Which Starfire had the skimpier costume? That's open to debate.

A couple days ago, Bully had a pic up of Lois Lane reading an issue of Starfire; the Starfire in question being the short-lived DC sword-and-sorcery book from the seventies. I found a few issues from that ill-fated series back at the Spokane Comicon, and was saving the last issue for "The End" week; but was having a hard time writing about this book.

Partly because it's not great, but maybe it could've been. The same could be said for the other books in the same sword-and-sorcery push from DC, like Stalker and Beowulf. Mike Grell's Warlord turned out to be the breakout book of that lot, and went on for 133 issues; while most of the rest of the characters in that launch have barely a dozen appearances to date. Starfire's name would be appropriated by Marv Wolfman and George Perez for the Teen Titans character; but classic Starfire did appear recently in Time Masters: Vanishing Point.

Like most of the books in that push, though, Starfire was a sword and sorcery and sci-fi book; and kind of reminds me of Marvel's Killraven. On an alien world, where humanity is enslaved by the brutish Mygorg; Starfire was raised to be a concubine, but fled with a warrior-priest named Dagan. He trained her as a warrior, before being captured and killed, and Starfire began a revolution against the Mygorg. At first, it was seemingly only for revenge for the death of her lover, but Starfire found herself trying to teach freedom to people who never knew how. So it's a pretty standard, Robin Hood-style, rebels against the evil empire set-up, perfectly sound for a book like this. Except Starfire was a pretty, vaguely Asian young woman; which had to be unusual for a seventies comic; and because she was a pretty girl there's an ugly recurrent sexism in the book: even among her followers, many thought if they gave her the high hard one, she'd give up this revolution nonsense and get back in the kitchen and make them a sandwich. It's a short series, only eight issues, but that still seems to occur a lot.

Coveting Starfire as an object is doubtless kind of creepy in itself, but the men that want her don't really seem to care that she's about the only thing keeping the revolution going: if they got to sleep with her, they act like it's cool with them if they'll have to live as slaves, and don't seem particularly invested in the revolution either. And then the Mygorg, and most of the bad guys in the book, well, they probably want her too. Robin Hood never had to worry about being raped by the Sheriff of Nottingham. (Did he? To the best of my knowledge...) The art doesn't seem to be especially cheesecake or anything, but there does seem to be an awful lot of leering.

Sadly, Starfire didn't catch on, and was cancelled with #8. I do hope it isn't sexist of me to say, I love her early green costume, which with the bare and covered areas, reminds me of classic Star Trek outfits; and it's hot. Hope that isn't covetous...Scans from Starfire #5, "Here There Be Monsters!" Written by Elliot S! Maggin, art by Mike Vosburg and Vince Colletta.
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Offending women, and Flash fans! I don't know what'll happen if you're a female Flash fan, and take no responsibility.

Over at Neither Doormat nor Prostitute, angryrantgirl brought up Lady Flash. So she's to blame for this one.

Seriously, I'm not taking the rap for this one. I'm not going to mention the title yet, because I don't want to ruin the surprise, even though it's mentioned twice in the first three pages of the comic.


The story does open with a, well, a "CRAAAAK" instead of a bang; as we see a blond figure in a lab coat, hit by a lightning bolt striking a shelf of chemicals, just like Barry's origin. Only this time, Barry is the witness, not the stricken. A lightning bolt hit the chemical shelf in his lab, for at least the third time, this time dousing Barry's part-time assistant Patty. (The second time, of course, hit Wally and made him Kid Flash.

Patty leaves to change out of her contaminated clothing, and Barry thinks she may already be affected. He's proven right when a female officer that was helping Patty change clothes...what?...tells him Patty disappeared right before her eyes. Yeah, she needed an adult.

Barry can see Patty right there, though; vibrating at invisible super-speed, and talking too fast for anyone but him to hear.

Barry tells Patty to sit down, perhaps accidentally exposing himself as the Flash, since no one else could hear her; but Patty doesn't get the chance to catch that: She sneezes, blowing herself back through the wall (vibrating at super-speed) and launched for several city blocks. Because normally when women sneeze, they're launched backwards, right?

Patty is vibrating at a different frequency than Barry, so he's unable to catch her. I don't know if that fits into Flash canon: do Jay and Wally and Barry all vibrate at different rates, or are they all on the correct, man frequency? Still flying backwards, Patty's now entered the blasting area next to the police station (?) and sets off a series of radio-controlled detonators, setting off explosives. Flash does the run-in-circles bit, funneling the explosion straight up, but loses Patty.

Several hours of searching at super-speed later, Barry is back at the police station, and dead tired; apparently from running in circles all that time. C'mon, Barry could've searched every square inch of North America faster than you read this sentence, and he didn't find her? "Hmm...she's not at Dress Barn...maybe she's at the mall? No...well, maybe she's at Dress Barn now..."

Barry then takes off at super-speed, but not under his own power: Patty picks him up, for a little private talk.

It's nice to see a female super-hero uniform that's not titilating, or exploitive...or attractive. The huge mask over the eyeglasses isn't working either...

Patty has already learned to run over water, which would be more impressive if it wasn't releasing poison gas. Somehow.

Switching into the Flash, Barry stops the poison gas, then tries to stop Patty, who thinks he's there for a team-up.

Flash points out the reason her power is uncontrollable is that the chemicals were different, more powerful than the ones that made him or Kid Flash. Patty takes that as Flash doesn't want any skirts in the superspeed locker room, and that would be an understandable reaction if she wasn't starting to cause explosions now. Her "weird radiation" forms a "wedge of destruction!" that Barry's "ultra-vibrations" only make worse...this is starting to escalate pretty quickly, Central City blowing up around them.

Luckily, for Central City anyway, Barry had just imagined all of that, in the picasecond before the lightning bolt hit the chemicals. He pulls Patty out of harm's way, saving her from a deadly superspeed curse. Or awesome powers. Well, either way.

I almost wonder if this story wasn't intended as a try-out, like that imaginary Supergirl story that came before the 'real' one. Maybe if enough girls had written in demanding it, Ms. Flash would've been brought back; but to the best of my knowledge she was never seen again. Even as Patty.

Ah, that explains why I've had this comic next to the computer for months. From 5 Star Super-Hero Spectacular (1977), "How to Prevent a Flash" Story by Cary Bates, art by Irv Novick and Frank McLaughlin.

The other stories in this one are a little hit-and-miss, too: a bland Green Lantern short, a really bland Atom story. Aquaman's short is set right after he lost his son, and a new super-villain from Iran (!) who decides to take him down, since he's a weak superhero and a good place to start.

But the Batman story, maybe we'll come back to that sometime. Maybe not: it's Batman vs. Kobra, and it's pretty good. At the verge of defeat, Kobra has his twin brother Jason killed. Killed by his own, dead, zombified girlfriend. Batman kicks Kobra around a little, but he escapes, leaving Bats swearing vengence on Jason Burr's grave. Sigh. I'm not sure that was ever mentioned again, either. Read more!

Can even Mr. Miracle and Big Barda escape...sexism?

With all the fuss lately about busts and comicquettes or whatever damn thing; I saw this over at Dave's Long Box (and elsewhere, but I saw it there last and it was the easiest place to get the picture!) and thought about it a bit.

Is Big Barda holding her husband Mister Miracle's cape as an act of subservience? Not bloody likely. Scott Free is secure in his masculinity and 100% on board with having a wife that can crush a Sherman tank until it can fit in a Coleman cooler. Besides, he has a midget manservent to do his ironing and so forth.

All right, is Barda holding his cape in a bit a showmanship, as Scott either begins or ends another daring escape? That would make more sense, but no! There's another reason, another sinister, creepy reason that none before had even dared to think of. Or occurred to think of. Anyway, sinister, creepy, Scott Free's terrible secret: He's a never nude, like Tobias Fünke on Arrested Development. The shame!

You know, Batman's right there, Scott. He probably has something on him to help you out. Like a massive sedative.

At this point in "Mile High Tombstone!" (from Brave and the Bold #138, written by Bob Haney, art by Jim Aparo) Batman and Mister Miracle have been captured by French acrobat, escape artist, "human rodent," and "human tennis ball" Cosimo. (Miracle calls Cosimo those last two.) Think Batroc the Leaper minus the mustache and less flash...and what does that leave you? Yeah, nothing. Cosimo is like an evil, embittered Cirque de Soleil refugee...yet another redundant phrasing there, sorry.

Miracle is drawn on later pages as wearing a diaper-like set of trunks, so Cosimo didn't strip him buck naked before throwing him in the net. (And what about Batman? I don't think Cosimo even took his utility belt, but Batman seems like he's waiting to see where this goes.) I don't know if it would matter either way, though; because I reckon Scott has...secreted multiple escape tools on his person. Probably hidden in his hair, or under fake skin, or swallowed. Where did you think? But Bat's and Scott's escape is profoundly disappointing:

Like most Brave and Bold villains, Cosimo was one use only, and gets blown up only 12 pages into the story. The rest of the story is spent outsmarting Kraken, the crime supercomputer, and escaping the deathtrap island Trond-hag. I'm not going to say it defies belief, but Mr. Miracle's instant helium balloon escape isn't even the most unbelievable thing in the issue.

So, now that you know Scott Free's unfortunate...condition...you can see the secret meaning of the Barda bust. I think, knowing the whole story, we can all agree there is nothing exploitative or sexist about. Nope. Not at all... Read more!

Some 'Ultimate' Ultron; that's not even an A-cup.

Admittedly, the above isn't even my favorite Ultron model; he has a better design in the crotchless Ultron-6...

By now most of you have probably seen the solicits for Mighty Avengers #2 and it's female-Ultron cover. (I found it over at Comics And... if you haven't.) And probably like most of you, I thought it was no doubt a borderline moronic idea meant to give Frank Cho two more boobs to draw...

But, I'll admit I could very well be wrong on that.

Consider: there was a discussion a while back at Dance of the Puppets regarding longtime Dr. Who villains the Cybermen. Not to bag on the old show's "special" effects, but the old Cybermen looked like robots made of cardboard boxes, tinfoil, and tubing. Sexless. The new, Cyberwoman? Attractive young woman dressed in tinfoil with a fair amount of exposed skin. Sexy. Why the difference?

OK, yeah, young male demographic. But if you think in terms of the story, that, and a lot of similar nonsense, could be written off as psychological warfare. Previously, when Ultron attacked, he was a pissed off, insect-looking robot; with antennae and that mouth that looked like a can opener. (Or is that just Annihilus?) In such a situation, you or I or the Avengers would go with our first instincts, i.e. Kill it!

But an Ultron that looks like a supermodel, or even just like a human female, could possibly get that second of hesitation that it can exploit. For example, Iron Man may falter, only for a second, before unleashing a full repulsor blast in a face that looks like he should be taking it to dinner. And for a computer mind like Ultron's, that second may be all the time he needs.

This idea might be from the old Alex Ross Terminator: the Burning Earth miniseries, but I haven't read it in maybe what, fifteen years or more? (Holy sod!) Anyway, I'm still not sure I'm going to part with any cash regarding Mighty Avengers, but I'm not going to condemn it without reading it. Today.

From Avengers #68, "...And We Battle for the Earth!" Written by Roy Thomas, art by Sal Buscema. Reprinted in Marvel Super Action #29. Read more!