Have you met anyone who actually found it titillating?
It looked invasive and gross to me. And I'd say Jimenez and Perez did some stuff far better than Morrison...but let's remember that as weird as the execution of the "Hercules is Diana's dad" plot is in this, Perez had Hippolyta forgive and kiss her rapist. Along with other problematic elements like casting the darker skinned Amazons as the bad guys and the "Darkest Africa" tropes in Cheetah's origin.
I guess I’m in a similar boat where I think the art looks good but it’s not really to my tastes and I don’t really care for how Diana herself is drawn.
I can’t say I recall that in the Hercules scene though I guess noticed cheesecake/fanservice stuff in other parts of the book but not sure how much more that’s just what you get when it comes to comic artists in general on drawing female characters.
Not found it titillating but the art makes it look that way.
Perez and Jiminez were actually one of the few writers who didn't portray the Bana as villains. In fact, the Themysciran Civil War arguably had the Themysciran Amazons be far more at fault than the Bana. The Darkest Africa and Hippolyta kissing Heracles I'll give you but I'd say that whatever problematic elements you can find in Perez, there's far more in Morrison's and he doesn't have much of an excuse given his book came out in more modern times.
If no one finds it titillating, how is it the art is making it look that way? Other stuff in the book I can see, but not that scene. People say it a lot, but I've never seen anything to back it up by anyone finding it titillating and viewing it as what the artist was going for.
I didn't mention Jimenez as being bad with the Bana, I only said Perez. I have no issue with how Jimenez handled them. Perez did give them some nuance, but he still set them up as antagonistic against the mostly white Themyscira Amazons, and the narrative sides with Diana's cultural appropriation of taking the Girdle back from them despite it having much more meaning for them. Here, even though Artemis is drawn as a POC and leads the New Sparta, that faction is at least not all darker skinned and the New Athenas aren't all white skinned, and it may not even play out as a clear "good guys vs. bad guys" scenario. There is also Perez going all in with the depraved dwarf trope with Psycho while Morrison made him more relevant and less problematic.
I'd say they both have good points and bad points. And by this logic, we'd also have to say Perez has less excuses for his problematic stuff than, say, Marston does considering his came later. Marston also didn't make a point to reform Hercules.
The tragedy of the way Paquette draws the Amazons is that he is capable of drawing women on their own terms. His Etta Candy is confident, kind, playful, and empathic. His Etta is also really sexy, but it is because she is confident, kind, playful, and empathetic, not because she forced into poses.
«Speaking generally, it is because of the desire of the tragic poets for the marvellous that so varied and inconsistent an account of Medea has been given out» (Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History [4.56.1])
This is what I mean. Hippolyta's facial expression does not connote fear, anger, horror, disgust, anything you would expect of somebody in a scenario like this. As kjn pointed out, Paquette just draws the Amazons with varying degrees of "sexy face". Between her expression (or lack thereof) and her outfit, she looks more like the heroine from an erotic comic rather than a person in peril. I'm not saying Paquette did this on purpose but the art is tonally inconsistent with what the writing is trying to convey in that scene. It's like the infamous "She-Hulk ass shot while the heroes are searching for survivors in the aftermath of a horrific explosion that killed hundreds" from Marvel's Civil War.
You may well be right and I will give Morrison credit for his reinvention of Psycho but considering this is also the same guy who said the original Steve was boring because he wasn't macho enough and is behind characters like Jezebel Jet and Mother of Champions... well, let's just say I have trepidation here.I didn't mention Jimenez as being bad with the Bana, I only said Perez. I have no issue with how Jimenez handled them. Perez did give them some nuance, but he still set them up as antagonistic against the mostly white Themyscira Amazons, and the narrative sides with Diana's cultural appropriation of taking the Girdle back from them despite it having much more meaning for them. Here, even though Artemis is drawn as a POC and leads the New Sparta, that faction is at least not all darker skinned and the New Athenas aren't all white skinned, and it may not even play out as a clear "good guys vs. bad guys" scenario. There is also Perez going all in with the depraved dwarf trope with Psycho while Morrison made him more relevant and less problematic.
I'd say they both have good points and bad points. And by this logic, we'd also have to say Perez has less excuses for his problematic stuff than, say, Marston does considering his came later. Marston also didn't make a point to reform Hercules.
I think this is a stretch and is ignoring some context. Hippolyta, with Aphrodite's help, just reclaimed her Girdle and is about to turn the tables of Hercules and kill him. She is being patient and waiting for her moment. She isn't afraid at this point, she is disgusted with his groping her but also knows she's about to get out of it. There really isn't anything sexy here about a slobbering pig groping a woman against her will, so who would find it titillating? Do you think there is anything erotic or "sexy face" about her face being kicked in the mud by him a few pages earlier?
Saying Steve wasn't macho enough hardly seems like some great sin worth getting offended over. It's a non-issue. There is the false, entitled macho-ness exhibited by Hercules in the above picture that is condemned and punished as he deserves, but macho in general doesn't mean "bad" contrary to some popular belief.
Jet isn't a favorite character of mine, but she's meant to be a cliche bad girl. Mother of Champions is a major misfire though, possibly satire gone wrong and not landing right, but I hardly think we need to take that screw up and apply it to everything he does.
I'm not sure you're getting my point here. The problem is the art does a crappy job of conveying the seriousness of the scene. My issue is not whether or not people will find this sexy, it's that the art is inconsistent with the tone.
Did you read the interview where he spoke about this? He outright said that Steve was boring because he was feminine and that Diana would never be interested in a guy like. In fact, he outright said that making Steve black was done to make him appear more manly. Do I really need to get into all the unfortunate implications about masculinity and black men this sentence contains? And why shouldn't he be called out on it? Writers have gotten skewered for less.Saying Steve wasn't macho enough hardly seems like some great sin worth getting offended over. It's a non-issue. There is the false, entitled macho-ness exhibited by Hercules in the above picture that is condemned and punished as he deserves, but macho in general doesn't mean "bad" contrary to some popular belief.
When you take into account the above mentioned, it starts to show a pattern. I'm not calling Morrison a proud, card-carrying member of the KKK and the Incel movement here but the man has on more than one occasion shown himself to be incredibly tone-deaf despite his assertions of being progressive.Jet isn't a favorite character of mine, but she's meant to be a cliche bad girl. Mother of Champions is a major misfire though, possibly satire gone wrong and not landing right, but I hardly think we need to take that screw up and apply it to everything he does.
I'm not getting it because your opening criticism was saying the art was more titillating than serious . Now, you're saying the issue is not people finding it sexy (because it isn't sexy). You also ignored some context in the page you posted about what was going through Hippolyta's head after she reclaimed the girdle and was about to kill Hercules.
So I'm sorry, it seems like you're moving the goal posts a bit. In fact, in the whole sequence I think there is only one panel where I think Paquette's art really could have used another pass (Hercules yanking the chain back on the second page; she actually does look like a romance novel heroine in ecstasy there instead of being in pain).
No, I didn't read the interview. That I really don't like the sounds of, and I agree it should be called out on.
But it also didn't end up in the comic itself. Steve is just black there. Did he exhibit any actual unfortunate stereotypes there? He also didn't act like an uber-macho creep, he isn't that much different from Rucka's Steve.
Like I've seen you call out the design choices they mentioned in interviews. And yes, I'd say the reasoning is pretty stupid there, but it didn't actually make it onto the page to be commented on by characters, so isn't it kind of moot?
I actually just glanced at the interview (if this is the one).
https://www.themarysue.com/grant-mor...man-earth-one/
He states he made Steve black for diversity, make it more modern and to add different context to how he'd react to the chains and bondage of the Amazons (like in the book, where his reaction isn't positive, and Etta backs up his viewpoint). But the macho-ness and adding more sex appeal to Steve doesn't seem to have anything to do with him being black specifically, so I don't know if it's feeding into any unfortunate stereotypes with this statement. It seems like two different segments of the topic of Steve. Making him masculine while sexualizing him isn't that different from what Rucka, Scott and Sharp did with white Rebirth Steve.
Yes, I mostly agree with this. His work on her is far below those three (or X-Men, Doom Patrol and JLA). Even then, I think the absolute worst he's done with her is Final Crisis, and that was mostly because her role in the event was underwhelming compared to what everyone else got. Beyond that, she was fine in JLA and Return of Bruce Wayne.
These books proper are a mix of ideas, some land (designs of Paradise Island, Etta and the Holliday Girls, Psycho, Paula) and some really don't (Amazon attitudes in the first book, Hercules as the father). But as an attempt that fails it some ways, it's still more interesting than her mainstream book is like 90% of the time.