Huck Finn's female alias
Dear Huck Finn visitors. Welcome! Could one of you please tell me how is it that you all suddenly came en masse to visit this site through your Google searches? Why Huck Finn? Why his female alias? Is this some class project? Is there some burgeoning literary theory centered around those four words?

p.s., the reason your serach results in this page is a sentence in the final paragraph of my post on my Top 15 Female Comic Book Characters.

Starman
Alright, so while I'm on the issue of comics, I feel the need to talk about Starman. As any who keep up with these things know, James Robinson's series from a few years back (available in collected form in its entirety) about the reluctant hero who's the son of a hero is quite acclaimed. And I think that acclaim is largely justified. I think Robinson's run with Starman is as good or better than many other "famous" runs like Simonson on Thor, Byrne on Fantastic Four, Miller on Daredevil, Mignola on Hellboy :P, etc.

Still, as much as I loved the series, own it in its entirety (in collected form), and will think fondly of it ever after, Starman has two problems that, I think, haunt the series to its diminishment. These are all kinds of spoilery, but the series ended years ago so I won't feel bad.

1) Love for Sadie. Really, this romance comes out of nowhere. I get that people who start off on the wrong foot and loathe each other can grow to reverse their feelings and become astonishingly romantic. But usually there's some sense to it, some visible progression. In the case of Jack and Sadie, it's out of nowhere. Sadie comes off as attractive in neither body nor spirit, so it's really a mystery how she turns from being an obnmoxious annoyance to someone he would pine for. There's just not enough exposition.

Still, as out of left field as it feels to me, I can always shrug and remember that love is a crazy thing that damns good sense and reasonable action at every turn. I can live with strange romances. The other problem is more difficult for me.

2) When Jack decides it's time to pack it in and move on, he passes on the Starman mantle to a successor who is... well, I don't know who she is. After reading eighty issues of Starman, the mantle is passed to a character who never once appears in the series. How am I s'posed to react to that? I have no idea who the character is, whether she deserves to have the mantle passed to her, whether she merits having any emotional investment on my part. It's a complete mystery to me.

I presume she's some character from another series that Jack crossed over into, because obviously they've met, but ... *shrug* James Robinson built up an insane amount of faith in me as a reader up until this point, but then abuses that faith with filty whips and dirty lies. He ties up said faith and defecates on it. Poor, poor faith. Bad James Robinson! Bad! *rolls up newspaper*

I really don't know what to think about that ending. I had some problems with the ending Jeff Smith chose for Bone but at least he didn't pull out a heretofore unknown character to be the solution to the series. At least he actually respected his readers.

My Top 15 Female Comic Characters Today
Inspired by my conversation with Kalinara over the validity of one Katherine Pryde as a character worth the heaping spoonfuls of adoration she receives from fanboys the world over, I mused over what female characters in the comics were those whose character and exploits I love, admire, care for, and wish to see through thick and thin. Like I used to feel about Kitty Pryde (for all you non-geeks, you know? like the Weezer song). For the whole story of my perspective on young Pryde, please follow the link above and enjoy the comments (mine appear in the twenties) for we will no longer speak on the lass.

I decided that it would probably be best to limit my favs to those females who are in print today - even if their runs have expired. There's no use talking about Dove of Hawk and Dove if no one can readily find chronicle of her lauded exploits. It would be as fruitless as talking about my love for The Nth Man. *sigh*

One interesting thing to note is how few of these characters hail from the Big Two (DC and Marvel). The fact that I didn't realize until now is that there really aren't that many great female characters in either universe. Sure there are plenty of characters that could be great, but in the end, they just aren't. It could have to do with the authors, I dunno. Or the fact that despite the fact that I do enjoy reading superhero exploits, it will always be hard to take seriously a woman dressed in a thong and thigh-high boots. With zippers everywhere.

So take the list for what it is (alphabetical), and enjoy.

My Top 15 Female Comic Characters Today

1 - Asuna Kagurazaka (Negima Magister Magi - Akamatsu)

Kinda funny that Asuna would be listed first as she is probably the most controversial favourite female in the list for Negima Magister Magi is probably one of the last places one might look for worthwhile female characterizations. At least from the premise. I happened upon the series as part of my mad dash to check out this whole explosion of Japanese imports I saw little girls in Borders and Barnes & Noble devouring. I have a lot of first and second volumes of a lot of series that just weren't worth pursuing.

Honestly, I didn't expect much from Negima. It was among a stack of seemingly popular books and though the art was stellar, the premise (a 10-year-old male wizard assigned to teach English to 30 female 15-year-olds) seemed loaded and aimed at the hormonally imbalanced 16-year-old-male set. And in some ways it was. The first volume-and-a-half were absolutely what I feared. The cheesecake nearly drowned any glimmer of worthwhile story and characters. It was in the closing of volume two, I think, that I began to detect a change. It seemed that as the series picked up speed, the author was largely (though not entirely) leaving behind the "fan service" and actually, perhaps, pursuing a story. I gave volume three a chance and then volume four and so on. It really just got better and better.

So then, Asuna Kagurazaka. Why, out of the thirty-so choices of female characters, choose the most obvious (for next to the titular Negi, she seems to be afforded the most screen time)? Simply because she's the most enjoyable. She's noble, courageous, honest, outspoken, blunt, strong, stubborn,discerning, and trustworthy. On top of all those admirable traits, she is also reluctantly tender and truly cares about the well-being of others - especially Negi - and will sacrifice in order to see others through their hardships. Add to that a mysterious history and dormant power and she's one of the most engaging, well-rounded characters around. Dumber than a bag of hammers, but we can't all be rad.

2 - Chance Falconer (Leave It to Chance - Robinson and Smith)

I'm never really sure if a kid can count as a female character, since the most evident traits of feminity (beyond the physical) seem to crop up as kids move from their youth into adulthood - with all the cares and responsibilities that end up shaping them the most. Still, Chance is a female and despite being thirteen, she's quite engaging. I wish her series were longer, that we might see her develop, but I love her sense of adventure and her stubborn heroism.

3 - Chizu (Usagi Yojimbo - Sakai)

Stan Sakai writes some of the best women in comics. And they all look like animals. Usagi Yojimbo is almost insane in how long it's maintained itself and a level of quality that only continues to rise. Most comics run out of steam within a few years, but Usagi only gets better and better.

As I hinted, the book has a number of great female characters from which to choose. Each of them is strong and true in their own ways, but for me, Chizu is the best. After inheriting leadership of the Neko Ninja clan after her brother dies in battle, Chizu does her best to run the clan according to the clans traditions but is eventually ousted by her betraying second in command after she shows compassion - to some, a sign of weakness. She, like most of the principle woman in Usagi, is quite capable and shows herself driven and skilled both in her role as leader of the ninja clan and in her flight from that same clan after she is betrayed. Plus, her interactions with Usagi himself are priceless.

4 - Deena Pilgrim (Powers - Bendis and Oeming)

When I first started reading Powers around its third issue, I came across its female lead, Deena Pilgrim. I thought that she would simply be your standard fare in such books, a woman written like Michelangelo sculpted women: just a man with two ice cream scoops to make it female. Too often, the male cop is just given breasts and a skirt and it never really matters whether the character is male or female.

Deena, I think, avoids that trap. She's all woman, though not in the torch song kinda way. She may be the saltiest detective on the force, but despite sounding like Brian Michael Bendis every now and again, she really shines in her quieter moments. Plus she's a character that grows and moves and changes. And really, what's not to like about that?

5 - Dora Bianchi (Questionable Content - Jeph Jaques)

Dora's got all the insecurities of your average girl but she crackles with sardonic wit. She's cute in her post-goth angst and makes an able counter to Sherman's March to the Sea in Girl Clothes, Faye. She's the character I want to know more about and want the story to linger on. Marten may be the star, but Dora upstages him in every scene.

6 - Gran'ma Ben (Bone - Smith)

I figured that if I included a thirteen-year-old, I was honour-bound to likewise make room at the table for an octagenarian. I'm not sure if Grandma Ben is really that old, but she does fill the obligatory old lady role.

Like many old women, her character has been established for decades now. Throughout the Bone chronicles, we don't see much change in her. Despite some recriminations about her past, she's pretty much a rock.

So it's a good thing I like her the way she is. She may be crotchety, but participates in footraces with cows. With cows. Racing cows. She never fails to pick up a sword or raise a fist to aid her endangered grand-daughter. She's strong as strong can be. Yet for all that, she learns to respect Fone Bone as she should - and for someone of her level of power to respect such a humble, little being? Now that's something.

7 - Hyuga Hinata (Naruto)

Hinata is the kind of character for whom I naturally have a lot of compassion. She's sweet, shy, driven, particularly observant of underdog characters, brimming with latent talent, and quite compassionate herself. I love how she is the one who never doubts Naruto and believes in him even more than he believes in himself (which is saying a lot if one considers his vast overconfidence). She's inspired by the right kind of things and I find her to be of admirable character. Apart from the interesting story developments that occurs throughout the series, Hinata is (for me) the reason to read Naruto.

8 - Jessica Jones (Alias - Bendis and Gaydos)

Jessica Jones is among the four female characters from the Big Two that I actually get excited about. She is almost entirely believable and the way Bendis writes her, you can tell she's the Marvel character he likes the most (or at least the one that's dearest to him). I love that she quit heroing because tights just weren't her thing. I love her origin and her past. I love how screwed up she is despite the fact that she just wants to be a good person. I love that she's a victim of circumstance and though rising above those circumstances (barely), she has an incredibly difficult time with that particular form of levitation. Really though, she was better as a Max character, I think. She felt more at home in a dirty world than in the bright and shiny world of the M.U.

9 - Josephine (Sparks - Marvit)

It never ceases to amaze me how little recognized Sparks is. The so-called urban faery-tale remains among that elite and fabled coalition of four-star comics - despite the fact that no one ever heard of it. I've been singing its praises for nearly four years now and every last person who's read it on my recommendation has loved it. In that kind of tragic way it demands.

Josephine, the book's protagonist/damsel in distress, is utterly human. She's sad and tragic and naive and wobegotten. And entirely likeable. Everytime she is snubbed, mocked, ignored, or abused, I am almost compelled to reach for the nearest Sharpie (always good to keep many at hand at all times) and either draw devil horns and moustachio upon the offender or scratch their countenance from the book altogether. Sanity always draws me back with the recognition that without those other human faces, Josephine's story will not ring as true the next time I pick it up.

Josephine is one of those characters that you get to watch grow. She begins as timid wallflower and ultimate geek-girl (she's an auto-hound) and slowly musters courage at the prompting of some dubious friendships. But courage needs to be earned and her initial attempts at freedom from her fears are only as successful as any halfhearted endeavor can be. And so, she needs to grow through the experience of pain and love and rejection and abandonment and love and death and terror and love. And love. And it's wonderful and I rejoice in her character and its victories.

10 - Kat Farrel (Deadline)

Plucky. That's how I'd describe Kat. She's never so in awe of the world of heroes she reports that she loses her sense of humour or fails to bring the snark. And not the ubiquitous aliens from Power Pack. She's lively, adventurous, and feels kind of like she could be a caricature of a couple girls I know in real life. That's one of the things I look for in my characters - life-like believability while maintaining likability. It's not as easy as it sounds.

p.s. Kat marks two of four on the Big Two count, followed by number three...

11 - Mary Jane Watson (Mary Jane/Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane - McKeever and Miyazawa)

Probably the best written and best drawn Spider-Man book regularly published these days isn't really even about our favourite eight-legged freak with only two legs (in the books that count). Instead, its about the girl who would loooooove to date Spider-Man, Mary Jane Watson.

One of the book's charms is that it takes a girl who should be seen as borderline (she honestly wants to go to Homecoming with a masked celebrity that she doesn't know...), and builds her into such a nearly three-dimensional character that you can't help but like her, understand her, and even root for her. This is, I think, entirely due to the creative team and their talent at building enjoyable teenage characters (McKeever shone on The Waiting Place while Miyazawa did some beautiful work on Sidekicks). Mary Jane is less the sexpot and more the rad girl who was too rad to be the sexpot - and I think that's a suitable revision over Mary "Party Central" Jane from the original series. Sure, in the original, you knew Pete to be getting lucky, but really, doesn't the insecure, quietly attractive girl from MJ Loves Spider-Man come off as just so much more interesting? I think this is what they were trying to do with Ultimate Spider-Man's Mary Jane, but didn't quite accomplish.

12 - Nausicaä (Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind - Miyazaki)

When I think of strong female characters who are actually valuable as people and not just as some abstract embodiment of feminist idealism, Nausicaä is the first to come to mind. She's not so ridiculously (and so, uselessly) strong that circumstances bow to her whimsy, but instead reacts to circumstances and deals with things from the moral imperitive of her inner character. Anyone can be written to simply kick butt and never make a mistake, but really, how useful is that as an ideal? Nausicaä is so much better for the fact that she is in the midst of this nation-spanning struggle that she can only affect locally and in trying to solve the problems endemic to the struggle, sometimes makes things worse. She's rescued as often as she rescues but is never mistaken for anything less than the hero, the one who will eventually save the day. Reflecting how it is with most of our more dominant characteristics, Nausicaä's single-mindedness is both her strength and her weakness; it is indubitably the cause of her triumphs, but without doubt as much the source of her failures as well. Really, what an intriguing character.

13 - Selina Kyle (Catwoman - Darwyn Cooke era)

I am really at a loss when it comes to Selina Kyle. From my limited readership, she's a great character for about twenty-five issues (from Catwoman #1 through #25 or so - and the graphic novel, Selina's Big Score). I've even heard recently that the character she was in that arc wasn't even really her and that she had been mindwiped, whatever that contrivance means (essentially, she had been deus ex machinaed into and then out of the character I liked).

As far as the traits I enjoyed in her, she's essentially Asuna Kagurazaka in an Emma Peel catsuit. I mean, really, what's not to like. Her interaction with detective Sam Bradley was always enjoyable and she always had this warm hint of noir about her. She was a pleasure to read for those two years.

14 - Tara Chace (Queen and Country - Rucka)

Tara is old. Really old. Far older than glamourous Tim Sale covers could ever let on.

Despite the fact that I'm sure she has aged bags under her eyes, her real age is camouflaged by her apparent youth. To all appearances and carbon-dating methods, Tara looks to be in her earlier thirties (if not late twenties). In truth though, she is more likely nine hundred and seven. For spies age far more quickly than mere mortal men.

Tara is what Alec Leamas would be if her were a woman. Devoted to vice, living in a ghostland of an existence, and sacrificing all for queen and for country, Tara is a bitter pill to swallow. But once swallowed and one walks a mile in her spy-togs, she begins to make sense. You begin to care for her. You begin to see that for all her inadequacies as a human being, she is a refreshing example of what it is to be a human being. It hurts to watch her but it hurts more to be away from her and to be ignorant of her story.

15 - Virginia Applejack (Stray Bullets - Lapham)

Stray Bullets drew me in with its stories about Beth, an independent, hell-raising, girl of mischief and delight. But Beth is only interesting for so long. The real star is small Virginia Applejack. And that makes it all the more difficult when Lapham pulls away to focus on a Beth-story.

By this point, I'm starting to pin down one of the characteristics that I adore in my female characters: a wild and pure drive toward adventure. Virginia's got that and gots it in spades. Even her fantasy-life is devoted to the adventures of Amy Racecar, the palindromatic analog to herself (kinda like Kitty Pryde's pirate self in the Bamf stories) who kills spies, assaults sheriffs, and always has the world in her palm until she almost inevitibly dies in a hail of gunfire.

After a Halloween run-in with knife-weilding bullies in elementary school, Virginia is marked for life with a scar bifurcating her face and signifying her permanent status as the outsider of the story. She runs away from home at an early age and becomes tough and hardened - though (at risk of sounding cliche alarms) maintaining a good nature and a heart of gold. She's like a tough, cynincal, streetsmart, and female version of Huck Finn. Only likeable.

Hot Pixellated Sexiness? Uhh...
As regards to video games, the ESRB (the game rating board), and the political hysteria surrounding these games, I think it clear that the protectorate of society has become unhinged. Not too long ago, there was much hubbub about the Hot Coffee mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which enabled those tech-savvy enough to install the mod to engage in sexual activities with female characters and knocked the game rating from M (mature - 17+ years old) to AO (adults only). Now, more recently, a mod for the most recent Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion, has been created to strip one's character down to the nude model that all 3D-modeled games these days have. In light of this, the ESRB has changed Oblivion's rating to M (mature, remeber?).

The problem - and yes, there is a problem - is that in neither case, are these mal-contents encounterable through the normal course of play. If I play GTA:SA or ESIV:Oblivion, I will not encounter a single topless elf or have oral sex with a single hoochiemama. And why not? Because I'm not actually going to the trouble to install a hack with the sole intention of seeing pixellated girlparts. I reiterate: playing the games as they come, I will never see anything more unseemly than the originally-rated, stock release promised.

To rerate a game based on what mods can do with them is exactly wrong. Imagine this thinking immigrating into other arenas.

Volvo's are rerated as extremely hazardous cars after a modder is discovered to have succesfully installed nitrous oxide and machine gun turrets. Mac's are regarded as entirely unstable systems after several overclocked Mac's overheat. Marriages are regarded as deviant after several are discovered to be promoting selfishness rather than love. The televised BBC series version of Pride and Prejudice is now rated for mature audiences because the actress playing Elizabeth Bennet has done nude scenes in other movies and viewers watching could possibly be reminded of the fact that nakedness exists... somewhere.

*sigh* With all the problems facing the world, it would be refreshing to see people actually get mad at a real source of their problems. Bad parenting? Check. Political greed and hate-mongering? Check. Reverence given to the morally corrupt? Check. Hidden sex in video games? Uhhh... (Besides, what parent in their right mind is buying GTA: San Andreas for their kid anyway?)

The Killer and the Bee
So I saw The Killer and the Bee. I was surprised at how little killing there was. There was only marginally more action than there was in the equally misnamed, The Princess and the Warrior (which was, incidentally and despite its lack of action, a much better film than The Killer and the Bee). It seems that the titular Killer gained her reputation and nomenclature long before the events around which the movie itself swirls. Like Billy Madison, it seems that we're looking in on the part in which midlife crisis prods the protagonist to return to the idea of education. The Killer seems an apt hand at spelling and memorization, but we never really see her skills with a scope, butterfly knife, or numbchucks emerge. Really, the film takes on all the qualities of a meagerly acted and formulaicly plotted romp through Hallmark television movie stereotyping. I'll take John Woo's The Killer any day. Though it was nice to see Morpheus in what life must have been like for him before he too the blue pill.