Quoted In The Philly News Again...

SOURCE: Why The Joker is Batman's greatest nemesis

Yeah. That's me being quoted along with Peter David and Erik Larsen about what makes The Joker tick.

Looking To The Stars - Red Sonja: Feminist Icon or Misogynist Fantasy? Part Two

Last week, we explored the history and mythological themes behind Red Sonja’s oath of chastity, save to any man who can best her in combat. We examined Peter David’s claims that Sonja is a screwed-up character to swear such a thing as well as Roy Thomas’ notes that his whole inspiration from the oath came from myth and that the concept of Sonja is very sound in terms of the same epic legends that inspired Robert E. Howard.

We then concluded with a rather striking concept – is Sonja’s oath a test of any man who would fight her or is it a test of Sonja herself? This is a very important question, for any claims of Sonja’s inherit sexism hinge upon this very concept.

I think a mistake that many supposedly feminist readers and writers make is in thinking that the impetus behind such an oath is to objectify Sonja – to make her a prize to be won by any idiot with more muscles than brains. The problem with this idea is that it defies all reason if Sonja made her oath to a goddess and not to herself. And recent issues of the comic have confirmed that Sonja’s goddess is real and not the hallucination of a stressed-out peasant girl.

To my mind, it seems a rather odd thing for a goddess, supposedly good, feminine and feminist to empower a young girl to defend herself only to say “Yes, I’ll give you the strength to stand on your own and stop others from being hurt as you were... until some twit beats you and then you must be his love slave.” In fact, Sonja’s goddess did not say that and the goddess’ last words after describing the general oath - pledge not to love any man, save who defeats you in fair battle – are quite telling.

”Something that no man is like to do after this day.”

It seems the goddess’ expectation is that Sonja is not going to fail. She is not trying to create victories for great male warriors or literal trophy wives. She is trying to create a worthy servant for herself – an avatar. And in that context, Sonja’s empowerment makes sense – why bother blessing some revenge-craving teenage girl if she’s only going to get beaten by some rube with an axe and a loincloth?

So why require the oath in the first place... except as a test of Sonja’s own resolve? To answer this question, let’s pause a moment to look at Sonja’s past and defuse some of the more popular misunderstandings regarding Red Sonja.


1. Sonja is a man-hater.

To refute this, one need only look at Sonja’s long friendship with Conan in his own comic series. As antagonistic and at odds with one another as they were, the two did have a healthy respect for one another. Even in her own series, Sonja has had a number of male companions whom she allied herself with. Oddly enough this is one of the few aspects of the character that the infamous movie got right...


Swordmaster: Hatred of men in a lovely young woman... Such could be your downfall.
Sonja: I don't hate ALL men, Grandmaster.



2. Sonja is not interested in sex or is afraid of sex.

In some cases, there was a definite romantic attraction Sonja and her male companions. One disposed prince she helped restore to the throne offered to make her a queen but she refused him saying that she was too much of a wanderer to ever settle down as a queen. In the case of one particular rogue – a bard named Tusan - Sonja allowed him to cuddle with her under the same blanket and even kissed him full on the lips. Of course when he suggested going any further, she rebuffed him...


Tusan: But how will we keep warm out here all alone until morning?
Sonja: You’ll build a fire, my man... you’ll build a fire.


Indeed, in Sonja’s second appearance (The Shazam Award winning “Song of Red Sonja” in Conan the Barbarian #24), Sonja seemed to be admiring Conan for reasons that had nothing to do with his skill as a fighter or a thief as she wondered about ‘some of the tall tales she’d heard about Cimmerians’.


It seems likely then that despite her traumatic past, Sonja does have a young woman’s normal sexual urges and attractions.


3. Sonja will lose her power if she is ever defeated.

There is nothing in Sonja’s oath to suggest an either/or end to her divinely-granted prowess. It merely says that she cannot physically love any man who can not prove her better in combat. Quite honestly, it seems counter-productive to the aims of Sonja’s goddess for her to take away power from a faithful servant for losing one battle. Of course if Sonja were to willingly lose a fight, all bets would probably be off.

Regardless, Sonja HAS been beaten several times and never lost her skills. Conan himself had her dead to rights in two separate battles. In the first, in Marvel Feature #7, he hesitated in killing her as he owed her a life debt and decided to spare her.

In the second, in Conan the Barbarian #115, he bested her after she made cutting remarks about his recently dead love Belit and a duel ensued. The victory was somewhat uncertain (Sonja slipped on a wet bar floor) but Sonja was convinced enough of the victory to return to Conan’s inn room, where Conan found himself too despondent over Belit to enjoy the victory.

If “What If” stories may be counted, Sonja lost a battle to a time-displaced Wolverine and still retained her fighting skills despite this.

Indeed, there is only one story where Sonja’s defeat in battle caused her to lose her skills. In Conan #197, while traveling with Conan, Sonja was defeated by an warlord named Bakht, who was attacking her merely to lure Conan into a trap. Despite the ambush tactics used by Bakht (to say nothing of the magical help he had in the battle), Sonja is injured to such a degree that she believes that her skills left her and proves to be more burden in the coming travels than help to Conan and his party. Still, when attacked in camp in Conan #200, Sonja goes berserk and proves capable of defending herself when pressed. Her confidence returned, she quickly returns to her old self.

Given that this is one incident stacked against many others and the fact that Sonja’s “loss of skill” seems to have been more traumatic than spiritual, it seems likely that Sonja will not suddenly become a shrinking violet should any man ever best her in battle.


4. Sonja is a lesbian.

Honestly, there’s nothing in the history of the character to have suggested this, even in the more recent stories. Of course most of Sonja’s stories were published at a time when exploring such things would be completely forbidden by a major publisher like Marvel.

Even today the closest anyone has come to approaching the subject was in Frank Cho’s “Queen of the Frozen Wastes”, and that was only to have Sonja recoiling and spitting after being kissed by a female vampire. Quite honestly, that could just as easily have been a reaction to being kissed by an undead cannibal who doesn’t brush as Sonja’s reaction to being kissed by a woman.

Regardless, all of the textual evidence so far is that Sonja is heterosexual. Any examination of the questions regarding if she can freely love women or if she must offer herself to any woman who beats her in a fair fight are likely to be reserved to the kind of fan-fiction this author will not link to, assuming that it exists.


5. Sonja is above using her sexuality as a weapon/promised reward.

Despite all indications that Sonja maintains a healthy interest in sex but enough personal control to keep to her oath, she is not above exploiting her own myth or her sexuality. In her first appearance with Conan, she persuaded Conan into helping her with a theft with a promise of romance later on. Of course she knocked him out and ran off with the loot before fulfilling any such promise.

On other occasions, Sonja allowed several brutish sorts who thought they could overpower her to get close, only to lure them into a fight, taking a good deal of joy in the brawling with a man who did not respect her.

In the more recent Dynamite Comics (Issue #9 to be exact), Sonja made a rather striking confession to a young teen – also an orphan who lost her virginity to the soldiers that killed her family. This girl asked why Sonja dressed as provocatively as she does and if that was not an invitation to repeat the past. This seems to mirror Peter David’s concerns, to say nothing of repeating the old myth of “dressed like that, she was asking for it.”


“I hadn’t really thought of it before. I always said it was a good distraction. Men would watch my body closer than my blade. But perhaps... perhaps I am seeking that attention again. Maybe because I have sworn to not lay with a man who could not best my sword... or... Or maybe I am calling to those who would force themselves on a woman... like a siren calling sailors to their deaths. Calling such men to my blade so that I may slay them again and again...”


This quote seems to doubly confirm that Sonja is interested in sex and that she is more than willing to use her body and myth to attract and kill the same kind of men responsible for turning her into what she is. Of course, such a woman would undoubtedly be considered a sexual predator today but such behavior is fair in just in the lawless, magical world of Hyboria.

Indeed, in looking at Sonja’s past in the comics, we see a relatively well-adjusted and modern woman. A healthy young woman who, despite her tomboy past and traumatic teen years, still has the normal urges that most women do. She still feels attraction to men though for obvious reasons her attraction only goes towards those men who consider her an equal and do not treat her like a prize to be won.

And this last quote seems to prove what Sierra said looking at the painting we examined last week. Despite Sonja’s commitment to her goddess and fighting evil wherever she finds it, there is still a part of her that actually wants to have a normal life, at least in so far as being able to choose a good man and make love to him.

That is what makes Sonja’s oath a test of Sonja herself. It would be all to easy for her to throw a fight and let herself be won by a man she was attracted to. But because Sonja values her independence and fighting the evil in the world, she does not.

Indeed, in Conan the Barbarian #115, she tells Conan that she must part ways with him after a battle in which Conan gave up a chance to resurrect his dead lover Belit because to do so would require Sonja’s death. She told Conan that she feared staying near him because she knew that sooner or later they would come into conflict and weapons would be draw. She further said that having seen his nobility and how he would give up that which he most wanted for her sake that a part of her wanted to lose that battle and that was something she could now allow. She valued her freedom more than the chance to find love with one of the few men she truly thought worthy of her.

Recent events in Red Sonja #15 seem to have finally settled the issue once and for all. An issue earlier, Sonja and two fellow warriors confronted Kaleval – head of a forgotten pantheon of gods. Defeated easily by the weakened warrior god, they secured his promise of help against the rising of a coming darkness and Kaleval himself guided Sonja to a mystical blade needed in the coming conflict. As they rested, Sonja removed her armor and offered herself to Kaleval, who was all too eager to indulge in Sonja’s ample charms.

This led to some outrage amongst Sonja fans as questions were raised about how this allowed Sonja to stay true to her oath. Are male gods not considered men? Does three mortals against a god truly count as “a fair fight”? And why would Sonja be offering herself to the god if he were not insisting on her honoring her oath...

... unless she WANTED to sleep with the god?

It seems likely, given what we know of Sonja that having finally been beaten in battle by a man – albeit a handsome and divinely-powered one but still a man – that she decided the letter of the law, if not the spirit, had been fulfilled.

It also seems likely that Sonja was more than a little curious about what it would be like to experience physical love as it was meant to be – particularly since the next morning she would be going into a battle against evil the likes of which the world had never seen before where the odds were against her surviving, even if her side won. Michael Avon Omeing, current writer of the Red Sonja book, said as much on his own message boards.


"Kaleval kicked her ass. She didn’t stand a chance. We could have made it more clear, but I thought him standing on her back while holding her two buddies over his shoulder would be enough. But for some reason a lot of people didn’t get that.

Then she wanted some. So she got some.”


Given all of this, I think my girlfriend was right on when she looked at the painting of Sonja and saw something that I, for all my geekiness, never considered. That even though she is a swordswoman in a chainmail bikini, Sonja is still a woman and as such, she still has a woman’s needs and urges though she represses them in the name of a greater good. As such, Sonja is more than a cheesecake heroine and is a suitable icon for any feminist comic fan.

Looking To The Stars - Red Sonja: Feminist Icon or Misogynist Fantasy? Part One

My girlfriend Sierra’s favorite comic book heroine is Red Sonja-

...

Sir, get your jaw off the ground! You may attract birds to nest there.

As I said, her favorite hero is Red Sonja. This fact seems to astonish some people, like our large-mouthed friend there, because the conventional wisdom of late seems to be that the only people who collect Red Sonja are men.

Now, I’ll admit to having believed this in the past myself. It astonished me when, early in our relationship, my lady said that one of her favorite movies growing up was Red Sonja. Yes, it was cheesy and she knew that but there was still something about the idea of Sonja that appealed to her. Sonja is strong, physically and spiritually. She is uncompromising and independent, more than capable of standing on her own. And above all else, she is a survivor.

Here you have this young woman, who is raped while her entire family is killed right in front of her. And where many would break or give into despair, she emerges from this determined to do what she can to stop men like those who killed her family, wherever she can find them.

Take away the rape and it sounds just a little bit like Batman, doesn’t it?

Still, what really convinced me that there was more to the character than just cheesecake was when Sierra showed me an image, shortly after I introduced her to the Red Sonja comics, for despite liking the movie, she never knew about Sonja’s time as a comic book heroine. It was a Boris Vallejo painting, used as a book-cover for one of six very-rare Red Sonja novels.

Now, I had seen this image before - a red-haired woman, taking a rest from a journey of some kind. She looks beautiful and powerful – typical Vallejo.

Sierra saw something quite different – she saw the city in the background and how Sonja seemed to be looking at it wistfully. She thought that Sonja looked lonely and that she was looking, not at the place she was going to, but the place she was leaving and thinking about how a part of her would like to stay there and have a normal life, and being a little sad that she could not.

It was the whole post-modern female conflict laid bare – the natural desire to nurture, have kids and settle down versus the need for a career and independence from the expectations of society – all in what I dismissed as simple cheesecake.

And while Sierra was the first woman I met who saw Sonja as a feminist role-model, she was far from the last. I’ve met many a number of women in my last few years as a writer and chatting on-line on various forums, who count Sonja as a personal influence. And yet there are an equal number of fans, male and female, who say that Sonja is not a feminist icon but a sexist one.

Now I’ve found that a lot of these comments do come from ignorance – people who, like me, assumed that there was no motivation behind the character but to sell a lot of books to desperate, horny fanboys. Still, there are some complaints were well-reasoned and about something besides the chainmail bikini.

And to give one brief tangent before we go any further, I believe it does a great disservice to women everywhere and the legitimate complaints I am about to discuss to assume that all complaints about sexism in comics boil down to “women don’t like to see women in skimpy costumes”. While the portrayal of women in comics artistically is a major issue with some feminist comic fans, it is also a complex one worthy of its’ own discussion. As such, it will not be discussed here right now.

There is a school of thought that says that Sonja’s method of dress and loud proclaiming of her oath to never bed down with any man who cannot best her in battle is nothing more than male sexual fantasy. They say that Sonja is an object catering to a man’s desire to dominate and control a woman who is seemingly out to torment him. And given that Sonja puts herself in this position and is smart enough to know what losing requires, that there is something more than a little screwed up about her.

Peter David said as much just over four years ago – before Sonja became a hot property in the comic world – in one of his columns. I quote:


"Sonja was raped. She was brutalized. Control over her body was taken by a man, who overpowered her and had forced intercourse with her.

And she swore that no man would ever touch her except-- who? A man who could beat her. Overpower her. Defeat her. That's creepy.

A gentle man does not have a chance with Red Sonja. A poet couldn't woo her. A singer could not sway her. A man of grace or charm, a man of breeding and education who would never think of striking a woman, much less raping one, won't get to first base with her. In short, the sort of man who, with patience and understanding, could put the pieces of this woman's sex life back together again is automatically out of the running.

Instead, the only man that she will have sex with is a man who can re-enact the single most traumatic and devastating event of the woman's life. Someone who is capable of overpowering Red Sonja, as her rapist did, is the one she will give herself to. She has doomed herself to disdain all normal sex, searching instead for someone who can remove control of her body from her once more and force her to relive her rape."

Yes, Sonja’s actions are mad in a modern, civilized Western world that has all the benefits of an active police force, psychiatrists and Donna Karan. The problem here is that David is trying to force modern sensibilities upon the quasi-medieval world of Hyboria - a world where man and woman alike are at the mercy of the powerful.

The meek may inherit the Earth, but the only way the meek will inherit Hyboria is if all the blood-thirsty warlords, cunning thieves and treacherous wizards kill each other off and leave a scrap of untainted land intact.

David does have a point though, in that doubtlessly there are some men who fantasize about “winning” a woman under such circumstances as there are some women who fantasize about being overpowered. But any student of psychology can tell you that rape is about control, not sex and there is a world of difference between a man who fantasizes about proving his worth to a dream girl and a man who forces himself on women out of a desire to dominate.

Roy Thomas himself certainly had no sexual fantasies in mind when he created the character of Red Sonja. He simply wanted to create a female adventurer to match Conan, whom could be used early on in his career without conflicting with the exact chronology of the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. He found her while adapting one of REH’s historical tales into a Conan adventure, changed the name slightly, and changed Red Sonya of Rogatine to Red Sonja of Hyrkania.

When Sonja proved popular enough with readers and critics alike to warrant her own series (the second-part of her first story won The Shazam Award for Best Individual Story in 1974), Thomas turned his eye to expanding Sonja’s background and giving her a full history.

I quote Thomas, from his introduction to the recent trade-paperback collection of the first few Red Sonja stories:


"Some feminists (and a few guys, too) have taken me to task over the years for that vow, but that’s never bothered me. The lineage of the concept was flawless, literary and respectable – a statement attributed to the warrior-queen Aoife in William Butler Yeats’ beautiful early 20th-century verse-play On Baile’s Strand, one of whose protagonists was the legendary Irish hero Cuchulain – so I never faltered then or now in my support of the oath. If I didn’t know the motivations of a heroine that I, at the very least, co-created, then who did?"

The line in question is, in fact, He said a while ago that he heard Aoife boast that she'd never but the one lover, and he the only man that had overcome her in battle. But Aoife is not the only warrior woman in myth to have such lofty requirements of potential suitors.

* Atalanta, an Amazon Huntress in Greek myth, put forth a challenge that she would only marry a man who could best her in a running race and would kill any man that lost to her.
* Some versions of The Labors of Hercules have Hippolyta, the Amazon queen, offering herself to Hercules after being beaten in battle.
* The idea of an Amazon having to offer herself to a man who vanquished her in battle was around long before Wonder Woman, who lost her powers when bound by a man, was published.
* In Norse Myth, Brunhilde, valkyrie and daughter of Odin, created a test for any man who would have her. Cursed to sleep eternal until kissed by a man who would love her, she was placed inside a magical ring of fire that would burn any but the most fearless and worthy of warriors.
* Valkyries in Norse Myth were expected to remain chaste if they wished to remain empowered with prodigious fighting skills by Odin.

Given that I believe Thomas to be a man of his word and that he did draw upon the same rich literary traditions that Robert E. Howard did in the creation of Hyboria, I think it can safely be said that the intent was to mirror epic legend – not to play fan service to the boys with a crush on Big Red.

I think Peter David’s fault lies in that he believes Sonja’s oath was made, not to the goddess who blessed her, but to herself. Were this the case, he would be entirely correct to think that Sonja is disturbed, even by Hyborian standards.

Indeed, for many years there was a theory that Sonja’s amazing skill in battle was natural and not part of a divine blessing and that the goddess Sonja saw was merely the tormented imaginings of a young woman under great stress. However, recent issues of the current Red Sonja comic have eliminated any doubt as to the true existence of Sonja’s mysterious and unidentified goddess.

Still, the question does remain; was Sierra right about Sonja in the painting? How does Sonja feel about her path in life? Does part of her long for normalcy? Is Sonja’s oath not a test of any man who would have her but a test of Sonja herself?

We’ll discuss all that and more next time. Same Matt Time! Same Matt website.

Read Part Two HERE.

The Mount - So It Has Come To This...

Come back Peter David! All is forgiven... except for the Earth Angel Supergirl! But I take back every other nasty thing I ever said about you and your writing. I apologize for laughing at every crack Gail Simone or Kevin Smith ever made about you. I'll even write a formal apology for turning people away from your Star Trek novels while I was working at the bookstore! Just please, please... PLEASE come back and write Aquaman again before it is too late!

Now long time readers may be wondering what on Earth could make ol Starman Matt be screaming piously like Pat Robertson when he needs a new house. "Don't you really not like Peter David's writing?" they might ask.

The answer is a resounding yes. I can't stand Peter David. I can't stand his prose style in general. I think most of his plots are lackluster. But most of all, I can't forgive his apparent need to reinvent every character he writes. The creation of the hook-handed Aquaman and Earth-Angel Supergirl in particular.

"Then what ( and I hope he gets to the point soon, you think) could make you scream these apologies, Unca Stars?"

I quote now from the most recent issue of Previews...

"Banished from Atlantis? Branded a traitor? Every deizen of the deep programed to deliver him a death sentence... It's Aquaman as you've never seen him before.

The Aftermath of the epic JLA storyline "The Obsidian Age" has left Aquaman hated by his former subjects and exile from the life giving ocean he once called home. The king they called Orin is judged guilty of high treason for crimes committed during The Obsidian Age. His sentence: death.

Left to perish on an exposed reef, Aquaman discovers- to his horror- that all the creatures of the sea are instructed to attack him without mercy and that he must now turn to other bodies of water for sanctuary. In a mysterious freshwater lake, he finds refuge and much more, as he is granted amazing new powers and a new mission in life.

The oceans may be off limits, but the Lady of the Lake has presented him with his true destiny...."

Am I the only one who reads these words with dread of what is coming? I mean, I'm all for giving a new book or a new take on a character a chance... but there is only so much bending you can do before things break. And I thought Arthur Curry/Orin or whatever he calls himself now had already hit the breaking point after the hook incident.

Mark my words: this will be the Electric Superman all over again. The book will sell a lot at first and a few people will cheer the new change and an end to the old clichés... but then, things will shift back.

The die-hard Aquaman fans (and let's be honest... what other kind are there?) will protest and keep protesting... and things will go back to the way they were. So it has happened before. So it shall be again. And I think I can say this safely, as the only exception to this rule I can think of is Kyle Rayner still being Green Lantern, despite the protests of many Hal Jordan fans.

Until next time, may your clerks be friendly and your comics unbent.