Peiratikos

I’ve been hoping to post something substantive but now that I’m peering out from under the edge of a multi-day migraine, I’ll be shuffling back to bed as soon as I can. So instead of substance, I can give vague impressions.

Greg Burgas had some thoughts about why you don’t see more Christians in superhero comics (one of the answers being because you don’t look hard enough) and while I didn’t think there was too much going on there beyond the anecdote-swapping, it reminded me that I had written about portrayals of Muslim women in mainstream comics a few months ago. Both posts have plenty of activity in the comments, too, if you’re not about to retreat to bed and are looking to kill some time reading.

Since I wrote that in February, Vimanarama has ended, and I should really update my thoughts on how it dealt with faith in both religious and secular or personal terms. I found it both satisfying and disappointing; a three-issue story is seldom enough for me these days. I’m not sure I have much more to say now. However, there clearly is more to say about Dust of New X-Men, a book I’m not currently reading in either its Hellions miniseries or Mutant Academy X formats. Steven went to buy comics today and returned to tell me I absolutely had to look at the cover of Hellions #2, but he didn’t buy us a copy. Apparently the premise is that in this issue Dust has the option of making one wish that can change her life forever, and I’m not sure what to make of the suggestions the cover implies. I’m tempted now to buy the miniseries just to find out what’s going on with her, whether she now considers her modesty a confining limitation or whether the artist can only conceive of Muslim women as seductive harem girls in the Orientalist tradition (and I hope not, since he’s the interior artist as well) or really what’s going on here. I was interested in her story because I like teenage stories about body issues, especially on feminist terms. I’m interested in smart analysis of the contrary pulls to living in an attractive body versus being just one of the guys or a brain in a vat, what it means to be taken seriously as a person and a woman. On the off chance that this is what’s going on here, I may well have a look.

I thought I had more to say, but if I can’t remember, that must mean it’s time to quit.