What is bad about it is the name, not the concept of a social justice hero focused on Asian American issues. One issue within all racism is the tendency to lump others together in illogical groups, based on place of origin or physical features. Asian people are actually quite diverse. I will venture that Annie Ang would rather be seen as an individual than “Asian”
On the other hand, she knows how much Dynamo dislikes it to have “black” added to his name.
I wonder what Annie Ang’s superpowers are. Most superheroes seem to base their codenames on their powers, so what does it mean that she doesn’t have a codename?
RE: Codenames. Not sure if it’s a serious question but since you asked. Obviously it’s largely “just a thing you do in comics” but there are several in universe reasons. In the early days it was largely a double identity thing. Very often the superhero would be worried about people in their private life or themselves “in the off time” being attacked, they could have simple privacy concerns or, in many cases, their activities aren’t strictly speaking legal: Batman, Spider-Man. In some other cases it’s a “job title”: Green Lantern (Hal Jordan also valued his privacy but it’s not true for all the human corp members), depending on the origin story variant Captain America might basically be a marketing brand; a media thing: I think Fantastic Four’s nicknames might have been coined by reporters and stuck though they make no attempts to conceal their identities. Also, there is actually a number of heroes, and villains, operating under their real names (even if sometimes they are “cool names” or mythical/alien): Luke Cage, Emma Frost, Thor, Hercules, Victor Von Doom (Wonder Woman is also most often addressed as Diana in most continuities nowadays).
I guess if we wanted to use continuity arguments even in continuities where superheroes can afford being public characters, make no efforts to obscure their features and have a public mailing address by now it’s just “trendy” to have a cool superhero name. When we have new teams formed with freshly minted heroes there is often one who is still trying to come up with nickname, changes it along the way (sometimes several times) or their callsign and the reasoning behind it is discussed “on screen”.
Not to mention that “Bob Williams*” may not quite have quite the panache of “The Flying Anvil.” Or to quote a popular movie, “Oh, yes. That sounds very piratey.”
Or be as memorable. “You know what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like this?” “Who?”
*No actual Bob Williamses were harmed by Flying Anvils in this post.
Sports stars almost always have nicknames, mostly given to them by the media. Same for famous criminals. It’s a sure thing that if supers existed, it would happen. So if you’re going to be in that business, it’s wise to pick your own name.
Years ago in a superhero RPG that I ran, a character named Jetstream had a severe lapse of judgment, the end result of which was the complete destruction of a 3×3 block area of Chicago, with major damage out another 2 blocks (5×5 block). Being a Good Guy and realizing he had just killed hundreds of people he suffered a mental breakdown and later re-interpretted himself as a villain, making several attacks against various hero groups, thrashing them soundly and then “being defeated” by the lone remaining team member, because that how superhero battles go, right?
Years later, in the same campaign, another wind manipulator began calling himself Jetstream saying he was going to redeem the name. He had been told the story of the original Jetstream and was advised that was probably not a good name choice.
Naturally, the press started calling him Blowhard – and the name stuck.
Oh, and since I just dropped that wall of text and the whole “long time reader, first time commenter” thing I’d like to say that while I greatly enjoy the interviews I really like this strip in particular. It was a long day, Gyno-Star might have gone through more candidates along the lines of “Asian Avenger” and she jumped to a conclusion. A stupid conclusion and she got called for it. I like these moments when she’s shown not to be perfect and slips (like she also did with Dynamo earlier) and the situation is just… handled without devolving into a screaming match.
Gynostar, for someone claiming to be progressive you REALLY didn’t waste any time to involve race.
It could’ve been Amber Avenger. Or Alien Adult. Or Always Aware. Or Achromatic Astigmatism!
To be fair, her name is Gyno-Star. Because she’s female and has a star on her chest.
So it’s the gendered equivalent of The White Bread Wonder.
She should have a picture of a piece of bread on her shirt to rounds things out! Maybe a straight line for her sexuality. And then throw in the symbol for her religion, whatever her religion is. I don’t know how to indicate that she’s cis, though. Not many euphemisms for that one.
Now that you mention her religion … I just realized something. There is a yellow star on her costume. If she happens to be Jewish that … might look a tad bit unfortunate.
Hate to nitpick, but the yellow star with the “Jude” on it that the Nazis forced on Jews in areas they occupied had six stars, not five. That may seem subtle, but I believe it’s a very obvious difference to anyone who’s Jewish. In other words, it’s likely not an issue.
Yeah, the star of David. Looks like a pair of triangles laid one over the other, making a hexagon with smaller triangles on each edge on the outside, each outer point being directly opposite another point. Five-pointed stars have a few meanings applied to them, but I don’t think any of them have any direct relation with Judaism.
I mean, okay…it WAS kind of knee jerk of Gyno-Star to assume that that’s what the “AA” meant but you really can’t blame her for leaping to that conclusion either.
Well the code names are to protect friends and family members like Lois Lane and Aunt May… then again, Nick Fury is like the men in black, no time for a family. ;P
:/ How in the world did she think that was okay?
She is conducting interviews for the Social Justice League, and her partner is named Little Sappho… so it’s not totally out of the blue.
In GS’s defense, the predominantly yellow costume doesn’t help avoid connect those dots.
Besides, what would be so bad about a Social Justice heroine focused on issues affecting Asian Americans?
What is bad about it is the name, not the concept of a social justice hero focused on Asian American issues. One issue within all racism is the tendency to lump others together in illogical groups, based on place of origin or physical features. Asian people are actually quite diverse. I will venture that Annie Ang would rather be seen as an individual than “Asian”
On the other hand, she knows how much Dynamo dislikes it to have “black” added to his name.
I wonder what Annie Ang’s superpowers are. Most superheroes seem to base their codenames on their powers, so what does it mean that she doesn’t have a codename?
Gyno-Star is far from a perfect feminist 🙂
RE: Codenames. Not sure if it’s a serious question but since you asked. Obviously it’s largely “just a thing you do in comics” but there are several in universe reasons. In the early days it was largely a double identity thing. Very often the superhero would be worried about people in their private life or themselves “in the off time” being attacked, they could have simple privacy concerns or, in many cases, their activities aren’t strictly speaking legal: Batman, Spider-Man. In some other cases it’s a “job title”: Green Lantern (Hal Jordan also valued his privacy but it’s not true for all the human corp members), depending on the origin story variant Captain America might basically be a marketing brand; a media thing: I think Fantastic Four’s nicknames might have been coined by reporters and stuck though they make no attempts to conceal their identities. Also, there is actually a number of heroes, and villains, operating under their real names (even if sometimes they are “cool names” or mythical/alien): Luke Cage, Emma Frost, Thor, Hercules, Victor Von Doom (Wonder Woman is also most often addressed as Diana in most continuities nowadays).
I guess if we wanted to use continuity arguments even in continuities where superheroes can afford being public characters, make no efforts to obscure their features and have a public mailing address by now it’s just “trendy” to have a cool superhero name. When we have new teams formed with freshly minted heroes there is often one who is still trying to come up with nickname, changes it along the way (sometimes several times) or their callsign and the reasoning behind it is discussed “on screen”.
What he said.
Not to mention that “Bob Williams*” may not quite have quite the panache of “The Flying Anvil.” Or to quote a popular movie, “Oh, yes. That sounds very piratey.”
Or be as memorable. “You know what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like this?” “Who?”
*No actual Bob Williamses were harmed by Flying Anvils in this post.
Sports stars almost always have nicknames, mostly given to them by the media. Same for famous criminals. It’s a sure thing that if supers existed, it would happen. So if you’re going to be in that business, it’s wise to pick your own name.
Years ago in a superhero RPG that I ran, a character named Jetstream had a severe lapse of judgment, the end result of which was the complete destruction of a 3×3 block area of Chicago, with major damage out another 2 blocks (5×5 block). Being a Good Guy and realizing he had just killed hundreds of people he suffered a mental breakdown and later re-interpretted himself as a villain, making several attacks against various hero groups, thrashing them soundly and then “being defeated” by the lone remaining team member, because that how superhero battles go, right?
Years later, in the same campaign, another wind manipulator began calling himself Jetstream saying he was going to redeem the name. He had been told the story of the original Jetstream and was advised that was probably not a good name choice.
Naturally, the press started calling him Blowhard – and the name stuck.
Oh, and since I just dropped that wall of text and the whole “long time reader, first time commenter” thing I’d like to say that while I greatly enjoy the interviews I really like this strip in particular. It was a long day, Gyno-Star might have gone through more candidates along the lines of “Asian Avenger” and she jumped to a conclusion. A stupid conclusion and she got called for it. I like these moments when she’s shown not to be perfect and slips (like she also did with Dynamo earlier) and the situation is just… handled without devolving into a screaming match.
Gynostar, for someone claiming to be progressive you REALLY didn’t waste any time to involve race.
It could’ve been Amber Avenger. Or Alien Adult. Or Always Aware. Or Achromatic Astigmatism!
Or Awesome Angel. Or Auntie Ant. Or Acrobatic Antigen…
For some reason, I jumped to Alcoholics Anonymous. Maybe a representative of mental disability/diversity?
Hi, my name’s Dave and I still have a problem. It has been almost 4 years since I last drank alcohol.
Asexual Avenger? Alliterative Avenger?
To be fair, her name is Gyno-Star. Because she’s female and has a star on her chest.
So it’s the gendered equivalent of The White Bread Wonder.
She should have a picture of a piece of bread on her shirt to rounds things out! Maybe a straight line for her sexuality. And then throw in the symbol for her religion, whatever her religion is. I don’t know how to indicate that she’s cis, though. Not many euphemisms for that one.
lmao I would have guessed “the colors yellow/grey” + “AA” = Battery Girl or something
Now that you mention her religion … I just realized something. There is a yellow star on her costume. If she happens to be Jewish that … might look a tad bit unfortunate.
Hate to nitpick, but the yellow star with the “Jude” on it that the Nazis forced on Jews in areas they occupied had six stars, not five. That may seem subtle, but I believe it’s a very obvious difference to anyone who’s Jewish. In other words, it’s likely not an issue.
Gah! Six POINTS, not five. Sorry about that.
Yeah, the star of David. Looks like a pair of triangles laid one over the other, making a hexagon with smaller triangles on each edge on the outside, each outer point being directly opposite another point. Five-pointed stars have a few meanings applied to them, but I don’t think any of them have any direct relation with Judaism.
Is she cis? I don’t think that it was ever explicitly stated that she was, come to think of it.
I mean, okay…it WAS kind of knee jerk of Gyno-Star to assume that that’s what the “AA” meant but you really can’t blame her for leaping to that conclusion either.
I don’t know why she has ‘AA’ on her uniform. She is at least a ‘B’.
Sorry, I was being mind-controlled by SexPo there for a moment.
SexPo does not approve of objectification and takes no responsibility for your comment.
Superheros have code names because code names are cool.
Well, except for the ones who have uncool code names.
Like Arm-Fall-Off Boy and Fatman/the Human Flying Saucer
Okay let’s call you Ang-ry Avanger and we have a deal.
Avenger*
I kind of like Avanger better. 🙂
This is one of the reasons I like this comic more than most. Gyno-Star gets it wrong sometimes just like anyone else.
You know what they say about assumptions. When you make an assumption, you make an ASS out of yourself and the UMP will SHUN (tion) you.
“The White Bread Wonder” … XD
So she’s like a female Black Dynamo?
female *Asian* Black Dynamo
[Upcoming joke] Annie couldn’t have said maybe “Super Shicksa”?
Oh dear, Gyno, do you do need some ice for that burn?
Well the code names are to protect friends and family members like Lois Lane and Aunt May… then again, Nick Fury is like the men in black, no time for a family. ;P
Well… that could’ve gone better. Bad Gyno-Star! Still, at least she didn’t say she was sorry that Ms. Ang was offended by her misstep.
that’s almost like the whole SUPER Family emblem it’s not an “S” but either the family crest or Kryptonian for Hope.