April 2016 – Cheryl Lynn Eaton

04•23•16

Vertigo, Verti-gone: Part 1.

It’s been a rough few days for DC to put it mildly! The removal of Shelly Bond from Vertigo has led to an unexpected discussion of DC’s continued employment of Eddie Berganza—who has been named as an individual tied to multiple incidents of sexual harassment. Of course, the question voiced by many is why would DC dismiss Bond only to keep Berganza employed? Sales of Superman comics have been lackluster and, as a longtime employee, Berganza’s salary is likely comparable to Bond’s. Considerable expenditures and negative PR do not seem to be worth the monthly production of a comic that sells roughly 36,000 copies. Especially when said comic stars the world’s most iconic superhero. Many have said that Berganza should not be dismissed for previous behavior that he has already been reprimanded for and adjusted accordingly. I would be inclined to agree. I would also be inclined to remove an individual who made popular female creators feel uncomfortable enough to avoid books such as Supergirl and Wonder Woman due to his involvement. I would be inclined to remove an individual who had been handed two of comics’ greatest characters and could not produce sales even remotely comparable to the third. I would be inclined to remove an individual who could be replaced by one equally efficient for a fraction of the price.

So, given that Vertigo’s sales figures have been disastrous, would I have let go of Bond as well? No. The decline of Vertigo is not the fault of poor editing or unskilled creators. It is the result of unappealing contracts, the inability to acknowledge Vertigo’s new role in the marketplace, and a nonsensical marketing strategy. Bond, a phenomenal editor bolstered by an equally talented team, was made captain of a sinking ship and later blamed for its taking on of more water.

What I cannot stress enough is that Vertigo is no longer seen as avant-garde. It is no longer seen as a place where the industry’s most notorious it-boys and ingénues produce critically acclaimed work that shocks the senses. That place would be Image. Image built its brand on Vertigo’s broken back, laying a solid foundation with fair contracts, rousing speeches, and fashionable fêtes. Vertigo cannot reclaim that status. Unlike many comic companies that have built brands around characters, Image has built its new brand around people. Robert Kirkman, Eric Stephenson, David Brothers, Brandon Graham, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Matt Fraction, Fiona Staples, etc. It would take an exorbitant sum to woo those people away. They are heavily invested in the health of Image. Vertigo could build a brand around the notable men and women of the smaller independent companies, but what can they offer a woman such as C. Spike Trotman that she doesn’t already enjoy? Nothing.

Vertigo can continue to struggle against the obvious and settle into a role as a lesser Image where interesting concepts are strangled by piss-poor contracts and a tarnished brand. Or it can fully embrace its role as an established imprint where the industry bad boys of the ’90s can relive glory days by returning to the concepts that made them famous. Vertigo could be the comics industry’s version of an exclusive Las Vegas casino—a place to drop considerable dollars on the legends of one’s youth. Headliners only. Some may blanch at the truth, that Vertigo is now a place where the middle-aged and Anglophilic can buy expensive Preacher omnibuses and Sandman OGNs, but guess what? I promise you that their money is just as crisp and fresh as the dollars spent by millennials on Sex Criminals trades. Vertigo should fully embrace its retro brand and tend to its evergreen IPs. And to do so you need an editor with years in the game, one with all the good ol’ boys in her Rolodex, one who can rifle through comics and spot the one project from ’96 that everyone forgot about that’s going to be the next Netflix hit. You need a Shelly Bond.

And right now? DC doesn’t have one.

Next up: Why Young Animal should have been Yung Animal (Swavey clearly isn’t keeping up with it), how the complete absence of young black employees is a massive oversight to any imprint interested in the establishment of an edgy alluring brand, and the importance of an A-Team to a company consumed with gunning for the industry king.

04•19•16

Earth to Wonder Woman.

Some quick thoughts on Wonder Woman: Earth One! Actual talented critics have examined the quality of this work elsewhere. What I want to do is talk about the greater impact this work will have in the marketplace.

I firmly believe releasing Grant Morrison’s and Yanick Paquette’s project as an Earth One book was a misstep on the part of DC Comics. Wonder Woman: Earth One reads like a finely crafted love letter to William Moulton Marston—honoring the writer’s fanciful views on women, matriarchies, and playful submission. But to use this project and this character to pen a love letter to a deceased man’s biased and simplistic (for our time) thoughts regarding women does a great disservice to actual women and girls for whom love letters to their empowerment and competence are few and far between. Works by men exploring and exalting their ideas regarding women are a weekly occurrence. At no point is a woman not presented with man’s thoughts on her body, her mind, and her performance. We are told via female characters written by men; we are told via critiques by men in articles and throughout social media.

In their efforts to create a work that honors William Moulton Marston, Morrison and Paquette have failed to create a work that honors women. And that? Is the last thing a project featuring Wonder Woman should do.

Were Wonder Woman: Earth One simply a one-off vanity project for Morrison and Paquette, a modern recreation of Marston’s work would be irksome but without negative consequence. However, what we currently have is a marketplace where the Wonder Woman brand has been diffused and misused—generally to please a direct market comprised of male readers. Batman can be distilled to one word. Justice. Superman to two. Truth. Mercy. Can the same be said for Wonder Woman? Who is she within the confines of the comics industry? A wide-eyed ingénue stumbling through man’s world? A hardened warrior with a distaste for men—often eliciting a sexual response in those for whom “strong female character” equates to dominatrix? Or is she a simple and pure power fantasy for women and girls?

I can tell you that the latter option is the most lucrative when seeking long-term gains given the rise in female readers. But the comics industry is not interested in the long term. Were that the case, DC Comics would have had a new continuity-free Earth One graphic novel featuring work that was written for and appealed to female audiences first and foremost. It would have also had an ongoing series featuring characterization that meshed neatly with depictions in other media such as film and television. It would have presented an aspirational Themyscira filled with Amazons who represent what women believe to be the best of women—not what men fantasize them to be.

“We updated that and made them all look like supermodels, because we thought that’s the kind of modern version of the Harry Peter glamor girl. They’re a lot more athletic looking. They’re very tall and slim, and because they’re much more powerful than humans, they don’t need to put on muscles to lift big weights, you know? Which is why Diana can lift up a tank without enormous muscles.

“We just decided to present them as this absolutely idealized body type, in the same way that Marston and Peter presented them.”
Grant Morrison

Idealized to whom? To men. To our patriarchal society. The homogeneity found in Paquette’s depictions of the Amazons inadvertently tells women who do not fit that basic hourglass shape that they do not belong in a matriarchal utopia—that the power fantasy being presented is not for them. Instead of one idealized body deemed aesthetically appealing to heterosexual men, the work should have had a variety of female bodies honed to perfection by a multitude of activities. Long, lean swimmers. Stout wrestlers. Petite gymnasts. We live in a world where even Mattel has adjusted its product to appeal to a variety of body types. Surely the Amazons should be at least as malleable as Barbie—especially if DC wants its brand to remain as profitable as Mattel’s.

But Paquette’s renditions are not the only cracks in the utopia’s facade. I was amused by Hippolyta’s bitter and vindictive nature, bearing the mark of one who could not conceive of a formerly conquered people simply wanting to be left the hell alone. The queen does not want merely isolation, but revenge—what every individual bolstered by unearned privilege—e.g., man—irrationally fears. Diana’s language is also equally off-putting, though sparingly. She taunts the male soldiers, berating them by calling them…girls? What scion of a queen reigning over a land populated by women would use such an insult? Swapping girls for children and kiss for play would have made the line less dismissive to what should have been the work’s intended audience.

And how does DC woo said intended audience? With this work, I honestly am not sure. But the company can certainly improve upon the situation by hiring women to work on the sequel. Even if DC understandably wishes to rehire Morrison and Paquette to maintain narrative cohesion, replacing Eddie Berganza and Andrew Marino with female editors would allow for a feminine influence to shape the work. That influence is noticeably absent here.

04•02•16

Iron Fist: Big Trouble in Little China.

I am not happy with the casting of Finn Jones as Iron Fist. While the choice of a Caucasian actor for the role adheres to the character’s origin, I think the selection of a biracial actor to play the part of Daniel Rand would have improved upon the story told and enhanced the overall quality of the cinematic Marvel universe (and Hollywood in general) in multiple ways.

First and foremost, depending on the actor’s phenotype, a biracial actor of European and Asian descent would have provided a visual signifier of Daniel Rand’s existence as a warrior trapped between two worlds—that of a modern Western city and an ancient Asian village. To watch billionaire adventurer Wendell Rand and the Chinese businesswoman who captivated him enough to become his bride work to build a life for Daniel that included both of their cultures would excellently foreshadow Daniel’s later struggles as an adult to do the same. The existence of a biracial Iron Fist would also act as a bridge, tempering the woefully appropriative nature of the Caucasian martial artist Daredevil and paving the way for the later introduction of well-known Chinese hero Shang Chi. (One could even argue that Daniel Rand’s presence was not needed in the Marvel cinematic universe at all, for every role he plays could have been neatly divided between Matt Murdock and Shang Chi.)

A biracial Iron Fist, hot on the heels of the black Luke Cage, would have provided instant (though minimal) racial diversity to Marvel’s overwhelmingly white line-up of leading men. Given that we are at a point where Marvel has been repeatedly and publicly admonished for its non-existent efforts at diversifying its slate of films, one would think that the selection of non-white leading men would be a priority. And yet an Arab actor is not playing Doctor Strange and a biracial actor was not chosen for Iron Fist. This is a shame.

The substandard depiction of men of Asian descent in American films is a longstanding problem and has driven many to seek proper representation in foreign films. But why should Asian Americans have to look outside of their country to see Asian men shown as masculine, heroic, and sexually desirable? This is absurd—and must be terribly frustrating to young Asian American men. Not only is there a dearth of material in which one is mirrored, but one must endure a glut of projects showcasing white male action stars playing dress up in costumes cobbled together from the culture of one’s forefathers.

While the selection of Finn Jones as Iron Fist extinguishes yet another opportunity for a male actor of Asian descent to step into the limelight as an action hero and heartthrob, I must admit that my disappointment stems from the fact that black women of darker hues may perhaps be robbed of the rare opportunity to be seen as romantically desirable as Marvel adjusts Iron Fist’s history in order to deflect criticism by increasing the number and importance of supporting female Asian characters.

When in doubt, swap the secondary characters out. While Marvel is clearly disdainful of altering the races of its leading white male characters, the studio seems more than happy to add diversity where supporting characters are concerned. I would not be surprised to see Marvel replace Misty Knight with the biracial Colleen Wing as Daniel’s primary love interest—cribbing from Iron Fist’s histories in the House of M event and the Ultimate universe. However, it would be frustrating to lose Misty Knight as Daniel’s companion given her status as the only woman in the Marvel universe who is not fair-skinned and is also depicted as attractive and desirable. Who would be depicted as a woman deeply loved—first and exclusively. The physical changes made to Storm, Cecelia Reyes, Claire Temple, and Reva Connors would be glaring in Misty’s absence and would lead one to question if colorism were at the root of it.

Oh, so many missed opportunities! Many critics have argued that Iron Fist must be white to provide a cultural counterpart to Misty Knight and Luke Cage, but a biracial Daniel Rand would still be wealthy, would still benefit in certain ways from his father’s white privilege and mother’s “model minority” status, would still find wonder in modern technologies—providing a perfect contrast to Misty and Luke. The inclusion of whiteness is not necessary in every exploration of race relations and inequality.

But the choice has already been made and Iron Fist is white. So how does Marvel move forward from here? By taking cues from the title of this post and the second season of Daredevil as well. Jack Burton is the star of Big Trouble in Little China, but Wang Chi is the hero. Marvel could do the same with Shang Chi, inserting him into the series as a foil to Iron Fist as Punisher and Elektra initially were to Daredevil. How fun would it be to see Shang Chi as Elektra’s inverse, a weapon of the Chaste stolen and raised by the Hand, only to return to his true heroic nature! How fun would it be to see Shang Chi emerge as the star of the show as just as Punisher usurped Daredevil’s throne!

The fight for representation is an ongoing battle, and we must be as creative as possible in exploring every loophole before Hollywood can sew it shut.