Sidetracks: Links of Steel

[helloladies]

Enjoying Superwomen & Comics Week, and hungry for even more content? Our contributors are more than happy to oblige. Check out their carefully selected lists of links below.

chaila:

➝ WE’RE GETTING A WONDER WOMAN MOVIE! Though, of course, the movie will have to carry the heavy weight of expectations.

➝ Though I don’t agree with everything in this (in particular, nostalgia seems very misplaced to me in any conversation about feminism and women’s rights), The Last Amazon by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker is an interesting discussion of Wonder Woman’s historical connection to feminism.

➝ Here is a playlist of seven Wonder Woman fanvids, including vids for the animated Wonder Woman movie and other DC animated canons, the live action 1970s TV show, and Wonder Woman comics. Disclosure: I made some of those!

➝ The Spy Thriller That Imagines James Bond as a Secretary: Very rarely, a comics writer actually produces all the feminist meta himself and then puts it right in the comic. I can vouch for at least the first six issues of Velvet by Ed Brubaker (writer of Cap 2!) being a feminist subversion of spy tropes. Middle-aged lady spy! Bonus: read the article for Ed Brubaker talking about The Bletchley Circle and making me want to cry.

➝ With Gotham, a new Batman prequel, airing on television, it’s a good time for a look back at Gotham Central, which includes several of the Gotham characters and is still available in hard copy and digital formats. Gotham Central, by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, is a police procedural in a superhero world, set in in the Gotham Police Department and featuring multiple women, queer characters, and characters of color as leads, realism, ordinary people caught in the crossfire, and serious questioning of the actual heroism of vigilante superheroes.

➝ Check out badass, brilliant feminist comics writers Gail Simone (Red Sonja, Batgirl, Wonder Woman, many others) and Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain Marvel, Pretty Deadly, Bitch Planet) on Tumblr for updates on the comics they’re writing and reading, smart engagement with fans and trolls, and general geekery.

Jodie:

➝ If you're stilll not quite sure which super woman might interest you most, Tansy R. Roberts Where the Wonder Women tag contains detailed essays about the histories of many super women.

➝ In How Censors Killed the Weird, Experimental, Progressive Golden Age Of Comics Saladin Ahmed explains that 'In the 1940s, comic books were often feminist, diverse, and bold.'

➝ I've linked to this before, but holding Super Women week seemed like a good excuse to remind you about Better Supes. At this Tumblr talented artists draw superheroes based on the inventive costumes of little kids. These kids have made up some excellent new super people that I would love to see having big screen adventures.

➝ The creator of Better Supes is working on a new comic called Spark:

The comic is about nine-year-old Lucia Marquez-Miller, who loves engineering, and uses her telekinetic powers to build and take things apart with her mind. She calls this power her spark!
As Spark, the world’s youngest superhero, she’s a junior member of a superhero team while also trying to live a normal life. Can Lucia juggle her friends and family while also saving the world from supervillains?

You can follow developments at the new Spark Tumblr.

➝ Asieybarbie has created some cool character sketches for three super women called Sugar Beez.

➝ Renay recently recommended a Black Widow fanvid called In the Bullpen and I have probably watched it more times than is healthy. I think the song choice is especially appropriate in the face of Marvel's continued refusal to issue a Black Widow film, or even a film with a lead superheroine.

➝ And for anyone who needs more Natasha, I present our blog's Black Widow tag so far.

Ana:

➝ Here's NPR on The Secret History of Wonder Woman (they liked it more than I did).

➝ Reading about Wonder Woman got me thinking about the connection between superheroines and mythology, and about how the women of Greek mythology were the first powerful ladies to populate my imagination. So here are two links that are slightly off topic but not really if you're me: first, Feminism in Classical Greece:

Yet there are always contradictions between cultural conventions – such as ‘women are born inferior to men’ – and the richness of actual lived experience. This creates opportunities for artists to develop an awareness that goes beyond stereotypes, and write characters or discourses that run against the societal norm even without intending it. We can stage convincingly feminist interpretations of these plays today because the opportunities are in the texts themselves; strong female characters shine through despite the misogyny of the culture.

As relevant to comics as it is to the Classics!

➝ Secondly, here's the always amazing Sarah McCarry on Medea.

➝ I'm not knowledgeable enough to have a solid opinion on the points made by this post on Wonder Women, Superheroines, & Feminism, but it links to plenty of other content that seems relevant to our collective interests.

➝ The girls and women of the Avatar universe went on to have a life after the series in comics, so of course I couldn't leave them out of this link list. Here's Bich Magazine on why Toph is awesome. Also, a recommendation for anyone who isn't yet reading Gene Luen Yang's The Rift comics series: get on it asap. They're excellent and feature plenty of Toph!

➝ Speaking of awesome TV women who lived on in comics, I can't talk about super women and leave out the Buffyverse. Here's Memory on two of my absolute favourite characters, Willow and Fred. I think they're super women even if they're not slayers.

➝ A Brief History of Batgirl at Bitch Media.

➝ Lastly, I leave you with Sana Amanat, editor and co-creator of Kamala Khan, discussing her heroine's role as Ms. Marvel.

Memory:

➝ Noelle Stevenson answers questions about NIMONA, with some spoilers in the mix.

➝ Robot Hugs pens a comic about the troubling trope where a superwoman cedes her power to some random dude.

➝ The Internet contains shockingly few Kate Bishop fanvids (maybe because clips of dark-haired female archers are in limited supply? Get on that, Hollywood), but here’s a trailer for a Hawkeye movie with Jennifer Lawrence as Kate.

➝ I highly recommend GIRL GENIUS, a long-running and still ongoing comic about Agatha Heterodyne, a mad scientist who uses her supernatural understanding of all things mechanical to fight for great changes in war-torn 19th century Europe.

➝ Preeti Chhibber’s list of The Six Best Things About Ms. Marvel makes me want to read the comic right now. (Process faster, library mine.) Not only does Kamala Khan sound like an all around awesome person, but she’s friends with Lockjaw! Anyone who bonds with my favourite ginormous teleporting doggie is someone I want to know better.

Clare:

➝ Margo Robbie might be playing Harley Quinn in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, with Jared Leto as her Joker. I am decidedly torn on this, because I’ve longed to see Harley on the silver screen, but I absolutely do not trust DC Studios, the makers of Batman v. Superman: Grimdark Grimdark Grimdark, to manage the delicate balance Harley requires.