As most of you know who read comics, Shining Knight was revealed to be a girl and I think it was a great twist by Grant Morrison. Most of the female superheroes have big breats but Shining Knight has a flat chest and she looks a little masculine. It doesn’t matter, though, because she kicks ass and has a strong moral code.
Who ever read Shining Knight don’t you think girls would be more impressed with her than Wonder Woman? Why or why not?
You know…you really oughtn’t put spoilers in the title of a thread less than a week after the work in question comes out. I still haven’t read most of my books from this month since I was on vacation until Thursday. Shining Knight was one of them. I really hope there was more to this issue than the reveal of this fact.
As to the premise you present.
No, she isn’t.
She’s a different type than, Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Zatanna, Supergirl, Hawkgirl, Stargirl, Black Alice or so on…
But they’re different from eachother, too. And being different doesn’t make her better.
What about Sir Ystin makes her better than Wondie? That she doesn’t show as much skin? That she’s a little less pretty, more boyish, in her appearance? Hell, beyond that (and that fact that presumably Ystin isn’t an animated clay statue, and comes from a patriarchal, rather than matriarchal society), how are they even significantly DIFFERENT? Everything that you say in her favour can apply to Diana, too.
Does the fact that Peeg has big tits negate everything else about her character? (Well, OK, when she’s handled badly (which is often enough), they usually do take over. But the writer using her most right now - Geoff Johns - knows how to handle her.)
And, changing the subject, why does the fact that she ‘kicks ass and has a strong moral code’ mean that her appearance doesn’t matter? Why would it matter if she were a lesser warrior, or had a lesser moral code?
Pure male wet dream and complete denial of femininity aren’t the only choices for female characters. Neither is bad, inherantly, to be honest, nor are they really better or worse than eachother.
I daresay my experience - characters like Black Canary, Oracle, Stargirl, Batgirl, and, yes, Wonder Woman and Power Girl being very well liked by female readers because they’re usually used neither purely as sex objects, nor as completely sexless, and are interesting characters, who aren’t turned into stereotypes either in an attempt to pander to male fantasy or in a (usually failed) attempt to counter characters who do pander to those fantasies - holds true in general.
And a thought brought up by my mention of Peeg. It’s how the character is presented that is important, not, strictly, the character’s appearance.
Peeg, despite her famous bosom, is currently presented in a way that isn’t sexist, is very interesting, and doesn’t insult the readers, male or female.
Ystin, with a bad team handling her, could end up as much of a sexist stereotype as any big-bosomed bimbo - a woman who has to give up all vestiges of the female to be strong.
Hey sorry about, man. I thought everyone had already posted to the new comics thread, my bad. It won’t happen, again.
Anyway, I like Wonder Woman and Batgirl but Shining Knight really stands for something because she is flat chested and masculine looking so she’s not a male wet fantasy like Black Canary and the other “heroines” (by the way Zatanna and Black Canary aren’t heroes because they took part in the mind wipe).
Have you seen Supergirl? She looks like Paris Hilton. She isn’t a role model for anybody, same thing with Powergirl.
By the way, Shining Knight’s moral code comes from King Arthur and those of that ilk so she has strong moral codes and she abides by therm not unlike Black Canary who won’t deal with the repercussions of her actions but instead will mindwipe somebdoy. Not a role model too me.
Who are Peeg and Ystin? Never heard of them.
Oh crap Ystin is Shining Knight. Damn, my bad.
And yes alot more happens than that reveal, hell, that reveal happens in the first couple pages of the comic.
Peeg == PG == Power Girl. Black Canary used that nickname for her in Birds of Prey.
Ystin is just a variant on Justin. Used when she was speaking her native tongue. Serves to separate her from the other Sir Justin.
Random sidenote - The idea that Black Canary or Zatanna aren’t heroes because they made a hard choice - and I won’t even say the wrong one, because there WAS no right choice in that situation - is beyond ridiculous. But it’s a discussion for another thread, and one I won’t join in because I tend to get a little over-excited when I do.
But back on topic - your dismissal of Peeg is even worse than that. Yes, she’s attractive. Yes she has big tits. Dismissing her character completely because of that is absurd and sexist. Every bit as much so as liking her exclusively for that reason. She’s intelligent, strong, and skilled, and while she’s terribly insecure (and given how she’s been jerked around, and the fact she’s constantly dismissed because of her boobs in the text as well as out, I don’t blame her), she’s more than able to get past that and be extremely good at almost everything she sets out to do - mostly excepting interpersonal relations. She’s an interesting, complex character - and as realistic as you can be in a superhero meleu - a fact that’s not negated by the fact that she’s also pretty.
She might not be a very good role model (I wouldn’t present someone as insecure as she is as an object of emulation), but not every character has to be worth emulating to be a good character, and it’s not her looks that make her a less than ideal role model.
Not meaning to beat a dead horse here, but I rarely if ever post in the new comics thread because I let my comics stack up in my box at my local shop, so there’s good chance if it’s recent I don’t know about it. Also I, like a lot of others around here, wait for the TPB to come out before I read a series, and that was exactly what I was doing with Morrison’s Seven Soldiers stuff. Not a big deal tho’, cause if her sex was revealed in the first issue it can’t be too big of spoiler.
Power Girl has always struck me as crude and arrogant. I think most girls won’t relate too her because well she’s a bitch (see Justice League Europe). I think Ystin is a bigger role model because she doesn’t boss around her team mates and is actually tough while Power Girl relies on her super powers. Have you seen the cover to JSA Classified #1 look how huge her tits are they’re like double Ds I think that will make a girl turn away in disgust any time.
I think Ystin would be more encouraging to girls because of her flat chest, meaning that a girl doesn’t have to have big tits to kick ass in battle. Besides, most girls who read comics are probably insecure about themselves (like most men too) and will look up to a hero like Ystin who are more like themselves (small tits). Not to mention little girls who are getting into comics for the first time.
You think wrong, in my experience, and I feel confident enough that my experience is, while not universal, generally applicable, to continue stating my point.
Most female readers aren’t going to be turned off just because Peeg has big tits. (BTW, DD? I’d guess Peeg is pushing an F.) They might be put off by the cheesecake Adam Hughs cover of JSAC #1 (which is awful, BTW - not for the cheesecake, it’s just badly drawn - I went for the Conner/Palmotti cover, myself), but, again, that’s my point. She’s being presented as naught but a sex object, and that’s the problem - not that she has a big bosom.
Anyone who wasn’t put off by Adam Hughs portrayal of her - either because they ignored the cover, or saw the Conner/Palmotti cover instead - and actually read the story, or read how she’s written in JSA, and STILL dismissed her because she has big tits…well, the problem is theirs, is all I can say.
The women I know, however, for the most part are more mature than that, and actually judge her by how she’s actually portrayed - by both the writers and the artists - not by her character design.
Wow… you’re putting a lot of meaning into breast size. Ystin isn’t necessarily completely flat chested in any case… her chest is bound, which means that there something worth binding. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up having a small to medium chest similar to Kitty Pryde’s.
Not really. I don’t care if a female character has big breasts she can still be a role model (see Wonder Woman who is a great role model). It’s just that Power Girl is a bitch. I don’t like Johns’s writing so that’s why I haven’t picked up JSA Classified so maybe she’s changed but still, that cover will turn off any self-respecting woman.
Face it, Power Girl just looks like a slut and so does the “new” Supergirl.
I agree. I don’t care how powerful a character or how full of personality, as soon as a superheroine decides that the best outfit to fight crime/evil/whatever is something more suited to a stripper they’ve lost me.
For my money the best female superheroes are Spidergirl, who just wears a spare Spiderman costume, and the Catwoman for the first 25 issues of the current series. Then to boost sales they switched artists to someone that draws her like a 10 dollar whore again and my interest vanished.
Amen, brother. I loved it when Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart and those other artists (forget there names at the moment) were on the books until Paul Gulacy came on and ruined everything. It was a great book and Catwoman was a hell of a role model so is Spider-Girl even though I don’t like her current book but that’s probably because I’m too old (I’m only 18 lol) to appreciate it. I’m sure younger girls would love it because it’s really aimed at a younger demographic.
2 points:
You’re making claims about Peeg when the only stories involving her you read were humourous stories written almost 20 years ago (none of the characters were at their best in those books), and explained away later on (her (assumed at the time to be magical) nature gave her an allergy to the soda she drank). Not a good thing to do. She’s always been strong-willed and outspoken, but ‘bitchy’ is a blip on her personality scale.
Two, you’re making rather condescending comments about real women, as well as fictional ones.
‘Any self-respecting woman’ would be ‘disgusted’ by a little bit of light cheesecake? Not any that I know (that’s including my last two girlfriends, my best friends, my mother, and my grandmother). Turned off of the book, perhaps, but disgusted, no.
I’m going to assume the bit about insecurity and small tits was just ill-phrased and you believe neither that every small-chested girl is insecure, or every insecure girl has a small chest.
Peeg and Supergirl are dressed like sluts? Their costumes are a little on the revealing side for street-wear, but hardly slutty. (Which is something I’m loath to call a woman, anyway.) This is especially bizzare since you mentioned you think Wonder Woman is a great role model, and she shows as much skin as Peeg - it’s just that it’s a different part of her boobs that is visible - and more skin that’s usually covered than Supergirl, whose breasts are covered completely by her top (although her tummy is bared).
And, again, Ystin isn’t any better a role-model than any other female character based on the features you’re assuming are important.
Yeah, not every girl has big tits like Peeg. And Ystin doesn’t show as much skin as her or Wondie. But 3/4 issues of Shining Knight, Ystin was thought to be a man. ‘You have to deny your femaleness to be powerful’ is as destructive a lesson as ‘you have to have big tits and be slutty to get respect as a woman’.
Now, I don’t think Ystin actually teaches that lesson - but nor does Peeg, or any of the other characters who show a lot of skin tech the other (at least not in DC or Marvel’s books, currently. Some of the lesser companies are run by sexist yahoos).
Variety is a good thing, but just because a character inserts a little more variety doesn’t make her better than the other characters.
I once thought like you. Then I had some mature relationships - romantic/sexual, friendly and familial - with adult women - confident, insecure, supermodel gorgeous, frumpy, outgoing, introverted, large breasted, small breasted, all of them in various combinations - and I realised I was being as sexist and condescending as the ‘BIG TITS ROOL!’ types.
Okay, you were right when I made the generalization that girls with small tits are insecure and I aploigize I misphrased it but I’m only 18 but I have had mature realtionships too with two girls in my lifetime so I don’t appreciate you saying “I’ve had relationships but you haven’t so I know better,” if you weren’t doing that I apoligize it’s late so maybe I misread it.
Anyway back to the topic at hand, I meant Ystin doesn’t slut herself around like Powergirl or Supergirl does. When I admitted to my ex-girlfriend I liked comics and showed her some female characters she was turned off on how Powergirl used her sexuality to try to impress the guys instead of being herself. She has no personality and I have read some JSA comics and she still acts like a bitch. She just acts like the typical tough girl I see all the time in blockbuster movies. Ystin is tough, also, but she’s subtler about it and she doesn’t flaunt herself off to the guys like the others too. The cool thing about Ystin that she was “thought to be a man” because she proved herself to be an individual instead of someone with just big tits who dress up in a pervert suit. Ystin actually wears real clothes you would wear unlike PG and SG who wear outfits designed for a strip club.
Wonder Woman is an UN ambassador and she’s actually written well in her book so she is a good role model for young girls I just think Ystin is better because girls won’t have to puke up their food to stay skinnier or try to get breast implants to realize they can count as people without the extra baggage and I think Ystin is a perfect example of that.
You’re doing it again.
Comments like this, and calling Power Girl, as she’s currently portrayed, a bitch, are incredibly sexist. Strong-willed and outspoken do not equal bitchy. And ‘slutty’ is an inappropriate term to apply to pretty much anyone, and it’s doubly so for PG and SG, since neither of them displays any of the qualities that are actually part of the definition (sexist and insulting as it is) of ‘slut’.
She was thought to be a man because she lacked anything of the feminine. She looked like a man. She acted like a man. She was different than the original Sir Justin (who really is a man) only in subtle ways before she was revealed to be female. She is not ‘an individual’, any more than Peeg or Supergirl are - she is a completely average ‘male’ character - it just turned out she wasn’t actually a male.
‘Pervert suit’…sheesh, go to a beach or waterpark, kid.
You’re making extremely insulting generalizations about women, to support your (incorrect) claim that Ystin is a better character, a better role model, and that women would like her better than Peeg, or Black Canary, or whoever.
She’s no better, and no worse than a more feminine character, or a character with bigger breats, or a more overtly sexual character.
A woman can have big breasts, or show skin without being a slut.
A woman can be outspoken without being a bitch.
A woman can be feminine without being weak.
A woman can also be masculine, and still be a woman.
Addressing this point:
Once again, if Diana is going to make girls get eating disorders or plastic surgery because they think that’s what needs to be done to be taken seriously, then by the same logic, Ystin’s denial of all things feminine is going to have an equally destructive effect - the lesson from her, if the lesson from Diana is ‘Big boobs == taken seriously! Get implants!’, is ‘Feminine == not taken seriously! Be like a boy!’
I can guarantee you, you know at least as many girls who’d have a harder time living up to Ystin than Wonder Woman as vice versa.
Having Ystin, Diana, Peeg, Black Canary, Oracle, Batgirl, Black Alice, and all these other diverse female characters - with ranges of appearance, personality, ranging from the boyish to the girly, from confident to insecure, highly sexed to almost sexless (I could go on, but all the various scales I could compare them on is rather a long list) - is a good thing, both as far as simply having interesting characters, and as far as having role-models go.
Truth be told, Power Girl is one of the first real feminist characters in comics. Back in the late 70s, when she showed up in All-Star, she was dealing with issues that few other characters were. How to make your way in a world full of men older, with more experience, and who, truthfully, know more than you, while still finding out who you are as yourself, without falling into the mold they make for you.
She’s always been a little insecure on the inside, and a lot of bravado on the outside. She’s known she’s never been as strong as the ‘other’ Supergirl since before Crisis. She’s always been second best… but she’s never once defined herself in relation to Superman, as a shadow. She’s taken him as an ideal to live up to, sure, but she’s not a reflection.
This recent miniseries has really taken a lot from her first appearances… and her later ones, too, but they’ve defined the character as well as she’s ever been.
Justin does things as well as any man.
Wonder Woman does things better.
Power Girl is who she is. Doesn’t deny it, either. I’d have to say she’s the best use of huge breasts in comics. It’s a strange statement, but if you want to express sexuality, it’s the simplest artistic shorthand. And in a world of heroines, hers get noticed, commented on, dealt with, in the positive and negative ways. It’s odd to be celebrating a treatment of big breasts, but she’s the opposite of the Image/Liefeld types. They simply make her more real, not less so.
You know, Ystin is a Grant Morrison character. It may very well be that “she’s” not just masquerading as a man, but is actually transgendered. Morrison’s done it before.
In which case it would be impolite (or at least it would be if Ystin was real) to call Ystin “her” or to think about him as a female.
There’s not enough evidence to support that yet. Ystin hasn’t been in the 21st century long enough to see that masquerading as a male isn’t strictly necessary, let along react to that fact, but it’s still a very real possiblity.
What Tengu said.
Let’s go back to the 1920’s in a rare non-deathray-related trip. The flapper cut her hair short, like a man. She drank like a man. She cursed like a man. She smoked like a man. She bound her breasts to look like a man.
A woman needing to dress and behave like a man in order to be taken seriously is a bad thing.
Re Powergirl And Supergirl
So Kyle Rayner1 you want women to be confident and empowered, but if they dress in a manner you don’t like they’re sluts?
This earlier conversation maybe enlightening. I stand by my comments in that thread:
On preview: good points DocCathode. There’s a canonical reason for the outfits. As Stargirl said to Supergirl in Supergirl #1 “I’m glad to see you went with the bare mid-drift. It keeps the guys eyes off our fists.” As for Power Girl (minor spoiler for JSA: Classified #2)
When PG was designing her costume she wanted a logo on her chest (ala Supes) but couldn’t think of anything, so she left an opening there to be filled eventually. She still hasn’t found her place.