mustinvestigate

Yeah, that climax - an 11-year-old girl being the toughest fighter in a room full of mooks instead of cowering in the corner and needing rescue -I couldn't help thinking this would be the coolest thing ever, in a better movie.

And then she did need rescued by a man in the end, anyway, so no points for you, movie!

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No, no, you're right to be suspicious! I enjoyed it in a shallow sort of way, but later, the more I thought about it the more it annoyed me. For instance, the protagonist's sudden switch from 'I'm an innocent civilian who just wants to help people' to 'I'm fine with murder'. I feel like I missed the part where that transition was satisfactorily explained (though apparently this is unique to the movie - the comic explores it at length).

The thing that bothers me most is the sudden switch from wry, deadpan realism to yeehaaaaw swords n' jet packs n' physically impossible fighting moves. I actually found the first ten minutes of the movie really interesting, then it was all a bit 'ho hum, another slickly shot Tarantino-esque thing'. I feel it copped out on it's own key premise!

Hit Girl was fun, but I wonder how much of it is just Mark Millar gleefully cackling over having an eleven year old say 'alright you cunts!'. Hurm. Actually re: Hit Girl and killing, I thought it was interesting that Big D mentioned he made training 'a game' for her. That came across a bit in the penultimate fight scene where strobe effects made it look like a first-person shooter, but I think we could have had more of that and it's frankly disturbing implications – like, what happens when she starts to realise what the heck she's really been doing. Maybe that's being saved for the next comic run.

Here's a thought for you to ponder: is Nick Cage drawing attention to his own inability to act in a slick meta way by having his dialogue be deliberately stilted, or is he doin' his very best actin', child?

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How'd it get burned how'd it get burned howditgetburned?! In my early teens I thought he was one of the best actors ever...maybe I shouldn't admit that.

Yeah, the tone shift bugged me too - "we're so realistic, we have our hero get knifed and run over his first time out!" to "our ineffectual hero is suddenly Rambo who can use a jetpack and gatling guns (without going deaf or suffering the laws of physics) to kill many, many people!" It's got Transformer's syndrome - too unthinkingly juvenile for anyone over 14, but too gory and harsh for that demographic at the same time.

So the comic explores the shift with the male protagonist, but the young girl gets no inner life adjusting to the killing? Hurm.

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What is it? What is it? No, not the bees! Not the bees! My eyes RAAARGGGGHHHH!!!

LOL, Nick Cage. I used to think he was the poor man's Jimmy Stewart, now he's just ridiculous.

Too unthinkingly juvenile for anyone over 14, but too gory and harsh for that demographic at the same time.

Mark Millar is fond of the old ultraviolence. Somebody over on Scans_Daily posted some scans of comic book Hit Girl, by the way, they're here if you're interested. I haven't read the comics myself, but I know the movie went into production way before the first arc was even finished - so the scriptwriters basically had a couple of issues and a plot overview to work from, I think.

Mind you, I'm not convinced the comic will be satisfactory in resolving these issues either. Oh, and I second your point above about how 'an 11-year-old girl being the toughest fighter in a room full of mooks instead of cowering in the corner [...] would be the coolest thing ever, in a better movie.' We need Cassandra Cain to be in the next Batman movie, that's what we need!

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Thanks for the scans link - it seems to work a bit more in comics form, if only because the easy-slice body parts are so ridiculous the whole thing takes on a bit of ironic distance that live action couldn't pull off. Despite Hit Girl's creepy dull expression while hack and slicing, which is less/more disconcerting than the chipperness of the film version.

It still gets me in a way I'm sure was not intended, the father/daughter bonding via losing one's fear of being shot, actively molding a girl into someone strong above all else. It mightily chokes me up and I wish parents would impress on their daughters as much as their sons not to capitulate to threats of pain. But without so many gunshots, maybe. Or at least for media that's not super-problematic to cover the same ground.

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Ah but you see, strength and bravery are manly virtues. Girls need to be taught to be precious princesses, or somesuch bullshit.

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Argh. Yeah.

My old kickboxing instructor was the first person to ever approve of my big muscular body and push me to make it stronger, not smaller. I wish I could have told him how important he was to me - without, y'know, sounding like the bad kinda pervo :)

Re Kate Kane: ...and she's a lesbian? I'm so there.

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I must confess to having a weakness for amazonian women. To me there's something so thrilling and goddamn awesome about women being unashamed of having height and strength and generally NOT being shelf-boobed tiny-waisted barbie dolls. This goes for RL and comic books.

I think you'll enjoy Kate Kane. She dodges the stereotypes of lipstick/butch by falling somewhere nebulously in between. Also, as a little awesome detail, I love that her Batwoman boots are flat. Seriously, no-one can be expected to fight crime in skyscraper heels.

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Oh, also, this reminds me... if you're looking for a comic book father/daughter relationship that's functional and not creepy, but still with the instilling of honour and bravery etc, check out Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III's 'Batwoman'. Kate Kane kicks all kinds of arse with the assistance of 'I disapprove of your vigilanteism, but obviously I'm still going to requisition lots of experimental black ops equipment for you' army dad.

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I just spent a ridiculous stretch of time arguing with a Forbidden Planet greenhair that there was a new Batwoman in the last few years. Argh.

Note to self: look for a title before going to a store (it is the Detective Comics version, right?).

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Yes, sorry, should have told you that! She is getting her own monthly very soon, but she's been moonlighting in Detective Comics (nos. 854-863 to be precise). The arc is also coming out in trade paperback soon as 'Batwoman: Elegy', so silly Forbidden Planet man should have known that. Harrumpf!

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i want piles of really good fic where hit girl deals with the real world. i'd settle for one yuletide story which even tangentally deals with the inherent issues. or one where she is awesome and flipping off walls.

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I'd love anything from her POV, really.

Or if Hollis had been her dad's old partner (right, timeline not even close to lining up, shhhh) and adopted her in the end, teaching her the right way to be a vigilante.

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if Hollis had been her dad's old partner YES. she's already kind of what walter and laurie's child would be.

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And with one sentence you make her even more awesome.

...yeah, that's pretty much what would come of that frighteningly compatable DNA. Stop making me want to write baby!fic, for the love of all that is pervy!

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no no (WRITE IT) i would never (DO IT) make someone write (AWESOME AWESOME) baby!fic. never (ALWAYS).

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Minific: Debutante

Two little girls stood just outside the light of a flickering streetlamp. Both wore candy-colored wigs and leather – one a miniskirt, one a full-body suit covering Kevlar.

Two men lurked in opposite alleys, keeping a sharp eye out for other too-attentive lurking men. The shorter one unconsciously rubbed a roughly splinted finger through his glove with worried pride.

The woman on the rooftop across the street watched through the scope of her sniper rifle. She kept a bead on the miniskirt, just in case. Maternal instinct was a funny thing – she ached to scoop up both girls, tuck them away in some border universe where kids never disappeared on a two-block stroll home from school or stood on street corners in platform heels, but if she saw a single flicker of a hidden switchblade, she wouldn’t hesitate.

The girls concluded their conversation and separated, one into the light and one into shadow.

Silk Spectre quickly broke down her rifle as static crackled in her earpiece. “I got an address,” the girl murmured.

“Good job, kiddo,” Nite Owl whispered. “Now get your hiney back to the rendezvous point.”

“Be there in five,” Silk Spectre acknowledged and headed down a fire escape, but not until she’d seen the girl take her husband’s hand, heard his relieved exhale even through the static.

* * *

Ursula was the one who insisted the icing be purple. Along with a certain gnome-ish cast to her features (poor kid), she shared a favourite color with her father. Sally was making a hash of the message in yellow icing – which was supposed to read “Congratulations on your first bust, Hit-Girl!” – but then they couldn’t exactly have ordered it custom from the bakery. Hollis was wearing circular holes in the carpet and had already bummed half a pack of Ursula’s unfiltered Calumé Vanillas.

“Five years!” he exclaimed again, and coughed. “We had another five years! Not until she’s 16, at least, and can make her own decision – am I the only one who remembers that?”

Ursula pounded him on the back. “It was her friend, schatz. Would she ever forgive herself, or her parents, if they kept her on schedule, after this life sought her out now?”

“Then why a cake? Why a celebration?” Hollis drew viciously on his cigarette and hacked the smoke back out.

“Because everyone deserves to be properly welcomed into a family business,” Sally insisted, finishing off her highball in one shaky gulp and flicking stray ash off a sugary purple rose. “And she’s gonna do great.”

* * *

“Stay behind us,” Silk Spectre admonished her daughter, checking and double-checking the fit of her bullet-proof vest.

“Mooooooom!”

“You got the intel, so you’ve got a right to be here. But stay out of the way – we all hung back and learned from our elders when we started out.”

She crossed her fingers behind her back and ignored Nite Owl’s conspicuously cleared throat. Her husband crossed his arms and nodded, backing her up, but she could tell by the pattern on his mask that he, too, was smirking at her.

“Fine,” Hit-Girl huffed, “but it’s not fair. I’ve been training – ”

“Life isn’t fair,” Silk Spectre shot back. “Now get into position behind Nite Owl.”

“Please tell me I’m not my mother,” the woman whispered as they entered the seemingly abandoned warehouse from the other side, only half in jest.

“Are not your mother,” he whispered back automatically, as he had at least twice a day for the previous eleven years.

Neither of them was surprised when their cover was blown almost immediately by a small body dropping through a hole in the ceiling brandishing nunchucks. Fortunately, their target and the three thugs playing poker with him froze in bewilderment at the sight of the tiny apparition, giving the team precious seconds to get into place around them.

“Okay, you cun – ”

“Language!”

“ – er – whoremongers?”

“Hurm. Accurate.”

“Let’s see what you can do now!”

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SO. AWESOME. you've got the everyone i love and colour scheme i love and rorschach smirking and little girl in kevlar OH GOD I'M SMILING SO HUGE.

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Heh, glad you liked, after I blatantly didn't fill the actual specs :D

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brancher.livejournal.com

I I I I

I LOVE YOU

Oh my god, what is the OT3 configuration here? You must write more! PLEASE OH PLEASE

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