My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

I’ve watched Nonstop’s dance videos before, but this is, even for him, absolutely insane.

For those of you who don’t read my own personal blog (and you’re certainly not obligated to), I recently posted an angry, possibly coherent rant about some people’s belief that Leia appears as a more empowered, feminist character in ‘Empire Strikes Back’ than she does in ‘Star Wars’, despite large amounts of extremely blatant textual evidence to the contrary. (Suffice to say when your reaction to being in a strange, unfamiliar, possibly dangerous situation is, “I’m going to go find a pretty dress and get my hair done, then sit in my room and wait for the menfolk to come back and tell me what’s going on!” …you fail at empowerment.)

And I was discussing the idea with my wife, who is a very smart woman and a feminist, and we were bouncing around the idea of what ‘Empire’ might look like if Leia was actually treated like the strong, fearless, intelligent woman she was in the original ‘Star Wars’, rather than the Ice Princess Who Just Needs A Big Strong Man To Tell Her What To Do in ‘Empire’. And she suggested I blog about it. The rules: Change the actual plot as little as possible, while having Leia do things that an actual well-written, well-developed female character would do as opposed to a whiny damsel in distress.

First off, the sexual banter between Han and Leia would change. Less of the Slap Slap Kiss bullshit that fans have been conditioned to believe is an actual romantic relationship by decades of seeing women suddenly go gooey in films over guys who have been total assholes to them, and more actual, um…banter. Instead of telling Han she doesn’t like him because A Woman Doesn’t Know Her Own Mind and Needs a Man To Show Her Who She’s Interested In By Forcibly Sexing Her Up…(the classic “AWDKHOMANAMTSHWSIIBFSHU” trope…) Leia knows perfectly well that she’s attracted to Han, but she’s also a little annoyed that he knows that she knows and that he’s acting more than a little smug about it. So she flirts with him in a way that puts him just a little off-balance, because Han’s the kind of cocky guy who needs to be put off-balance in at least one area of his life because it tempers his exuberant confidence. Han, for his part, is playing along because he knows Leia is worth it and he’s pretty sure it’s just an act. (Pretty sure.)

From there, we cruise through to the first major “Leia gets to hold the Idiot Ball because she’s a woman” moment, the escape from Hoth. In the film, Han realizes that Leia has stayed too long and is in danger, he informs the Rebel command that he’ll be taking her off planet, and he practically carries her off over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Leia is portrayed as passive, whiny, and naive, while Han gets to demonstrate his superior judgment and discusses with a MAN what to do about this whole “woman” situation while Leia gets no input at all.

In the revised version, Leia stays longer deliberately. She risks her own life to make sure that the Ion Cannon stays operational until the last transport has left, then heads for the Falcon’s hangar. Han is shocked to find her still on-planet, but she explains that she had a plan all along: hitch a ride on the Falcon. “But I told you I was leaving five hours ago!” he said. “You also said you had one last minor repair to the Falcon,” she responds. “I figured you’d still be here when it was time for me to leave.”

At that point, things go roughly the way they do in the film for a while, with one key difference: Leia operates the gun turrets while Han and Chewie fly/fix the ship. Because as we saw in the first movie, there is a turret that can be operated independently of the cockpit, and Leia isn’t the kind of person to sit passively by and watch other people do the rescuing when she can pick up a gun and start shooting. She might not be as good of a shot as Han or Luke, but she can at least make the Imperial pilots nervous. (Oh, and that also means Leia’s primary role during this section of the movie isn’t to sit there whining about each decision Han makes, only to be proved wrong by his manly manliness that manfully mans up at every turn.)

Jump ahead past the kiss (which would still happen, although again, without the “Oh, I don’t like scoundrels like you,” “Sure you do, you just don’t know it yet. Once I commit sexual assault against you, you’ll realize you love me!” “Oh, hey! I guess I do!” bullshit) to Bespin and Lando. Here, instead of spending all her time changing outfits and getting her hair done, Leia decides to ingratiate herself to Lando using her diplomatic skills, and see if she can’t get a few strings pulled to get a message out to the Rebel Alliance (an actual sensible, active thing for a major character to do in that situation.) Instead, she comes back to Han and tells him that Lando is being evasive. There are areas of the city he won’t show them, he avoids letting them use the communications systems, and he won’t give a straight answer as to what’s wrong with the Falcon. She suggests that Han and Chewie keep an eye on the repairs at all times, while she goes looking for Threepio. (Again, note the active decision making, instead of just letting other people do things while she whines.)

Of course, they get captured anyway, they get tortured (and the suggestion Timothy Zahn made would be more explicit here, which is that Leia is actually tougher under torture than Han…after all, she wouldn’t give up the location of the Yavin base despite torture and drugs)…and Han gets frozen in carbonite. From there, things would progress pretty much as normal, because Leia becomes a more active character once Han is out of the picture. (Still not fond of the “Leia gets a flash of woman’s intuition Jedi insight” sequence, but that’s something that could be handled better if it was foreshadowing for Leia actually using Jedi powers in ‘Return of the Jedi’.)

The point of all this? Only that it is possible to handle Leia as an active, decisive, intelligent, emotionally-mature female character without losing the essential plot of ‘Empire’. The fact that they didn’t do this isn’t a reflection of some insoluble plot conundrum, it’s a reflection of laziness and a reliance on stereotypes of female behavior on the part of the writers. And this is the “best” Star Wars flick?

ULTIMATE COMICS: X-MEN #1: Yes, I know, it’s not a nu52 #1 or even a DC #1, but I wanted to start off by mentioning it because it’s easily – easily – better than almost every single DC nu52 #1 so far. Animal Man is really the only one that gives it serious competition as quality goes. (And remember: I was raised as a DC fanboy, not a Marvel maniac. Saying this sort of thing goes against my natural comics grain, which is why DC’s gradual slide as a company pains me so deeply.)

UCXM is a great comic because it is both a good comic book and a good #1 issue. The two are not the same thing. A good comic is a good comic; a good #1 issue fulfills certain tasks. A good #1 issue, to my mind, does the following:

PREMISE: It establishes what the comic is fundamentally about and why it exists. Action Comics is now about Superman’s first days as Superman. FF is about what the Fantastic Four do when one of them dies, and how they deal with it. Animal Man is about a superhero who’s really not much of a superhero per se, but he’s a decent family man and has to deal with super-weirdness anyway.
PIECES: It identifies all (or at least most) of the major story elements of the comic. Action Comics introduces Superman, Lois, Jimmy, Lex, Metropolis and The Daily Planet. FF introduces the entire Future Foundation and what they do. Animal Man introduces Buddy, his family, the idea of the Red, and the concept that Buddy isn’t really your average super-dude.
PLOT: It gives you a reason to want to read the next issue. Action Comics, after establishing that Superman’s powers are still growing and leaving a lot of question marks, ends on a cliffhanger. FF‘s first issue ends with Valeria inviting Dr. Doom to join. Animal Man ends with the revelation that Buddy’s daughter may have superpowers as well, and they are creepy and scary ones.

UCXM fulfills all of these, and ambitiously, because it does no less than create a brand new status quo for the X-Men that never been used before. If you haven’t been following Ultimate comics lately, the long and short of it is this: mutants aren’t the next step in evolution, but instead a biogenetically engineered weapons program that got out of hand. The civil rights metaphor is officially killed off for the Ultimate X-Men once and for all, because as Ultimate Johnny Storm points out, if mutants got their powers because of gubmint meddling or weird science reactions, then who with superpowers isn’t a mutant?

But, while establishing his new status quo (Premise), Nick Spencer makes sure to establish what his cast (Pieces) are all doing: jumping from scene to scene as the few remaining X-Men and a few newcomers who were introduced in the barely-anybody-read-it Ultimate X react to the news and declare their intentions to act or just sit around in jail, each of their inclusions demonstrating that Spencer clearly has plans for them. And then, right at the end, Spencer drops his bomb, which is just so goddamned ambitious I have to bow down and give kudos. I’m not going to spoil it easily, but I’ll put together a footnote here revealing it if you want to know.1

It’s a great comic because it is extremely well-crafted and because it reinvents a wheel that seemed impossible to reinvent. It’s a great #1 because at no point does it forget what it has to do for a new reader. Now, how many of the nu52 this week managed that?

SUPERGIRL #1: This comic is essentially one extended scene – Supergirl hits Earth, fights battlesuits until Superman shows up. That is literally the entire comic. There is no reason this comic could not have been, say, five pages long. Brian Michael Bendis looks at this comic and says “wow, that’s awfully decompressed.” Of our three Ps, it barely bothers with any of them. And it’s not a terribly compelling comic in any other respect anyway; this comic is completely skippable.

CAPTAIN ATOM #1: The solicits sold this as Dr. Manhattan: The Series, which was certainly interesting. It’s not that thing; at least not yet. But it does set up Captain Atom’s supporting cast and introduces him as a superhero efficiently enough, as well as laying out the major plotline (namely, “are Captain Atom’s powers gradually killing him”). It ends on a pretty generic cliffhanger, but all in all this is a Perfectly Acceptable Comic and a decent enough #1 issue which gracefully demonstrates the three Ps. But I probably won’t bother with the second issue.

BLUE BEETLE #1: A hard reboot starting with the origin issue: everything a new reader needs to know about the history of the Reach and the Scarabs are dealt with in the first six pages, and then it’s on to introducing Jaime and how he become bonded with the Scarab. It’s not a bad #1 by any means, although my personal preference would have been to introduce the bonding earlier – but it’s not a good comic, mostly because of the truly dumb decision to transform Paco into a thugged-out gangbanger. No, really – they did that. (You probably missed it because everybody was so hepped up about the sexist revisions this week that they forgot the kinda racist one!)

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1, NIGHTWING #1, LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1: I’m doing these three together because they’re basically all the same: decent enough comics, mostly failures as #1 issues. Nightwing is a little better than the other two, at least taking up a page of Dick Grayson monologue to explain who Nightwing is and why you should care, but these are mostly just ongoings with new #1s for the sake of reboot consistency, as have more than a few others been. (Legion is particularly impenetrable, which is especially disappointing given that Paul Levitz previously wrote what I consider to be the best “jump right in” introduction to the Legion, or any superhero comic for that matter, ever in LSH v2 Annual #1.)

BIRDS OF PREY #1: This is comic #2 to stagger out of the wake of the “hey let’s make Barbara Gordon walk again and be Batgirl” thing – as of this issue I’m not sure if Dinah and Barbara ever worked together or if the Birds existed or what in the postboot, and it appears to be a conscious choice to not address that issue at all, but instead just sort of throw it at people familiar with the preboot comic so they can be distracted by the unanswered question, which – what? The new character, Starling, is not explained particularly well at all. It’s a shame, because there are elements of this comic that are good: the fight scene flows well and the cliffhanger ending is solid. But on the whole it’s a really weak first issue.

WONDER WOMAN #1:This comic is mostly an incoherent mess. It’s pointless as a #1 – seriously, it doesn’t say a damn thing about who Wonder Woman is or what she does or anything – and the way it’s paced makes this just about unreadable as a single issue. It’s quite possible that, as the first chapter of a trade paperback, this will be quite readable in its larger context – I mean, the craft is quite clearly there, as you would expect from Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang. But as a single issue, no. Not even close.

BATMAN #1: This is good. I haven’t read a comic with Greg Capullo art in forever, but he’s always been very solid on art duties and he fits Batman quite well. There’s not much you need to introduce to a new reader about Batman, but this comic covers the high points – Batman wants to improve Gotham both as Bruce Wayne and as Batman, and there’s a decent framing device to explain all of the various Robins. And the cliffhanger ending, although of course obviously a red herring, is a solid foundation for a story. Probably the best nu52 book of the week.

CATWOMAN #1: See, from a #1 issue standpoint, this comic does everything right: it sets up Selina’s situation, gives her a plot, introduces the major players in the comic for the first little bit, and there’s a cliffhanger ending. The problem is that the cliffhanger ending is Catwoman and Batman fucking, which from a craft standpoint reduces Catwoman’s importance – I mean, the last four pages are a conflict where the question is “will Selina get to have sex with Bruce.” The story’s title is a reference to them doing it. That’s just a terrible, terrible idea.

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1: Yeeeeeeeeeeaahhhh that was shitty.

1. “My name is Kitty Pryde. I am sixteen years old – and this is the story of how I became the most hated and feared terrorist in the history of the United States.” [↩]

It’s a crazy thought. Honestly, I think it’s a crazy idea to even try, because I think that reboots eventually necessitate retelling of old stories because a character is more than the sum of his or her origin. (You couldn’t even write a completely clean “Hawk and Dove”, for example, because the character of Hawk is defined by the loss of his brother and having to deal with the rage and grief that he can’t control, and the character of Dove makes this explicit by never quite fitting into his life the way that his brother did. So either you have to rush through Don’s career and retell his death, or you’re not really rebooting the character.) But if I did it, acknowledging the fact that it’s crazy and unworkable and probably in the long run not that commercial (yes, the #1 issues are selling well. #1 issues always sell well. Call me in a year when it’s gone down to “The DC 37!”) …then here’s what I’d do.

1) It wouldn’t necessarily be a shared universe. I know that I’ve argued passionately in favor of shared universes, and as a general rule I’m in favor of them because they make coming up with story ideas easier, but I really do think that this is something I’d take a long hard look at before I signed off on it. MGK had a long and excellent post about how some characters don’t belong in the same universe, and if you’re restarting everything from scratch, this is one of those things you can decide not to do. Batman seems a lot less like a crazy person living out his childhood revenge fantasies when you don’t have to keep explaining away why he doesn’t just recruit a couple dozen superheroes with actual powers to help him keep the peace in Gotham. Adam Strange became an explicit nightmare to write once you had to start trying to figure out ways to keep him away from Rann in a shared universe where every third person had a spaceship. And so on…it might be fun to organize the universes by thematic consistency.

2) It would be more ethnically diverse. There really is no reason, apart from nostalgia and white male privilege, why the Big Seven heroes of the DC Universe should be six white guys and a white woman. Aquaman could have a look more reminiscent of a Pacific Islander, while Green Lantern could be Chinese. Wonder Woman could actually look like she comes from Greece instead of having classically WASPish features, and the Flash could be Hispanic. Really, the only one of them that should be a white male is Batman, because his origin is tied up in being Gotham “old money” and the sense of struggling against a background of white male privilege that didn’t save his parents from being mugged and killed informs the story. But yes, even Superman could be any ethnicity you wanted him to be.

3) It would break with tradition. Not so much in the specific details of the stories; the last thing you want is gimmicky “You thought Sinestro would be a bad guy, but in this reality, it’s Kilowog who gets a yellow ring!” twists. But honestly, the usual stable of reliable comics pros are the last people you want writing these series. Get some people who aren’t big comics fans, writers who come out of a different background and aren’t as likely to want to get their favorite stories back into continuity. The original Crisis benefited greatly from having people who were writers first and fans second picking up the reins after the universe changed, and a new DC Universe needs more Alan Moores and fewer Grant Morrisons. (And yes, Grant Morrison is a traditionalist. Anyone who thinks Grant Morrison is constantly innovating and coming up with new ideas just hasn’t read enough Silver Age comics to know what stories he’s homaging.)

4) It wouldn’t just be a bunch of superhero books. This is one thing they’ve done pretty well in the new DC Universe. There’s a fantasy series, a few horror comics, some war stories…we’re still light-years away from the era where only a few superheroes could carry their own books and Jerry Lewis was a major seller, but they made an effort. There’s still room for improvement, though. A relaunch of Adam Strange wouldn’t hurt, for example.

5) It would actually be a reboot. Despite claiming that this is a fresh new start and a jumping-on point for new readers, the DC Universe is picking up about five years into the story, and furthermore, it’s very clearly picking up where the old universe left off in a lot of cases. It’s hard to even pretend that the “new” Green Lantern isn’t meant to be just a continuation of the old, and Hawk and Dove is more or less taking Brightest Day as a part of its continuity…and that says nothing of the fact that Batman is on his fourth Robin in five years. DC either wants new readers to feel welcome or it doesn’t. “Rebooting” while keeping the same convoluted storylines and lack of exposition is the worst of both worlds. (OK, that was just blatant editorializing.)

That’s for starters, at least. Any thoughts on how you’d reboot a 75-year old comic book universe? Share them in the comments!

(yeah, I expect some arguments over this one)

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

DEATHSTROKE #1: You know what’s the absolute best way to establish a character as anything other than a badass? Have all the other characters talk at length about how much of a badass he is. Like, have some characters explain that he is going to do something totally badass, and then when he does it then they can say “that was so badass” and then just keep going. I’ve always kind of liked Deathstroke even in his recent “sucky Darth Vader” mode he’s been doing the last decade or so, but this Deathstroke I rather dislike.

RED LANTERNS #1: This gets my nod as a strong contender for Least Essential Comic of the new-52 relaunch. Was there really a major contingent of fans demanding a series about Atrocitus? (Yes, I get that everybody likes to say how awesome the Red Lantern kittycat is, but come on – it’s one joke that wasn’t that funny to begin with. Dex-Starr is the DC Universe equivalent of “the cake is a lie”.) In any case, the comic itself is just kinda meh, and putting Ed Benes on it makes the whole thing feel like one of those three-issue-long “ongoing series” Image put out in 1995 where you never knew anybody and never cared.

GREEN LANTERN #1: Has all the strengths of Geoff Johns’ usual Green Lantern work, except instead of jerking off about Hal Jordan he actually acts kind of like a douche, and Sinestro is much cooler than Hal so having Sinestro assume centre stage (sort of) for an issue is nice. But really, this isn’t a #1 and everybody knows it: it’s just the new issue of Green Lantern, making absolutely no pretense at even attempting to be a jumping-on point, explaining nothing at all. Compared to this issue, last week’s Static Shock is a 22-page Who’s Who entry.

SUICIDE SQUAD #1: Three words: Thin. Amanda. Waller. (Other than that – and Harley Quinn’s outfit – it’s kind of meh.)

FRANKENSTEIN: AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #1: This was a lot of fun. I’ve never been a fan of the S.H.A.D.E. concept, which comes across too much as “it’s GI Joe, but weird and with monsters!” for my tastes. But I like Frankenstein, and the latest retooling of the Creature Commandos concept doesn’t feel tired for once, which is a minor miracle at this point.

RESURRECTION MAN #1: Basically Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning picking up where they previously left off with this comic, but they make a concerted effort to provide a soft introduction for new readers – which isn’t hard, given that Resurrection Man’s concept is pretty straightforward and his plotlines mostly unresolved. A bit more exposition re: the Body Doubles would have been a good idea, though, as they come across as low-rent Harley Quinns. (Then again, they weren’t really ever anything more than that.) In any case, this is a good solid comical book.

GRIFTER #1: Lovely Cafu art, but Nathan Edmonson’s story is just clumsy and Cole Cash doesn’t feel like a character so much as someone just sort of reciting lines he’s supposed to recite. At the end of the issue, he puts on his mask. Why does he put on a mask? Absolutely nothing about that makes sense! It’s just a “this is a superhero comic, so this con man who went through a traumatic experience is now gonna put on a mask because he’s a superhero.” This comic wants to be an exciting pilot episode of an awesome genre TV show, leaving questions unexplained and plot points vague, but instead it just feels sort of unfinished.

MISTER TERRIFIC #1: You know how people say it’s hard to write a truly brilliant character convincingly when you aren’t as brilliant as they are? This is a good example of that. It’s actually not a bad comic book as first issues go: it sets up the premise and introduces the character in the way that a #1 issue should, and it’s not boring. But the superheroic “brilliant scheme” is him turning the London Eye into a magnet to hold up a guy in battle armor, which is sort of low-rent 1960s Spider-Man as ingenious superhero plans go, and the climax is that something is manipulating Mr. Terrific so he can recognize that a politician is a hypocrite. (No. Really.) Also, answers the question of what happens to Power Girl in the nu52: she’s Michael Holt’s non-superpowered love interest! CUE NERD RAGE.

LEGION LOST #1: It’s a more focused Legion of Super-Heroes adventure/quest comic. It’s good. Not great: just good. It would have been great if the comic did more to flesh out the seven primary characters’ personalities; it feels a bit rushed in terms of plot versus character development. But it’s okay.

SUPERBOY #1: Probably the most pleasant surprise so far of the nu52 – this was a comic I was expecting to be a trainwreck, and instead it’s a very well written sci-fi comic. At present it’s only a superhero comic in the loosest possible sense (a Rose Wilson cameo, Lois Lane shows up investigating as she is wont to do). But Scott Lobdell is trying to write a pretty neat story here about the construction of personal morality, and there’s more thought in this book than in many of the other nu52s combined. Recommended highly – this is one of those comics where the thought that went into it is evident from the first page.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #1: First of two Batbooks this week that redeem last week’s double shot of the lousy Batgirl and much much worse Detective Comics (which I didn’t discuss, but suffice it to say that it was terrible in just about every possible way that a Batman comic could be terrible). This is a decent Batman comic which does a lot of work to demonstrate the relationship between Batman and Damian-Robin while still telling a Batman Inc. story without having to go into a lot of backstory to explain the concepts of that comic. In short, this is Perfectly Good Comics. And that is fine. I mean, I know we were all saying stuff like “every one of the nu52 has to be a grand slam out of the gate,” and that’s not actually a wrong analysis in a lot of respects, but it wasn’t gonna happen and it didn’t happen, so let’s call this one a success even though it’s probably only a strong B+ level comic at best.

BATWOMAN #1: Batwoman’s arc in Detective last year was sublime stuff; this looks to continue the trend even without Greg Rucka writing it. The usual brilliant artwork from JH Williams, of course (this time shifting between the “regular” Batwoman art and a style I would almost describe as a Geof Darrow-influenced clear-line for depicting the interactions between the police officer love interest and normal citizens). CONTINUITY NOTE: Bette Kane, in training to become Flamebird all over again, refers to having been a former Teen Titan, which – I thought the Teen Titans were now no longer around before Tim Drake founded them? Who knows. But this is a damn good book.

EDIT TO UPDATE BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP BUGGING ME ABOUT IT: DEMON KNIGHTS #1: This comic was okay, siding on good, but everybody jizzing about it needs to acknowledge the fact that right now it’s a competent fantasy comic that’s mostly all prologue so far and that doesn’t mean we should go all Special Olympics to cheer it on. It’s perfectly all right, but it’s nothing I would call excellent (and I would call both Superboy and Batwoman excellent and I think Demon Knights is in this week’s second tier of #1s, alongside Frankenstein and Resurrection Man). I think a lot of its acclaim stems from the fact that it’s a sword-and-sorcery comic and it actually exists (much like how some people were applauding Men of War for being a war comic, although Knights is a much better comic than Men of War was).

Also Etrigan doesn’t talk in rhyme and what is the point of using Etrigan if he doesn’t talk in fucking rhyme I ask you. I’m sorry, but my Etrigan is a rhyming, evil dickhead. Period. I am biased in this respect.

So here is Snowgoons:

What are you listening to lately? Youtube link in the comments if possible.

So a little while back I asked if anybody was interested in a “brief collaboration,” and I got a pretty healthy response. The reason I asked was because of this and this and particluarly this (seriously, I love Kevin’s dialogue there), and I decided that I wanted to do one.

But then a whole a bunch of ridiculously talented artists contacted me (and continue to do so! Because it’s not like I set a deadline on it!), and really, I have never been the guy who only eats one Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup from the package, you know? So a bunch of these are coming up in the near future.

First off, we have Sheli Hay, starting us off with exactly who you think this blog would start this thing.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.