)

[salinea]

didn't it start earlier with Ellis' Thunderbolt? Or did you like how she was characterised there?

[abriel]

See I hear that accusation with Ellis's run a lot and I have read through that run multiple times and frankly I don't see where he messed up her character there. Really the only thing he messed up big on was making up the heated rivalry between her and Songbird, who happens to be another one of my favorites. Before Ellis Karla and Mel never really hated each other all that much...oh Karla would push Mel's buttons by jabbing at her "white trash" past and making snide remarks about how she would sleep with anyone and Mel didn't really trust Karla but the two of them weren't arch-rivals...they were just there. Ellis changed that.

But that was the only thing. Far as I can see Karla was still pretty crafty, manipulative, and smart under his pen. About the only thing I could see that his critics might be right on is the fact that Ellis basically pushed Karla over the fence into being pretty much pure villain, as opposed to before when she really was riding the fence.

Even before Ellis though Karla was a pretty sexual character. She did strip naked in front of Hawkeye in the training room and then seduced the Counter-Earth version of Lloyd Bloch. I believe both those times were under Nicieza's pen, the guy who is revered among the hardcore Thunderbolts fanboys as the only true Tbolts writer.

[icon_uk]

I believe both those times were under Nicieza's pen, the guy who is revered among the hardcore Thunderbolts fanboys as the only true Tbolts writer.

Really? Not Kurt Busiek, who CREATED the concept of the Thunderbolts? That's.... sad more than anything.

[abriel]

Yep, really. I almost never heard Busiek's name brought up in discussions of the 'Bolts. It's always Fabian's.

[salinea]

I think I've heard more of Busiek in positive fashion myself. Possibly one of those "it depends where" kind of things.

[salinea]

I thought Moonstone was manipulative, but also portrayed as... not as smart as she thinks she is in that run. Kind of getting way over her head in term of the team leadership.

[abriel]

She wasn't a good leader because she always looked for fast and easy fixes rather than focusing on the big picture. That and she didn't care. She liked being leader more for the power and the prestige, not to mention the hefty paycheck Osborn was giving her for holding the position. When it came to doing a good job though she just didn't give a shit. Karla was quite self-centered as she's always been.

Now when Bendis got ahold of her, all that flew out the window and she lost all that intelligence and manipulation. I look at all the missed opportunities where Karla's skills at being manipulative could have been put to good use...Molecule Man for instance. Here is this insane, incredibly powerful guy and she doesn't try to manipulate him? Or Sentry for that matter? And what about when Ares hit on her? Now there would have been an opportunity to use her sexuality as a good manipulation tool considering how key Ares was to Osborn's plans at the time. Instead she sleeps with Bullseye because he dresses like her ex? That made her look hardup and pathetic, made all the worse by the fact that in Ellis's run she couldn't stand Bullseye. She thought he was a disgusting creep and he even tried to kill her once. I mean, really.

[icon_uk]

Karla is, first and foremost a manipulator, she'll use whatever technique she deems necessary to give herself the upper hand in any situation and has few scruples.

When she was a therapist, we saw her phone up a patient who was having suspicions about her husband, and using a fake voice, encouraged the very suspicions she was supposed to be treating, so she could keep the lucrative patient a while longer, and she DID manage to psyche the original Moonstone into actively rejecting the gemstone which gave him his powers, which she promptly grabbed and absorbed herself, giving her the Moonstone powers.

In the Busiek Thunderbolts run she could be seen playing characters off against each other ALL the time, and made sure that she became Jolt's best friend in the group before anyone else could, since she was a wild card, and if there was going to be a wild card, she wanted to be the one she'd turn to for guidance.

There's an awesome moment where she's trying to get the now biomechanical Techno (Fixer as was) to join her against Zemo. She tries reason and argument and then you can all but HEAR her shift gears as she poses suggestively and tries to play on his libido. It SHOULD be sexy (and perhaps it was to some), but it's such a calculated move that it's clear she's entirely in control.

Whilst I have no doubt she would use sex as a manipulation technique if it suited her*, it would be one she would only use in certain circumstances and she had no higher expectations of those she was attempting to influence. Perhaps with the Dark Avengers, who were hardly an intellectual bunch she decided to go for the most basic primal urges of the team, though I would have expected more... variety from her as she is a VERY smart woman.

* To contrast with her relationship with Hawkeye for example, which was very much "real" rather than a power game, which made it rather sweet.

[salinea]

Great analysis!!

[whitesycamore]

Perhaps with the Dark Avengers, who were hardly an intellectual bunch she decided to go for the most basic primal urges of the team, though I would have expected more... variety from her as she is a VERY smart woman.

Why couldn't she go for a manipulation tactic that's both effective and enjoyable for her?

Very smart women like to have fun too.

I should know. :D

[icon_uk]

See I don't think she necessarily found it fun (at least not in all cases, I mean to say, Gargan?), just... tactically convenient.

Also, because using exactly the same approach with everyone on the team seems short sighted. It would highlight her intelligence and skills if she had found OTHER weakpoints, like discovering that, say, Sentry had a thing for old comicbooks, or Daken has a petit-point collection to die for.

[whitesycamore]

Now might be a good time to pint out that I'm pretty hazy on who exactly the Dark Avengers are/were (Marvel comics? What are those?) I just assumed most of them were hot, because you know, superheroes. although wait - the Dark Avengers are actually super *villains,* aren't they? OK then, you may have a point.

Also, because using exactly the same approach with everyone on the team seems short sighted. It would highlight her intelligence and skills if she had found OTHER weakpoints, like discovering that, say, Sentry had a thing for old comicbooks, or Daken has a petit-point collection to die for.

It's Daken - fuck the petit-point collection. If she decided to limit herself to one dude from the team then she pretty much has to get on that. He'd be more fun than a barrel of particularly sexy monkeys, you know it.

I think Daken's weakness is sipping tea from delicate china cups, anyway. That and cashmere scarves.

[salinea]

Moonstone definitly slept with Noh-Var (who is a white haired pretty boy, natch), Bullseye (who personality asides isn't ugly) - can't ever remember if she actually slept with Daken (thought she tried, hit on him in the tea house while he wore that cashmere scarf and Daken got contrarian on her - probably jealous she'd succeeded on sleeping with Bullseye and he hadn't yet). I don't think she slept with Ares either (a matter of taste, I guess...), Sentry (definitely not ugly) & Gargan (much less pretty, but you can't diss tentacles, can you?)

[abriel]

No, she basically turned up her nose at Ares (which still bugs me...he was a freaking god for crying outloud, and like I said it would have been a great opportunity to be manipulative), and I think she latched onto Gargan mainly to spurn Daken whom she was pissed off at at the time.

[icon_uk]

The petit-point was a slight riff on a rather great moment in James Robinson's Starman run when, after the snake-based villain Copperhead has been hired by a villain, we see him take a little time out during his mission to pursue his hobby, which it turns out is collecting (of all things) vintage transistor radios. We see him chatting very knowledgeably and amiably in a couple of shops, about the pieces he's picked up here and there. He deals politely with a dealer who plays fair, but when another dealer tries to cheat him... well, copperheads ARE lethally poisonous.

[icon_uk]

I just assumed most of them were hot, because you know, superheroes. although wait - the Dark Avengers are actually super *villains,* aren't they? OK then, you may have a point.

Yeah, that as my logic there, either she doesn't know where they've been, or in some cases worse yet DOES know, and either way may feel like she wants to scrub her skin raw with steel wool to feel remotely clean again.

[schmevil]

That was Brian Reed, writing Ms. Marvel.

[arilou_skiff]

Which was, y'know. What he was saying. Not that Marvel was adequate but that it was mariginally better.