Some thoughts about Female Furies #1

Is the future female?

The Female Furies have always been one of the strongest forces in Apokolips but now they will need to prove themselves to their biggest enemy: Men.

Yeah, that premise doesn't leave a lot of the imagination doesn't it?

And believe me, the execution does a much, MUCH worse job.

Cecil Castelucci handles this story following one of the most famous teams from the New Gods mythos and I should have seen this direction coming a mile away when part of the slogan of this miniseries was: "The future is female". Then again, I decided to give it a chance since Jack Kirby's concepts paid a lot of respect to women and showed how powerful they could be (Big Barda being inspired by his wife is one of the best examples). However, there's only a single theme being explored here and is one that denigrates every single character involved here.

You see, there's apparently an epidemy of rampant sexism going on in Apokolips and not even Darkseid himself is safe from it. All the men, and I mean ALL THE MEN, are misoginistic pigs who treat women like sh*t for no apparent reason. How did all this happen? Why do all of these characters who never before showcased this behavior suddenly act this way? Of course there's no answer since this is all to support the premise this book is going for. There's "heavyhanded" and there's "beating you to death with a single idea" and I guess you can imagine where this story falls.

Worst of all is that, how I said before, this denigrates all of this classic characters by making them far less interesting. Darkseid is suddenly a sexual harasser, Desaad constantly complaints about women getting special treatment, every dude in the room is a douche, etc. Let alone the fact that I never saw Darkseid as a sexual being like, at all, this turns what is considered the most powerful villain in the DCU, a force of nature whose only objective was to conquer, into a simple asshole who can't control his naughty impulses. And of course the rest of the guys don't fare any better since they only revolve around a single idea that makes them less than characters.

Hell, not even the Female Furies fare better since they're treated terribly which goes completely against their history, just to follow this theme. The Female Furies of the past didn't need to emphasize this blunt premise, they just needed to prove how powerful they actually were in combat instead, I don't know, constantly saying it like it happens in this issue.

And plot? Heh, forget that there's one. What I just told you is the whole plot.

If there's something that I can appreciate about all of this is Adriana Melo's artwork. I always considered her style flexible but I didn't imagine how flexible she actually was at changing styles due that her work here is heavily inspired by Jack Kirby from both characters and storytelling, is impressive.

Aside from that, I don't have the urge to keep reading because I just know this will follow the same route.