But Tell Me More About This Doctor Poison
In the past year I’ve stumbled into a social circle that is primarily comprised of ferocious, thoughtful, hilarious females. A handful of these very ladies accompanied me to see Wonder Woman and shared their thoughts with me afterwards. I’d like to thank Athena, Pauline, Sonja, Angela, and Elena for contributing to this review.
Shortly after its release, GP’s Elana Levin hosted an episode of Graphic Policy Radio devoted to the film with a focus on race and sex, in which she stated, “I really liked the movie, but not unreservedly” and I can’t put it any better myself. Despite an outpouring of support from women on the Internet, friends and strangers alike, loving it with hesitation seemed to be the consensus amongst my little tribe. We had a hell of a time and there was a lot to celebrate, but the chinks in the armor didn’t go unnoticed.
Let me quickly disclaim that my friends and I are all limited in our exposure to Wonder Woman comics. We each know her primarily as a beloved pop culture icon, and have vague memories of the show. I would be hard-pressed to tell you I can remember anything about it beyond its spectacular theme song. But we’re also feminists, critical thinkers, and various flavors of badass; lawyer, veterinarian, fire dancer, pole dancer, performance artist, personal caregiver, writer, and cartoonist are all things that describe our combined professions and hobbies. Wonder Woman is a pop culture icon many women hold dear, readers of the comic or not.
We were all enamoured by the opening scenes on the island of Themyscira. Robin Wright killed it as Diana’s aunt, Amazonian warrior Antiope (aka Princess Fuckin’ Buttercup). Watching a passionate young Diana grow into an ass-kicking grown woman was powerful and refreshing. Unfortunately, we were all let down by how quickly Steve Trevor showed up and how fast Diana was to trust him. I do give the writers props, however, for keeping him out of mansplaining territory throughout the course of the film, despite the born sexy yesterday-ness of their relationship. (H/T to Athena, for introducing me to the trope!) Despite being a man with a lot to explain to her, he consistently managed to avoid condescension even when exasperated. The biggest problem with Steve wasn’t so much the character himself, but the role he played in motivating Diana to find her true powers. For a flick about feminine strength, the amount of influence given to a hetero-normative fling was a bitter disappointment.
But the biggest disservice, in my opinion, was the glossing-over of Isabel Maru, aka Doctor Poison. Again, I’m naive to what her actual background and development is in the comics universe, but from what I saw in the movie she’s someone all-too-relatable; an intelligent, capable woman whose personal traumas have left her wanting to burn the world. Tell me more women in any given audience won’t find that more relatable than Diana’s physical prowess and principle-fueled optimism. There was a shared disappointment amongst my friends and me regarding the good doctor’s position as a subordinate to General Ludendorff. While yes, it makes sense for a movie about fighting the patriarchy to pit Wonder Woman against a man, the stakes would have felt higher to me if Diana were up against a woman whose pain and anger matched the strength of Diana’s happiness and hope. It’s an internal struggle too many women carry, and playing it out as Diana vs. Maru would have been more meaningful than Diana vs. any man. And while we all smirked when Maru rebuffed an undercover Steve Trevor for shifting his attention away from her as soon as Diana entered the room, I don’t think any of us cared much for the overall implication that “beautiful = good, deformed = evil,” though it was suggested to me that this is a common device for DC. (And even if it is, it doesn’t make it any more forgivable.)
Again, there were a lot of good things happening throughout, and the impact the film has had on women has been largely positive; I don’t want to detract from that. I just hope that future installments continue to raise the bar to tell a compelling story about a powerful woman (or better yet, powerful women) without having to center around a romantic interest or minimize compelling adversaries.
Earlier this summer I read James Tynion and Jeremy Rock’s The Eighth Seal, released in July by IDW Publishing. I enjoyed it but passed on reviewing because I didn’t have much to say on it at the time. Yet I recently read Image Comic’s new release Glitterbomb, by Jim Zub, and found enough common threads between them that I decided to revisit. Both center on female characters in visible professions where they are subjected to scrutiny and criticism; both women are slowly gaining awareness of dark forces within them, and both begin by diving right into the action.
Eighth Seal’s headliner, First Lady Amelia Greene, begins her story at her therapist’s office, where she is prompted to share the details of “another incident.” She tells him of a vision she experienced, in which storytime with a local kindergarten class descended into feeding time for a six-eyed, tentacled monstrosity that burst through her human shell. The arc of this collection follows Amelia as her visions become increasingly common and invasive, drawing intense media scrutiny over her regular fainting spells and strange behavior. We receive a few hints at the nature of the monster that’s haunting her, but I found myself feeling less satisfied by the end than I did with Glitterbomb. Seal, at 122 pages, is the first TPB of five and takes its time developing, whereas Glitterbomb manages to set an equally satisfying amount of world-building into motion in a premiere issue of 40 pages.
I snagged a thin hard cover titled Chester Square, my untrained eye first mistaking it for a Daniel Clowes work. It featured a young woman whittling her time away while waiting for a bus out-of-town, so we had something in common off the bat. Unlike my own wait, this woman spent hers in a ghost town motel being repeatedly mistaken for a prostitute. The weight of her own existential concerns were evident to me, despite being completely blind to the fact that she had any story outside of the Chester Square narrative. Here was a woman who could clearly hold her own in most situations, but her exhaustion with needing to was obvious and understandable. Sure, she could fight off a territorial hooker who misread her as competition, but why would she want to or expect to? No wonder she spent most of the night hiding in her room before spontaneously seducing a young security guard. (Hell, if everyone already thinks you’re turning tricks what’ve you got to lose?)
I made it about halfway through before we had to leave for the bus station, but I was loath to walk away from this new character I’d found both so curious and foreign, yet familiar and relatable. She had a confidence and humor marred by sadness but not destroyed by it, and I felt for her. I noted her creator’s name, Jaime Hernandez, and as luck would have it, we purchased our bus tickets at an independent bookstore where they happened to have a copy of Maggie the Mechanic, the first collected volume of Hernandez’s Locas stories.
Maggie’s two great loves throughout the series, however, are without a doubt Hopey and Ray Dominguez. An entire book could be written on Maggie and Hopey alone. They are inarguable comic icons and their relationship is rightfully celebrated by fans and internal characters alike.
But personally, I find myself on team Ray. Maybe it’s more relatable to me because my own heteroflexibility never moved beyond drunken make-out sessions with college friends. Maybe it’s because he reminds me of one of my great loves, a soft, sweet guy with a doofy side that I just had to take time away from. Whatever it is, I find there’s a comfort and innocence to her relationship with Ray that feels true and enduring. Her love with Hopey is electric and unpredictable; her love with Ray is warm and reliable.
Paper Girls #5 dropped on Wednesday, and while certain things are becoming clearer, my overall interest is starting to wane. I think I’ve held out hope longer than other folks, based on some of the reviews I’ve read of previous issues, but I’ve finally caught up with the “Get on with it, already” chorus.
Paper Girls Issue 4 picks up on a phone ringing. An older man in a Public Enemy t-shirt answers, and while he appear to be a normal guy in an ordinary bed in an unremarkable bedroom, the functioning eyeball in the center of his phone’s rotary dial points to the contrary. This is confirmed when we meet the woman on the other end of the line, a warrior who identifies herself as Cardinal and reports the discovery of her fallen peer Alister (aka “Space Idris” in my previous review) who met his demise at the end of Issue 3. Public Enemy instructs her to “call down an Editrix” which, judging by her stunned reaction, doesn’t bode well for our titular paper girls who were last seen in the company of the opposing forces. In defense of his decision he simply states “Can’t risk another C-Day.” As per usual we have new (throw away?) characters and new questions, but ultimately little headway in terms of development for our titular paper girls.
Paper Girls #3 is here and it opens with two random teenagers, Terry and Gabrielle, as they try to make sense of the supernatural events driving the series. As they stand on their school’s football field and stare up into the swirling vortex above them, Terry goes from confessing his crush on Gabrielle to getting handsy with her. As his sexual entitlement gets the best of him things verge on turning outright rapey when a pterodactyl-riding warrior swoops out of the vortex and vaporizes them both. Speaking in a bastardized Old English dialect that I can’t help but read in Idris Elba’s voice, this new player refers to his victims as “Scruddy teenagers,” a comment that I’ll come back to later.
Here’s the problem with Bitch Planet: it is really, really intimidating to write about. There’s so much going on with regards to gender politics, body image, female autonomy, voyeurism, violence against women, race relations, and the prison industrial complex, it’s nerve-wracking to even try to say everything there is to be said about it as insightfully and intelligently as it should be said. In other words, it’s pretty great.