Why no female superheroes? Fear.

A recent blog post by Sue Archer flags this popular issue: Thanks to years now of excellent and popular superhero movies, the fan world has been rearing up and calling out the obvious missing piece of the franchise puzzle: Why no female superhero movies yet?  Warner Brothers (who owns the DC Comics superheroes) has been held up to the light for producing Superman, Batman and Green Lantern for cinema, and a number of other male heroes for television, but not Wonder Woman.    And Marvel, seemingly doing no wrong with its superhero line-up, has so far passed on super-powered female heroes like Captain Marvel.

One begins to suspect a conspiracy… which, of course, is what the web has pounced on.  Everyone wants to know what’s going on here.

Naturally, I believe I know what’s happening.

I think they’re scared.

Pre-order “Heroes!”

Silence in the Library Publishing has issued pre-order details for Heroes!, the superhero anthology book that will contain one of my short stories, The Never-Ending Battle.

My story will be among many short stories from a notable list of authors, including the late Aaron Allston, Michael A. Stackpole, Timothy Zahn, Gail Z. Martin, Jean Rabe, John Kovalic, Alan Dean Foster, Maxwell Alexander Drake, Janine K. Spendlove, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Dylan Birtolo, Donald J. Bingle, Sheryl Nantus, Sarah Hans, Daniel Myers, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Jennifer Brozek, Gregory A. Wilson, Bryan Young, Addie J. King, Aaron Rosenberg, R.T. Kaelin, Jaym Gates, Steven Saus, Tracy Chowdhury, and Kelly Swails. 

Joss Whedon’s (and my) take on SF

Director Joss Whedon has a biography coming out (one of those things you look at with a strange crick in your neck, because biographies usually come out at the end of someone’s career), and in some excerpts printed in IO9, I’ve discovered some significant similarities in the way he and I see science fiction these days.

For instance, when he had the opportunity to submit a TV series concept to Fox, he wanted to do science fiction.  Problem was, most TV SF turned him off.  He wanted to see realism, but most sci-fi TV shows looked too plastic, too clean, like Star Trek.  Or too cheap and cheesy, like Blake’s 7 or (pre-2000s) Doctor Who.  One movie series he appreciated—Alien—but he wanted more than a “ripoff” of the Alien look.

The Justice League movie should be “Heaven’s Ladder”

Presently, Warner Brothers is working on a Superman vs Batman movie, and simultaneously trying to work out a way to do a Justice League movie featuring their DC comics heavy hitters.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of questions, based on the performance of their most recent superhero movies, whether they can pull off a coup equal to that of Marvel’s Avengers.

To begin with, you need the right story to tell with these characters, and everyone doubts Warner has a story in hand, or even in mind, that will do the job.  So, in the interest of making this challenge interesting, let me suggest that all discussions about the Justice League movie should center around the story of JLA: Heaven’s Ladder.