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PrincessLuna writes...

Hey Greg first I want to give praise to the work you are doing. I am simply a big fan of your work. It has complex plots, amaxingly competent and interesting villains. Not to mention very dee characters and dilemas I love your work and needless to say I am hooked.

I would like to ask you something about white martians and miss martian in particular.

Why do they or more specifically why does miss martian has our beauty standandards?

For instance probably a male pig would consider beautiful a female pig while we would consider both not to be atractive and even repulsive as we aren't of that species.

But Miss martian instead of having "white martians beauty standards" she gets atracted to a kryptonian that is considrerd atractive by human standards (judging my Artemis atraction to him) and takes the form of a caucasian beautiful woman (by our standards). If she had "white martians beauty standards" she wouldn't hate herself so much and she would consider herself as normal and the team's humans as the ugly ones

Thanks you for yout time and keep the awesome plots coming!

Greg responds...

Well, you need to understand that by Martian standards, she was never considered attractive at all, because of her white skin. Now, all Martians are shape-shifters, but all are also telepathic, so skin color can't be truly hidden, and the cultural bias on Mars against White Martians is so strong, that as a young girl, she was constantly reminded of her lack of desirability - on many different levels. You speak of "white martians beauty standards" - but culturally, there is no such thing. I'm not saying that's right; I'm just saying that's the current state of affairs on Mars-16.

Then she saw American Television and was exposed to a (skewed) view of American Culture - both at its idealistic best and at its populist worst. So although being a pretty Martian was something she felt - rightly or wrongly - that she couldn't aspire to, being an attractive, smart, funny and NECESSARY human girl was something she COULD aspire to. She had a role model in her famous Uncle J'onn, whom she had never met, but to whom she was blood-related. And she had a template in Megan Wheeler, the lead character of "Hello, Megan!" So M'gann learned - again for better and worse - her view of our standards of beauty from our television programs.

Now, you say she's self-hating, and there's some truth to that - up to a point. But once she decides WHO SHE IS INSIDE, that stops. It's only when others force her to become that person that she never felt comfortable as, that she retreats to fear, loathing and self-hatred. But she truly LIKES herself as Megan Morse and as green-skinned M'gann M'orzz AND as the hero Miss Martian.

Response recorded on May 22, 2012