Colin Smith looks at gender imbalances in Marvel’s Ultimate Comics Ultimates:
On the evidence of Messrs Hickman and Ribic’s The Ultimates # 1, the fundamental concerns of feminism haven’t yet become a matter of public concern and debate on Earth 1610, or, it needs to be said, in the offices of Marvel Comics either. For in the whole of The Republic Is Burning, there’s not even a single minor speaking role given to anyone who’s not evidently a bloke, while the few occasions in which women are discussed find them mentioned solely in a specifically sexual context… It’s just as telling to note who isn’t a woman in The Ultimates # 1. In addition to the active and apparently more important roles in Fury’s entourage being reserved for men, the leaders of this issue’s world-threatening conspiracy are all males too. (There are women in their ranks, mind you, and they appear to be identically blonde and beautiful Nordicesque twins.) Still, both Fury’s base and the gaggle of his primary opponents do have women prettying up their background. Yet not a single one of the European “Excalibur-class super-soldiers” who’re on display are anything other than conspicuously male. It’s something which I doubt real-world sensibilities over here on the other side of Pond would ever accept, but then politics doesn’t really appear to be Mr Hickman’s strong point. Similarly, the massed carousing immortals of Asgard are almost entirely male with the exception of one bikini-clad woman carrying the drinks in the background of a single panel and another largely-naked lass making a sole semi-nude appearance to cheer on the immortal boys when they get down to their manly brawling. It seems that only the youthfully undressed cheesecake gets the privilege of waiting on the boys in this Asgard of the Ultimate Universe.
Interesting to read this on the same day that I read Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #2, in which only one woman gets a line (“How did you — How did you do that?” for those curious). But, I have to ask those who’ve kept up with Ultimates more than I have: Aren’t there female members on the team? Don’t they appear in the first issue at all?
September 29th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
We women have always been decorative…and that’s no problem at all!
The real question is that we are much more than decorative! What do you men think about it?
by soldador inverter
September 29th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Well…we’re there to look pretty, and to get rescued!
September 29th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Marvel should kill the Ultimate comics line altogether. They’re well beyond New Universe levels of irrelevance.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
To be fair…they were fighting in the midst of an Asgardian drinking party. I’d kind of expect those kinds of girls to be there.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
I just discovered I haven’t read the Newsarama Blog for weeks, because your RSS feed is broken. Please fix it.
September 29th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Is this the new Rama Blog theme?
–J.
September 29th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Did this guy even read the comic? He insists multiple times that the most significant female character is the woman handing Nick Fury his coffee. He’s wrong. There’s a character named “Sarah II” who’s an important genetic engineer and idealogue within the Dome. He also claims multiple times that women have no speaking roles. Again, that’s clearly false as Hela and a number of the female Children of tomorrow have speaking roles.
Finally, he bemoans that “the few occasions in which women are discussed find them mentioned solely in a specifically sexual context” Again, if you read the book you’ll find that’s clearly not the case. Take this piece of narration for example “Emma IV was the third child created in the Dome. She was flawless, and became a dynamo, powering the city.” An image accompanies this narration showing one of the Dome’s many female superhuman scientist-warriors with a bald head and functional body-covering suit.
I know these phony manufactured controversies are good for getting hits and everything but this is getting ridiculous now.
September 30th, 2011 at 8:42 am
It seems these days there is a new way of reading comics- reading into it what you want to. What happened to the good old days where you suspend your disbelief and read a comic for the plot, the action, the characterisation and the art? There is a Chinese saying- seeing the reflection of a bow as an adder in the water. Read into that what you will.
September 30th, 2011 at 11:57 am
My mistake. I was talking about issue 2 but that article was only referring to issue 1. However, I still think he was reaching for stuff to be offended by. For example he shows a panel where Nick Fury, being forced to stretch his rescources to deal with a number of simultaneous emergencies says something like “we need Captain America.” Of course Smith takes this opportunity to paint it as a racist commentary where a black man “needs the Aryan super-man to save him.” The whole article is full of those sorts awful cheap shots.
October 2nd, 2011 at 6:27 am
Quite why one of the worst writers and most insufferable prigs in the comics blogosphere gets to be quoteworthy on this or any other subject is beyond me.
October 2nd, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Reading too much into it, aren’t we?