First off, this tongue worries me. If it were mine, I would bite it. And that’s a terrifying and awkward feeling.

Anyway, the main problem with Starfire, for me, is how easily her personality was changed. It’s not that she’s emotionless and dull, it’s not that she’s just a pretty unrealistic body to gawk at. It’s that Starfire was an established character, with a set personality—as my husband says, an open loving Klingon warrior type—that was so easily disregarded. If this was a new comic about some other alien, people wouldn’t mind as much. I mean, take Tarot for instance. She’s a fucked up dead-ish witch panty-showing male gaze sex bimbo, and yeah, the plots are gory and terrible and have haunted vaginas (the link is as bad and gory as you think it is), and yeah, maybe I did have a friend tell Jim Balent to his face he’s horrible since I couldn’t make it to SDCC, but in general, it would have been scoffed at and more or less ignored. Not fan-rage about it. There never would have been this outcry if “sex has nothing to do with love since I am unemotional” Starfire was someone else, and not someone who had been a positive female figure, who used to gain her powers from the strength of her emotions. With what Starfire is now, we’ve lost yet another healthy passionate character. And that’s something to mourn, and it’s why people are so upset. Why do these people arguing that Starfire fan’s are overreacting not see that they have lost something they cared about, replaced with something in no way similar or as good? People say that the new Starfire comic wasn’t intended to be read by a blog writer’s seven year old, that’s it’s adult so of course she won’t like it. They are missing the point; Starfire is no longer herself, and even this little kid can see that. Why can’t you?

And it is indicative of a bigger problem as a whole. Catwoman suffered a similar fate in the reboot (I haven’t read ant of it though, I will this back if it’s not true), and in general, female super heroes are few and far between. I actually read today, “women say they want more women in comics, and when they get them, they complain. Women, when will you understand, it’s not the industry holding women back, it’s YOU.” And then my head exploded in pure unadulterated rage.

Having the presence of a cis-lady with her tiny tiny waist and ridiculously huge tits afloppin’ for the male gaze is not enough to appease women. Having a vagina around does not an engaging, whole, ass-kicky female make. This? This right here, with Starfire? I’m not going to be thankful and gracious and shut up because the industry considered a drastically changed Starfire good enough. It’s not good enough. What would be good enough is that old well-rounded realized character, and to not be called a bad feminist because I expect just that much.

(via forbidden-planet-deactivated201)

Siiiiigh.

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You’d think people who had grown up with the ‘Toon Titans’ could’ve been a target audience there. The comic book Starfire isn’t that far off from the cartoon Starfire, except for the obvious difference in customer base between a cartoon for young children and a comic book that costs four bucks a pop. So why is murderous part-time psychopath Red Hood in charge instead of minor icon Starfire? In short, why isn’t it Starfire And The Outlaws?

Because that wouldn’t hurt. Unbeknownst to many, Scott Lobdell’s parents were killed in a tragic newsprint accident, their bodies buried in a closed-casket funeral lest friends and family see panels from Fantastic Four 53 imprinted on their lifeless bodies. Superheroes had taken Scott Lobdell’s family, and Scott Lobdell was going to take back.

You see, Scott Lobdell has seen things. Things man was never meant to see. If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you. And Scott Lobdell had seen into the very heart of the abyss.

You don’t fuck with someone who’s written the Tommy Lee Jones/Cedric the Entertainer laffer Man Of The House.

The DC reboot made female characters more palatable by taking away their power, their history, their relationships. Barbara Gordon and Dinah Lance were no longer BFFs. Lois Lane was no longer Clark Kent’s wife and trusted friend. Voodoo was a stripper, and apparently despite the name, she wasn’t one before. Dan Didio had already made his biggest mistake; he’d made Scott Lobdell mad. But now he’d made his last one—he gave Lobdell an in.

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Unbelievably funny article about Starfire from Fempop’s Kickpuncher.

Bleeding Cool’s DC Through The Eyes of a Marvel Zombie, by Heather Kenealy

Red Hood and the Outlaws

Writer: Scott Lobdell

Artist: Kenneth Rocafort

Jason Todd, the Red Hood, rescues Roy Harper, from unjust imprisonment and convinces him to join him in being a mercenary, I guess. Also Starfire is there, she’s really stupid and likes having sex. Then some weird lady cryptically says cryptic things and Jason gets to shoot people.

Wow. Can I just say how offended I am by this book? The story in and of itself is OK, but then the misogynistic way Starfire is treated is just appalling. She is literally reduced to a brainless sex slave who can also kick ass. They mention in narration that she was raised to be a slave but she’s really a princess, but they treat her with absolutely no respect, the big HAHA joke being Red Hood referring to his back up as 38s, and of course, the next panel stars Kori’s boobs. Yeah, Scott Lobdell, you should be ashamed.

Story: 1 out of 5 stars

Scott Lobdell, Writer.

Seriously, the only reason I am not giving this book a zero is because at least the words are all spelled correctly. How did this trash get published? Really, is DC just going to let Lobdell turn Starfire into that brain damaged girl on the short bus who keeps pulling her skirt over her head? This is just disgusting, and it’s frankly writing Jason and Roy as scumbags who take advantage of this really stupid but hot alien. It’s not only character rape but it’s practical literal rape.

Art: 1 out of 5 stars

Kenneth Rocafort, Artist. Blond, Colorist.

Continuing with the theme, the only character Rocafort cares to draw with any skill is Starfire, posing her in slutty positions that best show off her boobs or butt. Every other piece of artwork in this horrible book is inked in scratchy overworking, anatomy is wonky, with Red Hood’s thighs going from elephantine to almost spindly in one sequence. The colors are adequate, which is good because the faces of the two main characters are identical, which might mean Starfire isn’t stupid, the boys are really just that interchangeable.

Overall 1 out of 5 stars

Shame on you, DC, just shame on you. I’d rather go back and linger over Hawk and Dove than have to read this crap.

Sequential Awesome: More on Starfire →

sequentialawesome:

As I’ve pointed out with regards to my post about the Shortpacked comic from a few days ago that while I disagreed with the way the comic went about its approach, I totally agree with the overall sentiment.

This evening, the DC Comics Twitter account posted the following statement:

We’ve heard what’s being said about Starfire today and we appreciate the dialogue on this topic.

We encourage people to pay attention to the ratings when picking out any books to read themselves or for their children.

Which is great advice - I encourage parents and consumers to review any type of media before its used for themselves or a child, hence why the ESRB works so well for the video game industry, and why the MPAA exists. As someone who used to make games for a living, I understand the value and impact a rating can have on a title. A rating is exactly why I will watch something - say, like How To Train Your Dragon or Justice League Unlimited - before I’ll allow my nearly 3 year old son to sit down and watch something with me. I want to ensure that it’s appropriate - or at least explainable - for him.

However, what DC is doing here is taking one example of the situation - written complete with gut punch emotion by the unbelievably eloquent Michele Lee (please click this link - it will take you to Ms. Lee’s original blog post where you will get the entire story) - and granted, it has become the rallying cry of fandom to use this example, as it is the most well thought out, written and most emotional example of the Starfire and Catwoman hullabaloo. DC, in a very officious and corporate way, pulls a Matrix here and dodges the bullet of concern that has been the great fan outcry - why the hell are favorite characters being depicted in this way? You’ve had - in the case of Catwoman especially - DECADES of character development, and yet with this relaunch, it seems as if that’s unimportant and has been flushed. 

An example of the ‘characterization’ of Starfire

Needless to say, I responded. Here is what I said back to DC:

It’s not the rating, guys. Seriously. It’s the exploitative story telling. And honestly, that’s a dismissive statement. Your biggest complaints are coming from adult fans of the character. It’s one thing for a character to be sexy - it’s quite another to be depicted as a sex robot. She went from being an emotional positive force to being an emotionless negative stereotype. THAT is the problem.

Its a shame that books like Red Hood & The Outlaws and Catwoman have tarnished an otherwise excellent relaunch. Sadly, people are going to remember these two negative extremes more than they will positive things like Animal Man, Blackhawks, Grifter, or I, Vampire. 

Silvermoon: My own rant, rather than reblogging →

evalilith:

It occurs to me that people who are only acquainted with me on Tumblr might get the wrong impression about how I feel about comics. After all, a great deal of what I’ve reblogged lately has been articles decrying the anti-feminist everything about the DC reboot. So I thought I would lay out my perspective on the matter, for anyone that cares. This is also to help me articulate what bothers me about these things and why they are wrong.

Main point: The DC reboot pisses me off so much because I want to love comics.

I really, really do. I am a fan of sequential art and what can be achieved in storytelling with that format. I am a fan of superheroes. I love a lot of male superhero characters. I even fangirl over some of them. It’s been problematic for years that there weren’t very many female superhero characters I could really enjoy, but A) my main era of actually reading comic books was at a less socially conscious age and B) I liked the male characters enough to ignore what was going on with the female characters (whether I should have or not). The DC reboot, though, has changed that. The way female characters are being treated in this reboot is something I cannot ignore, something that infuriates me, for two reasons.

1. They’re destroying the female characters that were less problematic before the reboot.

This one is probably the one that bothers me the most as a writer and artist. Why are they changing things about perfectly good characters? The offenders here are the Batman girls and Starfire.

The female characters in Batman have always, I feel, been less problematic. Aside from Ivy, they’ve had less revealing costumes. Harley was sexy in that full-body clown suit, but she wasn’t throwing herself at the reader; her character was not about sex. It was about obsession and how you can be attached to someone who does nothing but hurt you. Hard to feel that in herredesign.

Catwoman- yes, she wore a catsuit, but at least it was somewhat practical, since she was a burglar, and it (at least usually?) wasn’t a catsuit that was missing bits, unlike other characters. She wasn’t willing to change who she was or stop doing what she enjoyed for Bruce, and that unresolved romantic tension made that ship. She was an interesting character and an interesting not-quite-enemy for Bruce in ways that had nothing to do with her physical appearance. Now she’s being advertised primarily as sexy by her book’s writer, her catsuit is half coming off, and she’s having sex with Batman at the end of her first issue (which is a problem because of the change in character and because of the pornshot nature of the ending panel, not because she’s sexually active).

Annnd Starfire. I’ve seen a lot of places talking about how this Starfire is supposed to be sexually liberated. I’m not sure where that argument originated, but Starfire was already sexually liberated. Her whole culture promoted polyamory in a way that sometimes included sex, and that was equally acceptable for both males and females. The change in her character has not ‘sexually liberated’ her. It made her into a woman who uses people as sex toys, because she has no emotional connection with them whatsoever, even the ones she’s theoretically in a relationship with. How is that putting her on a level with men? If I saw a male character written that way, I’d think he was disgusting. No matter how stereotypically attractive his appearance was, I wouldn’t be attracted to his character. I’d consider him prime hated villain material, since he’s clearly accustomed to treating other individuals as less than the sentient beings they are and has difficulty understanding emotions, which is, well, a bit sociopathic. Why is anyone supposed to feel any different about that same character as a woman?

2. It has gone to a level that cannot be ignored in favor of the male characters.

This is pretty simple. When I was reading through my dad’s comics, if I didn’t want to see women treated as sexual objects, I went and read Batman and skipped the issues of the JLA that featured Wonder Woman in favor of the ones with Black Canary (hooker costume aside, Canary is pretty awesome). And we’re told to vote or not vote with our dollar- buy the comics with strong female characters, don’t buy the ones that super sexualize or objectify their characters.

Where am I supposed to go now? I love Batman, but now Catwoman and Harley have this ridiculousness going on, and even if the pornsex and the costume falling off was in Catwoman’s comic, it’s going to intrude on Batman. Harley doesn’t have her own comic (as far as I know?), so Batman is where she’ll be showing up. Even if they do a good job with Batgirl (pleasepleaseplease), there are still going to be these glaring problems. Starfire? Not her own title- she’s in Red Hood and the Outlaws. Again, even if I like the male characters there (don’t know so much about them, to be honest), I can’t just read them and somehow ignore Starfire’s barely clad ridiculous proportions asking to have sex with a friend of the person she’s supposed to be in a relationship with.

And I haven’t seen anything that gives me an indicator there will be good options for female characters in this reboot. If someone has, link me. Please.

That’s my opinion, for what it’s worth (which, to the comic book industry, is apparently nothing).

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In many ways, the constant barrage of this type of imagery (and characterization) is not unlike the sh*tty neighborhood I used to live in where every time I walked down the street, random people I didn’t know shouted obscene comments about my body and told me they wanted to have sex with me. And you know, maybe a lot of those guys thought they were complimenting me. Maybe they thought I had tried to look pretty that day and they were telling me I had succeeded in that goal. Maybe they thought we were having a frank and sexually liberated exchange of ideas. I’m willing to be really, really generous and believe that’s where they were coming from. But in the end, it doesn’t matter that they didn’t know it was creepy; it doesn’t matter that they “didn’t get it,” because every single day I lived there they made me feel like less of a person.

That is how I feel when I read these comics.

And I’m tired. I’m so, so tired of hearing those messages from comics because they aren’t the dreams or the escapist fantasies or the aspirations that I want to have. They don’t make me feel joyful or powerful or excited. They make me feel so goddamn sad that I want to cry, because I have devoted my entire life to comics, and when I read superhero books like these I realize that most of the time, they don’t give a sh*t about me.

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Laura Hudson writing for Comics Alliance, here. (via khaleesi)

"Dear DC Comics" →

neph:

“Why do you like Starfire?”

“She’s like me. She’s an alien new to the planet and maybe she doesn’t always say the right thing, or know the right thing to do. But she’s a good friend, and she helps people. She’s strong enough to fight the bad guys, even when they hurt her. Even her sister tried to kill her, but Starfire still fights for the good side. And she helps the other heroes, like Superboy and Robin and Raven.”

A most interesting read from a most interesting perspective. I have a hunch that little girl could do great things with her life.

View high resolution

vestara:

From Shortpacked

So today is going to be Starfire day here at FuQS. I’ve spent the past hour reading people’s views on the topic, and these are some things I feel need to be said:

1. Complaining about the male gaze is not slut-shaming. I am sure there are tons of douchebags out there calling Starfire a “slut” because of the amensiac sex plot thing and her revealing clothes. These people can climb a wall of dildos. However, everyone arguing “she’s a sexually liberated female now and you just HATE that because it doesn’t conform to your sexual morals” are wrong. She was sexually liberated before, in healthy sexual relationships in comics past, and from a planet where everyone engaged in consensual and enjoyable pansexual polyamoury. What she is doing now isn’t healthy; she is treating men (and as far as I know, though I admit I may be wrong, only men..) like things. Name a male character who treats women so disposabley, who isn’t a villain (bonus points if he’s a pansexual dude, too. Not a lot of queer in comics, either.) Showing her now as an object for the male gaze; all tits and awkwardly posing, doing nothing but looking pretty.. That’s gross, incredibly problematic, and..

2. This is not treating her “equally”. Show me an “equal” DC reboot comic with as much shiny, shimmery, equally beefcake man porn, with a male character in skimpies, to attract a female gaze. Have you see that post I reblogged a while back about “It’s not the clothes, it’s the pose”? People who somehow think Starfire’s treatment is equal to how men are treated in comics are missing a point.

I’m open to debate, to discussion. But as a Teen Titans fan, I’m pretty upset. so enjoy these posts, today.