Not being able to afford comics, I didn't know about BoP #108, but yes, I'd be offended.

Not just that it's cruel and nasty to knock people out of wheelchairs, but if that person knocked out of the wheelchair was Oracle, I'm doubly offended. She knows all sorts of martial arts and can use them from the chair.

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The difference between 113 and 108 is that, on one cover, ostensibly smart competent characters are portrayed as helpless, soon-to-be-violated shrinking violets whereass (typo, not corrected) on the other, ostensibly smart competent characters are portrayed as fiercely yowling hellcats.

Of course, in the other, ostensibly smart competent character is portrayed as a dunce who needs Misfit to teleport for her. Oh wait. I wasn't naming names, was I.

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In regards to the first paragraph, I will reply thusly: so as long as the character is outraged, it's okay to have a cat-fight as the big draw? Still, if it's helplessness that bothers people, let me point out BOP #100, where a lone Oracle (surrounded by physically superior heroines) casts her sad eyes downward to paper files she's dropped on the floor (and will have a hard time reaching in that wheelchair), all while wearing her sports bra. How about that for "competent [character] portrayed as helpless"? Not to rag on you specifically, because I know get what I'm saying.

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so as long as the character is outraged, it's okay to have a cat-fight as the big draw?

Almost right. It's more like, "As long as the character is outraged and/or determined, it's okay to put them in bad situations" for definitions of bad that presumably include tentacle rape.

(Cat)Fight between equals* or near-equals is perfectly fine, as far as I'm concerned.

BOP #100, where a lone Oracle (surrounded by physically superior heroines) casts her sad eyes downward to paper files she's dropped on the floor (and will have a hard time reaching in that wheelchair),

I can fanwank that cover in any number of ... okay, well *at least* two ways that don't mean that. One would be that all those physically superior heroines completely fail to meet her requirements (coughDinahcoffcoff). Disappointed, she dashes the files to the floor uncaring of whether she'll ever need to pick them up again -- which she won't (perfect memory, remember ;D)

However, I must acknowledge that even the better DC writers and artists fail to acknowledge the practical realities of Wheelchair let alone the kind of wheelchair Oracle would - no, should use**.


*Please note: I do not actually consider Spy Smasher to be anywhere close to the equal of _your_ Oracle or mine.

**You see where this goes, yes? We've batted that that particular issue around more than a lot and as usual, it ends the same way: it'll never happen until you or I or someone with a lick of editorial guts gains a position of power at DC ...

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"As long as the character is outraged and/or determined, it's okay to put them in bad situations" for definitions of bad that presumably include tentacle rape.

On the one hand, I totally dig what you're saying, because it pretty much legitimizes the bulk of my softcore, Stargirl art collection. One the other hand, I can easily fanwank the HOH #13 cover by saying that Brood tentacle spum is a natural anesthetic that gets absorbed through the skin, and the reason they all look drugged into submission is because they are drugged into submission. I'm not a fan of the HOH cover -- defiance is much more attractive than apathetic submission -- but I wish someone would make a list of where all these arbitrary lines of offense are drawn*.

I'm debating making a second post about this, because the more I watch the fandom, the more I see sexism being treated as this polarizing force. "Equality" isn't a 2D scale, it's a multi-dimensional matrix with "healthy straight, white male" down in one corner and "alien hermaphrodite brain in a jar" on the other, and everything comes in-between. People laud BOP as being a great example of how to write women, but that example comes at the expense of token handicap character. I'm concerned (as always) that in trying to reach sexual equality in comics, fans are forgetting (if not inciting) a host of other problems.

-

*What I'd like is a chart, by which to gauge just how much of a pervert I am.

"Well, Harley Quinn does have Stargirl is tied to the sawmill, but Stargirl looks defiant."

"And she's other eighteen in the picture."

"Yes, and you at least have taste enough that Harley hasn't stripped Satrgirl naked. This ranks you in the forty-third percentile of perverts. Forty-two percent of comic fans are more disturbed than you."

I probably worry about this kind of thing too much for my own good, but...it seems relevant to the debate. One day I guess I need to post about "Strong Female Characters, a Deathtrap Fetishists Opinion."

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But ... tentacle rape is entertainment! I have a shelf of video that says so ...

Er, yeah. Moreso than smacking Oracle around, anyway. I mean, I'm sure there's a niche, but it's not worth marketing to.

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Comics use titaltion to move products?

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Mmmm, titalation ...

Speaking of titalation and Oracle, you'll like this: http://community.livejournal.com/tandj_asmp/52047.html

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I disagree with his "can't run organization from jail," and cite The Mad Thinker as proof.

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Well, you know, you tweak things to match the needs of individual characters. The Mad Thinker may have something equally strange. :)

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Dude... knocking people out of wheel chairs isn't cool????

But... we made a league and uniforns :(

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I assume you have their legal consent, and this isn't some kind of "art" project.

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Say what?

I'll have to take a gawk at that when I'm not eating fishyrice and reading web on my fone.

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That cover doesn't look like sport to me. Oracle's foe looks out for blood, and Oracle looks like she fully means to draw some. To me this cover looks like one mean, desperate fight, something the H4H cover does not. No one's fighting there; no one has a hand wrapped around anyone's throat; three women are half-stripped, chained, and strung up for anyone's viewing pleasure. How does that equate with a fully clothed Barbara Gordon, with her upper body strength, digging her fingers into her enemy's throat?

Are you saying that a person with disabilities out of her wheelchair is without power? Then it seems to me you're talking about your issues about people in wheelchairs, not about whether Oracle is humiliated, disempowered, and exposed to the slavering interest of anyone who wants to see her brought down.

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Are you saying that a person with disabilities out of her wheelchair is without power?

I'm saying they aren't as powerful, I'm saying it's a depowering pose. I notice on your web site that you can stand up. Have you ever not been able to walk? Have you ever been in a situation where your own body was more worthless ballast than working machine? I'm guessing not, otherwise you'd be aware just how frightening and embarrassing it is sitting on the ground, looking up, and knowing that without help you're up going very far.

I'm in a wheelchair, and thus I know that I'm not completely powerless out of my chair. I also know that in a fight, should I be knocked out of my chair, my chances of defense and/or escape drop dramatically. Yes, Barbara's fighting back, which is something, but you said it yourself, it's a "desperate fight." It's a lot more desperate a fight than it would be if she were in her chair with escrima sticks; I dare say it's a hopeless fight if Spy Smasher breaks loose, uses her good leg to roll/scoot away, and then shoots Barbara before she can get back in her chair.

...whether Oracle is humiliated, disempowered, and exposed...

Whether you want to believe it of not, being out of the wheelchair does disempower and expose her. If Spy Smasher brought back up, is wearing transponder with back-up on the way, or can put distance between her and Barbara -- yes, I recognize one leg is shot, but that still gives her both one more leg and one less dead weight she has to drag around -- Barbara would be dead.

And that's not even touching on the weeks Barbara will have to spend watching her legs making sure there were no broken bones, dislocated joints, or bloodclots from the fall and fight.

Maybe if I hadn't fallen out of my chair a few times, hadn't known paraplegics who had to be mindful of something as simple as a bruise that could turn into a gaping hole in their leg (because they couldn't feel and treat the damage), or done my own research into paraplegics (because I'm a fan of Oracle) I could look at that cover and see a fight. However, knowing what I know, when I look at that cover, I don't see an empowered struggle, I see a familiar, embarrassing, and painful situation that has the potential to have Barbara laid up, away from her computers, for a long time.

And then I get people telling me, that my experience in such matters is less than trivial because they don't know how difficult such things really are.

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