Okay but…can we all take a moment and just realize that fandom’s not the problem with Agent Carter’s ratings? (Sorry, Anon, this has been stewing for a while.)
Like, yes, I will absolutely namedrop it a couple of times a week, but I am seeing a lot of posts that border on berating fans over Agent Carter’s supposed failure to thrive, and I have a couple of issues with it.
One: Do we really think fans not watching is the problem? Every fan I know is watching and talking about and trending and posting gifs of this show. If Agent Carter isn’t doing well, can we stop yelling at each other over it? We are supporting the fuck out of this show and I’m gettin’ pretty tired of the implication that if Agent Carter fails, it was the fans’ fault. Fandom is backing this show. Fandom is also tiny compared to the general population. It’s not the fans who aren’t watching. It’s everyone else.
OR IS IT?
Two: Let’s look at the actual ratings, shall we?
Ratings for Tuesday, February 3rd: For its time slot, Agent Carter beat out everything else on network television except NCIS. [Source] It beat out New Girl and Supernatural. So what the fuck?
Between January 27th and February 3rd: Ratings were flat, which means Agent Carter didn’t drop, and it didn’t rise. [Source] And again, it did better than EVERY NETWORK SHOW except NCIS. (Which, wow, NCIS LA is really the most watched show in that time slot? Maybe Agent Carter is in the wrong demo slot.)
So is it the fans that are the issue?
Or is it the studio that never planned to give this show a chance, and the news coverage that’s saying Agent Carter’s tanking when it is, in fact, doing pretty fuckin’ well for a first-season “miniseries” show in a Sunday night slot up against NCIS and Supernatural?
Like, maybe there are serious talks of it being cancelled or not renewed. I don’t follow entertainment news super closely. But it’s probably not the actual numbers impacting that, which means even if as fans we somehow manage to raise MILLIONS more viewers to raise the numbers, which I don’t think we will, they may not care.
Three: Some people are finding the show deeply problematic racewise, and I see their point. I’m seeing people who want to love this show unable to do so because they feel erased and belittled both by the show and by the shouting about the show, the shouting that is, in some cases, shouting them down. So if you don’t want to support it, or if you’re angry at it, that’s okay too. You are under no social obligation to fandom to back something that is hurting you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a problem in fandom, not you.
IN CONCLUSION, can we stop telling ourselves Agent Carter lives or dies by our word? Because it is literally, right now, living out the old adage that a woman has to work twice as hard as a man to be considered half as good, and that’s not our fault.
Wednesday Spoilers is a catch-all warning for “comics that came out this week”. Most comics do have monthly issues, but not all comics come out on the same day of the month. New comics always come out on Wednesdays, however, and there are new comics every Wednesday, so tagging “wednesday spoilers” is a way of saying “this is a spoiler for the issues that were out last Wednesday that you may not have bought/read yet”.
Like, the first Wednesday of the month you might get Spider-man and Hawkeye, second Wednesday Ms. Marvel and Daredevil, third Wednesday She-Hulk and Angela: Asgard’s Assassin, fourth Wednesday Deadpool and Spiderwoman. But “wednesday spoilers” can apply to any of those, depending on week, and lets people who can’t get their comics on Wednesday easily block spoilers.
*taps you with his fairy wand*
*swirls off in a cloud of glitter*
Someone, please draw Sam as a fairy with a sparkly dress made out of comic book covers. Please.
I googled “golden retriever in a fairy costume”. I was not disappointed with the results.
Isn’t it interesting that the three main new villains of the Axis arc appear to be Luke Cage, Sam Wilson, and Wanda Maximoff?
Gosh, what a strange coincidence, two African-American men and a Jewish-Romani immigrant woman. And isn’t it odd how the main heroes fighting against them are predominantly white men like Steve Rogers, Peter Parker, whoever the fuck is Nova now, and Wade Wilson?
How terribly interesting.
And by interesting, I still mean super racist!
[Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #1, 2014.]
So I’m just going to point out it’s kind of interesting that an African American man became Captain America just in time for a nine-part Marvel event in which a select group of superheroes that includes Captain America are turned evil by their own actions.
So you know.
We got a Black Captain America just in time for him to be an angry supervillain Captain America. Who is now in a pitched battle with our hero, Old White Retired Captain America.
It’s a complicated question to answer, Anon, in part because there’s not “what helped me” so much as “what helps me” — clinical depression, the kind not caused by situation or circumstance (but potentially triggered by it) is not something you cure. Which I don’t think you were implying, but I want to be clear that I didn’t have depression and fix it — I do have it, it’s a chronic condition, and what I have instead of therapy or medication are coping mechanisms. And if you can’t tell when I’m in a depressive episode, well, that’s because of those coping mechanisms.
Second caveat: if therapy helps, or if medication helps, use them. My personal distaste for therapy is not a disbelief in its ability to help people, just a disbelief in its ability to help me, derived from personal experience. The fact that I don’t go to therapy or take medication is more to do with my ability to manage without, because of the relative non-severity of my condition. They are not the optimum weapons for my personal battle. They may be the best for yours.
One of the major signs is my unwillingness to engage with new narratives or ones in which I have an emotional investment — ie, I won’t go to see new movies even if I was really excited about them, BECAUSE I was really excited about them, and I won’t watch new TV shows or even new episodes of shows I like. The emotional impact (even when it’s a good emotion) is too overwhelming, and I know that when I’ve reached a point where I can’t cope with my own emotions, I’m probably going to have a rough few weeks ahead.
I do this. I didn’t know anyone else did. Well, I guess I thought someone must, but I’ve never actually known someone who does it. I know it’s linked to my level of cope, but I didn’t know how anchored it was to my depression/anxiety and how much it was tied to my autism. It’s sort of in that muddly, murky intersectional space, I think.
Many of us do! Via Marvel’s letter page, or by speaking to Marvel representatives at cons, or by tagging tweets and posts appropriately.
And yes, it is sad that Sam as Cap will probably be torpedoed by Remender’s presence in the book; the sales numbers were already plummeting by the time that tidbit came out. Despite the very public way in which fans objected to Remender and the very public way in which Remender and others who support him reacted to that objection, Marvel may not see the difference between “hate this book because of the writer” and “hate this book because Steve’s not Cap”.
Unfortunately I think it’s also true that despite the massive influx into Marvel of really good, intellectual, and inclusive writers — Kelly Sue DeConnick, G. Willow Wilson, Matt Fraction, to name a few — the editorial and management staff at Marvel seem to be very much still an Old Boys Network. (Tip for Marvel: if you’re reading this and you think you aren’t an Old Boys Network, you should be aware you’re not coming off in the best light.) I think it’s finally starting to let up, but artists and writers are still very much being judged on their gender and race rather than their skill and talent in the industry at large. Certainly Liefeld and Remender are proof they are not being judged on their professionalism. In any other field, what both of them have said in public would get them fired at the least, and probably make them unemployable. And yet they both have jobs, presumably because the consequences of their actions were either not visible or ignored by their editors.
So yes, I think people should absolutely take every opportunity they can to say “I am reading Ms. Marvel because I support the presence of women of colour in comics” and “I am not reading anything by Rick Remender because I do not support douchebags in comics” and whatever else they support or do not support on political/social grounds.
It’s worth noting that if you want to read/support Sam as Cap without reading a book written by Remender, there’s always;
Starting in November, it’s a relaunch of Al Ewing’s Mighty Avengers which has been really great so far. His take on Sam is enjoyable, writing him as equal parts capable badass and loveable nerd (there’s a great bit where he insists on calling himself ‘S.H.I.E.L.D. Super-Agent Falcon’ every time he reports to Nick Fury) so I think he’s going to do a great job with Sam as Cap. The book also features;
– A cast of kickass women in varied roles (Monica Rambeau, yay!)
– A cast of kickass PoC in varied roles (Luke Cage, yay!)
– A good mix of superheroic melodrama and humour.
– …granted, it also has Greg Land on art. Which… yeah. But he’s stepping down for the relaunch, and Luke Ross will be the main artist on the series for the new run.
So if you want to read a book featuring Sam Wilson as Captain America, but don’t want to buy one written by a guy who’ll tell you to ‘drown yourself in hobo piss’ if you disagree with him, then Captain America and the Mighty Avengers might be worth a look!
Ohhhh yay! That’s exciting, and I hadn’t heard about it. Mighty Avengers has been kind of variable in quality for me — I’m not that interested in what someone’s dad was doing in the 70s — but I’ll put up with less than spectacular writing for Sam!Cap. 😀
Wait, wasn’t Frog!Thor actually a frog that found a chip off mjolnir and became Thor?
There are/were actually two Frog!Thors, it looks like. One was Thor as a frog. The other one’s a frog that’s running around with a chip off Mjolnir and the appropriate Mjolnir-wielding get-up. Comics: serious business.
I’m not sure if this Frog Thor is the same as the Frog Thor who just found a piece of the hammer and was worthy, but there’s a Frog Thor in the Pet Avengers run who mentions that he’s Thor’s cousin.
Thor was also turned into a frog on multiple occasions. I think the most recent occurrence was in the Ultimate Spider-man cartoon.
Anyway, here is Thor, Frog Cousin of Thor, who has turned BuckyCap and Iron Man into frogs as well for very legitimate reasons having to do with dragons.
[From Avengers vs. Pet Avengers #1, 2011.]
Why yes. That is a frog with a prosthetic arm.
In conclusion: even if Thor had never been a frog, every single person who is whining about a woman being Thor could still shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.
knitting in the dark 