Emma, on the other hand, was allowed to develop and change. She was allowed to grow as a person – something that’s relatively rare in any fictional medium, and almost unheard of in superhero team comics, which are, after all, four-color soap operas full of evil twins and missing babies and everything else my mother used to love about All My Children. Our version of Erica Kane might throw fireballs or read your mind, but at the end of the day, she was still a woman in a soap opera universe, playing by soap opera rules. Emma seemed to flaunt those rules almost from day one, going from cardboard villain to sardonic anti-heroine with grace and snide humor. And she did it all while she was wearing three-inch heels.
By now, you should know which side of the divide I come down on. I’m an Emma Frost girl, through and through. I have all the issues of her short-lived solo series, as well as the trade paperback collections. I have a picture of her, framed, on my bedroom wall. I even have the fantastic anime-style statuette of her that was released in January 2011. She sits on the shelf above my workspace, guarding my computer from disk failure. (Before I start sounding like a total obsessive, please note that my bedroom walls also play host to a Nocturnals poster, as well as a lot of art people have done for me of my own characters. I even have the cover of Velveteen vs. Everything #5, and that’s a comic that doesn’t exist. Emma shares her shelf with an Allosaurus and a creepy wasp-girl. So I’m not obsessive, I’m just weird.)
Now, I have friends who are on the Jean side of the fence, and we sometimes try to explain things to each other. This sometimes ends with hair-pulling and shouts of “Home-wrecker!” and “Genocidal bitch!”, but those are the bad days. Most of the time, we just spend a few hours laughing about all the things we have in common, and agree that our love for different Marvel telepaths is really not a big enough deal to come between us. Besides, they always say, Jean’s coming back. Jean always comes back.
They have a point there, I’m afraid. The revolving-door nature of death in the Marvel Universe is well-established enough for the books themselves to make fun of it. When Theresa Cassidy’s father was killed, she didn’t attend the funeral; wouldn’t, in fact, even admit that he was dead. It took several years of Banshee not showing up before she would admit that this time, really and for truly, her father wasn’t coming home. Sorry, Theresa. I guess your father was too second-string to rate a resurrection. So why wouldn’t a character named “Phoenix” come riding back in to pick things up where she left off?
Do not want. But there are reasons for that, I promise. First off, and most likely to get things thrown at me, I like Scott a lot better with Emma than I do with Jean. Because Jean needed to stay perfect, Scott needed to stay perfect when he was with her. Scott and Jean together are so perfect that they become boring, him the hero with the iron jaw, her the beautiful heroine, both of them striking a pose against an inexplicable sunset. If I thought there was a chance that a resurrected Jean would finally go, “You know what? Screw this. I’m going to Canada,” and go bang Wolverine’s brains out, I might be more interested in seeing her climb out of her grave again, just because it would be something new.
What’s more, and this is a bit of me defending Jean – which, believe me, is way weirder for me than it is for anybody else – bringing her back would rob her death of its meaning. Right now, Jean Grey has one of the few truly meaningful deaths in the Marvel Universe. She’s been dead for more than six calendar years (Morrison’s run on New X-Men killed her in 2004), and she died saving New York City, and possibly the world. Upon her death, she was finally able to transcend the flaws enforced upon the Phoenix Force by her mortal state, and became a White Phoenix of the Crown. She now helps to shape reality from her new home in the White Hot Room.
So... meaningful death, followed by confirmed ascension to a higher plane, where she actively works to make the universe run more smoothly? (We have, in fact, already seen Jean manipulate timelines to prevent an apocalyptic future from occurring. Not to worry, this is the X-Men; we’ll have a new apocalyptic future in a minute. Ding! One apocalypse for table four.) Why, exactly, are Jean’s fans the ones clamoring for her return? I’d think that the people who really adored her would want her to stay gone, giving her the sort of happy ending that dozens of senselessly slaughtered characters can only dream about.
And it’s not like her impact on Scott’s life has been somehow wiped away by his relationship with Emma Frost. For one thing, Scott and Jean’s daughter from an alternate timeline, Rachel, is still running around, although she’s currently in outer space. Scott’s son with Jean’s clone was recently killed, but he died defending a girl named Hope who may or may not be the salvation of the mutant race (signs point to yes), and is now remembered as a hero. Scott and Jean Summers changed the world in ways that will last pretty much as long as the X-Men are around. That isn’t going to change.
At the same time... I’m going to take a moment here and quote Uncanny X-Men writer Matt Fraction: “Jean [Grey] was the great love of Scott’s youth. Emma is the love of his life. She brings out the best in him and he brings out the best in her.”
For me, that sums up the Jean/Emma divide nicely. Jean was the love of Scott’s youth. She was good for him, back when they could both be innocent and young and know that Professor X would always be there to catch them. Jean was what he needed. But when the Scarlet Witch rewrote reality [3] during House of M, and everyone got what they wanted most in the world, Scott didn’t get Jean back. He got Emma with a ring on her finger. He knew that it was time to let Jean go, and move on.
Okay, so now we’ve established that I think Jean Grey should stay dead. Fine. Assuming that Marvel Comics actually allows her to stay gone, why is that an argument in favor of Emma Frost, a woman who never met a pair of thigh-high boots she didn’t like? I’ve actually had people tell me, with great seriousness, that if I were a true female comic fan, I would hate Emma, who sets back the cause of women in comics 20 years every time she steps onto the page. If I were a true female comic fan, I would find better characters to adore, like Psylocke, whose costume is basically a one-piece leotard that leaves both her buttocks fully exposed, or Husk, whose powers leave her naked half the time.
Um. Thanks, but no thanks. At least Emma practices consistent costume design, however impractical that costume design may happen to be. Besides, I find this particular attitude to be a little disturbing, because it’s saying that we want more women in comics, we want more women in positions of authority in comics (Emma is currently the X-Men co-leader), but we want them to be the right kind of women. Nice girls. Girls who don’t wear low-cut shirts, or swear, or do naughty things. The phrase “well-behaved women rarely make history” has been bandied about enough to become a cliché, but somehow, this doesn’t stop us from only wanting good role models in our comics.
Emma Frost chose the side of the angels of her own free will, because she was so devoted to the idea of training and nurturing the next generation of mutants. How is this not a good role model? She’s not perfect – she’s miles from perfect – but for me, that makes her all the better. True perfect isn’t just boring; it’s daunting. I could never be a Jean Grey. I wasn’t born with that kind of terrifyingly intrinsic good-girl innocence. [4] But if I work hard enough, and I try to do the right thing for long enough, I might be able to be an Emma Frost.
For women to truly take our place in the comic world, I think we have to allow all types to exist. We need the Jeans and the Emmas. Also the Rachels, and the Kittys, the Illyanas and the Clarices and the Meggans. We need telepaths and bruisers, shapeshifters and elementalists, and we need them to have just as much freedom as their male counterparts. When Emma chooses to use her sexuality to her advantage, it shouldn’t be any more shocking than it is when Gambit does the same thing – and yet it is. When Jean is swayed by the urge to naughtiness, it shouldn’t be any more unforgiveable than it is when Scott feels those same urges – and again, right now, it is.
Do I want Jean Grey to stay dead? Yes. I do.
She was the female character we needed when the series began, and Emma Frost is the character we need now. But I do think, and this is one for the Jean fans, I do think that Emma, and all the other female characters of her generation, would not have been created if not for the existence of Jean Grey. Jean Grey and Sue Storm and Janet van Dyne, and all the other early female characters whose purpose was to be the team girl, they made all the wonderful, complex characters we have today possible. Without them, we’d probably be looking at an all-male playground even today.
The X-Men started with just one girl. Since then, they’ve become one of the best superhero franchises out there in terms of female characters. They have characters with every sort of power set, from the “isn’t that girly” light manipulation and phasing to the bone-breaking psychic power armor and absolutely devastating transformation into a living dust storm. There are at least five female characters [5] active at any given time, and usually quite a few more than that. We owe a lot of this richness and depth to Jean Grey. And we owe her the opportunity to rest for a little while. Let Emma take care of things.
Oh, and on the topic of Rachel Summers, Scott and Jean’s daughter from that alternate future that I mentioned? She’s still out there. So is Ruby Summers, Scott and Emma’s daughter from a different alternate future. Our X-Men family tree [6] just keeps getting more complicated, and that may well be the best part of all.
That, and the part where Jean Grey is still dead. Life as an X-girl is pretty good these days.
[1] Morrison has said that he chose Emma Frost, and gave her the secondary mutation, solely because Colossus was dead at the time and he needed a bruiser. So thanks for dying, Colossus. I owe you one.
[2] My local comic book store is Flying Colors Comics and Other Cool Stuff, owned by Joe Fields, the man who created Free Comic Book Day. He’s a great guy, and very dedicated to the idea of spreading comics to the next generation. He says that I’m one of his long-term investment plans. He’s not wrong.
[3] Marvel Comics: Where needing a flowchart to understand what’s going on isn’t just normal, it’s basically the status quo.
[4] Amusingly enough, my best friend was born with that sort of terrifyingly intrinsic innocence. And she’s a redhead. It doesn’t matter how much I hate Jean Grey. I’m still going to invite her human avatar to my slumber parties.
[5] Currently active female characters, split between the various books: Emma Frost, the Stepford Cuckoos, Shadowcat, Armor, Dust, Pixie, Dazzler, Mercury, Husk, Domino, X-23, Wolfsbane, Banshee (formerly Siryn), M, Jubilee, Surge, Karma, Psylocke, Rogue, Hope, Layla Miller, Transonic, Ide, Magma, Moonstar, Frenzy, Blink, and I’ve almost certainly missed a few. These are just the characters currently seeing active duty, in one book or another.
[6] I periodically attempt to explain the Summers family tree to people who don’t read comics. They usually flee screaming right around the time the clones come into the conversation. And the clones come into the conversation really early on.
Tripping Through the Looking Glass, Stepping Into Gotham City: Cosplay, Creation, and Community
Erica McGillivray is a die-hard geek who spends a ridiculous amount of time being nerdy. She’s president and marketing director of GeekGirlCon, a nonprofit that celebrates and supports geeky women with events and conventions. Erica’s comic book collection is an earthquake hazard, and she reviews comics on her blog, 6’7” & Green. In her other life, she’s a community attache for SEOmoz, an Internet marketing software company; in lay speak, this means that she gets to tweet, blog, and answer Q&A forums about online marketing and tech for a living. Erica dreams of having a closet full of amazing cosplay costumes. She lives in Seattle.
Just a Normal Fangirl
I am an accidental cosplayer. I tripped over and fell into cosplay head first.
Of course, this is how I do things. This is why, for benefit of comics fandom, I need a T-shirt that says: “My pull list is bigger than yours.” And why I spent hours searching for two belts in that perfect shade of sea foam green for a costume, and triumphantly expressed my joy to a confused retail clerk. When I commit to loving something, I want to create and share my love with everyone I know.
Despite this, I’d always been one of those fans that looked down on cosplayers. They were weirdos running around, sometimes in spandex and other poor fabric choices. I stood there judging them... while wearing the dark red shirt I’d bought because it reminded me of Stargate Atlantis’s Elizabeth Weir. Oh, I was over there amassing a comic book collection in the thousands and writing epic novels of fanfiction. Cosplay, however, was for weirdos.
So how did this completely normal fangirl end up doing cosplay that changed her fannish life? It began with a quest to better appreciate comic book art.
I write a comic book review blog where I routinely talk about what I’m reading, and pay special attention to women in comics. I’ve always been one to follow writers, a complete snob when it comes to the plots, characters and themes. Sure, some terrible art could sour a book. But I never threw a comic book at the wall because of the art. Mocked it relentlessly on Twitter, yes. Physical destruction, no.
Don’t get me wrong, I love an art gallery; I get lost in them for hours. I minored in studio art and understand the commitment and the talent great art takes. But comic art? From my perspective, it wasn’t “real” art, the sort you would hang on the wall next to an O’Keeffe or a Cézanne. It wasn’t famous or lush. Often, I seriously wondered why some of these artists were even paid, especially when I’d see yet-another set of balloon breasts or a spine angle that looked like the character’s vertebrae were ready to snap.
But occasionally, I’d run across an artist who made me happy, who made me wish for more great art in the books I read. “Amanda Conner,” “David Aja” and “Michael Gaydos” were some of the first artist names I would remember – but while they were all very talented and clearly made my reading more enjoyable, if I wasn’t sucked in by the story, I wouldn’t have picked up a title with their art. I wouldn’t add their newest books to my pull list without a good writer, and I certainly wasn’t going to continue following a poorly written book if the art was pretty.
Then I read Greg Rucka’s run on Detective Comics – when Batwoman had the lead role – and discovered the art of J.H. Williams III. I loved Williams’s art as much as I loved Rucka’s writing. I wanted Williams’s work in prints hanging in my dining room. I wanted to read every book that Williams had penciled, and to cherish each moment while doing so. Here was what the comic medium was supposed to do: Tell a story with both words and art. Williams’s layouts and pencils spoke just as loudly as Rucka’s pen. His art was sharp, painfully beautiful, and engrossing.
If Rucka’s writing credit and his having previously developed Kate Kane as Batwoman made me add Detective Comics to my pull list, Williams’s and Rucka’s work together brought it to a level beyond anything else I’d read. They made me fall in love with Batwoman and her world. She is a woman I can relate to: headstrong and a little rockabilly. More to the point, she reminded me of the women I date.
People in love do stupid things, or perhaps they do passionate things of the heart. But in the moment of vulnerability that I was feeling, a seed was planted. That seed grew into an idea, which became a costume. I wanted something more, something I could touch. I wanted to jump into the book and into Batwoman’s world.
I thought it would be cool to dress up like Alice, the main villain in the story (now more commonly known as Batwoman: Elegy). Alice was a bit of an odd choice for me, as I’m not usually someone who loves villains. In most cases, I’m rooting for the hero – the one seeking justice and fairness in the world, like Wonder Woman or Steve Rogers as Captain America. But occasionally, a villain comes along who’s just too fun to pass by: Alice, with her Through the Looking Glass quotes and mysterious past, was exactly that! So much about the character was mysterious... what happened to her after she was kidnapped? Who took her and converted her? Will we ever know
?
I’ve talked to a lot of fellow cosplayers about why they chose the characters they did; beyond a sheer love of that character or story, many have expressed the uniqueness behind their translation of the character from page to cosplay. With obscure characters like Alice, it also serves as a way to find fellow fans of your favorite storyline. If another fan shouts out across the room at you, excited about your character, the costume serves as a secret handshake – it’s instant friendship and a conversation starter. Alice fell right in line as she’d never been cosplayed before, and is an obscure, new character. My costume would stand out, pay tribute, and help me tell people about the wonderful book that inspired me.
Being Alice
Unfortunately, cosplay costumes don’t appear out of thin air. They take time and dedication. Most superhero clothing isn’t on the rack at Target. Also, while comics can be a very solitary hobby sometimes, with interactions only coming from the computer screen, building a costume – for me anyway – took a community effort.
I emailed my friend Bonita, an engineer and a seamstress, to see if she was interested in this undertaking. With Emerald City Comicon in Seattle only a month away, Bonita and I headed to the fabric store, and later hung out in her sewing and World of Warcraft playing room. (I love the dichotomy of that room, which is dedicated to such a traditionally feminine pursuit and also to creating an avatar to go on magical/mystical/military quests online.) Bonita harnessed her powers to create a shirt and a cape for my costume. To show my eternal gratitude for her mad skills, I later baked her gluten-free cupcakes.
The day of the convention, Alice wouldn’t have come together without my friend Gretchen and my mom. (Yes, my parents chose the weekend of the biggest comic book convention in the area for a visit.) Gretchen fastidiously worked on my makeup for three hours, her arsenal spread all over my dining room table. We kept comparing my face with the source material in the precious comic book, which sat a little too close to my purple eye shadow. My mom curled my hair and made last-minute adjustments on my costume. My stepfather compared the amount of effort to going to the prom, and I quickly informed him that in no way did I spend as much time getting prepared for prom. This was more important.
Chicks Dig Comics: A Celebration of Comic Books by the Women Who Love Them Page 3
