Bulleteer 1
From Barbelith
Categories: Seven Soldiers Issues
"BALLISTIC: How The Bulleteer Began"
Barbelith thread: Bang. (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/22290)
| Table of contents |
Background and General Commentary
Themes:
kovacs - With regard to the "cheesecake" and the representation of
Alix.
1. I think there's a big difference between depicting one woman
character as tits-and-ass, frequently posing in her undies and losing
her clothes, and all female characters thus. Maybe Paquette always draws
women this way, but crucially, Seven Soldiers as a whole doesn't impose
this template on all its women. Justin(e), Beula, even Zatanna resist
this mould.
For one female character to have a toned body, to have relatively large
boobs, to sleep in panties, to stick out her butt a lot and stand around
her house like a model, is not "unrealistic". If the entire female
population of the DCU was shown in this way, that would be stupid and
reductive, but I think it's clear that Alix is somewhat exceptional
among the Seven Soldiers narrative.
I think we're used to criticising large-breasted women in superhero
comics as "stereotypical". Of course, they're no more "unrealistic" than
small-busted women. In terms of comic book representations as a whole,
they fit a common type and may be seen to conform to a lazy teen
-boy "ideal", but in itself it's not implausible for a female character
to have the body of a glamour model.
Alix's appearance strikes me as being carefully bound up with her
specific character. She keeps in shape and looks after herself ("My
body's fine, okay"). Her husband is narcissistic, ambitious, vain; he
sees her at least partly as a trophy, and is starting to compare her
unfavourably to his superheroine porn. Note that Lance also has a gym
-bunny body -- when he turns to metal, he looks like the Silver Surfer.
That's not "unrealistic" either... this is a fit, physically attractive
couple to whom looks are clearly important (more to him than to her,
perhaps).
2. Unlike the cheesecake in All-Star Batman, we're invited to examine
and reflect on the representation of Alix, through the sub-plot about
the online porn. The pictures of posing super-starlets don't look so
much different to the pictures we just saw of Alix lounging in her
knickers, examining herself in the mirror, leaning in a doorway. The
story encourages a critical perspective on the art. The episode is about
sex, and porn, and cultural ideals of femininity in our society and the
Seven Soldiers world. As has been pointed out, it's crammed with wittily
semi-disguised sexual images -- the stuff splashing her face, the big
helmet. It doesn't present Alix unquestioningly as many less intelligent
and imaginative superhero comics would -- as in, "here's our main
character and naturally she's a fit chick, and wouldn't it be cool if
she walked around in her underwear a lot". Her appearance and
presentation is integral to the story's themes
Annotations
| Featured Characters | Featured Locations |
|---|---|
Page 1
PANEL 1: "Now what?"
Quimper - "Love the cracked mirror on page 1. Alix's self-image destroyed as she stands there inventing a new one."
Page 2-3
PANEL 3: "We need to know what your husband did to you both. Mrs. Harrower!"
COBRA-LAlalalalala! - "Side question: is it significant that Alix's last name is "Harrower?" Given that harrowing is what the Sheeda specialize in?"
PANEL 7: "Get that ring off, expose some skin!"
COBRA-LAlalalalala! - "I think her wedding ring kept a little sliver of skin normal, and they were able to give her a life-saving injection through it."
Papers - "I -think- it was more a concern of exposing some skin for her to breathe through, but I could be misinterpreting."
Hexjumper - "You don't need to have your skin exposed to open air to be able to breathe; witness David Blaine's recent stunt where he stayed immersed in water for a whole week without suffocating. You do exchange air through your skin, but not all that much."
Alix kept her wedding ring on and she survives her exposure to SmartSkin. Lance took his off and ends up dying of suffocation after doctors are unable to give him an injection because of his steel-hard skin. One could definitely make a moral point of this; Alix' fidelity saved her life ultimately.
Page 10
PANEL 1: "But imagine preserving your body before... Well, before anything happens to it."
Lance's desire to preserve his wife's body under SmartSkin seems to parallel the desire of many collectors to preserve their comics in pristine condition by sealing them in plastic.
Page 13
PANEL 1: "Alix. I think I've done something stupid."
If you look closely, you can see Lance's wedding ring sitting on the desk next to the computer. The removal of his wedding ring seems a fitting symbol of Lance's infidelity to his wife, since he's been checking out internet superhero pornography and planning to run away with online penpal/girlfriend, Sally Sonic. The absence of his wedding band may also have contributed to his death by suffocation.
Page 17
PANEL 6: "SEXY SALLY SONIC"
Lance's internet pen-pal, the eternal super-teen known as Sally Sonic is the embittered 75-year-old teenager who complained of her inability to buy alcohol in Zatanna's self-help workshop in Zatanna #1.
Page 20
PANEL 3-4: "There must be a reason for all this, right?" "Even if there isn't, I know you can make one, Alix."
Papers - "I like the implication that she can turn things around and inject meaning into her life, that she -isn't- going to be defined by others, certainly not Lance - even if she does take what he wanted and twist it around to make it something pure."
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