Below is a list of women who have written for DC Comics organized by year and including the titles they worked with.  It was originally compiled by Alex “Gorblax” Jaffe, whose claim to fame, aside from being the moderator of the Insert Credit podcast, is as selectbutton.net’s foremost archivist and taxonimist, and is the mastermind behind a project to organize videogames chronologically based on the year each is set in.  I reproduce it here, with permission, as the original is behind a registration wall in a message board that is subject to periodic purges (until then, it can be found here) and this is too useful to lose.  As I have not independently verified this list, I cannot vouch for its completeness (I will, however, knowing Gorblax, vouch for its general accuracy), so omissions will be welcome.

Note: There’s  Tumblr-friendly versions of the list at Operation Batgirl, Inc. and Gorblax’s own site, specifically, here and here.

1936

• Gamble, Merna (“A Tale of Two Cities”, New Comics #4-5)
• Patrick, Mary (“Talk About Talkies”, More Fun Comics #9-10)
• Volk, Rosemary (“The Test of a Man”, New Comics #2)

1940

• Gaines, Evelyn [prose] (“Murder in the Classroom”, All-American Comics #18-19; “The Invisible Star”, “Guarding an Heiress”, All-Star Comics #2-3)

1941

• Gaines, Evelyn [prose] (“Crime, Inc.”, “The Missing Witness”, All-American Comics #23, 25; “A Fortune Teller’s Fortune”, All-Star Comics #4; “Jack Raymond”, Flash Comics #16)

1942

• Gaines, Evelyn [prose] (“Dummy Dynamite”, “Runaway Plane”, All-Flash #4-5)

1943

• Gaines, Evelyn [prose] (“Sister Spy”, “A Contract With Death”, “Night Before Christmas”, Sensation Comics #21-22, 24)

• Kaufman, Ruth Lyons (“Riddle of the Rodeo”, Adventure Comics #84; “The Grade A Crimes!”, Batman #16; “Somewhere in the Pacific”, More Fun Comics #90)

1944

• Gaines, Evelyn [prose] (“Murdered Spy”, All-American Comics #61)

1945

• Murchison, Joyce (Comic Cavalcade #11-12; Wonder Woman #12-14)

1946

• Murchison, Joyce (Comic Cavalcade #13, 15, 18; Sensation Comics #54, 57, 59; Wonder Woman #15-20)

1949

• Krigstein, Natalie (Girls’ Love Stories #3)

1951

• Krigstein, Natalie (Girls’ Love Stories #14; Girls’ Romances #7, 10)

• Sarafianos, Marie [prose] (“Cowboys at Play”, “Ropes in Retirement”, All-Star Western #60-61; “Gold Hunters”, All-American Western #123; “Parrot Fever”, “Three O’clock in the Morning”, “Waterfront Sleuths”, Big Town #8-10)

1952

• Krigstein, Natalie (Girls’ Romances #13)

• Sarafianos, Marie [prose] (“The Rockies – Nature’s Stronghold”, The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #1)

1970

• Friedlander, Barbara (Secret Hearts #141-144, 148)

1972

• Fabe, Maxene (“Paying With Fire”, Secrets of Sinister House #8)

• Manning, Dorothy (The Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #4)

1973

• Fabe, Maxene (“Brain Food”, House of Mystery #215; House of Secrets #105-106, 108-111; Secrets of Sinister House #11)

1974

• Amendola, Vin (Detective Comics #439)

• Fabe, Maxene (Plop! #3)

1975

• Fabe, Maxene (“The Rebel”, “The Spawn of the Devil”, House of Mystery #228, 235; House of Secrets #136; Plop! #14; “The Swinger”, “Bird’s Eye View”, Secrets of Haunted House #3-4)

• Marrs, Lee (“A Feline Feast”, “Flight”, Weird Mystery Tales #18-19)

• Skrenes, Mary (“The Mystery Man Who Walked on Air”, Detective Comics #449)

1976

• Fabe, Maxene (Plop! #20)

• Rozakis, Laurie (“A Hot Time in Star City Tonight!”, Detective Comics #464)

1977

• Fabe, Maxene (“Bride of the Pharaoh”, House of Mystery #251)

• Smith, Elizabeth (“The Weak Link”, “One of Those Days”, Action Comics #475, 477)

1978

• Andrews, Catherine B. (Doorway to Nightmare #4)

• Conway, Carla (“The Vixen is a Lady Fox”, Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2)

• Fabe, Maxene (“Never Steal From a Blind Man”, House of Mystery #259)

• Katz, Joyce (Doorway to Nightmare #3)

• Smith, Elizabeth (“Hero For a Day”, Action Comics #486)

1980

• Kin, Mimai (Ghosts #89, 94; “Numismatist”, Time Warp #5)

• Sutton, Laurie (“Adam Strange”, Green Lantern #133-135; “Nightfeast”, Secrets of Haunted House #24)

1981

• Kin, Mimai (Ghosts #97)

• O’Flynn, Tamsyn (“The Truth According to Nina”, Ghosts #102)

• Sutton, Laurie (“Adam Strange”, Green Lantern #136-147)

1982

• Gregory, Sarah (Unexpected #220)
• Randall, Barbara (“He With Secrets Fear the Sound…”, “…When Velvet Paws Caress the Ground!”, Detective Comics #518-519)
• Wright, Sharon [ghostwriter] (Warlord #53-64, Warlord Annual #1)
• O’Flynn, Tamsyn (“The Face of Truth”, Ghosts #108; “The Choice”, House of Mystery #301; “Lois Lane”, Supergirl #2; “Lois Lane”, Superman Family #215-222)

1983

• O’Flynn, Tamsyn (“Lois Lane”, Supergirl #3-8)
• Wright, Sharon [ghostwriter] (Warlord #65-76, Warlord Annual #2)

1984

• Conway, Carla (Firestorm #19)
• Duursema, Jan (Arion Lord of Atlantis #22)
• Newell, Mindy (“The Forging”, “The Path Not Taken”, “Once a Hero”, Legion of Super-Heroes #315-317; New Talent Showcase #8-11)
• Thomas, Dann (All-Star Squadron Annual #3; Infinity Inc. #1-9; Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1)

1985

• Conway, Carla (Superman #407)
• Lofficier, Randy (Arak #45, 50; Firestorm #32)
• Newell, Mindy (“With Love from Superman”, Action Comics #566; Amethyst #12; Legion of Super-Heroes #320-325; V #7; Wonder Woman #326-328)
• Randall, Barbara (“The Desperados: Cheap Labor”, New Talent Showcase #15; “Tomorrow is Cancelled”, Action Comics #574)
• Thomas, Dann (All-Star Squadron #51-52; America vs. the Justice Society #1-4; Arak #43-45, 50; Infinity Inc. #10, 18-21; Infinity Inc. Annual #1; Jonni Thunder #1-2; Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2)

1986

• Bierbaum, Mary (“A New York Yankee in King Arthur’s Court!”, Elvira’s House of Mystery #6)
• Duane, Diane (Star Trek #24-25, 28)
• Lofficier, Randy (Action Comics #579)
• Newell, Mindy (Legionnaires 3 #1-4; Lois Lane #1-2; “Mercenary!”, Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2)
• Randall, Barbara (DC Comics Presents #94; Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #15-18)
• Slate, Barbara (Angel Love #1-5)
• Smith, Elizabeth (“Two Edged Sword”, Elvira’s House of Mystery #6)
• Thomas, Dann (All-Star Squadron #53-55; Infinity Inc. #22-29, 32-33; Last Days of the Justice Society Special; Secret Origins #5; Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #4)

1987

• Bierbaum, Mary (“Deadly Affairs”, Elvira’s House of Mystery #11)
• Duffy, Jo (Batman #413)
• Kesel, Barbara (Firestorm #57; Hawkman #10; “O, Christmas Tree…”, Elvira’s House of Mystery Special; Secret Origins #20; Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #23; Who’s Who: Update ’87 #1, 4)
• Lofficier, Randy (Teen Titans Spotlight #11)
• Newell, Mindy (Amethyst #1-2)
• Slate, Barbara (Angel Love #6-8; Angel Love Special)
• Thomas, Dann (Infinity Inc. 34-43, 45; Infinity Inc. Special; Secret Origins #13, 16; Shazam: The New Beginning #3; Young All-Stars #1-7)

1988

• Bierbaum, Mary (“The Spy Who Blew Me Up”, Secret Origins #33)
• Duffy, Jo (Detective Comics #582)
• Duursema, Jan (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #1)
• Kesel, Barbara (Hawk & Dove #1-3)
• Lofficier, Randy (The New Teen Titans #44; Secret Origins #27)
• Newell, Mindy (“The Tin Roof Club”, Action Comics #611-614; Amethyst #3-4)
• Randall, Barbara (Batgirl Special; Teen Titans Spotlight #19; Who’s Who in the Legion of Super-Heroes #1-7)
• Thomas, Dann (Infinity Inc. #46-49, 53; Infinity Inc. Annual #2; Secret Origins #26; The Crimson Avenger #1-4; Young All-Stars #8-10, 12-13, 15-19; Young All-Stars Annual #1)
• Wilkerson, Cherie (Action Comics #627-632)
• Wright, Sharon (Action Comics #609-616, “Knock ‘Em Dead”, 624-632; Green Arrow #7)
• Yale, Kim (Deadshot #1-4; Manhunter #1-8)

1989

• Bierbaum, Mary (Legion of Super-Heroes #1-2; Secret Origins #42)
• Byam, Sarah (“Do Black Canaries Sing?”, Green Arrow Annual #2)
• Duursema, Jan (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #2-4)
• Kesel, Barbara (Hawk & Dove #4-5; Hawk & Dove #1-7; Secret Origins #43)
• Marrs, Lee (Wonder Woman Annual #2)
• Newell, Mindy (Catwoman #1-4; Wonder Woman #36)
• Thomas, Dann (Young All-Stars #20-31)
• Wilkerson, Cherie (Action Comics #633-634)
• Wright, Sharon (“Knock ‘Em Dead”, Action Comics #633-634)
• Yale, Kim (Manhunter #9-20; Suicide Squad #23-24, 27-32, 34, 36)

1990

• Bierbaum, Mary (Legion of Super-Heroes #3-13; Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1; Legion of Super-Heroes Postcards; Who’s Who in the DC Universe #1-5)
• Byam, Sarah (Captain Atom #47)
• Kesel, Barbara (Hawk & Dove #8-19; Hawk & Dove Annual #1; The New Titans #68-69; Who’s Who in the DC Universe #1-2, 4)
• Newell, Mindy (Wonder Woman #39-41)
• Yale, Kim (Manhunter #21-24; Suicide Squad #37, 39-43, 45-48)

1991

• Bierbaum, Mary (Legion of Super-Heroes #14-24; Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2; Who’s Who in the DC Universe #6-9, 11, 13-14)
• Byam, Sarah (Black Canary #1-2; Who’s Who in the DC Universe #9)
• Carlton, Bronwyn (Batman #570; “Rockumentary”, Elseworlds 80-Page Giant)
• Collins, Nancy A. (Swamp Thing #110-114; Swamp Thing Annual #6)
• Kesel, Barbara (Hawk & Dove #20-28; Hawk & Dove Annual #2; Who’s Who in the DC Universe #6-7)
• Simonson, Louise (The Adventures of Superman Annual #3; Detective Comics #635-637; Detective Comics Annual #4; Superman: The Man of Steel #1-6)
• Yale, Kim (Suicide Squad #49-60)

1992

• Bierbaum, Mary (The Heckler #1-4; Legion of Super-Heroes #25-26, 28-38; Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #3; Who’s Who in the DC Universe #16)
• Byam, Sarah (Black Canary #3-4; Green Arrow Annual #5)
• Collins, Nancy A. (Swamp Thing #115, 117-125)
• Kwitney, Alisa (Who’s Who in the DC Universe #15)
• Simonson, Louise (The New Titans #87; Superman: The Man of Steel #7-18)
• Yale, Kim (The Comet #11; Suicide Squad #61-66)

1993

• Bierbaum, Mary (The Heckler #5-6; Legion of Super-Heroes #39-50; Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #4; Legionnaires #1-9; Who’s Who in the DC Universe: Update 1993 #1-2)
• Byam, Sarah (Black Canary #1-7, 9-12; Who’s Who in the DC Universe: Update 1993 #2)
• Collins, Nancy A. (Swamp Thing #127-138; Swamp Thing Annual #7; “The Ghost In The Green”, Vertigo Jam)
• Duane, Diane (Star Trek #52; “Spot’s Day”, Star Trek: The Next Generation Special #1)
• Duffy, Jo (Catwoman #1-5)
• Fryer, Kim (“On the Road”, Justice League Quarterly #12)
• Hand, Elizabeth (New Teen Titans Annual #9)
• Kwitney, Alisa (Vertigo Vision: Phantom Stranger)
• Lee, Elaine (Ragman: Cry of the Dead #1-5)
• Marrs, Lee (Zatanna #1-4)
• Nocenti, Ann (Kid Eternity #1-8; “The Who Falls”, Vertigo Jam)
• O’Neil, Marifran (“Martial Arts”, “Poster”, Superman & Batman Magazine #1-2
• Pollack, Rachel (Doom Patrol #64-73; “Spooks Return Satisfied”, Vertigo Jam; Vertigo Visions: The Geek)
• Simonson, Louise (“First Sighting – The Man of Steel”, The Adventures of Superman #500; The New Titans #94-96; Superman: The Man of Steel #19-28; Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #2)

1994

• Bierbaum, Mary (Legionnaires #10-15)
• Collins, Nancy A. (Swamp Thing #139)
• Duffy, Jo (Catwoman #6-14)
• Goff, Cindy (Metropolis S.C.U. #1-2)
• Hand, Elizabeth (Anima #0, 7)
• Kurtin, Dana (Animaniacs #10)
• Kwitney, Alisa (The Children’s Crusade #2)
• Lee, Elaine (Ragman: Cry of the Dead #6; Vamps #1-5)
• Nocenti, Ann (Kid Eternity #9-16)
• O’Neil, Marifran (“Karate Kids! Martial Artists”, Superman & Batman Magazine #4)
• Pollack, Rachel (Doom Patrol #74-85; Doom Patrol Annual #2)
• Simonson, Louise (Action Comics #701; “Doomsday for the Fifth Dimension”, Action Comics Annual #6; New Titans Annual #10; Steel #0-10; Superman & Batman Magazine #5; Superman: The Man of Steel #0, 29-39)

1995

• Goff, Cindy (Metropolis S.C.U. #3-4; Showcase ’95 #9)
• Kesel, Barbara (Superboy Annual #2)
• Lee, Elaine (Vamps #6)
• Pollack, Rachel (Doom Patrol #86-87; New Gods #1-3)
• Pomerantz, Deborah (Catwoman #22-24; “Fear No Man”, Showcase ’95 #4)
• Simonson, Louise (“Some Say in Fire”, Doomsday Annual; Steel #11-16, #21-22; Steel Annual #2; Superman: The Man of Steel #40-51; Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #4)

1996

• Carlton, Bronwyn (100% True? #1)
• Collins, Nancy A. (Dhampire: Stillborn)
• Kesel, Barbara (Superboy Annual #3; Supergirl Annual #1; X-Patrol)
• Lee, Elaine (Vamps: Hollywood & Vein #1-6)
• Lofficier, Randy (Superman’s Metropolis)
• Pollack, Rachel (New Gods #4-11; “Cages and Shadows”, Showcase ’96 #5)
• Simonson, Louise (“Bad Head Day”, Showcase ’96 #2; Steel #23-27, 29-31; Superman: The Man of Steel #52-56; 59-63)
• Weis, Joan (Catwoman Annual #3; Showcase ’96 #9)

1997

• Bader, Hilary J. (Adventures in the DC Universe Annual; Batman & Robin Adventures Annual #2; Superman Adventures Annual)
• Carlton, Bronwyn (The Books of Faerie #1-2)
• Grayson, Devin (“Like Riding a Bike”, Batman Chronicles #7, #9; Batman plus Arsenal; Batman: Secret Files and Origins; Catwoman Annual #4; Nightwing Annual #1)
• Kesel, Barbara (Exciting X-Patrol; Superboy #43-44)
• Kiernan, Caitlyn R. (The Dreaming #17-19)
• Kwitney, Alisa (Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold #1-3; The Dreaming #8)
• Lee, Elaine (BrainBanx #1-6)
• Simonson, Louise (Superman: The Man of Steel #64-74; Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #6)
• Slate, Barbara (“Wax Attacks!”, Scooby-Doo #3)

1998

• Bader, Hilary J. (Batman Adventures: The Lost Years #1-5)
• Dyer, Sarah (Superman Adventures #21)
• Grayson, Devin (Arsenal #1-3; Batman Annual #22, Batman Chronicles #12; “Desires”, Batman 80-Page Giant #1; “Feature: Villain Quiz”, Batman Villains: Secret Files and Origins; Catwoman #54-63, 1000000; DC Universe Holiday Bash! II; JLA/Titans #1; Nightwing/Huntress #1-4)
• Kesel, Barbara (Elseworld’s Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl; Superman: Lois Lane; Team Superman: Secret Files and Origins)
• Kiernan, Caitlin R. (The Dreaming #22-24, 26-30; The Girl Who Would Be Death #1)
• Klink, Lisa (The Batman Chronicles #14)
• Lee, Elaine (Vamps: Pumpkin Time #1)
• Marrs, Lee (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #107-108)
• Pollack, Rachel (Vertigo Visions: Tomahawk)
• Sandsmark, Joanna (Wonder Woman Secret Files and Origins #1)
• Simonson, Louise (Superman Forever; Superman: The Man of Steel #75-83; Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #11; Superman: Save the Planet!)
• Staton, Hilarie (Scooby-Doo #16)
• Weis, Joan (“Child Labor”, Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant)

1999

• Bader, Hilary J. (Batman Beyond #1-6; 1-2)
• Carlton, Bronwyn (Detective Comics #737)
• Grayson, Devin (Arsenal #4; Batman #564; Batman Chronicles #18; Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #116; Batman: Shadow of the Bat #84, 92; Catwoman #64-71; DC Universe Holiday Bash! III; Detective Comics #731; Flinch #7; JLA #32; JLA/Titans #2-3; “Lost Pages: Teen Titans”, Nightwing: Secret Files and Origins; The Titans #1-10; Titans: Secret Files and Origins)
• Kiernan, Caitlin R. (The Dreaming #33-43; The Girl Who Would Be Death #2-4)
• Klink, Lisa (Batman: Shadow of the Bat #86)
• Kwitney, Alisa (Batman: No Man’s Land – Secret Files and Origins)
• Lee, Elaine (Vamps: Pumpkin Time #2-3)
• Lofficier, Randy (Batman: Nosferatu; Legends of the DC Universe #22-23)
• Simonson, Louise (The Adventures of Superman #568-569, 571; Superman: The Man of Steel #86; Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #12-14)
• Van Meter, Jen (“Nice Neighborhood”, Flinch #1)

2000

• Bader, Hilary J. (Batman Beyond #3-14)
• Carlton, Bronwyn (Catwoman #78-86, “Catwoman Movie Trailer”, Batman: Gotham City Secret Files and Origins)
• Dyer, Sarah (Superman Adventures #39)
• Grayson, Devin (Batman Chronicles #20; “Interview with Leslie Thompkins”, Batman: Gotham City Secret Files and Origins; Batman: Gotham Knights #1-10; Detective Comics #741; Relative Heroes #1-6; The Titans #11-20)
• Kiernan, Caitlin R. (The Dreaming #44-54)
• Kwitney, Alisa (Vertigo Secret Files and Origins: Swamp Thing)

2001

• Bader, Hilary J. (Batman Beyond #16-19, 21-22, 24)
• Carlton, Bronwyn (Catwoman #88-91)
• Grayson, Devin (Batman: Gotham Knights #11, 14-18, 20-22; Nightwing #53; User #1-3)
• Kiernan, Caitlin R. (The Dreaming #56-60)
• Van Meter, Jen (Batman: Gotham Knights #12)

2002

• Dyer, Sarah (Superman Adventures #65-66)
• Grayson, Devin (Batman: Gotham Knights #23-32; Nightwing #71-74)
• Nicolaus, Ashley-Jayne (Haven: The Broken City #1-9; JLA/Haven: Anathema; JLA/Haven: Arrival; “Profile Pages”, Guide to the DC Universe: Secret Files and Origins 2001-2002)

2003

• Grayson, Devin (Batman/Joker: Switch; Batman: The 12-Cent Adventure; Nightwing #75-86)
• Kiernan, Caitlin R. (Sandman Presents: Bast #1-3)
• Lofficier, Randy (Wonder Woman: The Blue Amazon)
• Moore, Leah (“Solomon Pines”, Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales #5)
• Nocenti, Ann (“Batman Black & White”, Batman: Gotham Knights #38)
• Simone, Gail (Birds of Prey #56-60; Birds of Prey Secret Files and Origins 2003)
• Van Meter, Jen (Batman: The Golden Streets of Gotham; Cinnamon #1-3)

2004

• Grayson, Devin (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #177-178; Nightwing #87-98)
• Nocenti, Ann (Batman/Catwoman: Trail of the Gun #1-2; Batman/Poison Ivy: Cast Shadows)
• Schutz, Diana (“Young Love”, Solo #1)
• Simone, Gail (Birds of Prey #61-75; The Legion #35-38; Rose & Thorn #1-6)
• Van Meter, Jen (Cinnamon #4-5)
• Weir, Christina (“Pin-Up”, Wonder Woman #200)

2005

• Allred, Laura (Solo #7)
• Boylan, Christine (“Bizarro: Birthwrong”, Superman Secret Files and Origins 2005)
• Grayson, Devin (Nightwing #99-100, 107-113; Superman: Secret Files and Origins 2005; Year One: Batman/Ra’s al Ghul)
• Moore, Leah (Albion #1-3)
• Simone, Gail (Action Comics #827-831; Birds of Prey #76-87; Teen Titans #27-28; Villains United #1-6)
• Weir, Christina (Adventures of Superman #644-645; “Secrets”, Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files and Origins 2005)

2006

• Grayson, Devin (Nightwing #114-117)
• Mina, Denise (Hellblazer #216-225)
• Moore, Leah (Albion #4-6)
• Simone, Gail (Action Comics #833-835; “Handle of the Teacup”, Brave New World; The All New Atom #1-4; Birds of Prey #88-90, 92-99; Gen13 #1; Infinite Crisis Special: Villains United; JLA Classified #16-21; Secret Six #1-5)
• Van Meter, Jen (JSA Classified #5-7; Outsiders #32-33)
• Weir, Christina (Adventures of Superman #647-648; Checkmate #6-7)

2007

• Boylan, Christine (Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #4)
• Castelucci, Cecil (The Plain Janes)
• Mina, Denise (Hellblazer #226-228)
• Picoult, Jodi (Wonder Woman #6-10)
• Simone, Gail (The All New Atom #5-15; Birds of Prey #100-108; Gen13 #2-13; Helmet of Fate: Black Alice; Secret Six #6; Welcome to Tranqulity #1-11)
• Weir, Christina (Checkmate #11-12; Outsiders: Five of a Kind – Nightwing and Captain Boomerang Jr.)
• Wilson, G. Willow (Outsiders: Five of a Kind – Metamorpho and Aquaman)

2008

• Castelucci, Cecil (Janes in Love)
  
• Dessertine, Rebecca (Supernatural: Rising Son #1-5)
• Madison, Ivory (Huntress: Year One #1-6)
• Randolph, Grace (Justice League Unlimited #41)
• Simone, Gail (The All New Atom #17-18, 20; “An End to Pain Comic: Chapter Zed – This Diminished Life”, Countdown to Mystery #8; Secret Six #1-2; “The Cold Depths of the Icicle Heart”, The Spirit #13; Welcome to Tranquility #12; Wonder Woman #14-25)
• Wilson, G. Willow (Air #1-3; Vixen: Return of the Lion #1)
• Wolfram, Amy (Teen Titans: Year One #1-6)

2009

• Henderson, Felicia D. (Teen Titans #75-76)
• McMurray, Mandy (“Darker Than Black, Part 1”, Batman Annual #27; “Haunted or Hoax?”, DC Universe Halloween Special ’09; “An Angel Told Me”, DC Universe Holiday Special ’09; “Darker Than Black, Part 2”, Detective Comics Annual #11; “Superman & Doctor Light in Samurai”, Justice League of America 80-Page Giant #1)
• Robinson, Angela (The Web #1-4)
• Simone, Gail (Secret Six #3-14; Wonder Woman #26-37)
• Thomas, Ariel (“Our Father’s Sins”, DC Universe Halloween Special ’09)
• Van Meter, Jen (Black Lightning: Year One #1-6)
• Weir, Christina (Batman Confidential #26-29)
• Wilson, G. Willow (Air #4-14; Vixen: Return of the Lion #2-5)
• Wolfram, Amy (“Lady Down the Lane”, “Never Too Old”, DC Universe Halloween Special ’09; “The Flash Before Christmas”, DC Universe Holiday Special ’09)

2010

• Conner, Amanda (“Fuzzy Logic”, Wonder Woman #600)
• Henderson, Felicia D. (“Heart of Steel”, Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant; Teen Titans #79-87)
• Simone, Gail (Birds of Prey #1-5; Secret Six #15-26; Suicide Squad #67; Wonder Woman #38-44, 600)
• Simonson, Louise (“Firepower”, Wonder Woman #600)
• Van Meter, Jen (“The Inheritance”, JSA All-Stars #2-11; “Spin Cycle”, Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant)
• Weir, Christina (“Whispers”, JSA 80-Page Giant 2010)
• Wilson, G. Willow (Air #15-24; Superman #704)

2011

• Deconnick, Kelly Sue (Supergirl #65-67)
• Henderson, Felicia D. (Static Shock Special)
• McMurray, Mandy (“Power Girl & Huntress in A World of Their Own”, Superman/Batman #78)
• Simone, Gail (Birds of Prey #6-13; Secret Six #27-36; Batgirl #1-2; The Fury of Firestorm #1-2)
• Simonson, Louise (DC Retroactive: Superman – The ‘90s)
• Skelly, Jennifer (“Unspoken”, Batman 80-Page Giant 2011)
• Traviss, Karen (Gears of War #17-18)
• Wilson, G. Willow (Superman #706; “Dogs”, The Unexpected #1)

2012

• Beukes, Lauren (Fairest #8)
• Castelucci, Cecil (Ghosts #1)
• Conner, Amanda (Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #1-3)
• Marx, Christy (Sword of Sorcery #0-3)
• Mina, Denise (Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Special #1)
• Nocenti, Ann (Catwoman #0, 13; Green Arrow #7-13)
• Simone, Gail (Batgirl #0, 3-13; Batgirl Annual #1; The Fury of Firestorm #3-6)
• Traviss, Karen (Gears of War #20-24)

2013

• Beukes, Lauren (Fairest #9-?)
• Castelucci, Cecil (Green Lantern: The Animated Series #11, Young Romance: A New 52 Valentine’s Day Special #1)
• Conner, Amanda (Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #4)
• Kwitney, Alisa (A Flight of Angels)
• Marx, Christy (Sword of Sorcery #4-?)
• Mina, Denise (Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo #1-?)
• Nocenti, Ann (Catwoman #14-?; Green Arrow #14-16)
• Simone, Gail (Batgirl #14-16)

Publisher: Archie Comics

Script: Ian Flynn

Pencils: Jonathan Hill

Inks: Gary Martin

Colors: Matt Herms

Recommended Audiences: People who like the Young Justice cartoon and wish it looked more like Astro Boy.

While the first year of Mega Man stories was enjoyable in its own way, it always felt that it was as good as is could be, with “as good as it could be” being “not great”.  While the writing was good, the source material and the book’s approach to it meant that there wasn’t a whole lot of time for proper world building, which meant that the actual stories ended feeling thinner than I’d like.  Still, there was the sense that this was purely an issue of growing pains, and that once the series had room to slow down and stretch a bit, the pieces would fall into place.

Now, with the series’ fourth arc, “Spiritus Ex Machina”, I think its safe to say that that time has arrived.  Gosh, this is a great story.

Recap: Dr. Light and his family are all at Robot Con to have fun, talk shop with friends, and help make the case for the Robot Masters, when the whole expo is attacked by the Emerald Spears, a terrorist group intent in stopping the evolution of A.I., and who pose a challenge not because they’re strong, but because as humans they cannot be harmed by the three-laws compliant Mega Man.

Ian Flynn has gotten a lot of recognition for his ability to create kid-friendly works that manages to hit all the right notes while not speaking down to them, but this is possibly a high point.  The first issue features a moderated debate between Dr. Light, who believes that giving personalities to robots is the natural next step in their development, and fellow Robot Master developer Dr. LaLinde, who believes that doing so is senseless when those robots are designed to be sent to perform dangerous tasks they might not return from–in her words, why create robots that can break their creator’s hearts?  While the story is rather naturally biased towards one particular side, LaLinde’s argument is presented as cogent, well-thought out one (and one I personally found more convincing)–no strawmen here.  Given our current political environment, it feels stunningly adult.

Light and LaLinde aren’t the only people seeking to persuade via debate.  The Emerald Spears’ leader Harvey Greenleaf also hopes to bring people over to his side via words, oblivious to the fact that a) he can’t debate, and b) no matter what his lofty intentions are, he’s still attempting to kill robots who are as people’s children.  It’s this fact that makes his eventual, inevitable betrayal by more extremist factions within his group more interesting than it may have otherwise been, since it doesn’t feel as if the villains are shooting themselves on the foot by doing so. And this schism can even be felt downstream.  There’s a surprising amount of variation within the group, even when most of its members are essentially mooks.

I’d mentioned before that one of the obstacles the book would face was a source material that heavily favored male characters over female ones.  With this arc, things are considerably improved, partly because of its less bloated cast–and because of the prominence of  three new female characters introduced here, which include comics exclusive characters like the aforementioned Dr. LaLinde and Tempo, a.k.a. Quake Woman, LaLinde’s Robot Master.  They both make great additions to the established ‘verse, and I hope to see more of them in the future.  On a similar note, it’s nice that the Emerald Spears isn’t an exclusively-male group, and that the Advanced Robotics Trade Show (nice acronym!) can be seen attended by people of genders: given that people who think like Tony Harris are still unshockingly common, it’s appreciated to see creators affirm that yes, women are human (unless they’re robots) and are perfectly capable of enjoying technology.

Also introduced in this arc are Dr. Cossack, his daughter Kalinka, and the Doctor’s Robot Master Pharaoh Man, who will be familiar to people acquainted with Mega Man 4.   While their roles here isn’t exactly essential–they’re here mostly to get introduced and allow readers to familiarize themselves with them–Flynn does a good job of sketching them out, and they do a good job of further developing the world.  In fact, that’s one of the best things about this arc.  There’s still a bunch of characters, but they all feel essential and distinct and they all allow us to approach the story from different angles.

The Mega Man book has so far taken the approach of bringing in different artists for each arc, and this time it’s Jonathan Hill’s turn at the wheel, and he, like the artists before him, does a great job of maintaining the stylistic consistency of  the the established world while adapting it to his art style.  I especially like that even people in uniforms all look different.  He’s probably tied with Ben Bates as my favorite artist so far, and my top candidate for regular penciller, if the book ever decides to have one.

After a slow first arc, I had decided that Mega Man would be one of the books I would collect exclusively in trades.  If the subsequent arcs manage to be as good as this one, I may be forced to reconsider.  This is an awesome product, and June–when the next volume comes out–cannot come fast enough.

Related Posts:

• My review of the series’ debut arc, “Let the Games Begin”.

Yes, Miki sounds super-pretentious when she says it; still, laughing at a friend’s beliefs isn’t exactly awesome behavior.  Miki Falls:  Spring, page 16

Recap: As she walks toward school, Miki is ambushed by her best friend and classmate Yumi, who quickly drives the conversation towards boys, specifically, which one(s) Miki is interested in.  Miki claims that she’s not interested in any of them, and that she doesn’t need them. 

“Look, Miki, no offense, but truth and excellence and all that junk can only take you so far.  At the end of the day a girl without a boyfriend is just…sad.”–Yumi

“Miki, you are waaay too picky.  I mean, look at me and Kazu.  He’s far from my ideal, but you know what?  It beats being alone.”–Ditto

I’m a reasonably big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I’ve seen the entire series, read some of the comics, and enjoy partaking of the discussions it generates on the internet.  It’s far from my favorite show, but I like the it fine, particularly in its earlier incarnations.

One of my favorite characters in earlier seasons of Buffy was Cordelia Chase, the popular Sunnydale high alum who served as Buffy’s archnemesis in that particular realm.  While her more noticeable role was that of comic relief, she also self a deeper purpose: if Buffy was a character who in existing served to invalidate (some) traditional gender norms, Cordelia existed to enforce them.  Where Buffy tried to reconcile the masculine (vampire slaying) and the feminine (her desire for a “normal” life and all that entailed), Cordelia stayed at the sidelines arguing that it was impossible: real, successful women were those who embraced sexist norms.

In her introductory scene, Yumi serves much the same role as Cordelia, without any of the things that made Miss Chase fun to watch.  While she doesn’t share her concern with popularity or class status, she makes up for it in her belief that Girl’s path to fulfillment can be found only via Boy.  Not The Boy or any that would make her happy, even, just Boy.  Any boy.  Love the one you’re with, even when that guy is a sleazeball or goes catatonic every time a girl makes eye contact with him, as Miki describes guys who Yumi suggests she should hook up with.

And that would be fine, if it ended there.  Yumi is perfectly entitled to her beliefs, no matter what I personally or anybody else thinks of them.  They only become problematic in her insistence that her ideas are universal, and that any others are literally laughable.  It makes her intolerable in my eyes, and while she does get scenes where we find that this is not all she thinks, they are not enough to wash away the bad first impression this scene creates.

What’s more, I’m not entirely sure what the book thinks I should be taking from this scene.  While Cordelia and her ideas exist to be proven wrong, the same can’t really be said of Yumi’s.  After all, Miki’s thoughts will eventually come to focus on a boy, and the whole series is about how said boy brings her life to a tailspin.  We never do see how Miki has “plenty going on” (her words) without boys: while she’s single for half the series, she’s only really happy insofar as her friendship with her love interest goes well. At best, what one can take from this scene is that Miki is fooling only herself, and that while she can’t be happily single, other people can*, proving Yumi wrong in general if not in the specific.  At worst, the book believes what Yumi believes: women need a relationship–any relationship–in order to be truly happy.  And while I don’t believe that second one is actually the case, just the fact that it may be so depresses me.

—-

* At least, if the idea of happy single people weren’t arguably contradicted in the third volume, for reasons I will get to then.

One of the things I very much like to do, even though I’ve never believed I’ve been very good at it, is dance.  Once I get into groove and forget about being nervous–which for me requires copious amounts of drink, and or a specific choreography–it can be intensely pleasurable.  It is also especially fun to see other people do it well, which is why shows like Glee can sometimes be very fun, in spite of any flaws or problematic elements they may have.  Hence, one of those things I consistently find engaging is the montage dance video, in which pieces of various dances are set to music.  Here are three of my favorites.

Is it Safe to Dance?

Song: “Safety Dance”, by Men Without Hats

Choreography: Shelby Warmbrodt

Come Again

Song: Various, Arranged by Kleptones

Choreography: Crumbs Chief

Improper Dancing

Song: “Improper Dancing”, by Electric Six

Choreography: DockValentine

Happy new year, y’all.

I haven’t posted anything here in a while, but I have a perfectly good excuse.  I was on the moon.  With Steve.

(Actually, no.  It’s just that between work, a sudden influx of activity on my other blog, and life, I just haven’t been able to summon the focus required for the sort of thing that I like posting here.)

In any case, I just wanted to announce that this blog now has an associated Tumblr page, Chasing Smaller Sheep,where I’ll be posting whatever interests me that doesn’t require the whole post treatment.  Also, I am now writing comic book reviews for The Trade Paperback Reading Order, a website focusing on graphic novel trade paperbacks.  The first one is a review of the third volume of Archie: The Married Life, which among other things features the wedding of Kevin Keller and his therapist boyfriend Clay Walker, and the plan is to produce one new review a week.

So yeah.  While it’ll probably take a while, I still plan on producing content for this blog.  But until then, I’m far from gone.

At The Trade Paperback Reading Order.  Give it a look!

Despite the “2” on the cover, this volume contains the Archie series’ very first original stories–the book up until then had consisted of adaptations of cartoon episodes–arguably making this the actual start of the series proper.  The difference between it and the source is pretty much immediately noticeable.  Sure, the Ken Mitchroney art is clearly inspired by the cartoon, and characters and elements that would later be abandoned, like the Turtle Blimp and mainstays Bebop and Rocksteady–are still being used, but even then there are a host of subtle differentiating details dotting the book, foreshadowing the turn it would eventually take.  Most importantly, stories are less cynical: whereas the cartoon felt like the product of people who knew they were creating something utterly disposable and therefore didn’t require things like sympathetic characters or stories with proper weight, the creators here care and want the reader to care.  Less noticeably, the various characters have been made different in ways subtle and not: the turtles are less reliant on their theme-song quirks; the Shredder and Krang feel more like legitimate threats than annoyances, April, despite having only a cameo, appears long enough to have her professional context altered.

So not surprisingly, it turns out that I can be productive–but only if there’s an outside force providing incentives, such as deadlines.  I haven’t written anything here for months, but I have managed to write up a couple of new reviews for the Trade Reading Order.

Morning Glories: Vol. 3: “P.E.”

Even so, if the point comes ever comes where I realize that all the mystery is for naught, I still feel like I could enjoy Morning Glories, thanks to its characters, who continue to shine.  This volume in particular does a lot to flesh out Jade, who up to this moment had been little more than “the suicidal, gothy one”, as she opens up and proves to be actually quite interesting.  On the opposite end of the scale, Hunter, who’s been aggressively pushed as the most normal one in the bunch (read: he’s a socially awkward—yet strictly within the bounds of what is generally considered attractive–geek), displays a rather ugly side to himself in this volume, as he slut-shames classmate Zoe.  While the incident isn’t cut-and-dried—this occurs just after Zoe herself insults him, and she later stops him from apologizing, making it impossible to know just what it is he later feels remorse for—it’s the sort of thing that makes me worried about potential problematic outcomes.  While Nick Spencer has proven himself a capable writer, past experience with other stories has taught me not to be optimistic when it comes to geeky, socially awkward characters in fiction.  Meanwhile, Zoe herself continues to kick ass as she takes advantage of circumstances like a boss,  Ike’s shtick as someone who wants to convince the world that he is nothing more than a heel and cad continues to wear thin, and Jun’s arc continues being pleasantly surprising.

Static Shock – Trial by Fire

As the main player in the book’s drama, Virgil naturally gets most of the writers’ attention, and he makes the most of it.  Over the course of the four issues collected here, he comes across as a person with various different dimensions, some of which help make him flawed—he’s entitled, especially when it comes to women—but mostly sympathetic and fun to follow.  Perhaps more importantly, he is both smart and smartassed, in a way that could have easily felt derivative but instead marks him as is own person and serves to highlight the way race affects him.  Virgil is very eager to stand out, and its hard not to think that his persistent flaunting of his vocabulary and references nobody else gets is his way of pushing back against narratives of how black men should be.  It’s also rather fun and refreshing to see a geek who is openly a geek and yet manages to avoid the common stereotypes associated with geekdom.

“Now look, Lois: Kent was a heck of a reporter, but so are you, and if anybody can find a way to save Superman, you can.”–Perry White 

“I have voluntarily agreed to leave Metropolis by noon tomorrow.  I believe it’s the best way to put all of your fears to rest.”–Superman

It’s not hard to determine what the biggest obstacle facing the production of Lois & Clark was: it was a Superman story without the money to make us believe a man could fly without it looking obviously greenscreened.  Still, the creators made the most of what they had, and when the series was on its game, they showed that while they couldn’t show Superman fighting Darkseid for the fate of the world, they didn’t need to.

Take this particular Paris Qualles-penned episode, for instance, where the major enemy is…a heat wave, which as, you know, is a pretty hard thing to punch.  And while the premise is ridiculous even in the best of times–Lex Luthor has found a way to control the temperature in Metropolis (and only Metropolis) and uses this newfound power to make the city believe that Superman’s actions are responsible for the ninety-degree weather in November–the way it’s handled absolutely sells it, because of the way the episode uses the premise as an excuse to pit the characters into conflict against themselves: Clark, unable to determine the truth of the matter (he is still solidly in his first six months of doing large-scale stuff as Superman and isn’t meant to be a super-genius here)  is forced to consider that his actions to help people are also doing worse harm, and the Planet’s staff”s desire to believe Superman is blameless is placed in conflict with its mission to investigate and find out the truth, even if turns out to be an undesirable one.

Eventually, the “Superman causes heat” theory gains so much traction that Metropolis officials are forced to deal with it in order to prevent public unrest, and Superman, because he is Superman, does his best to cooperate, appearing before a judge and agreeing to not use his superpowers until the cause of the heat wave is determined, under pain of incarceration.  However, because Superman is Superman, he cannot go five minutes without breaking it in order to save lives, therefore getting himself incarcerated until bail can be posted.  Because he is an adult and respects the law, he does it without complaint; because he is a hero, he does it without apology.  And it is this attitude that separates him from the current popular conception of the character, and makes him an inspirational figure rather than a terrifying one.  In a modern superhero landscape that often conflates heroism with might-is-right fascism, it’s nice to see people argue that the ability to work with others and an understanding that yes, the law matters, even when it doesn’t work to one’s advantage, and that trying to argue that he deserves to get his way because he’s Superman is not kosher.

(Incidentally, one of the few false notes in the episode occurs when an incarcerated Superman is being taunted by his fellow prisoners, including one–the person whose assault Supes had just stopped–who begins tugging on Superman’s cape attempting to get him riled up.  When Asshole finally takes a swing at Superman, the Man of Steel dodges, causing Asshole to accidentally hit another fellow prisoner, who then starts beating on Asshole while Superman watches, “unable” to help due to the fact that he isn’t supposed to use his powers, which is quite unheroic–what did punchee ever do to deserve it? )

Eventually, Superman is released, but the problem remains far from solved. Thanks to Luthor’s machinations, he eventually realizes that his position is untenable and decides that he’d rather leave Metropolis than let its citizens suffer.  And, because he can’t just live there and ignore the cries of people in help, he decides that Clark can’t live there either.  He is beaten without ever having to take a punch.

Thank heavens for Lois Lane.  Throughout this entire ordeal, when Superman’s confidence is shaken, it is her unwavering belief in his innocence and her reporter instincts that allow her to consider possibilities others won’t, and allows the reporter to save the day, a fact that Superman is in no way embarrassed to admit.  Sure, part of the reason Lois does so is due to the attraction she feels for Superman, but to say that’s the only or even main reason behind her actions would be dishonest: Lois does it because she smells a lie, and that will not stand.

It’s important to note that this isn’t Lois standing by her man–as I’ve mentioned, Superman has taken a far less bullish position than she does, and she finds herself disagreeing with him throughout the episode.  She goes over him because he believes the world needs a Superman and will do anything in her power to assure that there is one.  Even after the loss of her best friend (Clark, whose good-bye is a heartbreaker) leaves her an emotional wreck, she’s still there plugging away at the problem.  It is this tireless search–which is in no way new or special to her, as we see in every other episode–that makes her Superman’s equal, and why she doesn’t need super-powers to kick serious ass.

Finally, there’s John Shea’s Lex Luthor, who is one of my favorite versions of the character, mostly because he reminds me less of Lex Luthors of old and more one of my other favorite amoral plutocrats, Gargoyles‘ David Xanatos.  Particularly of note is his relationship with his assistant Nigel, played by the great late Tony Jay in the only live-action role I’ve seen him in: it’s  less that of a superior and subordinate (as Lex Luthor’s relationships with anyone are wont to be) and more of grateful student and proud former mentor: there’s warmth there, and humanity, and the fact that Nigel feels free to make suggestions–such as when he notes that Luthor can take comfort in the fact that his  failed weather control plot (also designed to get the city to fast-track the approval of his nuclear power plant–which of the two goals is the primary one is left to the viewer) at least caused a 2000% sales increase in Lexcorp’s air-conditioning division–and that Lex in turn feels grateful for that reminder makes the character feel both refreshingly human and in turn far more dangerous, because he can acknowledge when he misses things.

This is also fun.  Not only does it save the production the cost of actually shooting the scene where Superman rescues a train, it goes a long way to giving the character more personality than “feels superior to everybody, hates Superman.”  It’s details like that, combined with stuff like Clark realizing that not using his powers means he’ll have to use a tea kettle like everyone else that make the show feel alive.

One of the more interesting things about Lois & Clark as a show is the fact that it was developed by Deborah Joy LeVine, a woman who, as far as I figure, had no contact with comic books prior to her involvement in the show, and who nevertheless gets it far more often than many actual fans.  It suggests that there’s no special trick to “getting” Superman and Lois and Clark, as long as one understands people.

So why is the current DC having so much trouble with him?

So seventy five years ago today, Superman, Clark Kent and Lois Lane came into this world.  Since then, they have saved the planet countless times and  inspired millions.  They haven’t always been perfect, handled as they have always been by imperfect people, but they’ve always represented our capability to do better, which is, in the end, all we can and should expect, always.

I don’t have much to say about the characters at the moment: I’m generally a slow writer and haven’t given it much thought, and the fact that there are far better writers than me doing excellent jobs elsewhere means there’s no urgency to it.

What I do plan on doing is writing a piece for the Women Write About Comics’ Lois Lane blog carnival.  It’s going to be on her Lois & Clark persona, because I like her, and because that’s what I was asked to write about.  And while the part of me that never likes what I write has concerns about doing justice to the topic and the character and the English language, another part of me relishes the challenge.  I’ve already got a first sentence.  Look for that here soon (ish).

In any case, happy birthday, Lois and Clark. You’ve been there all through my life, starting with those tapes of the Fleischer cartoon, and then though Lois & Clark, the comics, the animated series, the films and then through Lois & Clark again.  Hopefully you’ll still be there when I die, still inspiring people.  And thank you for all of the people involved in giving them life and spark; you’ve helped shape an icon, which at the end of the day is pretty damn cool.

Also, where’s my book with Lois and Superman as actual seventy-five year olds, DC?

Lois Lane enters the Daily Planet, disguised as a man.

This is the sort of thing that could have easily been heavy-handed, but I’m really glad is not; instead, Lois’ first scene in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman serves as a nice literalization the path women often were–and often still are—forced to take in order to obtain professional success.

We haven’t chanced as much as many like to think we have. We still live in a society where someone like Hillary Rodham Clinton—one of the most impressive public figures of the past thirty years–cannot express strong emotion in public, lest people—including some self-identified liberals–start thinking variations of “just like a woman.” As subversive as Elle Woods is, the world is still miles away from Legally Blonde‘s,where one can be girly—very girly–and still be recognized as being professional and smart. In order to be recognized for one’s worth, one needs to abandon everything (*1) that suggests womanhood, be it emotion, fear, or the very things that distinguish us from machines.

So right from the beginning, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman has something to say about women and society, and how our titular reporter fits into that. It is that understanding that fuels its take on Lois Lane, the ur-career woman.  When we see Teri Hatcher asserting in no uncertain terms that she is top banana, we know that she knows it’s a survival mechanism: if she’s not careful—if she ever lets her employers forget that she’s The Best Reporter On The Planet, and they ever start thinking of her as the woman they can just task with whatever needs doing that day (say, showing rookie reporters around) the career and reputation she’s made for herself and loves is over.

And so, she’s aggressive—maybe more than she’d like to be–and hides parts of herself which others would find unacceptably feminine. She is embarrassed to admit she’s working on a romance novel in her spare time, because that awesome goal is nevertheless a “girly” one. When she decides in “Honeymoon in Metropolis” that she wants a weekend to pamper herself, her first instinct is to keep it quiet, and when she tells her co-workers’ her plans, their initial reaction is disbelief, because it goes outside the persona she’s worked so hard to establish. She appears to have no female friends outside of her sister Lucy (whom I’m really sad disappeared after the first three episodes (*2)—I loved the idea of Lois having a roommate) and her relationships with female peers in her field are defined by rivalry. While Perry White deserves a lot of credit for allowing her to shine, and Jimmy Olsen is a great friend, there’s no one she knows who can tell her “I know what you’ve gone through, because your experience mirrors mine.”

In a bit of an ironic reversal, the show with the most unaffected Clark has the Lois Lane who is most obviously performing. Just like there’s usually been a difference between Clark as he actually is and Clark as he presents himself to others, the Lois Lane we see working on The Daily Planet in Lois & Clark not quite her true self. It is only with Clark—Superman—that she can let those defenses down. Just like Lois eventually comes to accept that Superman can’t always be Superman—he’s also Clark, with all his preferences and quirks and flaws—Clark also accepts that Lois Lane is not just the hyper-competent reporter for a major Metropolitan newspaper: she’s the woman who likes caramel apples and is biased against farmers and cheats at Scrabble. While these things most likely won’t be mentioned in the museums time-traveling baddie Tempus assures will be dedicated to her in the future (which oh my crap yes) but are still vital parts of her, and are therefore parts Superman loves to pieces, while at the same time understanding that they don’t negate the part of her that’s tough as steel.

I love it to bits.

—

Footnote goodness!

(*1) Okay, not everything, but talking about how physical attractiveness plays into sexist narratives regarding professions is beyond the scope of this essay.  Sorry, folks.

(*2) I really want to hear the story of why Lucy was written out, particularly given her initial prominence.  Her actress,  Elisabeth Barondes, was even included in the opening credits for the pilot , which is especially weird when one realizes that Eddie Jones and K Callan–who play Jonathan and Martha Kent–aren’t.  It would have made more sense to me if she’d been written down either immediately after the pilot or later in the season, after the showrunners had a good idea of what worked and what didn’t, but not after three episodes.

Special thanks to Esther Alperin and Certain Shades of Limelight for their support and assistance in the writing of this essay.

Lately, it’s been hard not to feel ambivalent about Superman. I love the guy and what he stands for, but given how it at times feels like my ideas of what makes the character work are the complete opposite of DC’s, I haven’t been happy with the character for a while. And yet, I don’t feel sadness or even disappointment, because the Superman-sized void in my feels has been more than capably filled by other fiction. If I’m in the mood for larger than life, physics-bending superheroics, Gurren Laggan and its galaxy-sized robots has me covered. If I want stories about an alien whose the last of his kind, adopts Earth, and inspires regular people to themselves become heroes, I’ve got Russell T. Davies’ Doctor Who to keep me satisfied.  Superman, in comparison, often brings thoughts of “good idea, but…”

So in the end, I wasn’t all that excited during the run-up to Superman: The Man of Steel. If it worked, great. If it’s didn’t, eh. I’d been mostly unspoiled, so I’m not sure what to expect, except that it seemed very heavy on the Krypton—rarely a good sign, when I’m concerned, since I tend to feel that where he was born says very little about who he is, and therefore focusing on it is a good way to start off on the wrong foot.

In any case, let’s start with the good. Lois Lane is great, and Amy Adams is fantastic in the role (I’m so happy she got it). The character’s a bit drier than she tends to be portrayed as on the screen, but she works supremely well, particularly given the one big change in the film. And all the characters are well cast and give good performances, elevating the material. General Zod, is, I feel, as good a portrayal as the character is going to get on the screen.

As for the rest? Honestly, it was all a bit boring. The first few minutes are spent establishing Krypton’s backstory, and through it all I was “get ON with it”. It’s kinda necessary for the plot, but then, I don’t care for the film’s plot, which is all about how Clark became Superman–or rather, it would be if there were a difference between the two sides of the character.

One of the things the film does differently from past versions of the story is to essentially do away with Clark’s double life. Arguably, it also does away with Superman as we know it, leaving us with the story of Kal-El, who wears a costume and has Diane Lane as an adoptive mother, and is still unsure about what he wants to do. With the Daily Planet‘s staff serving as satellite characters to Lois (which isn’t at all a bad thing, except insofar as they were shunted aside for most of the movie), the film is centered in Kansas in a way that feels weird.

Like I said, I have Ideas about Superman, and in the end, what I got from the film is that their take on Clark wouldn’t have become Superman if he hadn’t found about his heritage, which feels wrong. I’ve always been partial to versions of the story where Clark becomes Superman before finding out about Krypton, because it makes clear that there’s no correlation between the two things. Clark being Kryptonian has no bearing on who he is, and if he had no super-powers, he’d be Lois Lane, except less impressive because of male privilege. Here, however, the heritage and the heroism are connected to an uncomfortable degree. Yes, he’s seen helping people as Clark, but throughout those scenes, it doesn’t convince me that he gets any emotional satisfaction from it, which I feel Superman should always feel. It doesn’t help that this version of Jonathan Kent—one half of the couple that made him what he is–is far too willing to make Clark feel guilty about helping people. The film seems to agree with him, which again, makes this feel like the story of someone who is not Superman. Yes, people shouldn’t be expected to harm themselves for the sake of others, but part of what makes Superman Superman is the fact that a) he totally would, without hesitation, and b) he’s clever enough not to need to, most of the time.

As for the action…meh. While there are a few nice bits—I like that his initial fight with the Kryptonians is mixed with the rescue of the soldiers also with him—it’s all very generic-looking. This has been done before, and frankly, I’m tired of it. Again, Lois comes off better, with the scene where she—helped by Jor-El’s post-mortem A.I.–escapes Zod’s ship being a highlight.

In the end, I don’t feel this was the Superman film to sell people on the character—at least, if I didn’t also think that what I like about Superman isn’t what other people like about him. In any case, if nothing else, I feel it placed the characters in a very good position for an excellent sequel, so here’s hoping.  But until then, there’s always Doctor Who.

• Clearly, the film takes place in a world in which Neon Genesis Evangelion never existed. While actually mentioning the resemblance would have left a bad taste in my mouth, I would have still appreciated some nod to it.
• That said, I wish that in some respects, it had been more like Evangelion, particularly as it pertains to the world-building, which is where I had the most problems with the film. First and foremost, I find it inconceivable that any sort of competent authority would have taken such a blasé attitude to the study of Kaijuu as The People In Charge do here. I mean, how the heck does “Kaijuu research”–which would be necessary regardless of whatever measure is taken against them—get reduced to a two-man team? THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ANY ANTI-KAIJUU MEASURE. And yet it takes years to figure out they’re clones?  NERV would be so disappointed.
• From what I understood, there was nothing inherently special about the Jaegers—they were just equipped with enough firepower to take down most Kaijuu. So if it’s about having the right weapon, why not diversify? Why not have plasma-cannon equipped planes, or maybe a killsat placed directly above the seam? Or heck, any sort of non-Jaeger scout-units, so that they don’t have to go in blind every single time and waste their only effective defensive measure trying to figure out what their up against?
• I’m unsure what to make of the relationship between Raleigh and Mako. Part of me wanted it to be platonic, because genuine friendships between straight opposite-sex people are still so rare in film, but another part of me wanted to support the idea of having the only romance in a film be interracial. What I got in the end, though, just let me unsatisfied, cause it read to me like a romance arc, with the lack of a kiss in the end suggesting that they wimped out about making it explicit for some reason. Then again, there’s a good chance that I may be misreading things, so I don’t know.
• Given the Tumblr hype for this film and the good things I’d heard about what it’s approach to diversity, I was, in the end, rather disappointed on that front. As fantastic as Rinko Kikuchi and Edris Alba are on their roles, and as much as their characters are totally the emotional core of the film which isn’t to say I found either of them terribly interesting: theirs are the sort of characters whom I feel are made worth paying attention to by their actors– their inclusion feels like an oasis in a film that otherwise leaves me parched. As nice as it is it to see a woman of color in the female lead role, it’s hard for me to give cookies to the film when Mako is the only woman in the film (the other female Jaeger pilot is essentially a named extra). In the end, the two characters end up feeling like exceptions and exceptional. Just where are all the female Jaeger pilots/pilot candidates?

In the end, my biggest issue with the film is this: it does nothing that others haven’t done before or better, and what it does is for the most part boring.  I feel that given the premise and the actors and the budget, Pacific Rim is a film that I feel easily had the potential to be another Speed Racer (I love Speed Racer) and yet falls short, landing instead on “merely okay”. I’m glad it exists, and that it was given a shot, and hope there are films that improve on what it does. I’m glad that it found an audience, and hope that further increases the profiles of the people involved in it, particularly Keiko Minuchi, whom I hope to see in lots more stuff. But I just can’t share in the enthusiasm.

You know, given my burnout on Batman, I wasn’t all that hyped up about the third cartoon series in ten years. While the hype indicated that this one, at least, reflected some unconventional choices—Katana as a regular character, loads of emphasis on Alfred as a former spy-master, new takes on E-list villains—still, it’s Batman.

Well, two episodes in, and I’m interested. There’s plenty of room for polish—the latest episode, for example–but the way the show is building up its overarching stories and characters is currently reminding me a lot of Scooby-Doo!: Mystery Incorporated—I understand both shows share a producer–and that can only be a good thing.

• I’m unsure what to make of Magpie’s design. While I have no problem with “sexy” costumes when they make sense for the character involved, I’m not sure this particular one passes this particular test. Sure, there’s a lot of Catwoman in Magpie, and Selina was always one of those characters partly defined by their sexuality, but just like it annoys me when Ms. Kyle’s zipper is left open to her navel, I feel there’s a space between “sexy” and “bustier and kinky boots”. It feels like an unwelcome encroachment of an unwanted design element into a realm where it’d previously held little influence.
• Given my continuing frustrations with he latest TMNT‘s lack of female characters, the fact that the second episode of the show features four different women playing different roles within it makes me supremely happy. It doesn’t pass the Bedchel Test, sadly, and my gut tells me that such prominence will prove an outlier (although three of the four women are coded as “recurring”, so who knows) but still, it’s nice to see.
• On that note, Barbara looks adorable.
• Also like TMNT, Batman has that CGI-show problem of looking like it’s taking place in an empty city. It’s slightly better than TMNT is, but only just. Here’s hoping it doesn’t limit this show like it does that one.
• As someone who’s put in a lot of thought into the concept and history of gun censorship in cartoons—I’m a frequent contributor at TVTropes’ “Family Friendly Firearms” page—I was quite interested on what approach the creators would take after the Aurora massacre convinced them to tweak their firearm designs to be less realistic. And this one is particularly interesting, because you can sort of tell what the original weapons were supposed to look like.  In any case, the weapons have altered in a way that doesn’t annoy me too much–a couple in the first episode are given weird un-weaponlike colors, but they still work.
• There’s a weird dissonance when it comes to the way Batman’s acting. There’s a certain callousness to his actions that feels at odds with his level of experience. Like, it feels to me that earlier Batman should be a kinder gentler, Batman, yet this version is putting people into comas, electrocuting them, and telling them it’s their own fault when they agree to become subjects of unethical experiments—as if coercion weren’t a possibility.
• Professor. Pyg and Mr. Toad, from the first episode, have been turned into eco-terrorists. While it kinda works, I also kinda wish they’d taken a different approach when reimagining the characters. I’m tired of seeing the only people concerned with the environment being either terrorists or jokes.

So last night, I watched The Fosters‘ spring finale, featuring the wedding of Lena Adams and Stef Foster, who together form the superlative lesbian couple at the center of the show; afterwards, I took to Tumblr to try to translate my thoughts into written words, and realized that despite all the hullabaloo surrounding the wedding, I had little to say about it or them. I had lots to say about Callie, the white straight teenage girl who is the show’s point of view character, but not the people about whom the episode was ostensibly about. It wasn’t until I read a friend express their disappointment with the episode that I realized why. Like my friend said, the episode, in the end, wasn’t really about Lena and Stef.

And they’re right. Sure, Lena and Stef are prominent throughout the episode, and time is spent on their conflicting ideas about the wedding and the heaping helpings of parental drama that became inevitable the moment Stef proposed. They’re even show in bed together. But as the many, many shots of Callie’s pained face made clear, it wasn’t their story, not really. After the brides’ dance with their children, we hear no more from them, and the final few minutes of the episode are spent on heartbreaking Callie angst.

Now, this isn’t to say that what we did get regarding Lena and Stef wasn’t fantastic, or that one is wrong for enjoying the heck out of it. But that doesn’t necessarily make it enough. The Fosters had set up high standards for itself, as the show that had expressed over and over again a commitment to rarely-represented experiences, and tackled privilege as one of its main themes. As the only same-sex wedding between lead characters we’re going to see in this series, and one of only a handful we’re likely to get in the near future, it was not at all out of the question to want and expect it to be treated as the important thing in the episode, as it almost certainly would have been had it been a traditional wedding. And yet, once one thinks about it, for every thing included, there was something that could have been added: a post wedding conversation. A scene with Lena and Stef’s queer friends (although that one I can sorta understand, given the already-large number of guest-stars already in the episode). An actual sex scene.

Discussing the episode, I got touch of Deja Vu: the execution of the wedding reminded me a lot of the way Archie comics handled Kevin Keller’s wedding a year or two back. Like the one in The Fosters, it was hyped up to all heck. Like the one in The Fosters, the actual issue was less about Kevin and his husband-to-be and more about using that wedding as a background for the more prominent characters’ drama.

And you know, as a straight guy who has his experiences as a straight guy consistently validated, I was satisfied with that, back then: I thought that it indicated a tremendous level of progress, and that that was enough, for now.  But as the same-sex wedding as background becomes a trope, it strikes me that while that may indeed indicate a heck of a lot of progress, it is also a sign that we haven’t gone far enough. As well-meaning as the people behind these works may be, the way they are executed nevertheless send a problematic message: gay people’s experiences are not worth focusing on to the extent equivalent experiences by straight people are.  And it is precisely because these people are well-meaning—and are at the helm of works experienced by a not-inconsiderable amount of people—that it’s important to let them know that hey, they can do better. If they are truly committed to making things better, they’ll take the constructive criticism and use it to improve their craft, and maybe sooner rather than later, we can have the same-sex wedding episode QUILTBAG people deserve.  On the other hand, if this episode wasn’t a fluke (and a big dang fluke it is) and Lena and Stef’s experiences continue to be treated as second-class events, then I’m sorry, The Fosters: you’re not the show I thought you were.

So yesterday I got the finished version of this:

It’s a picture of Pari, the protagonist from my perpetually in-progress novel Faerie.  It was done by the awesome madseason. I love it to bits.

Determining when a character has been whitewashed is, in theory, a rather simple task.  Specifically, its a matter of asking oneself:

1. Was Character X established as a Person of Color in the original work?
2. Has an adaptation of that work changed Character X so that they are now White instead?

If the answer to both is “yes”, then whitewashing has occurred.

Of course, reality has ways of taking the simplest of tests and adding a whole bunch of complications along the way.  For example, what if the answer to sub-question one is “yes and no”?  This is the case with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ April O’Neil, a character who had no established heritage aside from her last name of Irish origin, and whose looks could change rather drastically between appearances, because apparently, her creators–Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird–had different ideas, and never  definitively settled the question while they were working together.

Because people are complicated, there are a lot of differing opinions about this matter, most with at least some evidence backing them up.  Hence, this series, chronicling the many looks she’s had, beginning with the moment of her creation and taking us all the way to 2014, where she is set to appear on the big screen once again, this time played by Megan Fox.  The idea is not to argue for any particular conclusions–although I do have my own opinions on the matter–but simply to allow people to come to their own.  Plus, I like timelines, I really like seeing the visual evolution of a concept, and I think that April’s is, in particular, really interesting.

We begin this first section in 1984, the year when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird for the second issue of their surprisingly successful comic book, and go all the way to 1987 when she was set to make her debut in the cartoon that changed the franchise forever.

ETA:

Note: While comments for this series are closed–I do not feel that I am capable of moderating the particular discussions on race that this has the potential to lead into–feedback, either in the form of factual corrections or whatever thoughts you’d like to share, can be sent via the Contact Form at the bottom of the post.

TMNT #2 (October 1984). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

TMNT #2 Third Printing Cover (January 1985). Art by Richard Corben. Image obtained from the Mirage Licensing webpage.

TMNT #3 (March 1985). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

TMNT #3 (March 1985). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

TMNT #4 (June 1985). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

TMNT #4 (June 1985). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

Michelangelo #1 (December 1985). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

TMNT #6 (February 1986). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

TMNT #7 (May 1986). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

TMNT #7 (May 1986). Art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

TMNT #2 Colored Reprint included in TMNT: Book 1  (November 1986); image obtained from Turtlepedia.

Leonardo #1 (December 1986). Art by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Steve Bissette, Michael Dooney and Ryan Brown.

ETA:

Cover to Tales of the TMNT Vol. 1 #1 (May 1987). Art by Ryan Brown.

ETA:

Tales of the TMNT Vol. 1 #1 (May 1987) Art by Jim Lawson.

Cover to TMNT #11 (June 1987). Art by Kevin Eastman. Image obtained from TMNT Entity .

TMNT #12 (September 1987). Art by Peter Laird.

Character model created for original cartoon (1987), reproduced here for Turtles Forever (2009)

(Note: This post contains spoilers for the last six months worth of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe issues.)

I’m exhausted.

It’s been more than a year since the effects of lawsuit by former Sonic the Hedgehog writer Ken Penders first made their presence felt upon the Archie book, and just as much time since I’ve been able to unreservedly enjoy the book. After current scribe Ian Flynn was forced to jettison all his predecessor’s characters (*1) it seemed that the book could only move forward by either ignoring huge swaths of its universe and continuity, or by hitting the cosmic reset button in order to create a universe where those characters didn’t exist. Either way, the story I’ve enjoyed in one way or another for more than a decade would end.

We have crossed that bridge, and then another. Archie chose alternative number two, and for the last six months, we’ve been dealing a brand-new Archie!Sonic-verse, one considerably more influenced by the videogames than the one seen in the previous three hundred issues. We also have our first two complete arcs, designed to serve as an introduction to our new setting, a reintroduction to our core cast of characters, and as an implicit argument for the idea that what has been gained is of equal or greater value to what has been lost.

Mission not accomplished, so far.

So far, we’ve gotten a pretty clear inkling of what this new universe is not—namely, the one from issues #1 – #250. There’s no real way it could have been, given how many characters and story points created or developed by Penders. had been interwoven throughout. Knowing what this universe is, however, has proven harder. We know that Bunny D’Coolete is the half-robot wife of Antoine D’Coolete, but we don’t know how either of those things came to be. We know that Eggman has an army and some dealings with King Acorn, but we don’t know the extent of his reign of terror, if indeed he even had one—his videogame version didn’t, after all. Uncle Chuck was apparently roboticized, but we don’t know how or how he was returned to his biological state. Some stories, like “Triple Team Tango” still occurred in some way–“Pirate Plunder Panic”, the first Sonic Universe story set in the new ‘verse, is a sequel to it–but those appear to be the exception rather than the rule.

So what replaces all this history? Apparently, the videogames. While details are scarce, the understanding appears to be that the events shown in games like Sonic Adventure all happened in more or less the ways depicted there (*2). Also extant are the Freedom Fighters and other characters introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning cartoon, redesigned and retooled to better fit in the Sonic-verse as conceived by Sega, as well as characters previously created by Ian Flynn himself. Less certain are the fates of concepts and characters introduced by people who aren’t Flynn or Penders, although absence of evidence for their existence seems to indicate evidence of absence.

Now, I’m a soft-core Sonic videogame fan. I’ve played and beaten the four Genesis games, enjoyed Sonic Adventure quite a bit, and have bought several of the modern-day portable installments. While the stories in these games have occasionally been told in interesting ways—Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in particular, manages to use the language of videogames to great effect—the stories themselves have never been a draw. It was only thought the various cartoons and comic books that I learned to love the universe, and the same continues to be true today. Hence, this refocusing on what I see as the least interesting elements of the Sonic franchise—to the point of citing the videogames as reference material–does shockingly little for me, and feels somewhat perverse–superhero films don’t expect the audience to be familiar with the comic books their based in order for it to be enjoyable, and yet this is precisely what the book seems to be doing.

What’s more, the books attempts to make the non-Sega material fit in more seamlessly with the world established in the videogames has one important side effect: it makes the seams that do show up all that more visible and distracting. Take the Freedom Fighters: if the only stories we know happened are all videogame stories, and those by definition don’t include characters like them as agents, then just what the heck are the Freedom Fighters supposed to have been doing all this time? Presumably they’ve been doing their own thing, but without knowing what those things are, the characters ring somewhat hollow, and their existence and importance within the story somewhat contrived. The book can’t argue that these are vital characters and then keep them absent from every vital story, and yet until we actually get some stable backstory, this is what it implicitly argues.

Still, this approach is not without a certain type of sense. There’s certainly a case to be made for the idea that the previous universe, large parts of which were created without regard for coherence, theme, aesthetic–or very often, quality–did not adequately reflect the spirit of the videogames or its characters. With the Penders affair leaving large parts of the universe out of play and with a cosmic reset button allowing for, essentially, a new beginning, one could argue that not changing things to the degree they appear to have been would have been irresponsible.

What makes less sense is the creators decision to keep the door to the previous continuity open, by allowing several characters—the Freedom Fighters and —to remember it. Normally this sort of detail would set the direction for the series—the F.F. would attempt to make things the way they were, or at least try to come and accept that they can’t. Here, however, neither choice is possible. They can’t restore the world that was, or even properly acknowledge it—that’s the original problem that started this whole mess. And the story—the world is fundamentally wrong, and can’t be fixed—is too big for it to be substantively dealt with without derailing the happy fun adventure book that Sonic the Hedgehog is supposed to be.

The book has so far handled this obstacle by moving at a breakneck pace, with various consecutive crises (*3) not allowing the characters any real time to deal with the matter, and as a short term solution, this works, to a degree. However, this can only work for so long, and Flynn is too good a writer not to know this; indeed, since the new status quo has been introduced, he has had various characters mention that those past-life memories are getting progressively harder to access, suggesting that they’ll eventually be gone for good. Which leaves us…where, exactly? While it’s certainly true that there’s no perfect solution to the problem, and that this particular approach is not without its benefits–some good character beats have come from it, and the device allowed the first arc to hit the ground running while still working as an introduction—on the whole, the move feels like pouring salt on the wound, and quite a bit like denial—if the first Archieverse is done, why pretend it isn’t?

Normally, I’d be more than willing to give what is essentially a new book time to find its feet, and if the old Sonic-verse had been given anything resembling a proper send-off, that might have still been the case. However, it got the opposite: almost an entire year of some of the most lackluster stories in half a decade, followed by an interruption that has yet to be properly acknowledged by the book (*4). Simply put, Sonic the Hedgehog had all but exhausted any reserves of patience and goodwill I towards it, and as unfair as it is to expect the new book to be perfect from minute one, that’s pretty much what it needed to do to win me over. While decent, what was once one of my favorite books has become an obligation—one that I can no longer read without having to wonder about the behind-the-scenes machinations that brought about what I see on the page, which have now become the main attraction.

—

(*1) In a bit of horrible timing, this occurred precisely during an arc designed to focus on a particular sub-group of these characters, who had heretofore spent years in the background.

(*2) To the point where the book has editors notes asking readers to refer to the videogames, which gets on my nerves.

(*3) To wit, we have earthquakes which herald destruction on an world-wide scale, which is something hugely similar to what we got not that long ago in “Sonic: Genesis” and more recently in “Worlds Collide”. And if repetitiveness wasn’t an issue, there’s also the fact that threatening a world the reader has no reason to care about tends to undermine dramatic tension.

(*4) Yes, I’m aware that the creators have been as open as they can when it comes to the behind the scenes details, online.  As palliatives go, this is a far cry from an official statement on the actual book.

[Content Note: Ableism, ableist slurs, hostility to consent]

With Nick’s TMNT long since having crossed the line from being “occasionally problematic” to “actively immoral and loving it”, I haven’t felt the need to try and dissect the series in any great detail recently.  The problems are the same as they’ve ever been, they’ve been discussed, and there’s really nothing new to say about them.

And then came the April Clone.

In the episode “The Kraang Conspiracy”, the turtles and April discover that series baddie The Kraang, who need April (or more specifically, her genes–because why else would a girl be valuable?) in order to further their plans, have attempted to clone her many times over.  While incapable of furthering their plans, these clones are, with one exception, still perfect reproductions of April…all except for one.  That single clone, which the episode and Michelangelo eventually end up calling April Derp after the most frequent word in her vocabulary,  is set against the turtles, whom she keeps on the ropes until she is eventually, and accidentally, killed by April, whose powers are unleashed by the stress of the situation.

She also look like this. The problematic aspects of conflating mental disability with “abnormal” physical appearances, I trust, need not be explained.

Now, we can debate the etymology and semantic nuances of the word “derp” until the cows come home, and then debate the cows. We can discuss the showrunners’ specific reasons for using the term, but those would be considerably less relevant than the simple fact that they decided to use it, and that their decision has consequences. Instead, let’s talk about the character herself.

Now, we’re not told much about the clone, and therefore, we can only draw conclusions from what little we are shown. It’s a short list, which includes these particular details.

1) She is human. Despite the writers attempts to obscure this fact by making her and the other clones prone to turning into goop when hit, they can’t be anything else and still make any sense within the narrative.  Consequently, a case can very easily be made for classifying her as disabled, in the sense that her body and mind do not allow her to perform things that can be taken for granted by able-bodied humans.

2)  She is able to respond to stimuli in unpredictable ways. While her use of language is limited, she can intentionally use it to accurately express ideas, such as when she says “April give hugs!” as she is hugging Michelangelo.  She can feel pleasure, which suggest she can also feel sadness, pain, etc.  In short, she is sentient.

3) The Kraang have no use for her. Not only does she lack April’s particular genetic je ne sais quoi which was what the Kraang were trying to replicate in the first place, her appearance means she cannot be used as a decoy. Why she’s wasn’t killed immediately after being “born” is a question the episode doesn’t bother to answer, since the answer is “the writers needed a third act obstacle, logic optional.”

4) …thus, she is a prisoner. After her creation, she was placed in what the Kraang called “The Reject Bin”. She is only let out so that she can fight the turtles for them.

5) When freed, she immediately begins attacking the Kraang, before moving on to the turtles.

Yup, definitively a comedy character.

Despite featuring a top contender for the title of  most tragic characters in the series so far, the episode chooses to highlight none of these, instead focusing on what it sees as the character’s stupidity, which is then played for laughs, as signaled by the use of the term “derp”. Far from harmless, the word serves as an invitation, giving the audience permission to ignore empathy and laugh at the person whose only mistake was being born in a particular way. They April clone isn’t a person, the episode argues, it’s just a derp they can kill off and then forget.

This is why “derp” isn’t just  a word.  Regardless of the supposedly innocuous ways it is supposedly sometimes used, the term nevertheless reinforces a narrative which argues against the idea that the mentally disabled are individual people with complex lives and histories (and who, it is important to note, are collectively underprivileged) and argues instead that they are simply punchlines for other people’s enjoyment.

It’s also important to note just who is and isn’t dehumanized in this manner. While “Michelangelo does stupid shit” is a source of a lot of the show’s humor, the show consistently—if not convincingly—argues that he deserves respect. Timothy, who is 100% responsible for his fate, is treated as someone to be pitied, even after he starts attacking April. So why doesn’t the show make the same argument here? What makes those characters different from the April clone, and why is she somehow “deserving” of a name designed to define her by her perceived lack of intelligence? My first thought: a word that rhymes with “frivilege”.

Our introduction to John O’Neil. Art by Ross Campbell, who pencils the entire arc and can make even the ugliest scenes pleasant to look at.

The Nick cartoon is not the only incarnation to promote ableist narratives lately.  More recently, the IDW-published TMNT comic featured a scene which, while not attempting to play disabilities for laughs, or to dehumanize disabled people in obvious ways—still plays into some very harmful narratives, which are if anything more problematic than Nick’s.  In it,  April’s mother Elizabeth, at her daughter’s behest, secretly slips in a dose of ooze–which in this incarnation has healing properties when not in its mutagenic state–onto her wheelchair-bound husband John’s tea, which he is then made to drink.  He is immediately cured.

By itself, the fact that they attempted this story at all is enough to raise some eyebrows. Stories in which disabled people instantly and miraculously manage to get rid of their disabilities, while not, as far as I understand, inherently problematic, nevertheless can often be so so for reasons that include, but are not limited to:

1. Their frequency, compared with other stories featuring disabled characters.
2. The way these stories by definition can’t reflect the experiences of disabled people, who generally don’t get miracle cures.
3. The way this plot device is often used to further able-bodied characters’ stories, rather than focus on the disabled characters themselves.
4. The way these narratives set “not being disabled” as an universal and unqualified happy ending, with everything else being undesirable.

It takes particular care to write a story that doesn’t end up being ableist in some manner. Unfortunately, no care appears to have been spent here, and in fact, feels like a good lesson in how not to do it.

The first thing of note here is how much of a non-entity April’s father is in these four issues. While the story gives the character a past connection to Stockgen (April’s employer and the company indirectly responsible for the turtles’ mutation) dating to a time before he’d had his stroke, the book has no interest in what his present-day version has to say, and his panel time before the scene in question can almost be counted on one hand. His disability seems to exist only so that there can be a nod to the original Mirage comics before being handwaved away.

The few panels in which John does appear serve as a thematic preview of his fate, as he is continuously prevented from being an actor in his own story by the writers and characters. He makes absolutely no decisions. We learn about his past from his wife (*1). When a fire breaks out at the barn, April, Casey, and Elizabeth head out to investigate, leaving John behind at the house, alone; nobody asks him what he’d like to do, or what would be best for him; nobody stops and considers that they’ve left him alone during a potentially life-threatening situation. Later, when Elizabeth returns to the house insisting that they need to leave to New York immediately—at this point, she has discovered the turtles’ existence, and has a vague idea of the threats they and April face–she treats is not as something to be discussed as partners, but as something to be chosen unilaterally: she dodges his questions, keeps the vital information which she has just learned and are behind her decisions from him, and acts as if his input is neither necessary nor desirable. Finally, we have the scene where he is made to drink an experimental and potentially dangerous substance without his consent. Despite all this, the book unambiguously treats April, Casey, and Elizabeth as good guys doing good. The book is wrong.

Yes, John’s body doesn’t work the way it once did. Yes, it’s made his and Elizabeth’s lives considerably harder in some respects. Yes, it makes John a liability, now that the O’Neils are closer to the turtles’ dangerous world. None of this changes the fact that it is his body, and what eventually happens to it should be his choice and no one else’s. The fact that the book doesn’t seem to grasp this obvious reality, and indeed, depicts this violation as a moral act by a loving person is horrifying.

A question arises: why? Why did the book and its writer feel it was necessary to deny John his ability to consent to being cured? It’s not like he’s incapable of giving it: throughout the book, he is written as capable of understanding events and responding to them (within the realm of his abilities) without much trouble, so considering the implications of taking the ooze and eventually saying “yes” or “no” shouldn’t be beyond him. Unfortunately, while several Watsonian explanations suggest themselves—Elizabeth and April could fear the fallback if the cure fails, for example—from a Doylist standpoint there’s only one real answer: the writers and editors didn’t think it was necessary. They are wrong.

One of my very favorite scenes in the TV series Switched at Birth consists of a discussion taking place a Deaf classroom about deafness, and involving various important members of the show’s cast (including one of its two co-protagonists). In it, Melody, the students’ guidance counselor—herself Deaf—moderates a discussion in which they talk about everything being Deaf has given them, and everything they’d lose if they suddenly woke up being able to hear. While none of the characters would argue that being Deaf is all kittens and grandmas, they are also quick to admit that being Deaf is a vital part of who they are, and therefore, not something to be changed lightly.

If you can think of a moral argument for covertly “curing” people who consider a disability to be a vital part of their identity, please let me know so I’ll know not to consider you a friend. And yet this is what issue #32 asserts—that such a moral argument not only exists, but is self-evident and doesn’t need to be explained.

While the differences between deafness and a loss of mobility and speech due to a stroke are numerous and vast, they are both incredibly complicated, life-changing things, and there is no one right way to deal with having it. Yes, there will be people who would do anything to wake up being able to hear or walk, and would be prepared to overlook the means in favor of the ends. There will also be people who see their disability as a vital part of their identity, not to be lightly changed, and who would be (rightfully) angry if their loved ones were to attempt to change it behind their backs. While John O’Neil may very well be the first sort of person, the book makes absolutely no attempt to establish that, or to show the people who want to “cure” him (who, it’s worth noting, cannot read minds) attempt to take his wishes into consideration before taking away his bodily autonomy–it just assumes that the fact that he is disabled makes curing him a good thing. It reduces disabled people to a monolith, and places the able-bodied persons’ wishes above those of the actual disabled person they are allegedly helping.

Another thing to note: in curing her husband without his consent, Elizabeth has effectively forced his husband into a closet, as now, in order to keep the details of his recovery secret, John now has to avoid or lie to or feel alienated from large swaths of his social circle.  Say, for example, that John had joined a support group for people recovering from strokes, and had made good friends there.  How are his relationships with them supposed to continue?   In completely ignoring these issues, the book effectively suggests that John’s life as a disabled person can be discarded at a whim, like tissue paper (*2).   Yes, it’s possible–if extremely unlikely–that John had the sort of life that would lead to these things not being a concern.  It’s possible that he may have decided that yes, being able to help April was worth the sacrifice (*3).  It was still his decision to make.

With the writers having  argued that secretly taking control over people’s bodies in this particular instance is moral, one is left wondering just what else is justified. Secretly forcing someone to abort? After all, pregnancies are often both unwanted and dangerous. Making someone straight? After all, Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, and Genderqueer people’s identities place targets on their backs, and it wasn’t all that long ago that identifying as any of those was considered a mental illness–some still are. What considerations exist in their case that are not present in John’s?

In a book that is not known for its economy of storytelling, this mini-story is a marvel of efficiency.  In just a few panels, the writers manage to argue that:

1. The lives of disabled people aren’t worth exploring.
2. The concerns of the able-bodied trump those of the disabled.
3. Disabled people don’t deserve control of their bodies.
4. Being disabled is so horrible that no reasons exist to get rid of ones disability, should the opportunity present itself.

While this is in no way what they meant to say, their intentions are unimportant: in having John O’Neil as their only major disabled character, and in portraying his story in this manner, this is what they have said.  Until they manage to feature another disabled character, this is the book’s official stance.

Now, it could be that Tom Waltz and company are all perfectly aware of what they’ve done, and that they actually plan to explore the implications of what they’ve written. I have no confidence this is what’s going on, however: given the way the various characters are framed, and given the story’s reluctance to give the turtles any shades of gray, there’s absolutely no reason to think that the writers meant to explore the moral implications of what they’ve done.

That would actually be interesting, you see.

Footnotes:

(*1) There’s an interesting disparity here, as April claims that the reason she doesn’t tell her parents about the turtles despite wanting an end to all the secrets and lies is that the turtles’ secret is not hers to tell. While a perfectly acceptable stance, and one that need not be shared by other people, it stands in stark contrast to Elizabeth’s decision to tell April about John’s past—which was kept from April for a reason and is arguably not Elizabeth’s to tell—without any actual input from John.

(*2) And that’s not even getting into the logistical maneuvering he’ll have to do for the rest of his life–how do you go about saying “I was recovering from a stroke, until I wasn’t” to doctors or employers?

(*3) Not that  implying that curing himself was a necessary condition to help April isn’t in itself problematic.  Yes, his disability would have prevented him from being able to help in particular ways; this is not the same as being prevented from helping.

The year 1987 brought us our second ever incarnation of April, one that, while visually faithful to the character as originally depicted, was at odds with what had become the norm.  As the new franchise’s popularity continued to expand, two more new incarnations were introduced: April as seen in the films, who like most things in the movie was conceived as an amalgam of her comic book and cartoon incarnations; and April as seen in the Archie comic books, who was ostensibly the cartoon version, but like most things in the book quickly became her own distinct character.  While the people over at Mirage were still depicting their version of the character as a Woman of Color, by 1990, it was White April who had become the norm.

Part 1.

Note the first: While I’ve tried to be comprehensive as possible here, I have not been able to obtain several relevant images, most notably, images of film adaptations after the first one, and of the colored reprints of the Mirage books released during this time period.  Any assistance in obtaining them is appreciated.

Note the second: Unlike the first time around, I will be allowing comments here.  That said, as always, please keep common courtesy in mind, and note that I will moderate with a heavy hand, should it become necessary.

ETA: I*just* realized that I hadn’t actually enabled comments.  Fixed.

TMNT #13 (February 1988). Art by Michael Dooney.

TMNT #14 (May 1988). Art by Kevin Eastman.

Episode 2.01:  “Return of the Shredder” (Oct. 1, 1988)

Tales of the TMNT #7 (April 1989). Art by Jim Lawson.  While the toning used for April will rarely get as dark as it was when she first debuted her  “perm”, there are exceptions.  This is the most notable one.

TMNT #22 (June 1989). Art by Mark Martin.

TMNT #24 (August 1989). Art by Rick Veitch.

Cover to TMNT #28 (February 1990). Art by Kevin Dooney. Note that I’m not sure this is actually meant to be April.

TMNT #28 (Feb. 1990). Art by Jim Lawson.

TMNT #28 (Feb. 1990). Art by Jim Lawson.

TMNT #29 (March 1990). Art by A.C. Farley.

TMNT The Collected Book Volume 1 (March 1990). Art by Kevin Eastman

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Released in March 1990).  April played by Judith Hoag.  Note the curls, clearly based on Mirage April’s post-issue #4 ‘do.

TMNT: The Movie Cover (August 1990).  Art by Kevin Eastman.  Given that at this point Judith Hoag had been cast as April for more than six months at this point, April’s coloring here is especially curious.

TMNT: The Movie (August 1990). Art by Jim Lawson over layouts by Kevin Eastman.

TMNT: The Movie (1990). Art by Jim Lawson over layouts by Kevin Eastman. Colors by Steve Lavigne.  This version of the adaptation was published by Archie on the same month as Mirage’s black and white version, which is…odd.  Despite her prominence in the film, April does not appear in this version’s cover, which speaks to the differing priorities of the two books.

Cover to TMNT #32 (August 1990). Art by Mark Bodé.

TMNT #32 (August 1990). Art by Mark Bodé.

TMNT Adventures #14 (September 1990). Art by Donald Simpson. This issue is notable not only because it features the greatest deviation from the cartoon aesthetics to date, but also because it’s the first original story in the Archie books to feature April in a prominent role.

TMNT Adventures #18 (March 1991). Art by Ken Mitchroney.

TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze (released on March 1991). April played by Paige Turco.  More influenced by the cartoon than the original was, this film largely does away with April’s curls.

TMNT Adventures #19 (April 1991). Art by Garrett Ho. While the Archie series never really cared to replicate April’s jumpsuit from the cartoon, the outfits she had worn so far in the series at least hearkened to it. No more.

TMNT #22 (July 1991). Art by Gene Colan. April is now settling into what will become her defined “Archie” look. Also important: while April has used swords in earlier issues, this is the first issue in which she carries her own.

TMNT #38 (July 1991). Art by Rich Hedden & Tom McWeeney.

TMNT Adventures #23 (August 1991). Art by Chris Allan, who will eventually become the book’s regular artist, and whose art would give the series much of its identity. Image obtained from TMNT Entity.

TMNT Adventures #24 (September 1991). Art by Chris Allan. One of the many notable things about the Archie comics was their willingness to let April go solo, either in back-up stories, which appeared with some frequency, and twice in her own mini-series. This is one of the former. Image obtained from TMNT Entity.

TMNT #42 (December 1991). Art by Rick McCollum and Bill Anderson.

Episode 5.20: “Michaelangelo, the Sacred Turtle” (Dec. 7, 1991). Although April’s look would remain consistent throughout most of the series, she would occasionally don a costume when the episode called for it, such as with this Egypt-themed episode.

TMNTA #27 Cover (Dec. 1991).  Art by Ken Mitchroney.

TMNT Adventures #27 (Dec. 1991). Pencils by Ken Mitchroney.  Everything about this seems to scream “story taken off the shelf to meet a deadline”, as little to none of the series’ evolution is apparent in this story.

TMNT Aventures #27 (December 1991). Art by Garrett Ho. Over in back-up land, however, things are as they were, which makes the transition somewhat jarring.  Even with the artist change, April’s look remains consistent. Part of it is because it’s still the same story, but part of it is because she’s slowly solidifying into her platonic Archie self.

The year 1992 marked the end of the Mirage TMNT‘s guest creator era: after three years of mostly non-canonical stories by a bevy of creators, Mirage staffers once again took reins of the book, with a new focus on featuring a more stable tone and in moving their characters forward.  This latest phase in the book culminated with “City at War”, a thirteen-part mega arc which featured the return of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird to active creative duties and ended on the book’s last issue.  It also gave April some much-needed focus, as the writers had her decide to move to California in order to recenter herself.

Perhaps not coincidentally, this era of greater focus on April also saw the beginning of the end of depictions of her based on her issue #4 redesign, as the physical features she had sported since then–by no means limited to skin color–began disappearing.  What one may draw from this is unclear, and the fact that there’s only one artist drawing the character for the duration of the era doesn’t help.

The years from 1993 to 1996 saw waning interest in the Ninja Turtles. The third film received a tepid reception.  Mirage’s second volume of TMNT, which debuted shortly after the end of the first one,would prove short-lived,  its final issue hitting stores on October 1995. The Archie series, TMNT Adventures, ended that same year. After seven seasons of sausage-making, Fred Wolf retooled the original cartoon for its eighth season in order to deal with a shifting children’s television landscape; old characters were written out, new characters were written in, and the series’ aesthetic got a face lift, but none of these changes were enough to stop the series from ending, after ten seasons and 193 episodes, in 1996.  By January 1997, the flow new material featuring the TMNT had slowed down to a trickle, and existed mostly in the form of a comic series published by Image, continuing the adventures of the Mirage versions of the characters…but that’s something for another entry.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Note the first: While I’ve tried to be comprehensive as possible here, any help obtaining any relevant images I might have missed is much appreciated.

Note the second: Despite not having much in the way of comments, I still plan on moderating any discussion with a heavy hand, should it become necessary.

TMNT (Vol.1) #32 Second Printing Cover (April, 1992) Art by Mark Bodé

TMNT (Vol. 1) #33, Colored Reprint (April, 1992). Art by Mark Bodé, Colors by Bill Fitts.  This issue is the main reason why I don’t understand people who insist that April was never a woman of color.  While the depiction here is very much an outlier, it did not occur in a vacuum.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #48 (June 1992) Cover, as reproduced on TMNT: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 4. Art by A.C. Farley.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #49 (July 1992), as Reproduced in TMNT: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 4. Art by Jim Lawson. This is not actually April, but Robyn, her sister, who debuts in this issue, and who ends up playing a major role in April’s part of “City at War”.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #49 (July 1992), as reproduced in TMNT: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 4. Art by Jim Lawson, whose ever-evolving April now has lost her trademark hair.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #50 (1992). Art by Kevin Eastman.

TMNT #50 (August 1992). Art by various, although April specifically is almost certainly by Michael Dooney.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #52 (October 1992). Art by Jim Lawson. The woman here is Gabrielle, who eventually marries Casey.  Like her daughter Shadow, she is canonically white.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #53 (November 1992). Pencils by Jim Lawson. This issue more than any other comic book has convinced me of just how important an inker can be. Lawson’s art for this issue, inked by Matt Banning, looks super different from the rest of his work on the arc.

TMNT #54 (December 1992). Pencils by Jim Lawson.  April on the left, Robyn on the right.  April’s hair is once again curly, which raises a whole bunch of questions.

April O’Neil #1 Cover (Jan. 1993). Art by Chris Allan.  Archie April finally gets her own series, and the two issues I’ve read are rather good.

April O’Neil #1 (Jan. 1993). Art by Chris Allan, who by this point had solidified his take on April, which is very reminiscent of Ariel from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. That, combined with her outfit, makes me suspect that if April’s animated incarnation had also been a woman of color, we might have eventually ended up with an April that was a dead ringer for Elisa Maza.

…I mean, just look at her.  (Taken from Gargoyles episode 1.13: “Reawakening”.)

TMNT III (Released on March 1993). April portrayed by Paige Turco.

April O’Neil: The May East Saga #1 (April 1993). Pencils by Bob Fingerman. Image obtained from TMNT Entity. Archie quickly released a second April mini-series, one with little to no involvement from the Archie books’ regular team. It is apparently horrible.

April O’Neil: The May East Saga #3 Cover (June 1993). Image obtained from TMNT Entity. Art by Bob Fingerman. Only the last of the three issues actually featured April on the cover, despite the fact that she was its protagonists. She’s the one on the left.

TMNT (Vol. 1) #62 (August 1992) cover, as reproduced in TMNT: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 5.  Art by A.C. Farley. 

TMNT #62 (August 1993), as reproduced in TMNT: The Ultimate Collection Vol. 5. Pencils by Jim Lawson. The final issue of the original TMNT comic.  It wasn’t until I was working on this that I realized just how this page was meant to parallel the one from issue #52 seen above.

TMNT Tournament Fighters (Genesis / Mega Drive Version) (1993). Developed by Konami Co., Ltd.  Set ripped by Belial, and obtained from the Sprite Database. Although the various Konami TMNT games published in the mid-eighties and early nineties used material from a variety of sources, their depictions of April uniformly came from the first cartoon. This is the only exception, which takes the character and turns her into a generic female fighting game character.

TMNT (Vol. 2) #1 (October, 1993). Pencils by Jim Lawson, colors by Mary Woodring. Not long after Volume 1 ended, Volume 2 began, featuring a regular creative team and color. This issue features the opposite number of issue #32′s uncommonly dark-skinned April: a version that frankly, looks like a ghost.

TMNT (Vol. 2) #6 Cover (August 1994). Art by Jim Lawson.

TMNT (Vol. 2) #6 (August 1994). Pencils by Jim Lawson.  Colors by Eric Vincent.

TMNT (1987) Intro (Seasons 8 – 10). Among the various aesthetic changes the cartoon made for its “red sky” seasons was giving April a new look.

TMNT (1987) 8.01 – Get Shredder (Sept. 17, 1994). …and here it is, in all its generic glory.

TMNT Adventures #61 (October 1994). Pencils by Jim Lawson; colors by Barry Grossman. Lawson was a regular fill-in artist for the Archie series, which this month meant seeing his art on both books.

TMNT (Vol. 2) #7 (October 1994). Pencils by Jim Lawson; colors by Eric Vincent. One important thing to note about this version of April compared to the previous pic’s: once we set aside the coloring–and it’s worth noting that April’s darker skin here is shared by all the characters in the scene–there is no real aesthetic difference between the two versions of April.  This was not the case two years ago.

TMNT Adventures #66 (March 1995). Art by Gray Morrow. I’ve always loved this last panel, where April decides to greet the year 2000, alone, over a drink.  Note: The “roomie” in the note above is Oyuki Mashimi, who first moved in with April in April O’Neil #1, as seen above.  Secret lesbians?  You decide!

TMNT Adventures: Year of the Turtle #3 (March 1996). Pencils by Hugh Haynes. Image obtained from TMNT Entity.  After TMNT Adventures was cancelled due to flagging sales and dissatisfaction about the content–this is the series where the turtles caused Hitler to commit suicide, after all–Archie released this miniseries, as a trial run for a retooled series that never came to pass. Given how stable the depictions of April had become, this version looks quite odd, to say the least.