Kent's Insensibility, or, Pryde and Prejudice

It’s always interesting to see which comic book news makes the mainstream media (as opposed to the many comic-book-related websites and blogs). This week, it’s Superman/Clark Kent quitting the Daily Planet to be a blogger (at least I assume that’s what happened, based on this coverage; I don’t actually read Superman comics).

I love how NPR, like, ANALYZES this in relation to Spider-Man, and even USA Today has a fairly lengthy article about it. What does it mean about the American people when our number one hero is sitting at a computer all day???? Though that’s probably what he was doing as a reporter too—do journalists these days wear out their shoe leather chasing down a story, or is that just something I picked up from reading a lot of noir?

It doesn’t seem like this is really going to change things that much, but I guess I appreciate writers who try to do more with the Clark side of Superman’s character, and not just the flying bad-ass side. Speaking of Superman, but unrelated to the above, if you’re ever in Cleveland, check out this cool Superman exhibit.

Actually, looks like Marvel is shaking things up a little bit lately too, with the All-New X-Men reboot that seems kind of fascinating, at least for someone who hasn’t been closely following the Avengers vs X-Men stuff. I love when the X-Men play with time travel and alternate X-universes; Days of Future Past was one of the strongest X storylines ever, and featured Kitty Pryde from the FUTURE traveling back in time to prevent a crazy X-less dystopia.

The new X-Men movie is rumored to be based on this storyline, which I am very psyched about, ASSUMING that Kitty Pryde is still the central character. Didn’t all the girls [spoiler!] in that first movie turn to the morally ambiguous/Magneto side anyway? So we do need some new girl characters at X-Academy. Kitty Pryde 4-eva!!

Also, how sad is it that by “all” the girls I’m really only referring to two of them? There were some other ladies in that first movie, but they were already evil-slash-lame (January Jones as Emma Frost) or not a mutant (Xavier love interest and comic-book-scientist-slash-movie-CIA-agent-or-something-I-forget, Moira McTaggert). Not to get started on my pet topic of “Lady Characters In Comic Books, Sometimes They Are Not Well-Represented,” but sheesh, get some more ladies please, and give them some emotional resonance!

In that first movie, Magneto is seriously the emotional lynchpin for me, which is why I have a hard time calling him and his mutant band “the bad guys”—what he does is very understandable in context, even if it is a pretty dark shade of grey, ethically. But the only girl we really get to know is Mystique, and her whole thing is “I’m secretly blue and I wish someone would love me even looking like that, and not just when I shapeshift into a hot blonde.” Not that Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t do a GREAT job with the character, and I totally bought it, but it’s not really the same as being tortured by Nazis and watching them murder your mother. All of which is to say, please put Kitty Pryde in that movie or I will be angry and blog about it!

Kent's Insensibility, or, Pryde and Prejudice

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