InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Everybody to the Limit!"

richardak (richardak) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-06-29 11:07:00

Entry tags:

char: batman/bruce wayne, char: blue beetle/ted kord, char: huntress/helena bertinelli, char: vixen/mari jiwe mccabe, creator: ed benes, creator: gail simone, creator: greg rucka, creator: j.m. dematteis, creator: keith giffen, creator: rick burchett, creator: ty templeton, in-joke: context is for the weak, series: huntress is awesome week

How Many Villains Have Done This Much Damage to the Justice League?
Not long ago, bluejaybirdie suggested a Huntress is Awesome Week, and I, along with chengar and scottyquick , agreed that was a good idea. Since then, though, there has been little follow-up. As such, I have decided to act unilaterally in kicking off Huntress is Awesome Week.

So I decided to start with a few scans of Huntress shooting and critically wounding a few Justice Leaguers.

Honestly, how many bad guys can say they've done this much damage to the League?

So here she shoots Blue Beetle to protect Maxwell Lord:

Oh, the unintentional dramatic irony.

Here's another one she feels sorry about:

And here's one I don't think she feels as sorry about:

To say that I am not generally a big fan of Ed Benes' artwork would be something of an understatement, but even I have to admit he nailed this page, especially with regard to the facial expressions, which is definitely something of a surprise from him. I especially love that dead-eyed stare Helena has in that last panel.

(Post a new comment)

	crinosg 2009-06-29 10:36 am UTC (link)
	I don't know about her not feeling sorry for shooting Vixen; The eye in that last panel is an eye full of sadness and regret. Also, that arrow in Bats chest looks like a shop. Not saying its not real, but the effects look weird, like they drew batman then edited in the arrow later. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-06-29 10:51 am UTC (link)
	Interesting take on that last panel. Obviously we see it very differently, which is a fine thing. Eye of the beholder and all that. As for the quarrel in Batman, I see what you mean. I suspect the artist wanted the quarrel to stand out to make it look more shocking. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	parsimonia 2009-06-29 10:42 am UTC (link)
	Aw, poor Ted! When would that have been, given that she's wearing her old stupid costume. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	parsimonia 2009-06-29 10:43 am UTC (link)
	That comment really should've ended in a question mark. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	richardak 2009-06-29 10:49 am UTC (link)
	It was Justice League America (the Giffen-DeMatteis-Helfer League) #26. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	parsimonia 2009-06-29 11:34 am UTC (link)
	Thanks. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	richardak 2009-06-29 12:36 pm UTC (link)
	You're welcome. (Reply to this) (Parent)

bluefall
2009-06-29 11:09 am UTC (link)

Heh. That's the Original Huntress Mk II Costume which has since been retconned into the Second Huntress Mk II Costume with the introduction of the cool black-and-purple-bodysuit one. That was back when she was still a relatively generic rape victim hero operating out of New York and not really associated with Batman, and was in fact part of the effort that slowly started to coalesce her into something more distinct (the Robin/Huntress mini and a few Showcase stories happened around this time as well IIRC).

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	parsimonia 2009-06-29 11:33 am UTC (link)
	That was back when she was still a relatively generic rape victim hero operating out of New York ... whut. Why have I never heard of this before?! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bluefall
2009-06-29 11:48 am UTC (link)

Probably because her original series sold like toe fungus and has been out of continuity for years now.

Not that it's bad per se (aside from the "child rape" nonsense, and the whole "the assassin is named Omerta" thing), it's just utterly unremarkable. None of what makes her compelling now is really present yet, and it's completely isolated from both the rest of the DCU and the character as she is now, so nobody cares about it, so nobody talks about it or references it.

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	tahngarth 2009-06-29 11:51 am UTC (link)
	A lot of DC series from that period were just like that... "utterly unremarkable". They were in some kind of post-Crisis funk or something which gave birth to tons of mediocre ongoings and limited series. Just to take an example, Roy Thomas' utterly uninspired Shazam miniseries which was to bring Billy back into the DCU... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

richardak
2009-06-29 12:34 pm UTC (link)

I have to disagree with both of you. Granted, yes, Cavalieri's Huntress ongoing left a lot to be desired in many respects, but the idea of a mafia princess with a vendetta against the mafia, which remains the core of the character, was all Cavalieri's idea, and there really would be no modern Huntress otherwise. It did take Rucka and Cry for Blood to perfect the idea though, but that's true of many great ideas.

As for DC in the late eighties, I couldn't disagree more. I think the years after the Crisis were a period of tremendous creative ferment at DC. Those were the years of the Bates/Weisman Captain Atom, the Jurgens Booster Gold, the Giffen/DeMatteis JLI, the Giffen/Bierbaum Legion of Superheroes, and others besides. I've already explained why Cavalieri's Huntress deserves credit for inspiration, even if its execution was poor. I think this was one of the highlights of the history of superhero comics.

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	richardak 2009-06-29 12:35 pm UTC (link)
	That it took a later thinker to perfect the idea, that is, not that it specifically took Greg Rucka and his Cry for Blood miniseries. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	scottyquick 2009-06-29 07:56 pm UTC (link)
	It did? I always wondered, how can you tell what a series sold like if it's not listed on those charts on Diamond. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

bluefall
2009-11-02 03:33 am UTC (link)

Usually by trades. Everything gets traded nowadays, but that's only been going on for the last five or ten years. For most of the history of the medium, only stuff that sold well got collected, so you can generally tell how popular a series was by how much of it is available now. Other clues are spinoffs and guest appearances. Multiple titles under the same umbrella means the brand is selling well (JLA in the 90s, Avengers now). Guest appearances in "exposure" books, like Showcase or Brave and the Bold, usually means "not selling well, and needs promotion." Guest appearances by Big Names also usually mean a title's not selling well - think of all the cameos in Blue Beetle, or the way Batman's name is always huge on the cover of anything he guests in, because he's there to bring eyeballs.

And then of course there's run length. HUNTRESS didn't even make 20 issues.

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	thebigapricot 2009-06-29 12:21 pm UTC (link)
	Is that Huntress featured in the Black Canary series? I love how she quotes Alice Walker. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	scottyquick 2009-06-29 12:34 pm UTC (link)
	She's in the last story arc, #9-12, which is mostly remembered for Babs-helping-Dinah and Dinah's awful, awful new look. I'm gonna post it by Thursday, hopefully! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	bluejaybirdie 2009-06-29 03:33 pm UTC (link)
	Yay, Huntress awesomeness! But man, the irony of the first scan burns. -scurries off to plan Huntress post- (Reply to this)

	aaron_bourque 2009-06-29 04:15 pm UTC (link)
	So Huntress being awesome = her attacking superheroes. . . . Remind me again why I don't care for this version of the character? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	kingrockwell 2009-06-29 09:16 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, I've gotta agree there. All of richardak's Huntress posts except for Huntress: Year One show her attacking other heroes, and I think that's kind of a bad scene to emphasize. Let's see more Helena fighting bad guys, eh? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

richardak
2009-06-29 11:34 pm UTC (link)

In two out of three of those scans, the heroes she was fighting were mind-controlled by villains and in the process of attempting to commit murder. So I think it's pretty awesome that she was willing to do what it took to stop them.

In the third case, the shooting was likely accidental, although it is possible to read it another way. But it did enable her to evade capture and I thought it was pretty cool.

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kingrockwell
2009-06-29 11:44 pm UTC (link)

In this post, yes (i'd actually read the second two in the past week (well, re-read Cry For Blood, and going through Between Dark and Dawn as i steadily collect BoP trades))
That part that's telling is when you consider this with all of your other Huntress posts, it starts looking like a habit, and Helena's so much more than showing up Batman and fighting mind-controlled heroes.

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	aaron_bourque 2009-06-29 11:59 pm UTC (link)
	In fact, the posts, taken together, make her look like some ridiculous fan-character in a 'fic that completely gets the other characters and their universe wrong. (Reply to this) (Parent)