The Four Color Media Monitor

A few months ago, DC outraged some folks with a Tom King-penned story in their Walmart-sold anthology where Lois Lane was shown being tortured. Now, they've compounded the injuries with insults in reprints of Michael Turner's Supergirl resurrection tale from 2004, where panels showing the rear ends of the ladies are altered so they're covered:

If you will censure Michael Turner´s work, at least bring someone who understand how butts work pic.twitter.com/d9qloiu1EK

— GENZOMAN (@MrGenzoman) April 24, 2019

I'll put it this way. The story by Jeph Loeb, such as it was, just wasn't very impressive, so the artwork only amounts to style-over-substance as a result. But censoring it as they did is no improvement either, and after that whole irritating affair with Lois shown in a dream sequence being maimed, this only compounds the hypocrisy. The Splintering notes:

DC Comics has been specifically censorious of its female characters over the past couple of years, insisting that they cover up. It is still possible that the changes to Turner’s artwork were by Walmart’s insistence, as the 100-page giant books are sold in the kid-friendly aisle near registers. (Though I regularly see The Walking Dead toys in a his same aisle) Either way, if you can’t reprint an artist’s work properly, DC, why would you opt to reprint it in the anthology in the first place?

I would point out that children taken by their parents to the beaches obviously see stuff like butts all the time. I've been to the Tel Aviv shores many times, and there's plenty of them there too, so this is all moral hypocrisy at its worst. On One Angry Gamer, it's told that:

The men, based on the reports, have basically been left alone, but the women had to undergo various kinds of redress for today’s more puritanical standards.

Women obviously aren’t allowed to dress certain ways nor can they be depicted in certain forms, even in fictional media.

Bleeding Cool’s readership were a-okay with the censorship since most of them don’t read or like comic books, nor do they want to see them sell well. This kind of censorship will likely only turn off more readers as comic book sales continue to take massive dives. Heck, Captain Marvel still can’t move 40,000 comic books a month, and struggles in the upper 30s, while the best selling comics oftentimes month in and month out, according to Comichron, are DC’s heavy hitters like Batman, or Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Continuing to purposefully de-sexualize female characters, drive away longtime fans with agitprop, and antagonize anyone who voices their opinion about the propaganda isn’t going to help the industry one bit. Both Marvel and DC have been going through a desperate cycle to find something to bring audiences back, all while still catering their sensibilities to the Regressive Left’s agenda.

Of course, such censorship is sexist, as it both makes women out to be inherently sexual, and makes sexuality out to look like an inherently bad thing. Worst: the message this delivers following the King atrocity is: innocuous visuals of a woman's sexuality are bad, but jarring violence against women is allowed. Clearly, any parents offended by King's nasty contribution to this anthology had good reason to be, and still do, as do women turned off by sensationalized violence.

That said, I still want to make clear, as noted before, that the overrated Loeb's Superman/Batman story which brought back Supergirl was nothing write home about, a case of style over substance, though what really galled me was when Harbinger/Lyla Michaels, the character introduced by Marv Wolfman in New Teen Titans who played a notable role in Crisis on Infinite Earths, was brought back in his story just to be killed by Darkseid's invaders. That was an example of one of the worst trends in superhero comics - bringing a notable character back into the spotlight after several years in obscurity just to kill them off, or worse, turn them into nasty criminals. The Supergirl solo following that book certainly was no improvement, and mistakes made there explain why the Maid of Might's since fallen so badly in success.

And as noted before, Turner really stained his resume after he drew the covers for Identity Crisis, an even worse atrocity than King's Walmart tale. Even if Turner's not as guilty as Rags Morales was for the interiors, his willingness to draw even so much as the covers is like a tacit approval of the rancid story inside, and as a result, I've had to take Turner's products with a grain of salt. Sure, it's offensive DC would censor his art in a Walmart anthology over petty issues. But some could easily wonder if this is the punishment Turner got in passing for associating himself with repellent projects that only embarrass his reputation. A talented artist, no doubt. But very poor choice of projects, one Alex Ross, by contrast, wisely avoided.

Anyway, given how mediocre Kara Zor-El's 2004 reintroduction to the DCU was, that's why most people wouldn't be missing much if they skipped the Walmart anthology. But if they think it's worth their time, they can always look for the trade paperbacks of the Superman/Batman series by Loeb instead, and that's where the art was not messed with.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, misogyny and racism, Supergirl, Superman, violence, women of dc, Wonder Woman