In Which Lexi Talks About Why We Need Sailor Moon

So in case it isn't clear enough, I like superheroes.

No, really. Go ahead. Look surprised. I'll wait.

Superheroes are the epic heroes of our time. Where stories Gilgamesh and Herakles and Perseus were once told, we instead get stories of Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-man... I could go on. I don't need to.

But, to be honest, traditional mythology and epic heroic tales have been lacking in female heroes. And modern-day comics are really not so different. Oh, we've gotten better. The fact that Black Widow featured heavily in the recent Avengers film; the fact that so many devoted fans (male and female) of Wonder Woman flipped out over her mistreatment in recent storylines; the fact that Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) and Spider-woman are just as beloved as their male counterparts... yeah, girls have gotten better when it comes to heroism.

They also have gotten much worse.

Much, much worse.

To be honest, as a modern woman myself... this? Isn't enough. It's not enough that we have some girl superheroes that can play with the big boys. As cool as Natasha and Diana and Carol and Jessica are, they are also ultra... masculine-ified. Eeehhhnnnn, I'm not quite sure if I can put this the way I want to, so let me just try.

In Which Lexi Talks About Sherlock Holmes and Elementary

It's Sherlock Holmes! IN NEW YORK.

Oh crap. It is time to talk about this.

*deep breath*

I am Lexi, and I am a Holmesian. I adore Sherlock Holmes in his many, many forms. It is because of Sherlock Holmes that I became a mystery fanatic. I can positively say that Sailor Moon and Sherlock Holmes are the single two most important factors in shaping the person I am today. Without a doubt.

We good? We're good.

In Which Lexi Talks About Fifty Shades of Grey

NOPE.

NOPE. NOOOOOPE. NOOOOOOOOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOOOOOOPE.

THOSE ARE MY THOUGHTS ON FIFTY SHADES OF GREY. FEMINISM IS DEAD. EVERYONE CAN GO HOME.

Oh, wait, I have to actually talk about it? Damn.

In Which Lexi Talks About Scary Stories and Horror Fiction

It's that time of year again. The leaves are brown. The sky is gray. Terrifying TV ads are playing constantly during commercial breaks. There are entire broadcasts dedicated to the horrifying event that will soon be upon us. People are wearing ridiculous costumes and traveling from door to door, asking for stuff.

Yep. Election time. (Badum-tish!)

Yeah, I know that joke is ooooold. But it's still hilarious!

In Which Lexi Talks About Why She Sides With Marvel

So there's this thing that happens when I get interested in a new series or franchise. It's called "the fandom scares me the hell away so that I watch from a distance instead." The fanbase for a particular show or book or movie or comic can often be the deciding factor of whether or not I get into something. For instance, the Twilight fanbase was the reason I started to dislike the Twilight series - Stephenie Meyer and the books themselves are the reason I despise it - and for the longest time I refused to watch any episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic because dude? Seriously? Bronies are messed up. (The show is pretty cute, though.)

And even the stuff I do like have scary fandoms: Supernatural has its insane shippers, and Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Avengers have all had shipping wars, some totally bloody. Hell, Marvel's fandom as a whole has had explosive fandom wars - some of the older comic book fans are openly contemptuous towards the newcomers who came this way via the movies.

And yet, while that fandom can be a scary, scary place indeed, I feel safer and better off there than anywhere near the overall DC fandom. Except for a few well-done shows and cartoons that have their own pocket fanbases (Green Lantern: The Animated Series for instance) the DC fanbase as a whole is pretty unsavory based on my experience with it. And the worst part is, as I said in my last rant, DC seems to be catering specifically to that demographic.

I could talk about the New 52 and how I absolutely hate what they did to Wonder Woman and Oracle and Starfire. I could talk about the overabundance of Escher Girls. I could talk about the fact that they had Rob Freaking Liefeld heading a few titles before his public fallout with the publisher. But that's not the reason why I tend to skew towards Marvel when it comes to the superhero genre.

I have a story. Get comfy.

In Which Lexi Talks About Her Wrist and Her Job

Blah blah blah Lexi whining about IRL stuff.

In Which Lexi Talks About Marvel, DC, and Other Stuff

Today, I watched Nash and Linkara's review of the mid-nineties attempt at making a live-action Justice League show - it was a TV movie that reminded me very much of an old DCOM (Disney Channel Original Movie) called Up, Up and Away - the similarities are uncanny! And something Nash said in the beginning got me thinking. For context, this review was either written or published around the time that last year's Green Lantern was still being talked about; Nash mentions that DC is planning on a live-action Justice League of America movie in order to capitalize on Marvel's success with this summer's The Avengers - well, he didn't say that last bit, he only mentioned the JLA movie on its way, but you get the drift, right?

So yeah, it got me thinking... how does DC plan on being able to pull this off? I mean, any average moviegoer who doesn't really pay attention to comics (read: my parents) would probably look at the whole thing and go "oh, they're trying to do what The Avengers did" - that is, if they were able to tell that Batman and Captain America are from two different publishers. No, I'm serious - I had to explain to a non-comics-reader that Superman and Spider-man would never be on screen together because they were from entirely different universes, and I'm pretty sure that whole thing still went right over her head. But in any case, anyone who pays attention to the publishers' logos and the film companies and all that jazz will probably pick up on that competition between the Big Two. Lines will be drawn. Fandom wars will be raged--- wait, that happened already. It's still happening.

Um... so anyway--