So, apparently it’s time for the comics fanverse to lose its mind again. As you’ve seen from Danielle’s reviews, DC has rebooted the universe, and if you follow us on Tumblr, then you’ll know it’s not all sunshine and roses in Mudville, er, rather Gotham right now.
The biggest bone of contention, apart from Zatanna’s pants, or lack thereof, is Starfire. The complaint is that they’ve turned Starfire from a character with a warm engaging personality, from a culture that believes in the free expression of emotions, including sexual attraction, and who is very protective of her friends to brainless sex doll with inflatable tits who, oh, yeah, sometimes punches stuff.
“It’s the fact that Lobdell felt the need to strip everything from Starfire’s personality and leave her as just a hot alien that likes sex. Starfire is an emotional character, but she was mostly emotionless. She had sex with Jason and Roy, but for what reason? Even when she propositioned Roy it didn’t even look like she was doing it because she wanted to, if that makes any sense.”
This personality transplant, or rather removal, is particularly jarring for the younger female comic fans who may have grown up with Starfire on Teen Titans.
And because women are speaking up about his, we’re being dismissed. We’re being accused of slut-shaming Starfire when really it’s not slut-shaming to point out that they’ve removed a female character’s personality in order to supply fan-service to a steadily shrinking fan base.
DC, Marvel, seriously, guys. You can go digital and do all the movies you want, but unless you’re trying to kill the comics format (and hey, maybe you are), you have got to court new fans. And women, as the success of manga proves, like comics. All you have to do is can the egregious sexist bullshit and let your female characters take actual centerstage as heroes not sidekicks, love interests or victims.
It’s not that fucking hard.
- Reasonable, or at least varied, body types.
- Let them wear clothes.*
- No more spine-cracking, sexualized poses (i.e. butts and boobs facing the same direction all the time). yes, I realize this will put Rob Liefeld out of a job. I just can’t be sad about that.
- Ix-Nay on the Ape-Ray.
- The Bechdel Test, just sayin’.
Seriously.
Remember we’ve got the GGR Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook page.
*Yes, Starfire is from a culture that doesn’t have a nudity taboo. She’s also not an idiot and would recognize the fact that Earth does, or do you really think she’s too stupid to notice everyone else wearing clothes all the time?
Geek Girls Rule!!! 
One thing that a podcast, 3 Chick Review Comics, pointed out was that there’s no POV from Starfire on why she decides to sleep with Roy there. She seems to have almost no desire of her own for sex that’s normal.
And yeah, you think that’s bad? You should have seen what Winnick did to Catwoman in her #1 title.
DC can’t have three good #1 titles with women (Batgirl, Batwoman, and Wonder Woman) and then think it okay to show crap like this. It doesn’t work that way, you have to be good across the board.