One Last Note on Being a Girl Comic Book Fan

i09 has an interview (or the report of one) with a 7-year-old girl about the DC reboot, specifically, its treatment of Starfire. The author's seven-year-old daughter, who loves comics, comic book characters characters and Starfire in particular, has some salient points to make, but the most interesting one to me is that in the new comics, Starfire doesn't do anything except pose in a bikini. And this is, for all intents and purposes, exactly true. I don't pick up comic books hoping to see my favorite female characters in a cheesecake spread; I choose titles because I want to see female characters who do good and take action. This is especially true for cape/superhero titles. I bought "Captain Britain" because Faiza Hussein actively participated in battle and wielded Excalibur; I buy "The Unwritten" because I'm really, really curious to see what Lizzie Hexam is up to this issue and just how she fits into the larger world that Mike Carey has written; and I first picked up "Elfquest" (my first real comic book!) because all the female characters were active and well-rounded. Hell, even "Empowered" has our titular, bondage-prone heroine DOING good, as much as she can, because (as she herself says in the middle of one particularly high stakes battle) "This is what I do!"

Oh, crap, I'm back to that question of "why?" again. Why read comic books at all, if the DC reboot is the sort of sexist nonsense that passes for mainstream comic book content? Because I love stories, and I love stories told in this way. And because I do think that the industry can change and gets its act together, even if it takes a whole bunch of missteps beforehand. And because I need to know what's happening in "Rasl", "Locke & Key", and "The Unwritten". Will I be picking up any DC titles anytime soon? Other than their Vertigo line, it's unlikely. Voting with dollars is probably our only recourse at this point.