Skip to main content

Week 15- Women In Comics-Redux

As per the assignment, I am improving one of my previous blog posts, Week 12's "Women in Comics," for my final assignment for week 15. 

The comic, "Ms Marvel," is a title that many familiar to Marvel comics already know, but none quite like this more modern take upon the IDEA of a Ms Marvel, by Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, G. Willow Wilson, and Adrian Alphona. It is made obvious numerous times that this is NOT the "actual" Ms. Marvel, or even any variant of the character in previous versions, (there is a quite enjoyable sequence in the first/second comic that shows her transforming into various previous variants of the character). This story is incredibly powerful for being not only a super-hero action and comedic story, but also one of an empowerment fantasy, and assimilation. We see the character struggle not just physically with the challenges she faces, but on a deep psychological level. One of her most powerful lines of dialogue includes, "Why does everyone get to be normal but me." 

While not the most original story or concept, (the storyline of someone feeling alienated, lonely, or unsure of what to do with their powers has been seen many, many times a la Superman, Spiderman, etc) its defining characteristic is the execution of these aspects combined along with a voice headed by a somewhat dramatic, somewhat comedic viewpoint. While I personally don’t take a lot of inspiration from this story, it is nice to see another alternative take on the idea of what is truly heroic, this time from a combination of feminine and foreign points of view. Well executed with a lot of relatable, funny, and diverse characters, this newest addition to the Marvel universe may be a fan-girl, but she stands unique from and beside those she admires.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Analysis of Shaun Tan's, "The Arrival"

Jarod Frank Analysis of Shaun Tan’s, “The Arrival.” Shaun Tan's, “The Arrival,” is a fantastic example of conveying narrative themes and complex character interactions without the use of dialogue. Through the emphasis on gestures, body positioning, and facial expressions, we are able to “fill in” to a great degree what we imagine the characters are conveying; regardless of anything literally being said. One such fantastic example of this is when the main immigrant man is trying to find an apartment, beginning by asking another man where it could be. We see the quizzical look he local man as he looks over the immigrant, who pulls out a drawing pad and draws a bed, pointing to it. Such a natural progression of actions, reactions and continued actions are the basics of human communication, not necessarily needing words to convey an experience we all are familiar with: questioning. While the situation is mundane, the comic being able to convey this series of emotions here and n...

Analysis of early adventure comics (Week 4)

The likes of Herge's "The Adventures of Tintin," to the original "Batman" comics by Bob Kane, despite being wildly different in seemingly every regard, basic narrative, characters, even locations and approaches to adventure literature; both are equally capable of inspiring morals along with having many similar approaches to conveying their individual narratives. For example, one massively popular trop of visual narrative is to start off with establishing shots that familiarize new comers to the literature or old fans to the location or characters, often with mental narrative of the protagonist informing the audience whats going on. Both comics also use sequential, action to action art where the start, climax, and ending of a particular action or gesture is explored by the artists, showing these characters "move" despite only showing static poses. Adventure comics as a whole create these larger than life heroes and characters that, regardless of their ...

Week 14- Web Comics

For the purposes of this assignment I will be reviewing, (shortly) several web comics I consider to be worthy of a person's time, and listing my reasons for doing so.     Series Comic: Imperial Entanglements Link to web comic: http://imperialentanglements.thecomicseries.com/archive/ This is an interesting parody comic based in the Star Wars universe, more specifically, during the time of "The Old Republic," a time period that has received numerous GREAT games and official comics, (of which this story is set in the MMO video game, "The Old Republic") but no movie or animation releases like the more famous Clone and Galactic Civil Wars, (Episodes 1-6). Focusing in on an unapologetic Imperial point of view, (typically considered the "Bad guys" in every other media) this story follows a Sith and an Imperial Agent in their comedic centered adventures through "The Old Republic."     Series Comic: The Daily Planet Files Link to web comic: ...