Tag Archives: Black Widow

Culture War Correspondence: Getting Into Reading Comics

EVAN: I wanted to start this off by referring to you readers as “initiated and uninitiated”, but decided that that would be too creepy. The thing is, those words aren’t too far off the mark when it comes to those who are and aren’t in the know when it comes to one of my all-time favourite mediums.

This week Kat [a person who does not regularly read comics] and I [a person who does] will be discussing how to go about doing so, and why a lot of people don’t.

KAT: Oh, I’m glad you added in that last part, because I was just thinking about why I don’t read more comics. Continue reading

Fame Day: The Mako Mori Test

The Bechdel Test, a pass/fail method of determining how female-friendly a film is. Gordon and I discussed it a while back for our first E&GT ever, but to sum it up a movie can only pass the test if:

  1. it has at least two women in it,
  2. who talk to each other,
  3. about something besides a man

During our discussion we arrived at the conclusion that this is by no means a perfect test. There are instances of films that pass that still do a deplorable job of depicting women. On the other hand, take The Avengers, which features both Black Widow and Maria Hill, the former of whom is arguably one of the strongest, capable heroes in the entire thing. The two never interact, but that by no means reflects on their roles as female characters.

Really great at staring intensely, really bad at talking to one another.

Really great at staring intensely, really bad at talking to one another.

Continue reading

The Avengers Go To Hong Kong, Japan

Early this week I was perusing Marvel’s solicitations for May 2013, and came across the following cover for Avengers #11:

avengers11

Art by Dustin Weaver.

The first part of the issue’s description [and the one I thought was most relevant] was the following:

As Shang-Chi battles an ancient enemy, the Avengers hang out in Hong Kong’s swankiest casino. Continue reading