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Art by David Wynne. Wanna buy the original? Drop him a line!
Meet Code Blue. No, not that one. The other one. (X-Force #40)
Feral, disguised. (X-Force #40)
SERIOUSLY HE LOOKS JUST LIKE GRAYDON CREED (X-Force #40)
Well, that, too. (X-Force #41)
Domino’s other mutation is a really complicated relationship with gravity. (X-Force #41)
Happier times. (X-Force #41)
Feral’s font has leveled up. This is not a drill. (X-Force #41)
Huh. (X-Force #41)
James, I know you think you’re tough, but you are absolutely unequipped for a snark fight with Emma Frost. (X-Force #42)
“No, a GOOD reason.” (X-Force #42)
THE ACCENT (X-Force #42)
Would the world survive these two on a team together? (X-Force #42)
NEXT EPISODE: We get really intense about Adam X the X-Treme.
LINKS & FURTHER ILLUSTRATION:
- Go check out Aimee Fleck’s terrific Polaris redesign!
My fellow Xplainees – I have a call for help. I am a lawyer, and got myself into doing a CLE (continuing legal education class) on representations of the legal profession in media. Other people are handling TV and movies, but I have the comic books part of the program.
I am a comics reader, but apart from this podcast, I am really not a participant in comics culture, so here I came to ask for suggestions.
I have already pulled a number of things from my personal collection: the trial of Hector Ayala from the Bendis run of Daredevil, lots of stuff from the Charles Soule run of She Hulk, the very odd court appearance of Lucifer in The Wicked and the Divine, the very shitty job that is being Dario Agger’s lawyer in Thor: God of Thunder, some other Daredevil stuff (e.g. his very ethically questionable jury service), bad space lawyering from the current run of New Mutants. The Trial of Magneto seems like an obvious choice, but I don’t have that, so I’ll have to run it down. The first Quiet Council meeting in House of X is an interesting exploration of the origin of both legislative and jurisprudential law.
Does anybody have any additional recommendations for things I should look at related to the practice of law from comics?
Thanks, friends.
Did I post this before listening to the episode and learning that there is legal content in THIS VERY PODCAST EPISODE?
I did. Very sorry. Although, it seems like the practice of law aspect in the text may be a little too subtextual for my purposes.
Fabian Nicieza’s New Warriors had the trial of Vance (Marvel Boy) Astrovik for negligent homicide, after he killed his father with a telekinetic blast (which means in the MU, superpowers are considered weapons). His father had been abusive to him in the past, which factored into the way the case was treated.
It’s gone into in more detail on a site which might be of help to you; lawandthemultiverse (dot com)
I have nothing as good as the website that Icon_UK cited (if I ever have questions about the tax implications of my secret base, now I know where to go). But a couple of other thoughts:
– It might be worth going back to Dan Slott’s She-Hulk run as well as Soule’s. Heavily focused on mostly (mostly!) wacky superhero legal cases.
– In the ‘80s, DC’s version of Vigilante was Adrian Chase, prosecutor by day, shameless-Punisher-clone-with-a-dash-of-Wolverine by night. There was this whole legal-ethics thing (vague memory) about when he became a judge he had to give up his brutal gunning-criminals-down and other people took over the role for a fairly extended period. It’s not entirely clear to me, or at any rate I don’t remember. why the ethical concerns only applied when he became a judge, and not previously when he was a New York district attorney, but that sort of weirdness might be good for the classroom from the perspective of how comics depict the legal profession.
I feel very strongly that Quentin Quire is/should be a fat (and trans) character and the tumblr artist lythelia-art draws pretty much the best Quentin I can think of.
Quentin is an interesting choice. Def a character i could see as nb at the very least. In my own experience theres a lot of toe between processing gender and choosing how you embrace your body, tho that could be specific to me, so Quire could def be an interesting choice, especially given their incredibly counter culture attitude.
I love in the current X run, a depiction of Forge’s daily to-do list, including hundreds of situps and hundreds of squats. He has a hot superhero body, but he has to work for it. There’s nothing about his power-set that would make it come naturally, especially given his age, and even his military background.
I inherited a fat body and I inherited some intergenerational hate for my fat body. I lift weights, I run, and I’m an avid cyclist. I have well-defined, muscular arms and legs, plus a prominent belly and breasts (for a cis-male body). I think about this subject a lot and am going to do an overlong comment-section ramble here (sorry) I was drawn to the X-Men initially especially because of the variety of body types and backgrounds. My childhood favorites were Nightcrawler and Beast and the Morlocks.
I would love to see some more fat representation in the X groups’ body diversity. I expect given Danger Room training and all, that any current team members will be at peak condition for THEIR bodies given THEIR powers. But there are so many type of athletic bodies: powerlifter vs runner vs gymnast vs dancer etc etc etc. The recent heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz has a body like mine with a lot of rolls around the middle. In the discourse on Twitter, where someone was trying to bodyshame Lizzo, someone remarked how at her size she had the energy, physicality, and breath control to perform hundreds of times a year where she sings, twerks and plays the flute for upwards of an hour at a time. there’s no reason any of the mutants with ranged or psychic powers to have strong beautiful bodies like either of them.
The only fat, female superhero I could think of offhand is Gert from Runaways. When she sees a future version of herself with a traditional comic book superhero body, she rejects it. She’s fat. It’s a part of her and she’s succeeded on superheroics, life and love not because of it or despite it but alongside it. That’s important to me (and it was a bummer that she was hardly even “TV fat” for the Hulu show.
I don’t know which characters I would “make” fat. My first thought is that middle aged banshee would have some paunch, that characters experiencing depression or PTSD like say Legion or Multiple Man or Captain Britain might have body types that yoyo up or down. Quentin Quire as mentioned above makes a lot of sense. He seems someone who would pride himself about not “needing” his body to be effective, and lording it over his comrades how little time he wastes working out. I don’t know why but I like the thought of fat Longshot and fat Domino, and nothing about their stories even changing.
Thanks for the content warning, that’s some dark child abuse stuff in here I usually avoid. Jay mentioned something I didn’t understand, about keeping the point of view with the survivors. I’ve never really thought about that, but it may be why some stories I can get through just fine, and others I just rage quit? Could anyone elaborate this?
I think it would be more interesting to have some of the more physical character show increased body weights. From a sociological viewpoint it might make more sense to have a telekinetic or psychic character be large it could also be seen as reinforcing the stereotype that people become fat because they are physically inactive.
As for queer characters, it was strongly hinted at in Rogue’s third series that she had a physical relationship with another woman and I would love for that to be followed up on.
It’s been a couple years, thoughts on All-New Wolverine?