So...
Little Julie Power, the feisty girl who makes up one fourth of the kiddie super-team the Power Pack, the girl who can fly and leaves a pretty, sparkling trail of light in her wake that resembles a rainbow...
Grows up to be...you know...
So I wonder how accepted the current all-ages Power Pack books would be to parents if they knew that Julie is predestined to become...you know...
Hey, if Marvel isn't willing to say it then I'm not, either.
I wonder if Marvel is tip-toeing around the subject of...you know...so they have a different sort of "out" for Julie later on if the editors decide to go the other way, so to speak.
"You thought I was what? Whatever gave you the idea I was..you know..that way?"
Images from The Avengers & Power Pack Assemble! #1 (June 2006) and The Loners #4(September 2007).
Tags: Seduction of the Innocent Gay Homophobia
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Julie, embrace your destiny, whatever it is
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What, a podiatrist?
ReplyDeleteJulie Power grows up to be a podiatrist?
Damn straight, I wouldn't want no daughter of mine getting all goey-eyed over a ^%$* podiatrist.
There are so few good lesbian role models.
Podiatrists are not even *real* doctors!
ReplyDeleteSorry to come a bit late to this discussion. Anyway, the lesbian innuendo is just the tip of the iceberg in my complaints about what Marvel's done with Power Pack in the past few years. The all-ages miniseries are a load of crap, completely unworthy of sharing that title and those characters with the original run (OK, maybe the last year-plus of the series was pretty crap), and by the guest characters' costumes (ie, Wolverine, Iron Man, et al) we can see they're meant to take place in present continuity. Plus, have you ever seen anything so blantantly and pathetically beg to be optioned for a Saturday morning cartoon? (Note to Marvel: Following first, THEN licensing; your cart is before your horse.) Yet simultaneously we've got "adult" Julie running around with The Loners? By my approximations the Power kids in present continuity ought not be any more than four years older than they were when they debuted in 1984.
ReplyDeleteOf course I freely admit my bitterness is due in part to my wish to have written a Power Pack series until the new abominations were announced, but I know I'm not alone in my dismay.
Also late to the discussion, my opinion is that Marvel are going the wrong way with Julie, as after 25 years of comics in which her every inner thought was there on the page for scrutiny, the 'regular' Julie Power being gay is a forced retcon that doesn't make sense beyond cheap heat from fans generationg buzz for the Loners miniseries (a suspicion fed by the cheesecake panels of her appearing in Loners).
ReplyDeleteJulie would realistically have had sexual feelings about girls during puberty, not suddenly at 17 (she was attracted to Ricochet during Runaways), and we, the readers, would have read those thoughts.
The last time Marvel tried a forced gay retcon that I can remember was Rawhide Kid, and that didn't do them any favours with the fans or critics who saw it as a cheap ploy for buzz - which Marvel even admit themselves - and it's worth noting that Loners sold well initially, but around the time online fans began discussing the 'hints' in the book about one of it's most popular characters, it managed to drop five thousand readers.
On the other hand, and this is where I realise I'm going to have trouble, I think the all-ages Julie should be gay, because it would be nmore natural for a girl her age to be exploring her sexuality, and it would be a chance to reinforce an idea that's ran through kids' books for years: that being different isn't something to be ashamed of - a lesson I can't honestly say that the Loners is teaching by turning sexual confusion into an excuse to titilate fanboys.
Marvel should have little problem or risk in making All-Ages Julie gay. DC did flew it under the radar for the all-ages Batgirl when hinting around on the Supergirl-Babs relationship.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a retcon, surely? In the cartoon, Bruce was shagging Barbera, and in Return Of The Joker she reveals that this caused the rift between him and Dick that was mentioned in the 1990s cartoon - and she was married during Batman Beyond.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, in the Superman cartoon, Captain Maggie Sawyer was gay, but all we saw onscreen was her 'lady friend' holding her hand in one scene when she was in hospital. There was nothing seedy or shameful about it, just clearly a close bond between two people.
Getting back to Power Pack, I suspected Jack was supposed to be gay.