The Virgin Read: No Gurls Allowed In The Joe Casey Fanclub

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance # 1
Written by Joe Casey
Art by ChrisCross
Published by DC Comics

Okay. This is truly a Virgin Point of View. Or maybe just a Nina point of view.

I picked this comic for the same reason I would have picked it when I was 8, or 12, or 16 or 22....the title is "Dance." The possiblity for this to draw in "new readers", meaning females, females who don't usually read comic books, is HUGE. I did a survey. That's what it said.

The dancer-girl will wonder to herself, "how will dance be used in this comic book?" Will it be some creative, comic book form of the game Dance Dance Revolution? (That's what it looks like it will be.)  Or perhaps these superheroes have powers pertaining to some graceful, dance-like fight moves? Maybe it's High School Dance Teams with Supermoves? My ten-year-old self might have hoped for a comic about a fancy dance company teaming up to fight the evil villain who masquerades as their dance teacher. Their evil dance teacher.  

These guesses of mine may seem silly to you, but to any girl who sees the title "dance", they are not. Again. Survey! And honestly? Any one of those plots would be preferable to what I read. Because the only thing that was dance-y about this was the fact that most of this took place in a club.  

Swing and a miss!

I'd like to say that my disappointment in not getting the comic I wished for was my only problem with this one, but it wasn't. First off, there really wasn't much of a plot. Instead, it's just a comic book made up of commentary. The last page tries to present a "more than meets the eye" twist ending, but what precedes it is whole comic book devoted to reflecting on "the media" and "contemporary lifestyle", presenting it all as vapid and shallow, materialistic and pointless. That's not a story, you know? It's just an observation, and it isn't a particularly fresh one. The basic story is all about these new superheros who have yet to demonstrate any super-prowess, but who are being marketed and pitched and spun like today's actors and reality show "stars." At the end, there's a conspiracy theory type reveal, where the entire marketing and media machine is revealed to be a plot to keep everyone's mind occupied so that they don't really pay attention to the true horror that is going on in their country. Again: i've seen that. It was in Wag The Dog and was funny in a snobby way, and it was in Canadian Bacon in a John Candy way. It's also just like a card trick, where you do something on the left so nobody looks to the right. It's not a story. It's a trick.

There's this constant use of twitter-like updates in the comic that's used for narrating to the reader different aspects of the twittering character's personality, and while it's clever, I felt like it was part of the whole problem this comic had--it constantly undermines itself and ends up criticizing its audience. It seems to want to appeal to a reader who might be into clubbing or twittering, while it also wants to be attractive to people who don't like either. It hates on them both--the stay at home type and the one on the dance floor. That doesn't leave much room to like it.

(Now, I wasn't really that insulted. I sort of hate Twitter. Not Twitter itself. But the very fact that we are now spending time not spending time with people who are directly in front of us, but spending time on the people who aren't there. It just doesn't make any sense to me. But I like dancing at the club! I am stuck between two things this comic treats as inseparable! Oops: TANGENT. Lemme stop myself now or I could go on and on.)

Look, maybe I just didn't find this comic that enjoyable because it's not at all what I thought it had potential to be, which was a comic book involving dancing. Maybe it works as a one-issue comic book commentary on popular culture. I'm not really all that hyped up to see what happens next. Apparently there will be five more. I don't think I'll read them.

But if they decide to include a prima ballerina superhero who is constantly going tour jete all over some fool's ass - I'd definitely read that. Somebody write that down.

-Nina Stone, 2009 

Comments

[bad wolf]

It would be awesome if Marvel or DC reverse-engineered a comic by asking a tween girl what she expected to read based on the title. I think Spider-Girl might have been another good example of this?

[NoahB]

Have you read Swan, Nina? It's an actual honest-to-god manga about dance competitions; I haven't read it, but the art I've seen looks lovely.

[Matthew J. Brady]

I forget, did Nina read Bang Tango? That one was about dancing. From what I read, I don't think the dancing was done very well though.

[kag]

And throw Phonogram volume2, issue 1, in her direction as well. Dance magic!

[nina]

I think I feel a little thing called Virgin Dance brewing.....
("Dance of the Virgin"? "Pump of the Virgin, Dance, Dance!" ??? Help me out here...)

[NoahB]

Rites of Spring?

[seth hurley]

Virgin Aftermath: Crying of the Bunion!

[Deco]

my 4-year-old daughter loves comics (superfriends, tiny titans, harvey's casper), her ideal book would be "Princess Batgirl" -- she came up with that herself, along with "Super Ballet Girl." DC, Marvel, down to you...

[LurkerWithout]

I'd be pretty tempted to check out a book called "Princess Batgirl" as well...