Friday, June 02, 2006

Mmmm...Batwoman

It appears that Detective Comics is bringing back Batwoman, whom DC killed off in 1979 and whom you shouldn't confuse for Batgirl. But there's a twist: Batwoman is now a lesbian*.

Now, I've always been a detractor of the various Bat-family characters: Batwoman, the various Batgirls, and especially all the Robins. I feel that they undermine the central character of Batman. Further, I'm always irritated with female characters that are simple knock-offs of male characters**. Despite my own misgivings, I expect that this new, black-clad lesbian Batwoman---compare this rendering with these of the original, purse-carrying version---will be embraced by the fanboys. I mean, she's a lesbian, and look what she's wearing. In fact, I predict that, after Batwoman's initial success, she will "turn" Catwoman and there'll be an issue devoted entirely to the two of them making out.

Mmmm...Catwoman.

* This change seems to be part of a broader, ongoing effort by DC to increase the ethnic and sexual diversity of its superfolk.

** See also Spider-Girl and all the versions of Spider-Woman.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah, did you read "the Death of Robin", where the fans actually voted to kill Robin off?

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  2. Yep, in "A Death in the Family," the second Robin, Jason Todd, was killed off based on a fan vote:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_A_Death_in_the_Family

    I enthusiastically endorse this brutal murder.

    Apparently, the writers felt that Batman needed a lighter-hearted character to throw his dark, brooding persona in to relief*, because there have been 2 more Robins after Todd in the canonical continuity: Timothy Drake and Stephanie Brown. (Brown was, as you might guess, a girl.)

    * I've always thought, some would say pessimistically, that Batman kept the brightly clad Boy Wonder around to draw fire away from his darkly caped self. As evidence for this theory, I point to the on-the-job deaths of Robins 2 and 4 (Todd and Brown).

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