Wednesday, July 26, 2006

JLA: New World Order

New World Order collects the first 4 issues of JLA. It was released in 1997 and boasts Grant Morrison as the writer and Howard Porter as the artist. It's a good book, and these issues launched a good series, no question. There are two major things that bother me about Porter's art: the way he draws hair, and the way he draws women.

Let's look at Wonder Woman:
This doesn't even make sense. What she is wearing is basically an inverted triangle. If this weren't an all-ages comic, we would be looking at labia. Her breasts are just sort of resting on that breastplate. Wouldn't they be falling out all the time while she's fighting and running and jumping?

And there's something gross about the tip of that lasso. Or at least it's placement.

This is also a good example of the bad hair drawing I was talking about. There is such a thing as giving too much detail to hair. And while we're on it, the shadowing is kind of way overdone too. Look at The Flash! It's the little things that can really ruin a comic for me.

Here's our girl fighting a female-looking alien character by straddling it. Again, breasts and junk all over the place. Just unprofessional, Wonder Woman.

Here's something I always hate: when a woman's eyes are drawn to be larger than her waist. Look at these!
One eye is the size of her entire mouth! Can you imagine seeing someone like that in real life?! It would be terrifying.

All of the JLA men are basically wearing turtlenecks. They have every part of their skin covered except what they need to breathe through (except Aquaman...but he does his own thing). Here's Wonder Woman hanging out with the boys:

Catch what if they fall, Superman? Wonder Woman's jugs?! They are precariously balanced! Look. Batman can't even look at her. He's just embarrassed for her.
Or maybe he's embarrassed for Superman's hair. I know I am. It's 1997 and Superman is just getting into line dancing.

As for Wonder Woman's costume, it gets worse:

Whoomp! And that's not even a joke that Green Lantern is making. He really is just talking about the view of planet Earth. But look at Wonder Woman, hands on her hips, daring anyone to stare at her ass. Actually it looks more like she's begging. It's just a terrible outfit. Thumbs down.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yup, Porter sucks all right...but amazingly, he got even worse as the run continued. He did a page in Justice League of America #0 last week (the one where they're all mad at Batman for his crazy paranoid contingency plans), and everyone (especially WW) looks like crazy hobbity midget people with giant eyes.

And yet, he keeps getting work.
-dave

Anonymous said...

Huh. That's a pretty manly ass, in the last panel, too. Not that I have anything against manly asses, but given the hyper feminine eyes and boobs, it's kind of surprising that her ass looks pretty much the same as The Flash's.