swatkat

+ Rec:
Mama Said Knock You Out by AbsoluteDestiny, featuring everybody's favourite mother-and-daughter duo, Toph and Lin Beifong. Watch it, because it's glorious.

+ I'm all caught up on Warehouse 13, and ( spoilers till 4.04 ) One of the best things about Warehouse 13 is all the unusual love stories it tells, and its commitment to telling these stories and not pushing them to the sidelines in favour of yet another love story between the two heterosexual leads.

+ I read Wonder Woman #12, and can we discuss this please, guys? ( spoilers )

And that wasn't enough, we had a Batwoman and Wonder Woman team-up in Batwoman #12! Which is a three-issue arc! ( spoilers )

Batwoman also teamed up with Batgirl in Batgirl #12, ( spoilers )

Birds of Prey #12 was fun, although I'm not entirely sure where they're headed? Oh well. The #0 issues next month should be something to look forward to.

I was re-reading Batgirl #24, and god, I hope someday I'm able to revisit this series without getting a little teary-eyed because this was, for about the course of the fifteen months or so when I followed the title every month, my #1 pick-me-up, the one thing that never failed to cheer me up. I do not know how Stephanie Brown replaced Barbara Gordon as the Batgirl of my heart, except that I now think of the DCnU and realise that Barbara's Robin is now Damian, and a part of my heart just shrivels up and dies.

It is a difficult time to be a Bat-fan, in some ways—Snyder's Batman might be on fire, but for those of us who had fallen in love with a particular set of characters and relationships in a status quo that was never going to last (I realise now, reboot or no), and who are, perhaps, less used to reboots/cancellations/resurrections the way long-term comics fans undoubtedly are, the Batverse doesn't feel like our Batverse anymore. Barbara's Robin is Damian and Damian's Batman is Bruce and Stephanie and Cassandra are god knows where, and that is very, very painful. Equally painful is the knowledge the Black Canary and Oracle, as I knew them, were probably never friends that way, or that Huntress, as I knew her, no longer exists. It's only the end if you want it to be notwithstanding, fandom is hard.

It's also a difficult time to be a Barbara fan, in some ways—because I am, Barbara's girl through and through, and even the loss of Oracle won't change that, even if I despair over how much they have erased along with it. Apart from Wonder Woman, Barbara is the only female character of the DCU to have any sort of legacy, and it isn't coincidental that both Diana and Barbara's legacy's have been severely affected in the DCnU—with the erasure of Donna Troy, with the seeming disappearance of Diana's supporting cast (even STRIFE—yes, I refer to her in ALLCAPS now—cannot make up for the loss of Phillipus or Artemis), with the erasure/benching of all the three women who wore the Batgirl suit after Barbara, with the re-writing of the history of the Birds of Prey (from what we've seen of it).

It was, therefore, a bit of a surprise when I finally picked up the new Birds of Prey and found myself enjoying it tremendously: ( spoilers till BoP #5 )

I will also admit to shamelessly shipping Dinah/Evelyn. The subtext is certainly there, and while I was earlier held back by my Babs/Dinah OTPness, I've now come to accept the fact that Barbara and Dinah as I knew them don't exist anymore. (This is not to say I won't ship Babs and Dinah once more once we get to know these characters a little better, note.)

Wonder Woman, of course, has been an utter joy—despite my various misgivings, I've enjoyed the title thoroughly. ( spoilers for Wonder Woman #5 )

PS: DIANA'S GUN SHOOTS LOVE BULLETS, YOUR ARGUMENTS ARE INVALID.

I'm not sure I'm going to finish reading the Huntress mini right now. I thought I was reading about my Huntress, and I wasn't—I feel a little cheated to be honest. This will, of course, change if the new book is good and I grow to like Helena Wayne, but right now I need some time to mourn the Huntress I loved.

+

netgirl_y2k has written fabulous DVD commentaries of Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle (Morgana/many female characters) and Walk Softly and Carry a Large Stick (Cara/Kahlan), with wonderful insights into the characters that you should run to read right now. Or read the stories first, if you haven't already.

High D'Haran Love Poetry by nike_ravus (Legend of the Seeker, Berdine/Raina): This is not a pairing I normally read, because I don't care about the bookverse and I don't know the characters at all, but the writer introduces them as 'their TV-show version incarnations. These are the girls who would hang out with our Cara and (sometimes) put up with her shit', which is really all I needed to know. At 20K words, it's a sharp, intriguing - and at times disconcerting - look at the world of the Mord'Sith, and a consideration of the eternal problem: "How do Mord'Sith fall in love? No really, how?" Read this right now, and go shower your love upon the author so that she writes more stories in this fandom.

+ This is Bridget Regan on Person of Interest. You're welcome. (favouriteyear pointed me to it - I haven't actually seen the episode, but I am tempted).

+ This is the preview for Batman: Leviathan Strikes. It... appears to be set in pre-Flashpoint DCU. But Steph is Spoiler. Wut?

This, meanwhile, is the preview for Wonder Woman #4. Strife is my very favourite. I want her to stay forever and ever and be the Loki to Diana's Thor. Seriously, her EXPRESSIONS, and Diana's responses - Cliff Chiang is a god amongst men (he's also clearly having fun with his rockstar!Diana headcanon): ( image under cut )

WHY IS IT NOT WONDER WOMAN TIME YET

(It feels strange, being excited about a Wonder Woman issue. Strange, and awesome.)

Miller says goodbye to Batgirl. I cry a bucket.

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good. /melodrama

No, seriously, I cannot express how disappointed I am about this. It's late and I should be off to sleep because I have to wake up at SIX tomorrow, ugh, but all I can think is: WHY ARE THEY TAKING THIS AWAY FROM ME WHY?

I've come to the conclusion that if Batman is the King of Manpain, then Jaime Reyes is the anti-Batman.

( this post is an excuse to shirk work and post panels. tl;dr, and there are images under the cut )
+

I cannot believe I've failed to mention this here, but Bryan Q. Miller said he liked gabzilla-z's Oracle!Steph comic. \0/

+ While I still have many feelings about the rebootylicious DCnU (most of them involve Oracle; one of these days I'll put together all my comments everywhere on this topic), there's one thing that never fails to cheer me up: TIM HAS WINGS NOW. TIMMY WILL FLYYYYYYY, LIKE A BIRD IN THE SKY.

And then there's always the Steph as Oracle comic that I keep looking at every now and then.

+ I'm heartbroken about the Birds of Prey (whyy can't we have the real team and Renee along with it, why do Hawk and Dove have a book), I'll admit I like the September solicit:

BIRDS OF PREY #1
Written by DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI
Art and cover by JESUS SAIZ
On sale SEPTEMBER 21 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
One is wanted for a murder she didn’t commit. The other is on the run because she knows too much. They are Dinah Laurel Lance and Ev Crawford – a.k.a. Black Canary and Starling – and together, as Gotham City’s covert ops team, they’re taking down the villains other heroes can’t touch. But now they’ve attracted the attention of a grizzled newspaper reporter who wants to expose them, as well as a creepy, chameleon-like strike team that’s out to kill them.

It's intriguing. Who knows, maybe Barbara will show up soon, once things settle down in her book? And Huntress, obviously.

+ Glee S2 premieres here in a few days, so the channel airing it made this promo:

( embed under cut )

I ♥ the mash-up.* The Bollywood comparison is apt, although I do think Glee would have to work a lot harder if it were ever to match up to the mainstream Hindi melodrama at its best, where the comics plotlines and serious plotlines don't feel like two different stories and where the songs are really that good.

* Yes, that's 'Character Dheela' from Ready. Which, BTW, I watch last weekend and dear god - watch it only if you're fluent in Priyadarshanese. And preferably after consuming a lot of alcohol.

+ ( random photographs )

COMICS FANDOM IS HARD, HOW DO PEOPLE DEAL WITH THIS ON A REGULAR BASIS

Grading is hell. At least I have found my red pen.

This post in scans_daily on Barbara's love for blondes however offered me great joy, especially the part where Peej - noticing Steph and Cass - says, 'You're picking them younger and younger, Oracle.' Someday, Steph is going to find out that Barbara's bitter ex-girlfriend thinks she's one of her ~conquests, and troll Babs for the REST OF HER LIFE. Possibly calling her 'Sugar mommy' all the time.

Also there was this: ( Quiet or... )

STEPHANIE BROWN vs. SECRET ASSASSIN SCHOOLGIRLS

Thank you, comic book gods, that's all I asked of life. And another title for Wonder Woman.

If this preview of Batgirl 15 isn't the cutest thing ever, I don't know what is. I won't even complain about the lack of Cassandra. ILU BATGIRL ♥

PS: Masterful summation of 70 years of Bat-history, I must say, albeit with the GLARING OMISSION of Cass (all the more ludicrous because Cass and Steph are friends, FFS).


+


( hideously large images under cut; i mean it )

Slightly belated Diwali wishes to all. I only took about 300 or so photos yesterday. *facepalm*