Duncan Isn't Horrible

I have a confession to make: I find Hägar the Horrible kind of boring.

This is something that always confuses me, because the strip is currently written and drawn by Chris Browne (the son of Dik Browne, the strip's creator), and Chris Browne wrote Raising Duncan - which just happens to be one of my favourite comic strips of all time.

Raising Duncan featured a tubby bearded guy who's a bit of a big kid at heart and his not-quite-as-tubby wife - sound familiar? The same guy wrote two comic strips simultaneously featuring ostensibly very similar characters. One charmed the socks off me, and the other leaves me indifferent. I don't know how that works.

I don't want to undersell Raising Duncan buy suggesting it's destined to be compared to Hägar. It's quite it's own beast. It's a contemporary (early 2000s) story about a professional couple who have pets instead of children - and it's an entirely joyful take on the idea.

The main characters are a pair of authors, B.D. Kelly (aka, Big Daddy or Bruce, the romance novelist) and his wife Adelle (the more successful crime novelist), and their pets Brambly (the cat) and Duncan (the Scottish terrier). B.D. is more mature and less obnoxious than Hägar, and Adelle is more playful and less nagging than Helga. The pets are, oddly, convinced they are in a relationship (at times they sound like an old married couple), but the true joy of the strip lies in the relationship between B.D. and Adelle.

They are clearly playmates as well as husband and wife, and I have to admit that I envy their camaraderie. Helga and Hägar are often at loggerheads with each other, and there is an extent to which their relationship still feels more comfortable in the 1970s (when their strip was originally created), while B.D. and Adelle get along like a house on fire and take turns being the responsible(ish) adult.

If I could move into a comic strip, and move in next door to an existing comic strip family I'd be had pressed to choose between the Kellys and the Pattersons (from For Better or For Worse, which I'll probably rabbit on about another time).

The thing that amazes me most about Raising Duncan at present, however, is the fact that you can't buy the comics - but you can read them for free on Go Comics (currently one of the most annoying web page designs I have the misfortune to encounter in my day).

It's bizarre. Browne stopped creating the strip years ago, and you should, by rights, be able to buy the whole collection. I certainly would, and I'm sure I'm not alone. So how is it possible in this day and age that people who would be willing to buy something can't - but you can access it as much as you like if you have the patience to putt up with a crappy web page?

Very odd.

WWBGD? (What Would Batgirl Do?)

As I’m writing this, I’m wearing a T-shirt with a well-known bat logo on it.  It’s not my first such t-shirt, and it won’t be my last.  I tend to have one of these in my wardrobe, and I frequently wear it in public.  This is partly “letting my geek flag fly”, but it’s also because I happen to be a librarian with red(dish) hair.  As anyone who knows anything about comics will be able to tell you, the best known and most popular Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) was a librarian with red hair.

However, when I wear this shirt in public, if anyone comments on it at all, it’s invariably to say something like, “Hey, Batman!”

This is disheartening for two reasons.  Firstly, I am not a man.  Granted, I’m tall and androgynous, and I am occasionally mistaken for a man by complete strangers – but I’d like to think that the people I know are at least cognizant of my gender.  Calling a woman “Batman” is mildly insulting, even if she is wearing a shirt with Batman’s logo on it.*

Secondly, it shows complete and utter negligence regarding the existence of Batgirl.**  The fact that people can look at a girl wearing a bat logo and not even think to say “Hey, Batgirl!” shows that Batgirl doesn’t even register with them.  When you correct them, the look on their faces and the mumbling reply before changing the subject can be accurately translated thus:  “Oh, yeah, there was a Batgirl wasn’t there?  Oh, well, it’s not like anyone cares.”

This is a travesty.  It is unspeakably sad.  And it is unspeakably sad because Batgirl is unbelievably awesome and should be a cultural icon.  She is, arguably, one of the best characters in the DC Universe – and certainly one of the best female comic book characters of all time.

When talking about action-hero role-models for girls, Batgirl’s name should be mentioned in the same breath as Katniss Everdeen, Lara Croft and Buffy the Vampire Slayer – and all the more because she was around for decades before the others ever existed.

Let me tell you about Batgirl – or, more specifically, about Barbara Gordon (a name that should be as well known as Bruce Wayne).

Barbara Gordon’s father is Commissioner Gordon – but of course he wasn’t always the police commissioner.  For most of her upbringing he was just a cop.  Her mother died when she was young, so she was raised in a single parent household living off a policeman’s wages.  She worked to put herself through college, got a degree (a PhD, no less!) in information science and went to work in a public library.

Barbara Gordon was never rich.  She has always lived off a public servant’s wage, and she has always made the best fist of whatever was available to normal people.  This is because she is a normal person.  She doesn’t have any superpowers.  She isn’t an alien.  She wasn’t granted strength or speed by any gods or mysterious wizards.  She wasn’t exposed to any physiology-altering radiation or struck by lightening.  She doesn’t have a power ring – or a power anything.  And she doesn’t have a bucket of money.

She’s just a young woman who comes from the same background as thousand of other young women and has to work for a living.

And her origin story is basically a tale of cosplay gone wrong.  She was never chosen to be a hero, or driven by some dark tragedy.  She went to a costume party dressed as a female version of Batman as a joke (in a costume she made herself with her own bad-ass sewing skills).  It was meant to be a surprise, so no one knew who she was and no one recognised her when, in costume, she thwarted a crime (and saved Bruce Wayne in the process).  She was put on the spot, rose to the occasion and saved the day.

And then she thought, “You know what?  I could totally do this hero thing.”

And she did.  And she did it all without any of Bruce Wayne’s money.

She couldn’t afford to send herself to remote areas of Tibet to learn martial arts from a secret society of Master Assassins.  She just trained at local dojos and clubs.  She didn’t have a fleet of flash vehicles, she just had a motorbike.

She didn’t have a multinational company with an R&D department that could funnel specially fabricated parts from all over the world to her secret lair.  She bought all of her equipment at sporting goods shops and camping outfitters and altered it to fit her purposes (or just straight-up made it herself).

She didn’t have an extensive private gym and secret training facilities – she had to use local gyms and parks, or whatever she could do in her own small apartment.  Speaking of which, she didn’t have a mansion with an extensive subterranean cave network that could be turned into a secret lair.  She had a small apartment and a one-car garage.  And yet she managed to develop some seriously impressive storage systems, because no one ever noticed any of her Batgirl stuff when they came to visit her.

Oh, sure, eventually she teamed up with Batman and he started supplying her with equipment and training, but (depending on which era of comics you are reading) there were several years there where she was just doing it entirely on her own – off her own bat (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Barbara Gordon managed to do most of what Bruce Wayne did without any of his resources – all because she was resourceful.

Where Bruce Wayne had money, Barbara Gordon had resilience, ingenuity, hard graft and grit. 

She was willing to learn, willing to work, willing to train hard and willing to try.  She applied herself and she backed herself.  She always believed she could do it, she just had to work out how.  Then she would work out how, and do it.  And she kicked butt, thwarted the bad guys and saved the day.

That’s my idea of a superhero.

Batgirl is truly awesome, but it’s the girl behind the mask that is the true role model.  When Barbara Gordon was shot through the spine and “permanently” paralysed below the waist,*** she showed just how much hard graft and grit she really had.  She completely reinvented herself, using her skills as a librarian to fight crime with information.  As Oracle, she coordinated a superhero team from her wheelchair, and gave other heroes the information they needed to help them do their jobs.

Even when she could literally, physically no longer kick butt, she still thwarted the bad guys and saved the day.

Hell, yeah, Barbara Gordon!

I want the words “Batgirl” and “Barbara Gordon” to be synonymous with being resourceful and strong.  I want people to use this character as a way to compliment girls for being capable, independent, active and resilient.  For being powerful women with a power that comes from within.

I want this character and her characteristics to be such a part of the cultural cache that when someone does something amazing with whatever they could get on a budget, people say things like “She went totally Batgirl on this project”.  Or people refer to female athletes who mange to go really far in their chosen sport - even though they didn’t have the kind of sponsorship and support that their male counterparts were given - as being “just like Barbara Gordon”.

I want the idea of WWBGD? (What Would BatGirl/Barbara Gordon Do?) to take the world by storm.  Because what would she do?  BG would figure it out, because she’s smart.  BG would train hard and get fighting fit.  BG would work with what she has and make it work.  BG wouldn’t take anyone’s crap.  BG would kick butt.  BG would rescue herself – and anyone else who needed rescuing.

BG would step up, and show the world what happens when a perfectly ordinary woman applies herself and backs herself.

Will you help me?  If you read this, will you do what you can to make sure everyone knows who Batgirl is, and knows that she is a force to be reckoned with?

WWBGD?

*Yes, it is Batman’s logo.  Batgirl’s logo is slightly different.  The bat is more angular and is usually yellow on a black or grey background, rather than black on a yellow disc.  I’d buy t-shirts with the Batgirl logo on them, but they aren’t easy to find in normal clothing stores, and I’m on a budget, so I’m making the best fist of what’s readily available (WWBGD?).

**There were also a few characters called Batwoman in the comics, but they were never part of the permanent roster or in any of the film adaptations, so we’ll forgive people for not knowing much about her.

***Nothing is ever “permanent” in the comic book world – but she was in that wheelchair for an awfully long time.

Showcase Presents: Booster Gold

*Spoiler Alert*

One of the first colour comic books I owned was a second-hand copy of Booster Gold #18.

Now, if you've never read a Booster Gold comic before, #18 is an interesting one to have as an introduction. For one thing, it actually fills you in on the character's backstory quite nicely and gives you a hint of what it's all about...

But the hint is actually a little off. You see, #18 is full of time travelling cops, superheroes who can save the day without changing into their costume, rings that can give you the power of flight, high tech gadgets and robots, multimillionaires with alternate identities and thieves who have become better men. You learn that Booster Gold was a football player from the 25th Century who fell from grace, then stole a time machine to come back to the 20th Century where he became a superhero using his (stolen) advanced technology. You learn this courtesy of the flashbacks of the cop who has followed him into the past to hunt him down. You learn that he's rich and has geniuses working for him, creating high-tech gizmos to use in his training. You learn that he has a robotic “coach”. And you get this wonderful James Bond style story that involves a dashing man of action saving the day in his expensive suit.

What you don't get is a true taste of Booster's character. You don't get the cocky, overconfident, brash, self-centred, money grabbing, attention seeking, juvenile yet strangely charming jerk that Dan Jurgen's creation is. You don't get the superhero-promoting-aftershave or the “Superman has nothing on me!” moments that give you the truest insights into what you can expect from Booster. On the one hand, he means well and honestly wants to be the hero and save the people and the day. On the other hand, he'll never pass up an opportunity to grab publicity and make money. He's not the squeaky-clean-boy-scout that Superman is. He's not the brooding, guardian-of-the-people-weighed-down-by-responsibility Batman is. He's a jerk who needs a good slapping, but he's also charming, lovable and fun. And he's trying – he really is trying to do the superhero thing properly – so you sort of forgive him for the rest of his faults.

He embodies the whole concept of “new and fresh directions” that was the point of the Crisis. He also embodies the mid-late 80s love affair with capitalism and corporate greed. Reading over the original comics later, it's hard to imaging Booster coming from the future into any year other than 1986. If they ever make a film of this character, I hope they set it in the 80s.

These are the sort of things you learn about Booster as you read the first twenty issues of his original twenty-five issue run, published for the first time since the late 1980s as part of DC's Showcase Presents series.

The Showcase Presents books started by packaging some stories that first appeared in the old Showcase title put out by DC in the 60s and 70s and has since moved on to later comics. This series is possibly the most magnificent thing DC has ever done. By publishing these stories without colour and on cheaper paper than they use for their Archives series, they've made all of these stories affordable and accessible.

There were many of us who were hanging out for the original Booster Gold series to be reprinted, and while the colour and the glossy paper would have been nice, having the whole series in one book for just over AUD$30 is a dream come true.

Finally being able to read the whole series from start to finish is... mixed.

I mentioned before that you find out a lot of things about Booster's character in the first twenty issues. That's because the first twenty issues are good. Okay, so they repeat the origin story a little often (#18 was the fourth time we hear it told from various sources). It's still a rollicking adventure story. The series starts in the middle of everything, goes back to the beginning, comes back to the present, bounces into the future and brings us back to the 80s a few months after we left. It plays with the cliches of the genre quite nicely, letting us have a few while joyfully breaking some others. Jurgens wanted his character to be different and fun, and for the first twenty issues that's exactly what Booster Gold was. Sure, there were moments of pathos, hints of romance and the sense that eventually Booster's irresponsibility was going to come back to kick him up the cloaca, but you never doubted that there would be light at the end of every tunnel and these characters were just going to get more interesting as things went on.

The characters had real legs. Jurgens not only created a group of people you wanted to know more about to start with, he also added to them as he went on. To begin with, there was the shallow, go-get-em agent who was a single parent after his wife walked out (and may have more to him than meets the eye) and the secretary who may be a romantic interest (but for who?) and may or may not become a superhero herself. Then came Jack Soo, who gave up working for S.T.A.R. Labs because designing gadgets for a superhero was so much fun, and Michelle Carter, Micheal's twin sister from the future who saved everyone's life with a stolen school bus, and then went on to steal the Super Suit (with magnetic powers) Jack invented. You just knew there was going to be a showdown between the sister and the secretary over the super suit. You just knew the secretary was eventually going to have to choose between the superhero stud she secretly fancies and the obnoxious agent she initially can't stand...

Except, none of these things happened.

Jurgens set things in motion in the course of those first twenty issues. Things that promised us something fun was going to happen. But then, just as we were starting to really appreciate what he had planned for Michelle, he killed her off. And in such a bizarre, pointless way, too. Part of his playing with cliches, I guess – he sets up a successful rescue and then, hey, waddayaknow, the girl dies anyway. And it doesn't make any sense at all within the terms of the over arcing narrative. As the last five issues progress, it becomes a little bit obvious that Jurgens killed of Michelle because he had to damage Booster and make him miserable – and he had to do that because of forces beyond his book.

One of the things I've always hated about DC is the propensity to create stories that sweep across the entire DC Universe. Every couple of years or so, some major tragedy, catastrophe or crisis happens which is supposed to involve every character in the universe and have cross-over story lines going through every title. This has always sucked. This has always sucked for at least three reasons:

1. Every title has its own continuity – it tells its own stories and follows its own arcs. Usually, only one or two writers manage to get their arcs to flow seamlessly into this company-wide story arc. For everyone else, it's a horrible imposition that seems forced and out of place and ruins the lines of the story. Going back years later to read the stories again, these issues make very little sense and are, simply, awful.

2. You never get the whole story of the company-wide arc anyway. It's mainly carried in the major titles with a few weird tendrils thrown off into series you might not normally buy. Later on, you may get the entire run of all of the Superman comics that fit in with this story, but good luck trying to find that one issue of the Black Canary which links the story from Superman #275 to Action Comics #423. And, if you were a Black Canary fan who owned every issue from that period, chances are that one issue suffers badly from the problem I mentioned in the point above.

3. Some twit always decides this is a great opportunity to kill or otherwise completely ruin one of the minor characters in the universe for the sake of pathos. So your favourite member of the Justice League is going to go insane, destroy all who are dear to him, and then die in a last heroic effort to save the planet. Every single time DC has run a company wide cross-over, they've killed or destroyed someone I like. Someone I would pay good money to see in his or her own series, or at least used more often. They seem to think this makes them clever. It doesn't.

So come the end of 1987 and the beginning of 1988, DC runs this ridiculous Millennium cross-over thing where almost all of the heroes in the universe find someone close to them is, in fact, a Manhunter in disguise. I'm not really going to explain that one, except to say that the Manhunters are against the Guardians of the Universe and trying to stop the Chosen Ones from promoting mankind to the next stage of evolution. It was a stupid story.

Oh, and guess who the sacrificial bunny was? That's right, Booster Gold. Because of his role as the loose cannon in the Millennium story, Booster's life had to get miserable and fast. So Jurgens kills off his sister, introduces a new character (who we hardly ever see) purely for the sake of creating a distraction and turns Dirk, the agent, into the Manhunter in Booster's life. This, by the way, makes no sense. Dirk's character and motivations had been well established, and it's impossible to believe he was secretly a Manhunter. Everything seemed too fast – positively rushed – and clumsy. Motivations – ignored and trampled on. Logical plot progressions – thrown to the wind.

Jurgens spent twenty issues establishing a world that could have easily carried another twenty issues worth of stories... then spent five issues smashing it to pieces with a hammer.

I suppose at least it finished with the promise of a brighter tomorrow. In spite of his role as the sacrificial bunny, causing him to lose his family, friends and home, there was still an indication that Booster would continue to play a role in the DC Universe as one of the good guys. He managed to survive another twenty years as a minor character and guest star in other comics before the writers of another stupid cross over decided to use him as a sacrificial bunny again.

Turns out issue #18 was actually the peak of Booster's career. It showed everything the series could have been, if only Jurgens had been allowed to keep playing by his own rules.

As for the Showcase Presents anthology? Well, if you're a Booster fan, you can't go past this book. If you aren't a Booster fan, I think there's a good chance you will be one by the time you finish the first twenty issues. Then you can join me in my hatred for company-wide cross over stories.

Ever Wonder...

*Spoiler Alert*

So, I've been reading Wonder Woman comics from the 60s lately.

Why, when I haven't actually finished any of the books I've started over the last three months?

I don't know. Half finished books just seem to be my thing these days. I think, one day, I'll probably have a bookmark part of the way through every book in my house (and probably a few in the library as well). Heck, I've even stalled part-way through Jane Eyre - although I'm not sure if it counts, as I've read it several times before.

At least I actually get through the trade paperbacks. I get plot, I get characterisation, I get art... and I get to the end. So, the other day I picked up Volumes 3 & 4 of the Diana Prince: Wonder Woman TPBs from my comic book shop, and they've been keeping me amused.

For those of you who might not know the history: during the 60s Wonder Woman was apparently boring the socks off all and sundry and the sales were pretty pitiful, so they decided to stop making the comics. Then someone suddenly noticed that, should they ever stop printing a Wonder Woman comic book, the rights for the character would revert back to the family of the creator. DC couldn't have this, so they quickly decided to bash out a "New Wonder Woman", so they could effectively try to ditch the old character without actually ditching the character at all.

How did they do this? Why, by getting rid of Diana's powers and entire supporting cast, and making Diana Prince - human woman, as opposed to Amazon Princess - the hero of the piece. Paradise Island was sent into some unreachable other dimension (which didn't end up being that unreachable, just harder to get to than usual), the invisible jet was gone, Steve Trevor was killed off and Diana quit the military, so she was no longer in uniform. She also lost the glasses. And gained a fashion sense. And a boutique.

Instead of her old support cast, she collected an old, blind Chinese man with the unlikely name of I-Ching, who taught her to be a martial arts expert. For the next couple of years, Diana Prince kicked butt all over the globe and in a couple of different dimensions - all without superpowers and armed with nothing more than highly trained human physical prowess and a keen sense of observation. Well, she may have had one superpower they never specifically mentioned - somehow, no matter how often she was thrown to the ground in a fight scene, she never got dirt on her white go-go outfits.

By the way, more female superheroes need to wear go-go outfits. So much practical than those skin-tight jumpsuits that couldn't hold a pocket in a million years - and definitely more practical than a strapless bustier, if you know what I mean.

It was, in a way, the exact opposite of what George Perez did with the character in the 80s, where he got rid of Diana Prince and more or less made Wonder Woman the sole identity of the character.

I've decided Dennis O'Neal should never be allowed near Wonder Woman. I've never read a single story he's written for the character (in any title) that didn't suck. He really has no idea how to write a female character at all - let alone a "powerful" female character. It's like there's something in his head that says "What? Wonder Woman? I guess it has to be another dating story. Who can she pine over this time?"

Pfft!

At least Mike Sekowsky actually realised the character could do more than swoon. I quite liked his take on the whole "martial arts marvel" character. A lot of the characters in his stories had the "just a girl" mentality, but you never felt as if the writer did.

I've read my share of Wonder Woman comics from the past five decades and it's interesting to see how the writers have handled the character. Until recently, they were all male, and it's been a strange exercise in seeing how a man interprets a female character.

A lot of writers (especially during the earlier years) had no respect for her, and you could tell. They wrote about a vapid, shallow 'thing' with a heart of gold and superpowers - not really enough depth to be considered a person. What motivation did she need, apart from the fact that her man would want her more? What greater thing did she have to fear than her man's displeasure?

"Oh, Steve!"

In a sense, O'Neal actually did her a favour by killing off Steve Trevor. He really was slowing her down. In a strange way, Perez did the same thing in the 80s when he had Steve pair off with Etta Candy, so he wasn't available to be Diana's love interest (read: shackle).

You often had the feeling that many of these early, male writers had to find ways to make the character more feminine in order to "balance" the fact that she was so strong. After all, what man could possibly want a woman who could lift cars? She had to be weak, somehow, or she would be completely undesirable. So, they made her vapid and slightly pointless. Sure, she could save the day, but at the end of the day, in some way, shape or form, she still needed to be saved herself.

That's one of the things I really liked about Sekowsky's tenure as WW's writer - she never really needed rescuing. Sure, she accepted help if it was offered and expressed gratitude when someone saved her butt, but deep down you knew (and, more importantly, she knew) that she could have gotten herself out of that pickle if she had to.

I think Sekowsky must have had more female friends than a lot of the other writers. Or maybe he just actually talked to his sisters/wife/daughters and knew they were capable of thinking and acting.

All I know is that the "New Wonder Woman" improved immensely after Sekowsky took over from O'Neal, and then got darn annoying after Sekowsky left.

Oh, and the way they ended that part of WW's history? It sucked. It was even worse than the way O'Neal started it. They could have had a big meaningful story explaining why she gave up her "New Improved" life to go back to living a dichotomy in which she could never hope to be a whole person... They could have spun the story out over a couple of issues to say a decent goodbye to the friends and "family" she had collected during her new life... They could have told one last "New Wonder Woman" story... But they didn't.

Instead they just shot I-Ching in the back and gave her amnesia - effectively wiping out her whole adventure in humanity. And they introduced an important new character with no warning - one that would disappear not long after she was introduced. On top of all that, the whole thing was squeezed into one, poorly written issue. I spent the whole fourth volume thinking, "this would have been better if Mike was still writing it", and the whole last issue thinking, "Okay, someone needs a good slapping."

But, you get that.

Doodles and ditties

Hack for Hire

As requested: A picture about using a library chat service.