Declaration of Bias?

When I was planning out Saturday's post, it occured to me I had a double standard. I completely accept that Ryoko was under someone else's influenece, and as such, I don't consider her responsible for those actions. But when Geoff Johns tried something similar with Hal Jordan, I screamed "Bullshit!" 'till everyone at the store looked at me like I was about to kill them. Why was that, I wondered? Here were my initial guesses:

1. Ryoko is a woman, Hal's a man. I'm guilty of a bias that says females are weaker, and thus it's more acceptable for them to be controlled. Except, I completely accepted it when it turned out Logan killed a Senator while under Weapon X influence in a Wolverine storyline about five years back.

2. Ok, well, it's because you like Ryoko, whereas you regard Hal Jordan as mostly preventing Kyle Rayner from taking the center stage he deserves. Except, I don't like Superman either. In fact, I think the DC Universe would be much more interesting without him (call it the "Kenshin/Goku Syndrome"). Yet, when they tell us he was being controlled by Max Lord, I say "Sure, I'll buy that".

Finally, I decided it's a matter of timing. With Ryoko, she appears in the first episode on the Tenchi OVA, Kagato shows up by about episode 5, and immediately takes control of her. That suggests it was planned that way all along, at least to me. From the moment Wolverine was accused of killing the Senator, he was plauged by doubts, because he had flashes of things, but couldn't recall all of it. All of which seems suspicious, and raised doubts as to why Logan would do it, if he did. And almost as soon as Superman had finished kicking Batman around, we find out he's under Lord's control.

With Hal, it's been years since he went 'round the bend and eventually tried to remake the universe. It was an established, if not beloved, part of the history of DC. But Johns comes along and decides his hero, Hal Jordan, can't go out like that. Oh no, Johns has to change it so that it wasn't Hal's fault. Maybe it's an arbitrary standard, but it seems like there is a difference between a creator making a character do horrible things with the idea the character is being controlled by an outside force right from the start, and one person deciding this character did these horrible things of their own accord, and THEN a decade later another writer comes along and changes it. Now if Johns could show me proof this was Ron Marz' plan all along? Well, I guess I would have to accept that.

I don't know, it's irrelevant I suppose. Hal's back, he's been absolved, he's not likely to die anytime soon, just have to deal with it.

On Abuse

Man, enchiladas on Super Bowl Sunday. Plus, I was able to drop off all those comics I brought back to the apartment for my "Best of. . ." series, at my mother's house again. And, I was able to to start alphabetizing my comics. Now that I'm back, I can't figure how to start this post, so I'll just jump in. There's been a lot of specualtion amongst fans of the Tenchi Muyo series, as to whether Ryoko was the victim of sexual abuse while under Kagato's control, and I just feel like discussing that briefly.

First off, kalinara has a nice post about whether things such as mind control and technoviruses could also be considered a form of rape, given that they are used to control others into doing things against their will. I would say I'd tend to agree with the idea that they are certainly a form of violation, and in some cases, I would say are even worse (in a fictional world, where these things are more common). When a character is physically raped, they can still be trying to resist, or even if they're immobilized, they haven't consented in their mind. In the case of mind control, even that is denied, as the person's free will is circumvented or blocked. In that sense, Ryoko has most definitely been a victim of abuse, seeing as Kagato forced her to kill and destroy for centuries.

Still, to my knowledge, it has never been discussed conclusively whether he did anything "physical" to Ryoko, during the years she was under his control. And I can see agruments in his demeanor for both. On the one hand, he considered her a weapon, a tool, just something to use for whatever purpose suited his needs at that moment. If he has no problems using her to kill, it would seem doubtful he'd halt at the thought of raping her. At the same time, he might consider her "beneath" him, that as she is a "thing", it would lower him to consort with her in such a manner.

Perhaps we can glean some clues from Ryoko's behavior. At first glance, it isn't promising. Ryoko thinks nothing of flaunting her body, parading around nude as a means to tempt Tenchi. In many cases she may start hugging him, only to progress to outright groping. This might suggest that this is the closest thing to affection Ryoko was exposed to, that with Kagato's philosophy of "want, take, have", Ryoko learned that you should simply grab whatever you desire, whether it wants to go along with that or not.

But, it may not be as bad as it looks. It may simply be Ryoko doesn't have any other idea what to do. There was an episode where Sasami tricked both Ryoko and Ayeka into believing that the romance comics Tenchi's father had held the key to getting Tenchi to profess his love. Ryoko immediately began copying the actions depicted in the comic, cooking for Tenchi, and making odd comments, like one might make in a soap opera. From this, you could infer that Ryoko has simply been so lacking in personal relationships that she has no idea how to go about professing her love for someone, or how to get that person to return that affection. As such, she went with what seemed simplest first, graphic physical displays of her assests, and her interest in Tenchi's. Having had that failed, she discarded the tactic (somewhat, she's still prone to tackling Tenchi with her hugs) and began to try different ideas. Examples would include finding a traditional Japanese kimono and greeting Tenchi in it. Of course, ti belogned to Tenchi's mother, and she accidentally ripped it, so it backfired, but you can see she seems to be learning and adapting on the fly.

So, what is the final conclusion? Well, mine is that Kagato wasn't interested in establishing power over her through sex, and so never bothered with that. He was to busy violating Ryoko in others ways, which I think were even more damaging. Personally, while I'd love to have the creators say, "No, Ryoko was never raped by Kagato", I can live without knowing rather than have them come out and say "Yes, he did rape Ryoko". Quite frankly, her past is traumatic enough as it is.

Based on what evidence I've managed to give, which I'm certain isn't everything, what do you think? And would controlling a person's mind and making them do something, whether sexual or not, be a greater violation than the physical act of rape?

I Sit Here Typing, My Throat Cells Are Lysing. . . Character Archetypes #2

Sometimes, I really hate Blogger. I had this entire post typed out. But I couldn't post it, because Blogger's messed up so I can't add the images. So I save it, I even see it saved. Then I come back, and it's fucking gone! Damn it! Fine!

The first archetype was the person I think I'd be if I had superheroes. More likely, it's who I wish I could be. I doubt I could keep saving the day while putting up with all the crap Parker does. This time around, it's the characters I'm rooting for, the ones I want to get that happy ending. For my prime example I present Ryoko, from Tenchi Muyo.

A quick origin. Ryoko is either 5000 or 2000 years old, depending on what website I check. She's a combination of her mother, Washu's, egg cell, and an organism called Masu, which has unusual energy properties. A student of Washu's named Kagato abducts Ryoko, and uses her as a weapon of mass destruction for at least a 1000 years (more if she's older). To do this he controlled her. It's kind of suggested that Ryoko's mind isn't like most, that it's more of a computer, and like Washu, Kagato could hack into it and assert control. Anyway, under his orders, she attacks the Imperial Planet of Jurai, gets chased by the Crown Prince Yosho, shot down over Earth, defeated by said prince and imprisoned inside a stasis chamber hidden within a cave for 700 years. Yosho's grandson Tenchi inadvertently frees her, and now you're caught up.

Ryoko is a character looking for redemption, even if she rarely shows it outwardly. Though both Jurai's and the Galaxy Police's statute of limitations have run out on her crimes, she's still feared throughout the galaxy. Still most people don't know she was controlled. If they do know, they may not believe it, or may not care. Those people have never seen this "Kagato", but they certainly remember Ryoko. To them, she's at best "Space Pirate Ryoko", and others regard her as an outright demon. And though she wasn't in control of herself, she feels guilt for all the people she hurt or killed. It was shown in one comic that she expects that if Tenchi or the others knew everything that she had done, they'd send her away, want nothing to do with her. But she mostly conceals this behind her loud, wild, somewhat crazy personality that caught my interest initially.

Along those lines, she has to figure out a whole new way to do things. Kagato seems to have lived by the philosophy "want, take, have", or more precisely "want, make Ryoko take, have". Wuss. And that being the only way Ryoko remembers, she often acts that way. Except that it can't help with what she really wants (Tenchi's love and acceptance). In fact, showing off her powers, her fighting ability, scares the crap out of tenchi, or at least makes him nervous for quite awhile. Likewise, she can't simply blow off her rival Ayeka's face, because Ayeka and Ryoko share friends. If she did that, Tenchi, Sasami, and plenty of other people would be saddened. So the ways that seem most natural to her, are the exact things she can't do. It's an uphill battle, and I can't help rooting for her.

Other examples:

Raven - I think this is a result of that season of Teen Titans, but I really cheer for Raven. She seemed to completely believe that she was destined to destroy the earth, that there was nothing she could do to defy her father. It was nice to see her friends, especially Robin, working to convince her that nothing was set in stone.

At the same time, it's Raven's abilties that make it hard to relate to people. She can absorb their emotions, enter their dreams, sometimes without even meaning to. That tends to make people keep their distance, because when you're feeling really happy, you might not want to talk to
the girl who can suddenly drain all that happiness. It's why I thought the "Raven goes to high school" was an awesome idea. Hopefully that'll happen after One Year Later starts.

Batgirl - Like my previous two entries, Cassandra Cain has been screwed over by her father/male figure. Like Ryoko, she had no influence from a mother to counteract that. I do think Cain cared for his daughter more than the others. She was more than just a weapon. True that 'more' was mostly as a testament to his greatness, but it feels like there was something more, not compassion necessarily, but something. Either way, he left her mostly unable to interact with the real world. Speaking is difficult, and if Oracle is to be believed, reading and writing will be damn near impossible. Still, she's trying, and early in Gabrych's work, she was expanding her life. Meeting boys, talking to the coffee shop lady. There was progress.

Stacy X - I've said it all before (repeatedly), but I believe given time she would have felt comfortable enough to drop the tough facade she puts up, and once that's accomplished, she could start to develop a bit. Become someone who doesn't define the majority of her life by sex.

Faith - Faith had a harder life than any of the "Scoobies" could guess. Buffy thought that having to set up everything for Parent-Teacher Night was difficult. Try having a mom who beats you, "B". She made mistakes, got saddled with a crap Watcher like Wesley, made more mistakes. Then she owned up to them, accepted the punishment, and went to prison. When she was needed, she escaped, and all she did after that was try to make amends. Try to be the Good Slayer, and show that she could be counted. And still, most everyone regarded her with mistrust and suspicion, while Willow, who did just as much evil crap, had been welcomed back with open arms. I'm just gonna move on, before I get pissed.

I look over this list, and it's entirely women, after my first list was entirely guys. I don't know whether that's a reflection of me and my being a guy, or whether it represents the stories that writers more often assign to specific genders. I did, however, come up with one guy for this list.

Spike - Probably the hardest road to redemption of all. Even with a soul, the demon is still there, reminding him that humans are supposed to be food. That eating and killing them is what vampires do, not saving them. Even when he gave his big speech about how much he likes this world, one of the reasons was the abundance of people, or "Happy Meals with legs". Still, he's fighting against that instinct. Even when he had the chip that wouldn't let him kill, that didn't mean he had to do good. When Buffy was dead, he didn't have to patrol with the Scoobies. There were other places he could go for a brawl, and probably have more fun without the humans getting in the way.

The thing is, soul or not, he'll never be accepted. The humans will never trust him because his demonic nature is always there, it's just of matter of whether he goes along with it or not. And he's had setbacks. He fell in love with a girl who wound up crushing him like a bug, verbally, emotionally, sexually, and physically abusing him, frequently. And then he snapped, and hurt her back. But he went out, and got the one thing he thought would make him a better person. And still, they didn't trust him. How can I not root for the quintessential "get knocked down, but get up again" character? Frankly, I always thought he and Faith would have gotten along well together, if Buffy weren't in the picture. But that's another subject.

Well, let's see if Blogger holds on to this one. Looking at it, I think these characters are the next step of suffering from the first group. I mean, for all the crap that comes Peter Parker's way, he still has a pretty good life. That's part of why he can remain upbeat and keep doing the hero thing. At least, when he's being written well. These characters have had crappy incident, after crappy incident, after lousy childhood, piled on them. They have to climb out from under the proverbial mountain of stuff, just to start on their path.

Test to See If Blogger Fixed The Damn Thing

Well, the title pretty much says it all. I try to add images to the post I had planned, and I get this "we are sorry for the inconvenience" crap. How dare they be courteous!

Anyway, this is fair warning for when Hellsing Volume 8 is released here in America. I love the Hellsing manga. I mean, Nazi vampire army against Catholics looking to perform and Inquisition? If that isn't a Dave Campbell F--- Yeah!, I don't know what is. So just be advised, and stand by for the actual post I had planned. I'm sure you can't wait.

What I Bought 2/3/06

I know what you're saying. "But Calvin, you already did this on Wednesday. Ah, but these comics hadn't reached the store by then, and now they have, ha ha!"

Finally, after long months of waiting I got the two Bloodrayne one-shots I was waiting for.

I'll pause while most of you leave.

Ok, here we go. I'm probably grading on a curve, to a certain extent, given that we're talking about comics based on a video game character (say, who remembers the Super Mario Bros. comics?). Let's roll.

Bloodrayne: Skies Afire - This one lead to an interesting conversation with Ken. He said, "Did you really want to spend $13.00 on this book?" I kind of got the feeling he didn't think I realized that because it's a limited 2nd printing it would be extra expensive. But I told him that yes, I knew, and I was cool with that. But it lead me to thinking this: When you look at what a comic book really is, in terms of being paper with pictures and words, that tell a story, is any comic really worth $13.00? I say it depends on who you ask. To me, if I want the book, hell yes, it's worth that much. I spent $60.00 on a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #300 (which was really dumb since I could have got it for like $20 less if I'd shopped around a little). To other people, probably not. I suppose if you consider the cultural impact of something like Action Comics #1, what it did propelling superhero comics, which lead to who knows how much economic impact from TV, movies, merchandising, not to mention the sheer amount of time some of us devote to them, then it'd be yes. Anyway. . .

So, the Brimstone Society present Rayne with a mission: Board a German zepplin and terminate a vampire they're transporting to the United States (this is set in 1937). Thus, Rayne boards the flight, and meets a kindly elderly couple and their nephew. So there's some nice character moments, as Rayne spends time with this friendly trio, while trying to conceal that she's a half-vampire, which can be tricky in the daytime. However, the vampire she's here to kill - who also happens to share a father with her - is aware of her presence, and sends one of his soldiers after her. From there, we get plenty of fighting and decapitations as Rayne tries to deal with being ambushed in her suite and destroying her target, while injured and in a zepplin, which had problems with, you know, exploding. That leads to what you might consider an amusing little reveal at the end of the story. At least, I was amused, you might not be.

Steven O'Connell and Jeffrey Stevenson give us a nice story, with some moments that highlight how isolated Rayne feels, what with her father having slaughtered her human family when she was young, all in an attempt to force her to join up with him. You get to see how quickly she takes to this couple that treat her very well, as she's probably lacked for affection for awhile. Still, O'Connell and Stevenson leave plenty of time for Romano Molenaar to draw scenes of great violence, which is of course, a major part of the character. Not that he doesn't do well in the quieter moments, although when drawing someone from a distance, they get a bit lopsided, and he seemed to have some trouble with Rayne's nose, but maybe that's just my opinion.

All in all, bright, vibrant, fun, fast paced, a 4 out of 5.

Bloodrayne: Dark Soul - Fortunately this only cost $4.00 dollars, or I would have questioned if it was worth it. The problem with doing a bunch of one-shots is, that other than the character, the stories have no connection to each other. Each one is basically it's own plot, so it's kind of hard to follow. This time around, Rayne's in a cemetery fighting large horned things (minotaurs?), while she's really looking for a serpent. Some person named Tiger Wraith shows up, Rayne attacks her, then Rayne gets swallowed by the serpent, which is quite large. Wraith damages the serpent, but Rayne's different when she hacks her way out. She's talking about having been imprisoned during "Mage wars" which sounds ancient, but I'm pretty sure Rayne was born in the early 1900s, so I'm guessing this is a suggestion of underhandedness by Brimstone. Then some people who I remember from the game Bloodrayne 2, who I guess I'm going to kill, if I get that far, whatever, they've shown up again. Then more hacking, more slashing.

I felt that the pacing was off, or that they tried to do too much (or maybe I'm too used to Bendis' pace to handle self-contained one issue stories). It feels like between her original mission, this Tiger Wraith showing up, "DarkRayne", and the return of Emphemera, it seemed like too much was going on. They needed to pick one or two and go with them, like maybe just the serpent and DarkRayne, or Tiger Wraith and Emphemera. Doing too much means very little got accomplished. I'm not as pleased with Rob Delatorre's art as I was with Molenaar's. It was alright, but didn't feel like he drew good fight scenes. Maybe it was that they were fighting such large creatures, but there wasn't really of sense of how they were doing the damage they did. Ultimately, it feels like the next one-shot will illuminate what exactly is going on, but it may not. And then I may never know what's going on. I suppose that's the risk of reading comics like this. Still, it was moderately enjoyable, so 2.5 out of 5.

Things I Think About #13 . . Romance edition

Two ideas. Read on at your own peril.

Picture this, if you will. Benjamin Grimm, the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing, and Peter Rasputin, Colossus. A tough on the outside, kind on the inside guy made out of rock, and a sweet, Russian with the ability to turn his entire body into organic steel.

Oh yeah, and Peter is an artist. So now picture them reenacting that scene from "Titanic". You'll have to picture it, I'm stuck on that spoof that Family Guy did of it. Maybe that's as far as my brain will let me go. That's probably a smart move by my brain.

As for the other, does anyone here think that Kyle Rayner and Karen Starr (Power Girl) would work as a couple (hypothetically)? It seems like Kyle appreciates strong (independent? pushy?) women, or at least winds up with them. I don't know anything about any previous relationships she's had, but I figure Karen could do worse than a guy who seems sweet, kinda goofy, as well as someone you could talk to about your problems, having experienced so many of his own. Maybe I'm misreading them both completely.

Of course, it's also contingent on Kyle still having a face after that Rann-Thangar Special. What's the deal with the stars?

What I Bought 2/1/06

Four books this week, spoiler warnings as usual.

Spider-Girl #95 - So we find out what's up with the caped guy (who Spider-Girl has always called Fred), who keeps screaming that Tony Stark killed Jim Rhodes. We find out what actually happened to Jim Rhodes. We watch as "Normie Osborn wearing the Venom symbiote" Man sprouts extra arms to try (which I guess are just made of the symbiote) and stop the rampaging Fred. We see Tony Stark being a jerk, and telling Spider-Girl she needs to learn to obey orders. The only problem is, Stark ordered her to do something that might have killed Fred. And we all know how the Spider-people feel about killing.

Oh yeah, we see Kaine pummeling some Scriers because he believes they're going to kill Spider-Girl. DeFalco goes with the classic "We didn't even know about her until now, but maybe we can use her against you" joke, as it appears that Kaine attempting to help has actually made things worse. Yep, he's got Parker's genetics alright. This wasn't a bad issue. There was some teamwork between the old Avengers and the new ones, some action, with a bit of human interest. In fact, I think the single biggest thing that bothered me was Fred saying "oops" on the cover. That just seemed dorky. Other than that, there's just this feeling that this was sort of a setup for the big finale. 3.5 "Here Comes Something Big, I Hope" out of 5.

With the news this book is being cancelled at #100 I wonder whether DeFalco had enough warning to put together a nice ending to the run, or whether he's continuing at the pace he had set, banking on the book being saved again by the fans. Honestly, I don't know why they seem so deadset on cancelling this book. I know it's been sitting at about #125 on IcV2's Top 300 List for the last two months, but you'd think they were making enough money off idiots like me who buy the vastly inferior Spider-Man books to let this one keep going along, selling 17 to 18 thousand books a month.

X-Factor #3 - This book had two legitimately cool moments, one is Layla Miller dealing with the agent from Singularity that's inside their offices. It wasn't a David Campbell "F--- Yeah" moment, but I did get a good laugh out of it. The other was Madrox commenting that it's very hard for him to tell which memories are his, and which are from stuff his duplicates did. It's the sort of thing I've thought about before, starting with the time paradox from Stephen King's Dark Tower series. If there was more than one of you running around, and then you merge back together, how do you keep straight which one did what, and do memories that occured simultaneously clash with each, causing insanity?

Meanwhile, Madrox and Siryn run into problems trying to get evidence to clear their client, Guido and Rahne try to break up a bunch of people - who might as well be wielding torches and pitchforks - who want to attack mutants, especially those without powers. Losers. And Rictor is still having problems adjusting to being human, which makes sense. With the connection he implied he had with the earth, losing that would be jarring. Again though, I think this book is setting up something large, especially with the revelation Layla had near the end of the issue. 4 out of 5.

Two other things. I've seen a lot of comments that Peter David often hamstrings himself by trying to be too clever. He puts in all sorts of little homages to his friends. As someone who can say he knows nothing about Peter David the person, other than the fact Todd MacFarlane hates his guts, I've been oblivious to this. I mean, Layla constantly saying "I know stuff" seemed silly, but not overly bothersome. Maybe I'm just taking adavntage of being uninformed. I do think I might have caught one. Was "Mr. Vaughn" a tip o' the cap to Brian K. Vaughn, who wrote Ultimate X-Men there for awhile (I think?) Damn. Now I'm going to be looking for these all the time. Crap. Also, while Ryan Sook's fights don't resonate like say, a Bagley's, I LOVE his Wolfsbane. This is how I picture werewolves, as opposed to that srawny rat thing Oz used to turn into on Buffy. And I like that David recognizes that a woman who seems deeply religious, and concerned with Hell, would be a bit bothered that she transformed into a werewolf and proceeded to claw people up.

The Punisher #30 - And so "The Slavers" wraps up. I haven't enjoyed this as much as the previous two arcs. It seems like Ennis threw that whole "the cops are really sore at the Punisher this time" thing in there, but I haven't really believed it. Still, when Frank Castle is holding a gas can on the cover, you know it will end badly for somebody. Anyway, Frank gets after that old man, blows shit up, shoots people, and rescues the girls. Oh yeah, he beats the beejeezus out of the old man, after calling him "coward" to get him to quit hiding behind girls and fight. Nice. By the end, the people behind the whole slavery/prostitution thing have improved their methods, and hidden their locations better. Frank can't finish them, but he knew that already. I liked the panel where Frank says "I knew from the start I'd never put an end to it. No more than I could stop the trade in heroin. or the tide from coming in.The most I could do, I figured, was give them pause for thought." I think it's nice to show Frank is somewhat realistic about this. He can't stop it, but he can do things on a small scale to impede it, and help people. Of course, some of the girls he helped didn't do well. Actually, none of them really do well. 4 out of 5.

To be honest, I'd kind of like to see what Ragnell and Kalinara would say about this. Given there has been a lot of discussion of the use of rape in comics the last couple of weeks, and that was pretty much what this story dealt with. What does it say that a social worker, who is supposedly against killing, gave Frank information so he could kill these traders, because she knew her methods couldn't help the girls that were being used? Me, I'd call it recognizing your limitations, but I'm probably biased. Does the whole issue even apply in a book as absurdly violent as this one?

New Excalibur #4 - I think I've figured out what works for me with team books. Either give me characters I like, or give me characters I haven't really seen enough to know about, but what I do know makes them interesting. Do not give me a team full of characters I hate, because I'll just ignore the book (Grant Morrison's X-Men). That's what's going on here. What little I know about Dazzler, such as her powers, the fact she's a musician, I like. I know less about Nocturne - besides her parentage and that she was with the Exiles - but I'm digging her so far. And I actually liked the Juggernaut as a good guy in Uncanny X-Men. Still, I picked this up because of Kelsey Leigh, aka Lionheart, aka "The one thing Chuck Austen did on Avengers I liked".

I still don't get exactly why choosing the sword instead of the amulet means she can't be with her children ever again, but I can see why she chose the sword. I mean, what's going to do a better job of protecting children, a sword, or costume jewelry? I don't know about you, but I'll take the sharp, pointy thing. Of course some would say I'm a man siding with the phallic symbol, but then what would that mean about Brian Braddock choosing the amulet, and, oh never mind.

So the team still hasn't come together, though Pete Wisdom (again, know nothing about him, but I'm at least intrigued so far) seems to be trying to recruit Sage, Dazzler, Nocturne, Juggernaut. Meanwhile, Captain Britain is apparently very bothered by the fact Meggan is gone (I'm not), and this Courtney person is trying to woo him, I think. And Kelsey feels she got tricked by Captain Britain. I think she's got a point. I mean would it really have mattered which she chose? Why not tell her which one will let her be with her kids? Ah well. And we have a threat attacking pretty much all the people Wisdom wants to recruit. I can't really see why the Warwolves are attacking them, but then I couldn't figure out what was up with the "Dark" X-Men from the first three issues. Still, I'm interested, and will be picking up the next issue, though I doubt that my hopes for Kelsey to be a regular character will be fulfilled. 3 "Where Does Claremont Find These Bad Guys" out of 5.