Episode 818

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The third of Ian Wilson's Twelve Labours of Comic Reel-lief is the hardest to date as the PanDemon has challenged him to undertake a lists episode without Tom "Stavros" Hemmings. Hear Ian attempt to keep the format sailing smoothly as he discusses the best and worst representations of female characters in comic book movies, as well as the most sexually pleasing female character on screen. But who is Ian's co-host? Will Ackerman? Hannah Krueger? Adham Fisher? Stavros in a falsetto voice? It's definitely one of them! [ 2:20:35 || 67.8 MB ]

[dc20willsave]

If it's me, I'm going to be very confused on a number of levels.

[Donomark]

Great show guys! IDK if I can be as hard on ScarJo's Black Widow though, even if she's easily the least defined out of all the movie Avengers. I would probably be more on board after Avengers 2012, but I've liked her quite a bit since the Winter Soldier when she's shown to have a sense of humor. I agree that she's miscast and really nothing like Natasha from the comics, but the character that's been portrayed in the MCU, at this time I think she's pretty cool. She feels consistent going from Winter Solider to Age of Ultron. I know there's a lot of consternation over how she was written in Age of Ultron but I don't really agree with it.

[slothian]

Great show guys! IDK if I can be as hard on ScarJo's Black Widow though, even if she's easily the least defined out of all the movie Avengers. I would probably be more on board after Avengers 2012, but I've liked her quite a bit since the Winter Soldier when she's shown to have a sense of humor. I agree that she's miscast and really nothing like Natasha from the comics, but the character that's been portrayed in the MCU, at this time I think she's pretty cool. She feels consistent going from Winter Solider to Age of Ultron. I know there's a lot of consternation over how she was written in Age of Ultron but I don't really agree with it.

I'm not going to throw out an angry thesis decrying Black Widow as the worst female CBM character of all time and insignificant to boot, as that clearly isn't the case. Age of Ultron is one thing - I said my piece on that in the previous CR, and Hannah will have her say whenever Big Damn Heroes covers it - but in general I need her to be more than just "pretty cool". I want her to be defined. I want to know why she can hang easily with a mecatronic weaponised billionaire, a rage monster, an alien god, a super soldier and, admittedly to a lesser extent, the 21st century Robin Hood. A strict upbringing in Russia isn't quite enough. She goes from giving some Justin Hammer lackeys hurracaranas during her Iron Man 2 debut to easily skipping on/piloting alien sky jetskis in The Avengers, shrugging off Robert Redford's fail-safe badge of death in Cap 2 and quipping her way into a quasi-romance with Hulk in Avengers 2.

That may be a flippant character biography, I grant you (pun not intended), but I don't see what about her is consistent from one film to the next. She quips? A) she didn't in Iron Man 2 (notably not a film Whedon had a hand in), B) all Whedon characters quip, so that doesn't help her definition. She was, until the end of Age of Ultron, the lone female Avenger but to stop her being seen as a token, the MCU have overcompensated and written her character inconsistently so that she doesn't seem out of place. If anything, they've done better by the Scarlet Witch by demonstrating her unique trait and growing her from there, as her own distinct character. All I get from Black Widow is that Marvel have hired ScarJo to play a female Avenger who can snap back at Tony Stark, who may or may not be from Russia like her comic counterpart. And action sequences aside, she appeared to spend the majority of the Winter Soldier making jokes.

So that's why I think she qualifies. Still, she's no Jessica Alba.

[Donomark]

I can't argue any of that. She's not as defined as Cap or Scarlet Witch, but I do feel consistency between TWS and AOU with the carryover of her warmer persona, even if it's just wisecracks on the page. As I'm thinking about, she's portrayed in TWS as someone who the audience is meant to be unsure to trust, and then in AOU as if she's had her own solo series like the others. As though her four consecutive appearances by the same actress has built her up to a point. It is pretty shallow.

I s'pose I don't mind it as much though because she's not horribly acted like Alba , or made to be outright unlikable, like MJ. It's either one or the other with the bad examples. Because of that, her bad qualities don't register with me as immediately.