lizbee | Entries tagged with comics

I frequently have ideas for vids, and some of them I squirrel away in case I ever find myself with lots of free time, and also source, and also skill and patience.

Every now and then I hit on something which needs to exist, but I don't know enough of the source(s), and I'm not dedicated enough to familiarise myself with the material and then sit down and make the vid. But I really, really want to watch it.

Which is to say, this song exists. It's catchy as hell, and kind of on the nose for a multifandom superhero vid, but in that way that, if done right, would really, really work. For some reason I am picturing the Marvel movieverse, but also DC, and especially Robins and Batgirls. For your consideration and inspiration.

(Also, the female vocalist is Bill Oddie's daughter, so now I need to go and have a moment with my Goodies DVDs.)

This is a slow burn, since I saw Avengers, like, two weeks ago, and it was only over the weekend that I found and read a bunch of her solo comic titles. SHE IS SO GREAT. (And in volume ... 2, I think, of her 2010 solo title, she has an encounter of the potentially-deadly kind with Elektra, my other Marvel one true love, and it was the best-written and best-drawn and least-sexist version of Elektra I've seen since Frank Miller created her. (And you know your character is the buttmonkey of the entire universe when the least sexist version is Frank Miller's!)

Sexism also seems to follow Black Widow around, since apparently the solution to the lack of diversity in Avengers is to dismiss the only woman in a sea of white men as "a redhead with D cups" and then call for her replacement. That post turned up on my Tumblr dash the other day, and frankly I've been a bit mad about it since. Mostly because I'm a generously endowed redhead, and that was a kick in the self-esteem I really didn't need when I'm feeling bloated and sore and sick post-surgery. It's always nice to know I have no value in the eyes of other women save their own perceived ideas about my sexuality; that's not sexist at all.

such_heights has more.

ALSO, because Natasha hasn't had a movie, and her turn in Iron Man 2 mostly involved being undercover, people don't know much about her and tend to underestimate her. People are being wrong about her in the comments to

cleolinda's post! So here's a quick round-up of Natalia Romanoff facts, since apparently reading half a dozen comics makes me an expert:

- her name is in fact Natalia, so stop complaining that Natasha is just a nickname in Russia;
- sure, she has no superpowers, she's just in really good shape for a woman who was born in 1928;
- okay, so her superpowers come from a modified version of the supersoldier serum that created Captain America, which apparently means she's not a real superhero, IDEK, guys;
- the supersoldier serum was given to her by the Winter Soldier, a Soviet superhero who in a previous life was James "Bucky" Barnes, Captain America's best friend;
- they do good brainwashing in the Soviet Union, which Natasha could also tell you about;
- since there are times when her own identity and memory are fluid, like that time her cover identity was a ballerina in the Bolshoi Ballet. And when the Soviets give you a cover identity, they don't just mean a pair of glasses and a press pass;
- even before she received the serum, she was a trained assassin and spy, and fought on the ground at certain points in WW2. But remember, she's not a real superhero like Captain America WHY DO YOU DO THIS, FANDOM?
- some of her training was conducted by Logan, aka Wolverine, who apparently spends a lot of time hanging around impressionable young girls, turning them into lethal killing machines, and that's not creepy at all;
- Natasha's first appearance in the Marvel universe, I think, was seducing Tony Stark and seeking to destroy Stark Industries, which made my rewatch of Iron Man 2 last night oddly satisfying in terms of echos and call-backs, and IDEK, that movie's depiction of Natasha was a lot more enjoyable now I know it's not the be-all and end-all of her movie characterisation;
- it was in the '70s that Natasha defected to the West and became linked with the Avengers;
- or, I guess, in movie continuity, SHIELD;
- via espionage or actual attraction, she's been romantically linked with pretty much everyone, but her longest, and current, relationship is with Barnes. No, not Hawkeye, on account of how he's boring and has a stupid costume in the comics, and isn't even a good archer. HE DOESN'T LOOK WHERE HE'S AIMING! THAT'S NOT EVEN COOL-LOOKING, WHEDON, IT'S JUST STUPID. I don't see the point of Hawkeye ever, least of all in the movie, so finding movieverse Widowfic I like is going to be a challenge;
- so, yeah, if there's a Winter Soldier movie and it doesn't feature Natasha at least a little, I shall be displeased. Note to self: read that arc.

IN CONCLUSION, people concern trolling about how they don't think there should be a Widow movie, because she's not a real superheroine, and it wouldn't feel like it was a real part of the Marvel franchise (...huh?), and if it does badly they'll never make another superheroine movie again, so they shouldn't even try, make me unhappy. (And I know how bad a bad superheroine movie can be! I saw Elektra on the opening day! I just missed the part of feminism where women have to work harder to succeed in some fields, so they shouldn't try at all.)