Marvel had a run of 4-issue "Icons" mini-series going in the early 2000s. I'm sure as hell not going to buy a mini-series about Cyclops, but Tigra, who was part of those early West Coast Avengers' teams I really liked? Sure. Especially since I bought this in back issues several years after it came out. Probably during some rough years for the character, when I was hoping for a better take on her.
Granted that "rough years", doesn't narrow it down much. Jim Shooter put Tigra in Avengers to be the rookie who wasn't ready for prime time, wrote her out within six issues. Roger Stern used that poor experience as part of his West Coast Avengers mini-series, but then Englehart wrote the ongoing and suddenly Tigra was trying to jump just about every guy she saw. Because, her "feline side taking over" apparently translated to always being horny. Then Byrne had her go completely feral, get shrunk down and treated like a pet by Agatha Harkness.
But the late-2000s were pretty ugly because for whatever reason, she ended up in Brian Michael Bendis' crosshairs, and that's never a good place to be. Ask Clint Barton. Bendis wrote Tigra being pistol-whipped and humiliated by the friggin' Hood, part of BMB's ill-conceived attempt to turn Parker Robbins from a small-time punk with dreams into a big wheel. I remember complaining about this on the blog and being chastised by someone in the comments that, 'maybe Bendis had a plan.'
Even if you allow for that possibility, that doesn't mean it's going to be a good plan. There was also that bit where Bendis wrote Jarvis (Skrull Jarvis, but presumably meant to be a convincing imposter) as calling Tigra a bitch and promising to quit if Stark put her back on the Avengers again. Maybe if Stark had been written as noting this as clear evidence it wasn't the real Jarvis it could have been something - although, again, it would be a pretty big slip-up for what was meant to be an expert, undetectable infiltrator - but, hahahahahahahaha, that sure didn't happen!
Point being, I was looking for something that treated the character with a little respect (the Marvel Adventures line added her to the Avengers, as a cheerful, but naive, rookie. Better than nothing.) Which brings us, eventually, to this.
This revolves around Tigra trying to figure out what she's really trying to accomplish in her life, played out through her investigating the death of her husband (the "Nelson" part of her being Greer Grant-Nelson".) He was a cop and what scant clues there are point to a "Brethren of the Blue Fist", who surprise! Turn out to be dirty cops. Greer joins the police academy and shows enough promise (all that Avengers training paying off) that she's given the chance to join. Which she uses to tip off her husband's old partner so the cops can stop the various assassination attempts.
Christina Z definitely takes the approach of there being "a few bad apples" that despoil the police's mission of serve and protect. The cops she contacts show no hesitation to arrest the Blue Fist members, or even shoot them. But hey, it's a story starring a cat lady, we should expect unrealistic things.
Greer completes the training and becomes a cop, which I'm pretty sure was never referenced again, but I don't know how in-continuity these mini-series were to begin with. (There's also a brief mention of Steve Rogers having given up being a cop to be Captain America, which, I can't figure how sickly-ass pre-serum Steve Rogers pulled that off.) Greer also learns some unpleasant facts about her deceased husband, so her clarity of purpose comes at the cost of some innocence.
Z's version of Tigra is confident in her physical abilities and the righteousness of what she's doing, prone to urging the Brethren into attacking her, daring them to try and hurt her. She requests the Avengers let her handle this herself, and even when she doubts that she deserves to stand with them, never questions whether she needs their help with this mission.
She's less so about many other aspects of herself. She's short with people who try to discuss loss with her, more prone to speaking through action and body language. Deodato often draws her flipping or leaping up fire escapes, perching on statues, doing full-body lunges towards her enemies, claws flashing. Tigra doesn't hold anything back when fighting, but Greer is more controlled, but just as relentless, willing to get hurt to keep going. During a particularly difficult fight as Greer, she starts to kick and slash more like she would as Tigra while remaining human.
Z does nod to the notion of the animal instincts inside Greer, but writes Tigra as in control of them. Even in that rough battle, she never changes to Tigra. Greer at one point uses her desire for the cop that recruited her to the Brethren to lure him into the woods, then ditches him so she can snoop around the academy.
Deodato seems to have based his version of Tigra on the one from the unlamented Avengers: United They Stand cartoon from the late-90s. I can't remember any other artist giving her shaggy tufts of fur on her forearms and shins. Sometimes, he even draws some of her hair in the front sticking up like little cat ears (you can sorta see it on the page above). That might just be to emphasize the unruliness of her hair, or something about it reflecting her emotional state but I'm not sure of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment