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shapinglightFurther to my comics post of the other day. I promise I’ll stop after this. I know very few people on my flist are interested.
So, because I was bored yesterday, I went back to the CBR forum, and boy, do they have a lot of posts on that site (note to self: do NOT get sucked into posting there). I couldn’t even find the thread I was looking at the other day (the ‘the end of Rogneto’ one), but did find several others that were Magneto-related and therefore interesting to me. One wanted people to vote as to who Magneto should shack up with next (Namor the Submariner was winning last time I looked – not really a serious suggestion initially, I think, but the slashers jumped on it with glee), and there was one thread asking whether it was time to kill Magneto off for good, the way Professor X has been killed off in this Avengers vs X-Men story (which, of course, made me laugh cynically, because I can’t remember how many times both characters have been killed off in the past and, like Dracula, they always come back).
I also learned some stuff I didn't know before while lurking there– like that Rogue/Gambit ‘shippers are called Romy ‘shippers (Gambit’s first name is Remy) and that though – as previously mentioned – Magneto is way more like Angel as a character than he is like Spike – the Romy ‘shippers sound exactly like Bangel ‘shippers at their most self-righteous, while the Rogneto ‘shippers (well, the one I saw, they're few and far between) insist Magneto is redeemed already and was never that bad to start with anyway.
Swap the names, and it could almost have been an argument taking place right now somewhere in the Buffy fandom (probably on Tumblr).
One big difference, though: most people – ‘shippers and non-'shippers alike – seem to agree that Rogue herself is a bit of a Mary Sue.
This, I have to agree with too. It probably says a lot about super hero comics that Marvel have been unable to make Rogue the main character in one of their books without Mary Sue-ing her. Back in the 90s, I used to quite enjoy the character, but now…
She’s omni-competent, always right and always wins out in the end. It’s dull, dull, dull!
In a recent X-Men Legacy storyline, for instance (written by Christos Gage, who has Mary Sue’d Rogue so badly he’s made her pretty much a joke), she gets thrown into another dimension where two alien races have been fighting a war for centuries. She solves their disagreements lickety-split and by the time she leaves they’re practically begging her to stay and be theircolonial mistress queen. Yeurch!
Boy, she’s a drag. In fact, the only reason I can see for either ‘shipper group to ‘ship her with their guy is because they love him so much they want him to get what he wants. I can’t believe any of them actually like her any more.
All I can say is, thank goodness Buffy isn’t like that. Not even Comics!Buffy.
On the other hand, I do wish Joss had made Comics!Buffy not-omnicompetent in a different way to the one he chose. Okay, so she doesn’t have to be a great general (I rather liked General Buffy, but I know lots of people didn’t), but did she have to be as useless/clueless as she was?
Oh, I dunno. I think what I’m basically trying to say is that mainstream comics don’t write strong female characters well. They either have to tear them down the way Comics!Buffy has been, or they turn them into Mary Sues.
Or something.
So, because I was bored yesterday, I went back to the CBR forum, and boy, do they have a lot of posts on that site (note to self: do NOT get sucked into posting there). I couldn’t even find the thread I was looking at the other day (the ‘the end of Rogneto’ one), but did find several others that were Magneto-related and therefore interesting to me. One wanted people to vote as to who Magneto should shack up with next (Namor the Submariner was winning last time I looked – not really a serious suggestion initially, I think, but the slashers jumped on it with glee), and there was one thread asking whether it was time to kill Magneto off for good, the way Professor X has been killed off in this Avengers vs X-Men story (which, of course, made me laugh cynically, because I can’t remember how many times both characters have been killed off in the past and, like Dracula, they always come back).
I also learned some stuff I didn't know before while lurking there– like that Rogue/Gambit ‘shippers are called Romy ‘shippers (Gambit’s first name is Remy) and that though – as previously mentioned – Magneto is way more like Angel as a character than he is like Spike – the Romy ‘shippers sound exactly like Bangel ‘shippers at their most self-righteous, while the Rogneto ‘shippers (well, the one I saw, they're few and far between) insist Magneto is redeemed already and was never that bad to start with anyway.
Swap the names, and it could almost have been an argument taking place right now somewhere in the Buffy fandom (probably on Tumblr).
One big difference, though: most people – ‘shippers and non-'shippers alike – seem to agree that Rogue herself is a bit of a Mary Sue.
This, I have to agree with too. It probably says a lot about super hero comics that Marvel have been unable to make Rogue the main character in one of their books without Mary Sue-ing her. Back in the 90s, I used to quite enjoy the character, but now…
She’s omni-competent, always right and always wins out in the end. It’s dull, dull, dull!
In a recent X-Men Legacy storyline, for instance (written by Christos Gage, who has Mary Sue’d Rogue so badly he’s made her pretty much a joke), she gets thrown into another dimension where two alien races have been fighting a war for centuries. She solves their disagreements lickety-split and by the time she leaves they’re practically begging her to stay and be their
Boy, she’s a drag. In fact, the only reason I can see for either ‘shipper group to ‘ship her with their guy is because they love him so much they want him to get what he wants. I can’t believe any of them actually like her any more.
All I can say is, thank goodness Buffy isn’t like that. Not even Comics!Buffy.
On the other hand, I do wish Joss had made Comics!Buffy not-omnicompetent in a different way to the one he chose. Okay, so she doesn’t have to be a great general (I rather liked General Buffy, but I know lots of people didn’t), but did she have to be as useless/clueless as she was?
Oh, I dunno. I think what I’m basically trying to say is that mainstream comics don’t write strong female characters well. They either have to tear them down the way Comics!Buffy has been, or they turn them into Mary Sues.
Or something.