Identity Crisis. Big mini-series. Many liked it. Many hated it.
A big topic of discussion, though drowned out by discussion of one Ms. Sue Dibny, was on the ultimate fate of one Jean Loring.
Point:
There are quite a few in the blog community who were justifiably dismayed by the development Ms. Loring’s character.
Many of those complaints were summed up far back in February by Avi Green on his post: The Comic Book Discrimination Dossiers: Profile: Jean Loring
Excerpt:
To make matters worse, not only did the miniseries not give any mention of what past storylines Jean had been through, but much of the press coverage of Identity Crisis did not give any clear indication that she’d been a victim of science-fiction brainwashing years before either. In the case of Wizard magazine, they seemed to be trying to perpetuate a lie that she’d suffered numerous mental/nervous breakdowns* years ago, when that was not the case, and even if it was, she’d only been through such circumstances twice. (Wizard wrote a very ambiguous note that she “had a history” of nervous/mental breakdowns, yet made no more attempt to clear things up than the miniseries itself did.) On Newsarama, there was another vicious lie written that she’d been repeatedly played as a villainess in past years. It’s a filthy lie mainly due to the fact that it didn’t even make it clear in just what way she was played as a villainess.
Counterpoint
In a very recent post, H at the Cosmic Treadmill counters the assumption of out-of-character behavior in his post: Jean Loring? Always Has Been An Evil Harpy – Always Will Be
Excerpt:
Ray – you screwed up. If you just picked Enrichetta Negrini, Sue Dibny would still be alive and you’d be the happiest little man on Earth-1. Would it have killed you to have cracked a few relationship and self-esteem books between scientific tomes?
For the record, I don’t actually think one is (or is meant to be) a serious counterargument to the other. It just made me laugh. Enjoy
October 9th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I think we can all agree on one thing: women TERRIFY Widdle Brad. And he thinks keeping secrets from them is a Good Thing, in fact, The Most Important Thing.
October 9th, 2006 at 10:49 am
There was a good series of panels posted on SomethingAwful’s BSS a week or so ago about this! It’s hosted on Imagesocket, so I think it’s cool to link:
http://imagesocket.com/view/JLA_v1_156_37b68.jpg
http://imagesocket.com/view/JLA_v1_156_37955.jpg
http://imagesocket.com/view/JLA_v1_156_39a70.jpg
From JLA 156, obviously. That last line is pure comedy gold, considering what came down the line later.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” *shrug* *laugh track* *fade to black*
And, once again, Batman is the only one who knows what was going to happen. He tried to tell ‘im…
October 9th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
If you search Avi’s blog further, you’ll discover he’s a Zionist imperialist, somewhere to the right of neocons and, generally, madder than a bag of cats, so it’d probably be best never to refer to the loon again.
October 9th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
thanks for the comments, guys.
And Duncan, I try to judge the entries I post on an individual basis, solely by their own content.
I chose this because regardless of whatever opinion I have about the man’s politics, I felt it represented its side of the discussion quite well.
Thank you for your concern.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:23 am
Melissa:
As you correctly surmised, my tongue was firmly planted in cheek for my post, although it’s true that Jean Loring has never been a favorite of either of us over at the Comic Treadmill.
Thanks for the laugh!
H
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:48 pm
LOL! Duncan’s article called to mind the Simpsons’ episode where Marge and Homer go to Lovejoy’s marriage counseling camp, and listen to a Richard Burtonsque guy rant “What’s wrong with my marriage? She’s Queen of the Harpies! QUEEN OF THE HARPIES! HERE’S YOUR CROWN, YOUR MAJESTY!” which made me laugh even more.