Feminism Again

Over at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise, Kalinara discusses a post and commentary over on Occasional Superheroine. There are Final Crisis 6 spoilers, just so you know.

Here's my comment on Kalinara's post (with spoiler, even though I haven't read the issue yet), revised a bit to fit here:

Wow. I went and read Val's post, plus all the comments to the one you linked to, then a bit beyond. I knew I had a good reason to stop reading Val's blog and this just reinforced that decision. Her analogy with the coffeeshop is a bit over the top.

I certainly don't think someone's enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of Final Crisis (which I'm enjoying but haven't gotten issue 6 yet, and I didn't mind having it spoiled -- although I hate spoilers -- because the thing with Bats was pretty much telegraphed) has anything to do with feminism or even DC Comics as a whole. (*See below for more about Batman.)

I consider myself a feminist and have since I was in college in the early-'70s, but part of that is the belief that women should have the right of choosing how to live their lives and not have that dictated to them by men. If they want to be stay-at-home wives, fine. If they want to be president, they should go for it. And if they want to read DC Comics, that's between them and their comics supplier.

* As to how I think the thing with Bats was telegraphed, the Batman RIP storyline in the Bat books pretty much dovetails it. Plus, word was out that someone major would die. Supes, we know, has some big, off-Earth adventures coming up and he already died in a major storyline, and Wonder Woman has a big storyline in the works that should run through the summer, last I read. But Batman is going to be missing from his books, for reasons not yet clear, while people compete for the cowl or some such, which means Bats/Bruce being dead or missing or simply nursing a galactic hangover somewhere is a logical candidate for the big death scene. He's one of the big 3, the DCU Trinity (and where that fits on the DCU timeline is beyond me), and he's available to be killed. Not that he won't be back someday.