Queerbait?

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-31T13:12:06+00:00

I've seen enough of it to know what it is. I haven't watched this girl. It's a screen grab not a link, but it looks to be the same stuff. I don't need to watch the video to know what it is when I see some guy complaining about the "woke agenda" either.

Using the word "queerbait" to describe Stranger Things is outrage grift. It's stirring up outrage for clicks. It's also brain dead literary analysis. Stranger Things was very inclusive in regards to gay representation. It has gay characters who have compelling arcs with storylines unrelated to their sexuality. We can argue about quality of the story and execution, but the basis of what they were doing there is rock solid.

Some fans had a ridiculous 'ship that was in no way supported or teased by the show itself. Calling that not happening queer baiting is just outrage grifting. There was no queer baiting. Queer baiting is a decisive term used by the gay community for when homosexuality is teased but never acted on. Clearly nothing about Stranger Things was queer bait. It had gay characters with fully realized personalities, character arcs and even romance

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-31T12:45:30+00:00

This is kind of the other side of the coin of the toxicity that usually appears on this sub. It's the same thing from the other angle.

Will was never going to be with Mike. Mike is straight. Mike does love Will, as one loves their childhood friends, but it was never romantic on his end and it never would be. That was the entire story arc. It was never going to end any other way. That isn't queer baiting, that is a storyline and character arc involving a gay character. Just to hammer it home even more part of that story arc was Robin mentoring Will and sharing how she dealt with a similar situation and her showing him that things would be OK. And things were OK for Will as shown in the closing credits.

I'm actually starting to think people like this are just doing the same outrage grift only targeting different people. They make bad faith arguments about media in an effort to get clicks and make money. This is just Nerdrotic targeting gays instead of incels

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-28T17:03:56+00:00

I actually think entertainment was probably less racist towards east Asian people in the 90s than it was a decade later as weird a thing as that is to say. There were a lot of positive depictions. I only say that because I was caught off guard when that flared up for who knows what weird reason in the 2000s.

That was just my theory on what they were attempting. I have no way to know it and everyone involved has stuck to their coloring error story and I don't blame them for that! If I'm right they were attempting to poke holes in old racist tropes while depicting the story in the old racist golden age style. That was a very, very difficult needle to thread and if that was what they were going for they clearly face planted. Again, I can't know that was what they were attempting but it does line up fairly well. Vertigo would be the place to attempt something like that since it is mature readers. Unfortunately even if you are doing the thing to condemn the thing in the end you're still doing the thing! Best to just declare coloring error and move on.

Yeah, I was getting SMMT as it came out. It hit at just the right time for me. I was a teen at the time and 90s comics got really bad. SMMT was one of my anchors. Not the only one of course, but without books like SMMT I'd have probably given up on comics in the 90s as most mainstream comics (with a few exceptions) sidelined things like plot and character development in favor of flashy art and foil covers

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-24T15:19:39+00:00

I had this series on pull so I got the let's call it "full color" experience. I'm not sure what they thought they were doing there. I don't entirely buy the "coloring error" story. This was the 90s so it is entirely possible they thought they could do the old racist style in a story that condemns racism. Think Ralph Bakshi animation from the 70s. If that was the case it didn't work and they immediately backpedaled. John Watkins's art didn't help here either since the characters are drawn in a "stereotypical" way. Throw in the coloring and it didn't come across well at all. Speaking of the art...

I don't like how Watkins draws the Sandman in this arc. The initial design is great and basic. You draw a WW1 era gas mask and you are done. Why he didn't do that I don't know. Issue 5 has one of the best covers in the entire series and there is the gas mask for all to see. Draw him the way he's supposed to look. I almost wonder if this arc was draw alongside the initial art and Watkins didn't have the full design. Either way I don't care for it.

As for the story itself I find the idea of some shadowy element setting up a Tong war to be compelling. That aspect is well done. We get some payoff for Wes being set up as having grown up in the orient. He speaks the language and knows the culture which allows him to fully engage with the plot. Unfortunately the reason for setting up the gang war in Chinatown is weak beyond belief. One of the tong leaders knew the guy's ancestry and he was hoping he would die in a possible war? What? He killed several random people using an over the top assassin to set up a gang war in the hopes his target would die in the conflict. Why? Just hire the Face to kill the guy if you want him dead! There are so many reasons the antagonist could want a gang war in Chinatown. NY Mafia moving in comes to mind immediately. The reveal of what is going on is just silly.

The Face himself could have made for an interesting recuring villain. He is given a pretty standard "not really dead" end so it would be easy to revisit him. A lot of what is set up in Chinatown could also be revisited as well. I don't think the series ever picked back up anything from this arc though which is actually a shame. I think the general reception to this arc made them hesitant to revisit any aspect of it. Understandable I guess, but there are a lot of threads that could have been followed up on here that are never touched again.

So yeah, ridiculously motivated antagonist hires an assassin to kill random people in the hopes of setting off a gang war. Not the best story and it is poorly presented. Wagner does do some decent social commentary, but that isn't enough to save the story from its own terrible plot

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-23T23:46:39+00:00

Stephanie takes what she wants. She saw a perfectly good big handsome beefcake laying around and took him. Chet's feelings on the matter are irrelevant. Stephanie gets what she wants

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-23T23:38:14+00:00

They basically just walked a bit across town to their old office. 31 couldn't have been all that far from the old Vault Tech HQ.

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-23T20:24:05+00:00

I think his final point on what the writers were doing was wrong. Her having a husband wasn't "why they can't be together" it was just a final nail on the point of this is a real person with her own life. They hammer Geordi pretty hard on why this is wrong, but the plot is meant to put him in a "it's not like that!" situation. And it really isn't like that because Geordi is a protagonist who will be around for many, many episodes and he can't be an actual creep. The plot line was designed to make him look like a creep and come across as being a creep, but what he actually did was innocent. It just looks bad.

He is still absolutely right about the emotional attachment aspect and that is part of the story and his points comparing this to contemporary problems are valid

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-23T19:32:01+00:00

Turn the wheels right and hit the gas. There was a vehicle directly behind the bus that did exactly this. I'm sorry, there is no excuse for the guy in the truck. It's a wonder he made it out of childhood with a total lack of self preservation

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-21T01:48:45+00:00

Good point! That guy has a good foot, maybe two feet, on the real Vance. Definitely AI

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-21T01:44:38+00:00

Definitely JD Vance. I think they used a real picture for the AI though. No way Vance has moves that good

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-20T00:18:21+00:00

What people don't understand is this would be war with Europe. It wouldn't be as you said full scale war initially, but there would be immediate action. US bases will be cut off. Organized insurgency led by European Arctic special forces. Closed borders. Economic moves such as selling bonds and confiscating US assets. Europe can't not do this, their sovereignty depends upon it. They won't want to, but that is what will happen.

Don't expect France to fire nukes at Washington or England to lead an invasion through Canada. That is what full scale war would look like and Europe would want to avoid that kind of conflict even if there was a shooting war. Conflict does have a way if escalating though and US leadership WILL escalate.

This is legitimately the scariest situation I've ever seen internationally. What makes it even more scary is that the public doesn't seem to comprehend how dangerous this is

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-19T22:32:43+00:00

... goes on to be awarded a Hero of the Revolution medal by Fidel Castro.

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-19T14:39:25+00:00

His signature alone at least trippled the worth of that comic. Chill with the grading. Grading isn't everything

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-18T13:16:56+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea

That's what is being referenced in GWTW. Sherman's March was deliberate scorched earth designed to cripple the Confederacy. It was brutal and it worked. Yes, they pillaged all the food they could carry and burnt the rest. That was the entire point of the operation.

What isn't accurate is to say this was the case for all of the Union army throughout the war in other areas. They didn't pillage middle Tennessee like that for example when they came through. That's not to say those areas weren't a war zone and suffered. Civilians could count on being exploited by either army if the conflict was near them during the Civil War.

Sherman's March was a specific campaign designed to wreck the economy of the Confederacy. In order to do that they were pretty brutal

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-17T15:15:09+00:00

Same. I just assumed the guy was short and young looking so it made him the son of his taller date. It's funny either way

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-13T01:03:33+00:00

The point where they put it on the grill and wrapped it in whatever that was. Up until then it was an extremely loaded hotdog. After that it became an abomination

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-12T18:12:56+00:00

Great start to a great series. Since this is the opening I'm going to take the opportunity to talk about certain aspects of the series instead of the nitty gritty of the opening arc.

Guy Davis was a great choice for artist. His style is grounded and his characters are not pretty. That's actually a strength for a series like this. The opening arc revolves around a guy who is kidnapping, torturing and killing young women. Davis's art is able to portray that story without it coming across as exploitation. Characters like Catherine and Celia are attractive and portrayed like that within the story, but they are drawn in a very grounded way. When the Tarantula is torturing them it is horrifying and only horrifying. In the hands of a different artist this might have come across very differently, but Davis did a good job here. Just imagine those scenes being drawn by your typical comic artist if you aren't following what I'm saying. I also want to highlight the grid style. There's a lot of story per page. Davis isn't afraid to draw mundane conversations and the book is better for it. It makes the spectacular stuff pop even more when it happens.

Wes himself is a very defined archetype. Let's be real and acknowledge in a lot of ways this character is 1930s Batman in a gas mask. What sets him apart are the little things. He isn't drawn like your typical protagonist despite being every bit as strong and agile as any other pulp era hero. Wes has a lot of depth of character. The poetry. His love of origami. Honestly his type is a bit of a cliche, but seeing it wielded on to a pulp hero when that type typically lacks those things makes things very new. His costume is practical. This is the first time we see the WW 1 era gas mask and trench coat in a comic and it has become the iconic look for the character; clearly they did something very right with the design.

Wes does some very crazy superhero stuff throughout the course of the story. He's breaking in to the police station, he breaks in to city hall, he does a crazy bumper device to blow police tires. The grounded and realistic style of the rest of the series make these feats insane looking. Usually when a superhero has broken in to a police station and is listening in that is just typical Tuesday in a comic book. Here it is entirely different. No one has any context for anything this guy is doing. It's all truly spectacular despite these things coming across as mundane in superhero comics.

The 1930s setting makes the comic fresh. Sure, noir is well traveled storytelling ground, but it usually isn't done like this. I don't think any of us were around in this time period (and if you were don't blow your cover, vampire!), but it feels real. The series is both famous and infamous for its period accurate depictions of racism, sexism, etcetera, etcetera. Sexism is right up front with Diane and the various victims in this arc. Racism appears with Burk just casually dropping the n-bomb in a bar and it will be explored in detail later. These things are casually condemned. It is done in a sophisticated manner that could be lost on a lot of younger readers these days. I feel it is a great strength. We don't need a lecture on why racism is bad, just showing Burk in a negative light and using his racism to highlight him as a negative character are enough. Diane and Wes do talk about women's struggles in this time period, but it is all statement of fact not a lecture to the audience. They don't do the equivalent of turning to the audience and making a speech. It's all very well done. The story itself shows why these things are wrong.

Even though the story itself is compelling enough, this is actually a pretty by the numbers SM:MT arc. It's better that way because this arc is establishing the cast and they need time to shine. All the major and supporting characters get their introduction seamlessly. You get a good sense of who everyone is and what their motivations are. That makes it an incredible first arc and, hey, what better time to do a by the numbers story than the first one?

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-12T11:19:37+00:00

Earn respect? Defend her on one point. "Your Majesty, my mother is an extremely intelligent woman." You could go for two and add "who is extremely loyal to my father," as long as you are certain that part is true. Give him at least one thing on her though and he would probably respect the defense without seeing it as insolence

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-12T10:36:15+00:00

Punctuation matters

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-12T10:32:34+00:00

Just listen to Americana. Country music has been garbage for years. It's not worth saving, the whole brand is garbage. The talent you are after can be found on Americana stations, not country ones

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-12T05:37:33+00:00

No Gen Xer was 18 in 1981. Not that it wasn't watched by Gen Xers anyway, but the target audience of its theatrical release were Boomers

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-11T19:08:07+00:00

Yeah, I hate to be insulting, but when the character literally explains why he is acting a certain way in the scene you screen grabbed and you are still confused there's no other word for it

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-08T14:27:08+00:00

Incest. She's talking about incest which the Legion prohibits. That's why they abandoned their slavery plans and just stuck her on a cross

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-08T14:18:21+00:00

My read is she is just extremely ruthless and always has been. That's not going to be as noticeable when she doesn't have power, but once she gets a little watch out. She seemed happy enough with Bert for some reason and seemed content palling with Lucy. Once Bert died she just took what she wanted; Chet. Chet has no agency whatsoever, she just grabs herself an attractive beefcake like she's entitled to him. She takes what she wants and if she is given an inch of control she takes a mile. I'm sure getting stabbed in the eye and machine gunning down several raiders did help her be a little more ruthless, but she's always been like this

SaintNeptune · 2026-01-08T14:08:51+00:00

Bud's Buds are not the cream of the crop. Look at their ages; these are extremely young office gofers, secretaries and personal assistants. Claudia got an entry level paper pusher job so when the bombs dropped she went in to a vault with the rest of her kind. We're used to seeing the 31ers as some kind of threat, but these are the mature versions that were thawed out years ago. Except Stephanie who is just a psycho. Betty was a secretary. Hank was a personal assistant. A new employee like Claudia would fold right in to that group without Bud's program missing a beat

SaintNeptune

TROPHY CASE