Comic Consideration

    The Blonde Spike We Absolutely Knew We Needed Supergirl—AKA Kara Zor-El—embraces and subverts space western tropes by being characterized as a strong, law-dodging, not-so-lone ranger with a sticky past, a distinct and deeply ingrained sense of justice, and a lesson or two to learn about vulnerability. In many ways, Kara reminds me of a blonde female version of Spike Spiegel, the protagonist of 1998 space western anime Cowboy Bebop (カウボーイビバップ). Mostly because both pieces of media embody the blend of genres that compose "space westerns"; both characters have vices associated with difficulties maintaining relationships because of the things that caused their loneliness in the first place; and because they travel the cosmos and kick ass with a small crew that includes a dog (at least in the first issue, in Kara's case). The similarities between Spike and Zara end, though, with their motivations. While Spike Spiegel does have an internal sense of right and wrong, he is la...

Batman's Beefiness Interestingly enough, the lecture with Dr. Bishop leant a lot of credence to theories and opinions that I've had about Batman and whether or not I buy whether the actors who play him seem like they could actually be Batman. According to Dr. Bishop, the criteria that Batman would have to fulfil to feasibly and effectively fight crime every night are as follows: approx. six feet tall;170 lbs; mostly lean muscle with some fat to soften blows and tumbles; trained in multiple forms of martial arts; abnormally fast; developed a build up of bone growth on the skull as a result of multiple instances of head trauma. Obviously, you can't spot martial arts proficiency or head trauma on anybody, but some of the actors definitely take to the role in demeanor better than others. Reading the Hush (2010) series and the assigned Batman comics (Detective Comics (1937) #37, Batman (1940) #139 and #405, Batman: The Brave and The Bold (2023) #1) got my gears turning about the...

"We Come From The Earth, We Return To The Earth." Harkening back to Environmental Manipulation in Module 5, zombies and ecological disasters feels very much like an extension of that subject matter. This time, however, instead of discussing how fictional forces impact and influence the environment, we are called to consider how the absence of human (and superhuman... and extraterrestrial...) intervention affects it.  In The Walking Dead , the zombie apocalypse brings about a reclamation of the earth, which has the opportunity to heal without constant abuse from humans. Animals feed upon the decaying flesh of human bodies littering the landscape. Long highways empty of cars, but not life—grasses and foliage grow over the medians, creeping and crawling toward its inevitable goal: to swallow the highway.  It's comforting somewhat, I think, to know that once we are gone, the earth will enter some new state without us. There was a time before we existed and there will be a tim...

  If I Had to Live the Same Life 10 Times, I'd Be Crazy, Too  In class, we collectively steered the lecture with Dr. Tinsley toward how people's identities get bound together by their genetics—demonstrated by mutants depicted in X-Men, specifically House of X (2019)—and how easy it seems to be for people to come up with harmful narratives, stereotypes, and even ideologies against those bound groups on a greater march toward attempting to create a world where they no longer exist.  It's interesting to see how, in House of X , the mutants are not the dominant group, but their numbers are growing and are projected to eclipse that of humans' within twenty years of the series' opening. This creates a panic within humankind, and a mad dash to get in the good graces of mutants—specifically the initiatives and leadership of Charles Xavier.              It flips expectations with mutants having the upper hand and imposing their will in many ...

  Storm, The Mighty Thor, and the Mythogenic Zone Something that stuck with me in Chalquist's "Comic Books as Contemporary Myths" felt incredibly pertinent to Ororo Monroe's Storm and Jane Foster's journey and transformation into The Mighty Thor: "...we develop gnosis not to separate from others, but to join with self, others, world, and cosmos."  Chalquist, of course, is talking literally about gnosis as it exists as an array of different topics of internal knowledge, especially that which is spiritual. I think Chalquist's description of gnosis lends itself directly to the unique relationship between Storm and the earth, and the Mighty Thor and any land she graces below the heavens. Storm and the Mighty Thor's powers, being directly linked to the environment (specifically the weather, thunder, lightning, etc.), tether them as individuals to the world and everyone within it. The consequences of their actions, both bad and good, don't just aff...

  My Sub Over Dub Preferences Prepared Me For This Day Let the record show that I went to go see Godzilla Minus One the month that it hit theaters and it was my favorite movie I saw last year. This week, we discussed Japan: specifically, what happened socially, environmentally, and culturally after the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. We went over how the devastation of those events influenced the way that Japan created media involving the future; what such a large-scale tragedy inflicted by foreign intervention does to the psyche of a nation. This era of anime, manga, and film covered themes of rebirth, of hope after loss, of putting faith in children to deliver the future into one of technological revolution and— perhaps most pervasively— the limits to which the imagination can cook up creations and ramifications of powerful radiation.  The creator of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka, conceptualized a hero to all in the form of a young robot in a concrete example of thos...