a vintage year for scoundrels

Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
Scarlet Witch: Witches' Road
Full of Briars - Seanan McGuire
Regeneration - Stephanie Saulter
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Girl From Everywhere - Heidi Heilig
A Cold Day For Murder - Dana Stabenow
Washington: A Life - Ron Chernow
Nightwing: False Starts

( Carter Beats the Devil (four stars), The Girl From Everywhere (four stars), Nightwing: False Starts (four stars) )

Didn't finish: ( The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo )

Lovely Festividder, thank you for making me a vid! ♥ I am so excited to see whatever you make, and I hope you have fun making it. :D If you already have an idea, hurray, but if you are looking for more guidance, this is the post for that! But rest assured that whatever vid you make, I will be happy. ♥

( general likes and dislikes )

( specific fandoms: Batgirl (2000-2006), The Batman, Borgen, The Five(Ish) Doctors Reboot, The Sapphires, Scott and Bailey, Supergirl, Vixen )

Thank you again, lovely person! I hope some of this wittering was helpful to you. ♥

I have flu and it's terrible. I'm exhausted and I can't stop coughing and it's been going on for OVER A WEEK and I'm so annoyed, I've never been ill for this long before. (Maybe when I had mumps? But I was really little then and I don't remember.) Ugh. Anyway, since I don't have the brain for my monthly books and comics post yet, here are some other things.

Comixology is having another Convergence sale this week! Still no Cass!Batgirl issues, boo, but there's some other good stuff in there. All the Batwoman issues of Detective Comics are on sale - that's the seven that were published as Batwoman: Elegy, plus three more - and they're definitely worth a read, if anyone hasn't done so already. Also there's The Hunt For Oracle (Nightwing 41-46, Birds of Prey 20-21), which features the first in person meeting between Babs and Dinah, yesssss. And Nightwing: Year One (Nightwing 101-106), which I mostly really liked, apart from the bit where it tries to retcon in a Babs-Dick-Kory love triangle, which makes no one look good. (This is one of the main reasons why I'm not keen on Babs/Dick - the way I've seen it get retconned into their past at Kory's expense.)

Also I saw Avengers: Age of Ultron (like a week and a half ago now) and LOVED it. Not unreservedly, but enough to make me just really really happy. :D Here is a list of things I liked about it:

( blanket fort of squee and spoilers )

And now I am out of brain and need to go and have a lie down.

Back to the December posting meme! silly_cleo said "talk about your Batfamily feelings and headcanons". The cut tags below are because, predictably, I have a lot of feelings about the Batfamily. A veritable CLOUD of feelings, you might say, if like me you had recently seen Frozen (which was excellent).

I think the Batfamily are probably the part of comics that I'm most interested in, fannishly speaking, because with things like BoP and Wonder Woman canon actually gives me quite a lot of what I'm looking for already (though more is always good), whereas a lot of the good Batfamily stuff is really distributed, or it's not quite what I want, or there's someone missing (Cass, Steph, Damian...).

( feelings )

( headcanons )

...this is possibly more than silly_cleo probably wanted to know, but she should know by now that asking me an open-ended question about the Batfamily is a dangerous thing to do. ;)

Off sick from work today, so contemplated postponing today's December talking meme topic until tomorrow, but am feeling a bit better now so here we go! (People I owe comments and emails to, I will respond at some point! ♥)

carawj asked "top 5 favourite comic characters and why!"

1) Stephanie Brown (Spoiler/Robin/Batgirl). PERFECT PURPLE PRINCESS OF MY HEART. I love her optimism, and how it's distinctly not naivety. I love her sense of humour. I love how hard she tries, whatever's thrown at her. She knows that she may not be the best crimefighter in the world, but she believes in what she's doing, and knows that she's capable of making a difference, even if only a small one, and how can she just sit at home, knowing that?

2) Cassandra Cain (Batgirl/Black Bat). Cass just gets me in my heart every time I read about her. She's so serious about her mission, so earnest in everything she does, but she also has an awesome sense of humour.

3) Oracle. My gateway comics character. I love how she refuses to let other people dictate or circumscribe what she can be. I love her mentor and partner relationships with other women (and that she messes up sometimes, and admits it). I love that she was the most powerful person in the DCU, and that she did it all with LIBRARY SCIENCE. ;D I love her determination (THIS PANEL, YOU GUYS), and her snarky sense of humour.

4) Wonder Woman. DIANAAAA! She has so much integrity, in what she says, what she does and in who she is. She can't be false. She's full of confidence and power, but not arrogance, and she's awe-inspiring without being aloof or cold. She can make the hard, pragmatic decisions if she has to, but she'd rather be forgiving and kind. And she's so aware of the fact that she's a role model, and that she has to live the world she wants to create.

5) Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel). I already talked about her this month! Update: I still love her. ♥

And hey, I actually managed to count to the right number this time! GO ME.

Firstly, two things I keep meaning to post about:

1) Does anyone remember the fan-made video version of this Batgirl page that went round a while ago? And if so, do you have a link for it? I can't seem to find it! Found! Thank you, ladymercury_10!

2) I went to see Neil Gaiman speak at the Cheltenham Literature Festival a while ago, and it was really good! The Festival've now put video of the event online; I recommend it!

*

Secondly, December posting meme! beccatoria asked "Tell me your five favourite things about Steph and Damian (canon or things you know ARE canon, the comics just never got around to letting us know!)".

EEE STEPH AND DAMIAN. I love their dynamic SO MUCH. :D Here are five things I love about them (mostly general things rather than specific moments, as I have lent my Steph!Batgirl comics to silly_cleo):

1) "There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Steph models an alternative model of heroing for Damian, and on a meta-level this allowed Bryan Q Miller to define explicitly what Steph stands for: belief that things can be better, and a determination to make them better.

2) That she can tease him and not take him seriously, which I think is good for both of them. It's good for Damian, because he takes himself far too seriously, and he needs someone to break him out of that, but who also cares about him enough not to hurt him in the process. And it's also good for Steph: she's spent so long being criticised by Batpeople that I think having one who she doesn't take seriously could help her regain her confidence. Having Oracle (and Cass) in her corner helps, but I think it's also good for her to learn that just because someone's criticising her, it doesn't mean they're right, and it doesn't have to come down to listen to them or defy them; she can just ignore them if she she thinks they're wrong. I also find their mutual grumpiness hilarious. ♥

3) This one is mostly headcanon: I like to think that eventually Dick and Steph become friends, and the thing they bond over first is teaching Damian the noble art of quipping ("Lesson one: puns, and why they are the best"). (Damian is displeased by basically everything about this. Especially when Christmas rolls round and Dick invites Steph over to "help decorate the mansion", which quickly turns into festooning Damian with tinsel and baubles whilst he hisses at them like an angry kitten. Meanwhile Alfred does all the actual decorating himself, as usual.)

4) THE MOON BOUNCE THING. I love her trying to teach him about how to be a child. (I imagine at least some of this is because she didn't have the most idyllic childhood herself.)

5) That deep down he sees her worth, however much he might protest. ♥

Finally got round to reading the 2002 Batman Family miniseries the other day! I enjoyed it a lot more than it probably warranted, because all of the Batfamily (ALL OF THEM) hanging out and fighting crime is just exactly what I want from a comic. ♥ The actual plot was a bit eh; I was pretty sad about who the villain was, and overall it just didn't tie up as well as it might have done (the plot thread from the Spoiler issue was just dropped, for example), but I liked the characterisation. There were also some lovely character interactions, particularly between Babs and Dinah (♥), Dick and Tim, and Dick and Cass - I'd seen bits of that last one on tumblr, but I was v. happy to see it in context. The art was pretty good too: not spectacular, but solid and non-skeevy, and Steph in particular looked SUPER CUTE with her short hair. The colouring was a bit iffy, though: one character's race seemed to vary from panel to panel, and Orpheus was whitewashed on the COVER of one issue. /o\ Also Babs was blonde at one point, leading me to believe for one glorious moment that Dick and Steph were hanging out together. ALAS NO. (Sidebar: does this happen anywhere outside of Steph's Batgirl series? I would LOVE to see it if so. Back when I thought the DCnU was a fixable universe, I wanted to see Steph and Cass reintroduced in Nightwing's comic (if they couldn't have their own book), because that would be such a fun and potentially adorable team. ♥)

I was really pleased that the Batfamily-and-associates at this point consisted of: one mixed race woman (Cass), one black man (Orpheus), four white women (Babs, Steph, Helena and Dinah) and only three white men (Bruce, Dick and Tim). But it's pretty sad to think that an equivalent series today would be four white men and one or two white women. :/ I mean, I know Orpheus was long gone by the time the reboot hit, but... if the reboot Batfamily WASN'T going to be pared down to just Bruce, Dick and Babs as it probably should've been, assuming a five year timeline, surely this would be a perfect moment to bring characters like him and Onyx back? To use their highest-profile character as leverage to up the profile of lesser known characters who AREN'T straight white men? Sigh.

At this point I would also like to plug the last three issues of Batman Beyond: #27-29 digitally, not sure what number the print version would be. They feature a new non-white Batgirl, Nissa, and are really great, especially Annie Wu's art. She and Comissioner Barbara Gordon (:D) have a fab dynamic, kind of like what Korra and Lin Bei-Fong might have had if Korra had just been a vigilante instead of the Avatar. If there is more stuff with her in I will definitely buy it. ♥

Here are some thoughts about comics and comics based films and whatnot.

Fearless Defenders #6: ( spoilers )

Young Avengers #7&8: this comic is just so fun! (SMOOOOOOCH. :D) It has so much energy and willingness to be a bit silly. ( not really spoilers but cutting anyway just in case )

Red Sonja #1: I basically bought this for the gorgeous Fiona Staples cover, and consider it a major achievement that I made it back to work without getting run over, given the amount of time I spent staring at it. ♥ Anyway, I liked the comic itself a lot too: it was fun, and rather Xena-ish. I probably won't keep buying it, because it's expensive and I'm sorry but I just CANNOT get past the chainmail bikini issue, but I might get the trade.

Li'l Gotham #15: Batman and Robin go to Comic Con and it is AMAZING. I laughed! And then I cried a bit. This comic is so wonderful.

Smallville #56: Speaking of wonderful things... I started reading this again because Wonder Woman, and based on this issue I think I made the right choice. Great, intriguing introduction for Smallville!Wondy.

In other comics news, DC's next film is going to be Batman/Superman. Sigh. Aside from the lack-of-Wonder-Woman issue - which is NOT MINOR - this depresses me because WB seem to be too timid to actually do anything with the vast stable of rich, interesting characters they have to play with. A Justice League film is all well and good (at least it might mean Wonder Woman on the big screen, right?), but Marvel's kind of already got the shared cinematic universe team movie thing sewn up. Whatever DC does with Justice League, it'll be compared to The Avengers, and it'd have to be pretty special to win that fight. Plus, DC's not exactly starting from a strong position here: they have Man of Steel, but Green Lantern flopped and Nolan's Batverse doesn't exactly play well with others. I'd love to see DC going down a different route and trying to make films that can't be dismissed as " just another superhero movie". A Question film (pref Renee Montoya, obvs). Gotham Central (possibly better as a TV series?). Spoiler. Checkmate. Batwoman: Elegy could make a great film. A shared universe Oracle film would be amazing, though it might need a lot of adapting (ooh, maybe it could be combined with a Cass film - she rescues Babs, Babs steps up and uses her librarian powers to help Cass with the word bits of crime fighting, discovers she is REALLY GOOD AT IT etc). I would LOVE to see a Nightrunner film, in French, with subtitles. And so on. Basically none of these are ever going to happen, because they wouldn't be massive smash hit blockbusters, but done right... wouldn't they be great?

And meanwhile, Marvel still hasn't announced a Black Widow film, or a Captain Marvel one, or a Black Panther one, etc etc etc. *taps watch impatiently*

- I really enjoyed this post about The Legend of Korra on ladybusiness: they get into lots of interesting issues about the baggage we bring to texts and how that influences how we see them, evaluating an ongoing canon, how two people can look at a text and see two different things without either of them being wrong, and also how Lin and Asami and Korra are awesome.

- Two Gentlemen of Verona was a DELIGHT (except the scenes that weren't meant to be). It's clearly a plot with... flaws, shall we say - Shakespeare revisited bits of it in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and got away with it a bit better because love potions - but the cast managed to carry it off with a combination of conviction and lampshading the more ridiculous bits. I particularly enjoyed the staging right at the end: ( spoiler cutting just in case! ) I think it's fair to say that the dog stole the show, though.

- Anyone else going to Nine Worlds this August? I was v. excited to see that they're going to be screening the "Wonder Women!" documentary: I very much want to see it.

- Today's Li'l Gotham almost made me cry, it was so lovely. (It also made me giggle a lot.) I don't usually have any opinions on Mr Freeze, but his Li'l Gotham appearances have been so wonderful. BEST UNIVERSE. (With the usual "I wish Cass and Steph were allowed to appear" caveat, though at least this universe still has Oracle.)

- This is where my thoughts on yesterday's Doctor Who would have gone, if my video recorder hadn't CRUELLY BETRAYED me. Quick, to the BBC3 repeat!