Andi and Lise love antiheroes and all of their messy, complicated humanity. In this episode, they discuss some of their fave antiheroes and the flaws that make them relatable: Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly); Han Solo (Star Wars); Helena (Orphan Black); Parker (Leverage); Handsome Jack (Borderlands) Max and Furiosa (Fury Road); Sarah Connor (Terminator and T2); Andy (The Old Guard); Annalise Keating (How to Get Away with Murder).
Lise’s shout-out: times are tough; but she’s finding some solace in cosplay art and finishing edits on her latest book.
Andi’s shout-out is an in memoriam to stellar actor Chadwick Boseman, who died August 28 at the age of 43 after a 4-year battle with colon cancer. He was amazing and oh, he’s missed. Wakanda Forever.
RUN, don’t walk to Netflix as you’re able and PLEASE watch the movie The Old Guard, starring Charlize Theron as Andromache of Scythia who is still alive.
“Four undying warriors who’ve secretly protected humanity for centuries become targeted for their mysterious powers just as they discover a new immortal.” – from Netflix description, available HERE.
But there’s a catch…
Adapted from Greg Rucka’s comic of the same name, the story is about Andromache’s (“Andy’s”) leadership of this team and their attempts to stay undetected over the centuries, and what it means to be immortal when there are so few people in the world who are. Excellent diverse characters (two of Andy’s team are men who are soulmates who met during the Crusades and the newest immortal is a Black woman), fabulous action scenes, fast pacing, strong writing.
Lise’s shout-out is for the movie Knives Out, available on Amazon Prime. A clever, engrossing murder mystery in the style of ol’ skool mysteries like Agatha Christie’s.
Andi’s shout-out is for season 2 of The Alienist on TNT, which just started airing. 19th-century New York City crime and crime-solvers. Dark and gripping.
Andi and Lise talk about artist and writer Mildred Louis’s amazing, fabulous, and Magic Girl Power webcomic, Agents of the Realm, in which five young women at Silvermount College discover that they’ve each been chosen to protect their world as well as a sister dimension. Volume 1 (the volume currently available and being updated) begins at the start of the college year and follows them as they try to figure out what exactly is going on.
Great characterization, excellent art, fab story about 5 diverse young women trying to figure out how to work together to save their world and still deal with college, family, and relationships.
Find out more about Mildred Louis and her work at artofmlouis.com.
Lise’s shout-out: Her first audiobook is ready for public consumption! Lise’s Five Moons Rising, narrated by Lori Prince, is ready for listening! Find out more at Audible.com.
Andi also totally shouts-out Lise’s first audiobook publication. YAY! She also would like to shout-out the immersive detective game Hunt A Killer, in which you play detective and sign up for a specific murder mystery (all made up; don’t worry) and every month you get a new box in the mail with clues: documents, actual artifacts, news reports…you never know! Find out more at HuntAKiller.
Andi and Lise are way into the comic Moonstruck (Image Comics), created and written by Grace Ellis (of Lumberjanes) and illustrated/arted by Shea Beagle. Here, Andi and Lise talk about Volume 1, which collects issues 1-5:
Werewolf barista Julie and her new girlfriend go on a date to a close-up magic show, but all heck breaks loose when the magician casts a horrible spell on their friend Chet. Now it’s up to the team of mythical pals to stop the illicit illusionist before it’s too late. –Image Comics description
We loved all the rep (including queer, POC, QPOC) and all the different body shapes and all the different backgrounds of the characters. The art is amazing, the story is fun, and the characters will resonate with readers. This comic is excellent for all ages!
Find Volume 1 at Image Comics, other platforms, and your library.
Andi binged the fifth and final season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. She laughed, she cried, she’ll watch it again. Find all 5 seasons on Netflix.
Andi and Lise do a second part of their conversation regarding women in comics, and portrayals thereof. Topics that come up are women superhero teams and women supervillains, and they both agree that there should be MOAR of both!
If you’re interested: Newsarama: Top 10 Female Superhero Teams of All Time Marvel.com: 7 of the Best All-Women Teams in the Marvel Universe Ranker: The Greatest All-Female Superhero Teams and Ensembles Comicbasics.com: Top 10 Greatest Female Supervillains Newsarama: 10 Best Female Supervillains
Also! Andi geeked out about the book Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi. It’s the first in the Legacy of Orisha series. Lise shared how excited she is to be starting season three of the Amazon Prime show: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Andi and Lise talk about portrayals of superhero women in comics and the revealing clothing and sexualization of their bodies (and yes, they’ve also noticed the trend of increased and unrealistic musculature of male superheroes). They chat, too, about how indie comics might be taking the lead on better representation of female superheroes and badass women.
Find more food for thought:
The Artifice on sexism, impracticality, and the hopeful future of costuming Comicsverse: How to change the problem with female superhero costumes
Tumblr account the Hawkeye Initiative
For a different take, see this blog at Medium on reframing the debate on female superhero costumes
Who are the Rat Queens? A pack of booze-guzzling, death-dealing battle maidens-for-hire, and they’re in the business of killing all gods’ creatures for profit. It’s also a darkly comedic fantasy series starring Hannah the Rockabilly Elven Mage, Violet the Hipster Dwarven Fighter, Dee the Atheist Human Cleric and Betty the Hippy Hobbit Thief. This modern spin on an old school genre is a violent monster-killing epic that is like Buffy meets Tank Girl in a Lord of the Rings world on crack!
Rat Queens is also full of diverse characters (primary and secondary), kickass women, and LGBTQ rep (it won a GLAAD award), including Betty, one of the queens. Great world-building, awesome characterization, strong writing, explorations of relationships and past baggage – Rat Queens is the shizzle. Give this comic a read and re-read!
Shout-outs: Lise recommends Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St. Mary’s books, which are a time traveling historians saga (and Andi will be running out to read) that Taylor insists you NOT call time travel because it’s “about a bunch of disaster-prone historians who investigate major historical events in contemporary time.” And Andi is just about done with Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth (Lise’s recommendation), which is mind-blowing and so much awesome – lesbian necromancers who also do some space travel. I mean. Why would you not want to read that? Also, Andi wants a poster of the cover.
Andi and Lise FINALLY got to talk about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse because Lise put off seeing it until recently and then, as Andi suspected, it blew her mind.
Into the Spider-Verse is an animated origin story about Miles Morales, a teen who is, of course, bitten by a radioactive spider and is faced with taking on the mantle of Spider-Man in the wake of his universe’s loss of the previous Spider-Man. He also has to deal with villain Kingpin’s manipulation of the multiverse, which results in several incarnations of Spider-Man (that include two women) entering Miles’ universe. It’s an origin story and a story about found family and mentorship set against ground-breaking animation that includes fabulous characterization, dialogue, humor, anxiety, and sadness. It’s pretty much everything you want in a film, and both Andi and Lise highly recommend it. Good for all ages (but if you have trouble with animation and flashing lights because of a medical condition, maybe check the trailer first).
Andi and Lise saw the movie Captain Marvel starring Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Marvel and they LOVED it, but also, there are some things they noticed that they bring up in their chat.
Also, Lise recommends the 2018 sci-fi movie Annihilation (certain trope not withstanding) while Andi suggests the 2019 movie Shazam! – great for all ages.
Lise and Andi rave about the Marvel comic Ms Marvel, whose latest incarnation features Pakistani-American Muslim teen Kamala Khan in Jersey City who is a total fangirl of Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers). Andi loves that Ms Marvel was a fangirl before she was a superhero. Then one day Kamala wakes up with super powers and she has to learn how to negotiate this new aspect to her life, dealing with the powers and what she feels is her responsibility to help people now that she has them along with her grades, her classes, and her family life.
It’s basically teenage angst – something all of us can probably relate to – along with the added angst of having super powers and trying to figure out how best to use them when you’re only 16-17 AND attempt to negotiate the landmines that come in any family as you’re figuring out who you are and who you want to be. Two big Ms Marvel thumbs up on this one, friends.
