Crimes Against Fashion #1

This week, we bid farewell to Brian M. Bendis's current run on New Avengers.  For years and years, I was exclusively a follower of merry mutants in the X-Men.  However, Marvel's marketing machine worked.  House of M made me notice these other strange heroes, none of whom had an X-gene.  I was hooked.  I became an Avengers fan too.

I have all sorts of positive things to say about this special finale issue.  It wrapped up nearly every lose end, hit all the right notes, had great art and was just plain fun to read.  It was also especially gratifying to see my favorite Avenger, Ms. Marvel, take down Count Nefaria almost single-handedly and finally earn some spotlight time as a certified heavy-hitter.  However, what I really want to bring some attention to is Stuart Immonen's final two-page spread:

It was a breath of fresh air to see all of our favorite heroes taking a moment to enjoy their lives and go play in a park without having to deal with all of the stress and strife of the superlife.  What I truly appreciated, however, was the wardrobe choices.  Comics have a long history of putting many of their female heroes in positively atrocious civilian clothes.  The two most common sins are either outfits that are so revealing to the point of being trashy, or outfits that look like they've come off of a runway show that no real woman would actually ever wear.  And yet in this spread, all four of the Avengers ladies look casual, yet fashionable... and devastatingly normal.

In fact, the outfits that Immonen selected for Mockingbird (skinny jeans and ballet flats) and Jessica Jones (boot-cut with sandals) look remarkably like my own day-to-day wardrobe.  And that long-sleeved top with the extraneous drawstrings that Mockingbird is wearing?  I own that in purple.

I do have to pick on Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman a bit, though.  A cute top and skirt is very normal for casual fashion nowadays.  I have tops like Carol is wearing in several colors and Jessica Drew's button-down will never go out of style.  There is still a rub (probably literally), though:

Who wears high heels for a walk in the park?!

They are very nice heels.  They're basic, practical and contemporary.  But seriously, there is not a pair of heels in existence that is ideal for a long walk. This did make me think a bit, however.  I've always imagined that there's all kinds of little side-effects to having super powers that most don't think about.  Carol Danvers is largely invulnerable.  This means that there probably isn't a shoe in the world that will give her blisters.  No little straps will cut her feet.  A rolled ankle won't do a bit of damage.  She can survive the experience of Count Nefaria AND any pair of cute, but normally torturous Jimmy Choos that you might throw at her.  Lucky girl.

Jessica Drew, what's YOUR excuse?

Missing Person Report: Snow White

And thus it begins...

After a strong hint, my sister picked up the first three Fables (from Vertigo) TPBs for me for Christmas. I devoured all three on my plane ride (actually, largely on the tarmac) back to Boston. Yesterday, I ran down the street to one of my local comic shops and picked up volumes 4-6. I could have ordered them, or waited for my birthday... but I felt instant gratification was necessary.

This may seem a little late in the commentary, seeing as I'm only about seven or eight years behind in this series. I'm usually a strict Marvel reader, so DC/Vertigo books aren't something I will often pick up. However, this series has been on the edge of my radar for awhile. I am a little sad I'm only getting to it now. It's fantastic. It's all of the world's fables, fairy tale characters and legends living in secret exile in New York... and these stories are most definitely not for kids.

A brief note about my habits regarding works of fiction: When looking at something new, I tend to zero in on a favorite character very quickly. Then, that character becomes central to my interest in the series as a whole pretty much for the duration. In the case of Fables, I decided that I liked Snow White. The perfect princess as an ice-cold divorced bureaucrat was interesting, to say the least.

After and afternoon and evening of Aion, I picked up volume 4 around 2:30 AM. Fables does make for a pretty quick read, so I moved right on to volume 5 as soon as I was finished. Then, I opened up volume 6. I looked over the cast of characters page that opened every volume and said to myself, "Hey, where's Snow White?" Up until this point, she was one of the lead characters of the series. Now, she was nowhere to be found. I flipped through the book, didn't see her, so I decided I could try going to bed instead of reading more.

Curiously enough, a favorite blog of mine ("Comics Should be Good" @ ComicBookResources) brought this very point up today in their listing of their top 10 female characters of the decade. The writer opted to list Frau Totenkinder (Hansel and Gretel's witch) instead of Snow White. Why? After Snow White becomes a mother (and eventually wife), her importance to the series drops drastically. She goes from the defacto authority in Fabletown to the retired mother of preternatural septuplets up on the Farm... meanwhile, the story moves on without her. I could go on about what happened, why, and what it means for the series, but CSBG covered it very well. I just found this to be a rather disappointing road bump in my enjoyment of an otherwise brilliant comic book series. I will slog my way through TPB #6. I know Snow White comes back in later volumes. I do want to read those. However, I also know she disappears again...

We'll see how this goes. I hope this book continues to hold my interest... because it is genuinely excellent.