Travis and I have decided that we’re going to read a few comics with female leads and analyse how they are portrayed.  Okay, that is fine and good and all, but I’m already spending upwards seventy bucks a month on comics (actually, according to my bank statement, I’ve spent 120 bucks on comics the past four weeks.  But I also bought a box, at least one tpb and seven back issues in those weeks – if you factor those out, it is about 60-75 bucks) and, get this, I’m freaking unemployed and just bought a car in the beginning of September.  Oh, and I have about 2.5 grand in tuition due by the end of January.  And I need to buy gas.

And, yet, I’ve decided to pick up four more titles for the express purpose of poking holes at (or praising) the portrayal of women in comics.

All this because I think that Invincible Iron Man’s Pepper Potts is a terrible character since, well, she has no character.  Despite the awesomesauce of the suit and the electromagnet, Pepper herself is pretty annoying.  First she freaks out when Tony saves her from death-by-skyscraper by putting an electromagnet in her chest (‘oh noes, it’s STARK TECH.  That is BAD because it is WEAPONS and stuff’.  But it ends up not being Stark tech so Pepper is okay with it since it is nonviolent.  Uh, hullo?  She’s been working for a weapons manufacturing company for how many years now?  And, recently, Tony made her the CEO of said company and her only freak out was over the mess he left for her), then she has a stint at being pretty awesome and kick ass (though everything she does is defined by Tony which, to a certain extent, is acceptable since she’s a secondary character) and now she’s freaking out because Tony can become undead (not a zombie undead – wrong universe, despite the existence of Deadpool’s zombie head) since, omg, Happy didn’t have that choice…. and she’s the one who begged Tony to pull the plug on Happy.

Yeah.  Kinda flip-floppy there.  Pepper is just a vehicle to tell a story, not a character in her own right.

Also in IIM, Natasha is kinda just… there (probably for the boobs factor and the lesbian subtext between her and Maria) and Maria went from being cool and kickass to a psycho bitch to a recovering psycho bitch… and for no real reason.  Did we even find out what was on that hard drive she went through all of that effort to steal?  If we did, it must not have been all that exciting of news since I don’t remember it.

Of course, this was also prompted, in part, by the SGU sexism drama – personally, I feel that there is no sexism in the show.  Yes, Chloe is annoying and whiny and too quick to jump into bed with people but that isn’t sexist.  If it was, I’d know a lot of women who are somehow sexist just by existing!  Sure, Cloe is pretty stupid, I’m not arguing with that (I’m not a fan of her myself), but she isn’t sexist.

And calling the Stargate writers sexist?  Even more stupid – how can a group of people who made two shows with strong, kickass female leads be sexist?  And SGU has TJ, who is shaping up to be pretty damn awesome, and Wray, who is potentially kickass and awesome but, sadly, doesn’t have enough screen time.

So, yeah, long story short?  I’m going to be reading three more comics and using that mostly random selection to judge how women are portrayed in American comics.  The four comics we’re going to be reading?  Batgirl (because we were both reading it anyway), Wonder Woman (because she is the female superhero), Black Widow and Marvel Girls (because it is a miniseries and, thus, easier on the wallet as well as having an utterly ridiculous name) and Empowered (because I’ve been meaning to read it and the wiki article sounds like Empowered is a believable character).

We shall see how it goes.