the fabulous (and no so fabulous) women of Avengers Academy 22

[shadowpsykie]

Emma Being Fabulous




Hawkeye being an asshat, Emma and Tigra being Fabulous :D (can they be my hags? or is the proper term fruit fly? i admit to not using all my people's vernacular :D





Hazmat campaigning for asshat of the year against Finn Hudson.



can he write Emma Frost forever? :D

oooh side bar... can't you just imagine Doctor Doom in Tigra's outfit? that's right... i went there....

Comments

[long_silence]

And it's great that he's using her at all, but I'm just not crazy about the fact that she seems to just be the token lesbian who doesn't seem to have any storylines of her own that aren't about her being a lesbian.

There's so much more you could do with Julie, she has so much history. She was the smartest of the Power kids so she could bond with Pym or Finesse, she was the first of the Power Pack to kill in battle so she could talk about that with Mettle and Striker, she tried to quit being a hero very recently.

I'm also not crazy about the fact that she's being lectured to come out by the worst bully in the school who's known her for a total 5 minutes.

[shadowpsykie]

Okay, this is only the second issue. and as a gay latino man i take issue when people call the "tokenism card" almost on reflex (not saying this is the case here, its just i am wary any time the word is used).

so far in the first issue she has been introduced as smart, she is an assistant instructor. They also stated that she has a history of superhero-ing but has had little in the form of formal training.

gage has done REALLY well with these kids. His fear itself tie ins were the best of the series. even Hazmat who is a grade A... well... she's grade A has had great character moments.

i have complete faith that he will not reduce her to the role of token lesbian.

I don't like how Hazmat is acting but it is completely in character with who she is, and also has been show to stem from the fact that the only one she can have safe contract with outside of her suit is Mettle, so her... beside manner is going to be lacking. I don't like it. and it is completely uncalled for. But it is not incredibly out of character for her

[long_silence]

I'm only concerned about tokenism because like I mentioned before in many of his interviews Gage only focuses on LGBT issues when he talks about Julie, and in her second major scene since she's joined the book she's being told to come out.

In character or not, it's a terrible scene.

[shadowpsykie]

I think he respects the characters enough not to make her a token

[flint_marko]

What interview did Gage talk about LGBT issues with Julie?

[long_silence]

I just went through as many interviews by Gage as I could find and I realized I was wrong and completely exaggerating the situation. Sorry about that.

During SDCC when it was first announced that they were adding Julie and more students to the school, C.B. Cebulski said that Gage would acknowledge Julie's sexuality in Avengers Academy

And shortly after there was the interview describing Avengers Academy's post-FI status quo and one of the editors, Bill Rosemann, said that expanding the student body was good because it gives them more story telling opportunities like exploring real world, teenage issues like bullying and sexuality. And when I read that I assumed that it was referring to Julie, but she was not mentioned specifically in that instance, so in retrospect it is also probably talking about Hazmat and Mettle and all of the students because sexuality does not automatically equal GLBT.

And on CBR Gage himself posted that Julie's sexuality will be addressed soon.

And when the Runaways crossover cover was released, Gage did an interview where he said that there were a lot of similarities between members on both teams, including Karolina Dean and Julie and he said that "there were hints of sparks flying" the last time they met.

So I was wrong to say that Gage only ever talks about Julie in relation to her sexuality (actually he doesn't mention her specifically very often and when he does he doesn't say much). I've gotten confused from conversations on other message boards where all they talk about is Julie being a lesbian and the potential of a relationship between her and Karolina. Sorry again.

[dewinged]

There's so much more you could do with Julie, she has so much history. She was the smartest of the Power kids so she could bond with Pym or Finesse, she was the first of the Power Pack to kill in battle so she could talk about that with Mettle and Striker, she tried to quit being a hero very recently.

I agree, here. Julie's always had a lot of layers, and it got jettisoned in the Loners/Excelsior for the 'sort-of-ditz' persona she was mis-written there, and should've been ignored.

[shadowpsykie]

Actually in the loners/excelsior books she said she was putting on an act