Tigra redux redux

Man, I never would have guessed I'd be spending this much time venting on the treatment of Tigra of all characters. And yet here I am again. Oh well, its my journal. I don't have a pet cat to post pics of, and I no longer have the "my family drives me nuts" angst. So might as well spend time venting about a character I barely noticed before now. In the comics blogosphere the debate, yelling and counter debate and occasional out-right trolling over the sequence and the writer and artist continues. And one of the arguements being used is the old "it happens to male characters also, so there is nothing wrong". In this specific case using a fight between the Hood and Wolverine in a previous issue...

So lets recap that fight. Wolverine tracks the Hood and his lackey back to their bar and attacks them. He growls out how he can smell the Hood so he might as well stop with the invisibilty. The Hood shoots Wolverine a few times while managing to avoid getting shish-kabobbed. Even blasting Wolverine in the face doesn't do much between the admantium skull and the super-healing factor. So in desperation the Hood guns Wolverine in the junk, blowing off his soft man bits. And though in pain our Canadian Manly Man keeps on the offense. After all it'll all grow back. The Hood panics and goes all demon-y but Wolverine keeps after him. So the bad guy runs away. Wolverine leans back against the bar, makes a quip and waits for his dick to grow back...

And what was the scene with Tigra? She comes home after getting reamed and threatened by the SHRA dicks with a transfer to Arkansas, because the cops decided she was the bad guy and not Jigsaw. Yeah, because NY cops are too fucking stupid to recognize an Avenger vs. the only bad guy to ever survive running into the Punisher multiple times. But anyway, she gets back to her home, sniffs something going on and then gets pistol whipped for several pages. The Hood, while beating on the super-strong, super-fast hero, calls up her mom so that he can threaten Tigra with momacide if she messes with his guys again. And the whole time a giggling Jigsaw video tapes the beating and broadcasts it back to Thug HQ to the cheers and yells of all the other minor bad guys the Hood has recruited. And Tigra, who has cat like reflexes, claws, enhanced senses, super-strength enough to dig into stone or metal and her own berserker well of werecat Rage; flails about helplessly while LITERALLY screaming Aiieee over and over again...

So Wolverine suffers a painful but non-permanent wound and doesn't catch the bad guy. Tigra is shown to be a helpless widdle girl in something that comes DAMN close to being a snuff film...

Yep, exactly the same...

Sunday Trade: Empowered

Empowered Volume 1 & Volume 2
by Adam Warren

Empowered is a rookie super-hero with an unfortunate tendency to get captured and tied up. A tendency that isn't helped by her super-suit. Sure it enhances her strength and agility, protects her from damage and when she concentrates can generate energy blasts. But if it gets torn or ripped it rapidly STOPS working right. And it gets torn All. The. Damn. Time. But Emp keeps trying, despite the mockery of villains and her team-mates. She even manages to capture the powerful Demonwolf, using a leftover bondage belt she got when she was rejected for capture by an alien harem master for being too "bootylicious". Of course her team-mates then make her keep the Caged Demonwolf at her apartment because of zoning laws...

So its no surprise that Emp has some self-confidence issues. And wild mood swings due to body issues. No matter how often shes complimented by her boyfriend, ex-professional henchman Thugboy or her BFF Ninjette...

Adam Warren is one of the few American artists who takes manga styles and successfully makes it his own. And in so doing he manages to create a series that is cute, sexy and above all fun. Despite it growing out of fan requests for bondage/woman in peril fetish sketches, Empowered is just sweet and funny. You easily grow to CARE about the characters. You WANT Emp to succeed. And when she goes off on a self-doubting kick, you want to give her a hug and pep talk rather than the smack upside the head most emo/angst characters draw from me...

THIS is how you do a cheesecake book. Its sexy without being exploitative. Amusing without being mean. With just enough darkness and secrecy to lend it a sense of conflict and make you hunger to learn more...