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: Superhero Rec: Gail Simone
A slow superclap is due to Gail Simone. Not only is she the reason Oracle is my favorite superhero (note bene my avatar), but my money is on her as today’s best superhero writer. A lot of people would think I’m crazy for putting her above the likes of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, or Neil Gaiman. But let’s face it, none of those writers are content with superhero storytelling. They wanted something different, whether it was mythology, or urban chaos magic, or having hallucinogenic sex with swamp creatures after feasting on them. What made those writers great was breaking open the boundaries of what superhero comics could be. What Gail Simone does is give us a pitch perfect superhero yarn, modern and readable, at the same time respecting the universe she is playing in, giving us its ideal form.
There’s no urgency to retcon characters or tweak conventions or shock you, although she does surprise you. Instead she takes beloved characters, gives them blood, and sends them on plausible, well-plotted, character-testing adventures. To read Gail Simone’s work is to fall in love with superheroes again and chastise yourself for ever growing out of them.
Take The Atom. Here we have a character I could give a shit about, a superpower that has always struck me as useless (unless you were to shrink down, enter someone’s body, and grow big again and rip the shit out of them like Shrinking Violet in Legion of Superheroes, which makes me wonder why more shrinkers don’t take a cue from her), and I was actually crowing in delight as I read it. She’s got this whole 50’s nuclear era science fiction thing as her aesthetic, although it’s suitably modernized. She peppers it with bewilderingly a propos quotes from scientists, and uses her protagonist’s innate scientific curiosity as an impetus for his adventures.
At the time she was writing for the Simpsons comics, she got famous for the website Women in Refrigerators ( http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/, which asks the question about why so many women are brutalized, killed, raped, or de-powered in comics. If you look at the author response, a lot of male writers (many of whom I like) are really dismissive of the phenomenon, saying things like, oh, well, you see it on police procedurals too, it’s all over the place and not specific to comics. And, yes, rape, brutalization, and killing women is pretty standard in a lot of places, and as many of the male writers point out it’s an easy way to work up a reader’s sympathy and shock. And it’s true that it’s not specifically a comic book phenomenon. Doesn’t make it OK, though, mmkay? Considering it’s an eerily accurate reflection in real life. Look up the statistics for the trafficking of sex slaves sometime if you think there’s no need for feminism or questioning this kind of thing. OK, rant done.
She’s most well known for an amazing run on Birds of Prey, in which she made compelling characters out of the Oracle (Barbara Gordan, daughter of the Lieutenant.), Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, orphaned daughter of a Mafia family, and The Black Canary (Dinah Lance), paramour to the Green Arrow, who I can’t stand, and who is pretty much not in the comic (thanks, Gail). She’s also worked on Action Comics, Villains United, Secret Six, and the creator-owned Welcome to Tranquility, for Wildstorm.
Most newsworthily, she is the first female writer to write Wonder Woman, another comic I’ll be picking up as soon as I return to L.A. About the only Wonder Woman comic I could ever deal with was Greg Rucka’s The Hiketia. Wonder Woman, like Superman, just doesn’t interesting to me. Omnipotence and goodness is boring, you know? Why do you think everyone falls asleep in church? But if anyone can do it, Simone can. She hits it out of the park every time.
Tags: birds of prey, gail simone, superhero rec, the atom, wonder woman
A slow superclap is due to Gail Simone. Not only is she the reason Oracle is my favorite superhero (note bene my avatar), but my money is on her as today’s best superhero writer. A lot of people would think I’m crazy for putting her above the likes of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, or Neil Gaiman. But let’s face it, none of those writers are content with superhero storytelling. They wanted something different, whether it was mythology, or urban chaos magic, or having hallucinogenic sex with swamp creatures after feasting on them. What made those writers great was breaking open the boundaries of what superhero comics could be. What Gail Simone does is give us a pitch perfect superhero yarn, modern and readable, at the same time respecting the universe she is playing in, giving us its ideal form.
There’s no urgency to retcon characters or tweak conventions or shock you, although she does surprise you. Instead she takes beloved characters, gives them blood, and sends them on plausible, well-plotted, character-testing adventures. To read Gail Simone’s work is to fall in love with superheroes again and chastise yourself for ever growing out of them.
Take The Atom. Here we have a character I could give a shit about, a superpower that has always struck me as useless (unless you were to shrink down, enter someone’s body, and grow big again and rip the shit out of them like Shrinking Violet in Legion of Superheroes, which makes me wonder why more shrinkers don’t take a cue from her), and I was actually crowing in delight as I read it. She’s got this whole 50’s nuclear era science fiction thing as her aesthetic, although it’s suitably modernized. She peppers it with bewilderingly a propos quotes from scientists, and uses her protagonist’s innate scientific curiosity as an impetus for his adventures.
At the time she was writing for the Simpsons comics, she got famous for the website Women in Refrigerators ( http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/, which asks the question about why so many women are brutalized, killed, raped, or de-powered in comics. If you look at the author response, a lot of male writers (many of whom I like) are really dismissive of the phenomenon, saying things like, oh, well, you see it on police procedurals too, it’s all over the place and not specific to comics. And, yes, rape, brutalization, and killing women is pretty standard in a lot of places, and as many of the male writers point out it’s an easy way to work up a reader’s sympathy and shock. And it’s true that it’s not specifically a comic book phenomenon. Doesn’t make it OK, though, mmkay? Considering it’s an eerily accurate reflection in real life. Look up the statistics for the trafficking of sex slaves sometime if you think there’s no need for feminism or questioning this kind of thing. OK, rant done.
She’s most well known for an amazing run on Birds of Prey, in which she made compelling characters out of the Oracle (Barbara Gordan, daughter of the Lieutenant.), Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, orphaned daughter of a Mafia family, and The Black Canary (Dinah Lance), paramour to the Green Arrow, who I can’t stand, and who is pretty much not in the comic (thanks, Gail). She’s also worked on Action Comics, Villains United, Secret Six, and the creator-owned Welcome to Tranquility, for Wildstorm.
Most newsworthily, she is the first female writer to write Wonder Woman, another comic I’ll be picking up as soon as I return to L.A. About the only Wonder Woman comic I could ever deal with was Greg Rucka’s The Hiketia. Wonder Woman, like Superman, just doesn’t interesting to me. Omnipotence and goodness is boring, you know? Why do you think everyone falls asleep in church? But if anyone can do it, Simone can. She hits it out of the park every time.
Tags: birds of prey, gail simone, superhero rec, the atom, wonder woman