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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

"Bad Girl"

Is there anything hotter than taking a character known for her virginal innocence and filling her with darkness and evil?

I see nothing wrong with these plotlines per se. Provided that the writers don't go the route of making "Dark" Mary Marvel not just "bad" but "naughty schoolgirl" bad.

I mean, with Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" she turned bad but not into a nymphomaniac. On the other hand, I'm not sure of what happened in the comics, but in the X-Men 3 movie Phoenix/Jean Grey seemed not only "badddd" -- she was horny.

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

"Bad" seems to have two different meanings when referring to female characters. No such ambiguity, as far as I know, follows Luthor, Doom, or the Mole Man around.

Here's Jerry Ordway's take on the whole Mary Marvel/"Seduction of the Innocent" storyline, from Comic Book Resources (via Fanboy Wonder)

“I had issues with the time that Peter David “borrowed” Mary Marvel for a Supergirl crossover, and immediately wanted to have her sexually molested in his story. Then Keith Giffen wanted her to lose her virginity in Formerly Known as the Justice League! Now it looks like the movement to gritty Mary up are finally getting their way in Countdown.

“I know there are fans out there who are disdainful of any character who is wholesome and good, and dream of dragging that character through the mud just for spite. I go to comic stores, and have heard it all.

“As to the dark Mary Marvel– it’s just playing into a few fans’ hands. Whether it turns out well or not will play out in Countdown. I have 3 kids who like different stuff, and variety makes the world go round, but I do steer them clear of most of the mainstream comics.

“They can read what they want when they are older, but I have introduced them to appropriate material first. But having every comic book feature dark, moody and self-centered teens or adults is shortchanging the marketplace of positive, heroic, self sacrificing HEROES. With dark, you must have some light. The Marvel Family and Superman were heroes to look up to, because they did the right thing, even when that choice meant sacrifice from them.

“I’m no prude, but if you want to “violate” the intent of a character, create a new damn character, will you? Just my opinion.”

8 comments:

  1. Is there anything hotter than taking a character known for her virginal innocence and filling her with darkness and evil?

    Somehow, that sounds dirty.

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  2. "Somehow, that sounds dirty."

    Well, not as dirty as "Giant-Sized Man-Thing #1," but...

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  3. Actually that gets me thinking, there aren't any notably chaste female villian characters, are there? THAT could be an interesting spin.
    (And I don't think I'm projecting my own psychological issues onto this. It just seems a novel concept within modern comics.)

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  4. I haven't gotten Countdown today, but so far it doesn't look too bad from the introduction of Black Mary. The real eye-roller will be whether they try to make Black Adam's power really EEEEEEVIL for her. It wasn't the power that made Black Adam go nuts, it was the fact that his wife and brother-in-law were murdered.

    While the "Seduction of the Innocent" tagline really was poorly conceived considering the amount of sexually-charged content in comics, I think rather that Mary's going to be seduced by power and not actual sex.

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  5. I was far too busy yawning from the three issues it took to get Mary all evil-filled to wonder at the ramifications of adding some darkness to a typically good character. I thought Countdown was supposed to keep up with what's happening weekly in the DC Universe? If this were 52, the whole sequence between Adam and Mary would have taken something like five pages. As it is, I can only imagine there was lots of napping between exchanged dialogue.

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  6. The seduction part is because of Eclipso, not Black Adam...

    And Eclipso is a chick... so girl on girl seduction?

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  7. "so girl on girl seduction?"

    sales gold! (provided it's all "subtextual", of course)

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  8. Actually that gets me thinking, there aren't any notably chaste female villian characters, are there? THAT could be an interesting spin.

    Mercy Graves, Lex Luthor's assistant / bodyguard...

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