Last
week there was a large outcry over a comic book cover by Milo Manara from the
upcoming Spider Woman book from
Marvel Comics. It shows the titular hero
in a pose that shows off a great deal of her ass as she is climbing over the
roof of a building. Is it
cheesecake? Absolutely. Is it unnecessary? Well I guess that depends on your definition
of the word.
For decades, comic books have
sexualized, and often over-sexualized women, be they super-heroines or damsels
in distress. Muscle-bound men and large-breasted
women in spandex is comics’ stock in trade.
That being said, there are many strong and strong-willed female
characters in comics. Back in the 1970’s
and 1980’s, Chris Claremont created so many strong female characters for the
X-Men franchise that not only have they mostly overshadowed their male
counterparts (aside from Wolverine, that guy will always be more popular than
Jesus) but have become popular enough where a group of only X-Women were given their own book (granted it was only a couple
years ago, but still). Even in the
context of “team books” like Avengers,
X-Men, Justice League, etc., many
of the women characters are written as strong, necessary parts of the
team. Where would the Justice League be
without Wonder Woman, or the X-Men without Storm, etc., etc. Did it take superhero comics a long time to
take women seriously? Absolutely, and
the 1990’s did not help that with the over-sexualization of the early Image
comics, and comics in general does a downright shitty job appealing to women in
general, always has, probably always will.
Mainstream comics also does a shitty job appealing to children, failing
to realize that once all of their fanboys move out of their mother’s basements
and have to start spending money on rent they won’t have the disposable income
for comics that young kids might have (of course if they keep over-inflating
the prices of these books they will price their way right out of that as
well).
It's not just the ladies that get posed with their asses in the air. Manara's cover on the left and a J. Scott Campbell cover from the mid 2000's (I believe) on the right.
What I’m trying to say, in my usual
long-winded way, is that a picture of Spider Woman’s ass is not an overt attack
on women, it’s cheesecake. And it’s
cheesecake from an artist that is known for his erotic comics. Seriously.
Look him up, but take your safesearch off first or you won’t understand,
nor will you find many images I’m assuming.
That’s like being pissed that you went to KFC and got a shitty
hamburger. They specialize in chicken,
that’s why you go there. You don’t
commission art from Manara and expect anything but the female form in all its
glory. It’s cheesecake in an industry
that was built on cheesecake. If you don’t
like it, don’t buy it. Plus, it’s a
comic cover, it will be on the shelf for three months, tops, then fade into
obscurity. Instead of celebrating the
fact that a fan-favorite female character is getting her own series, feminists
(many of whom probably do not read comics anyway) attack the fact that one
picture, a variant cover no less, is not up to their lofty standards of what
women superheroes should look like. My
answer to that is, draw your own superheroine.
Market her, sell her, and profit off of her, instead of inciting anger
over something as silly as the fact that too much of a character’s ass is
showing.
I will admit, I am not someone that
keeps up with pop-culture that much, but why is there such a stink being raised
about this while Nikki Minaj shakes anything and everything that she has, shows
more skin than any superhero this side of Chaos Comics, and spits right in the
face of good taste, without so much as a questioning glance? Are feminists up in arms about this as well,
or is it because she is a woman she gets a pass? Would that mean that if that cover was drawn
by a woman that it would be ok? That
there is a double standard, that a man drawing a woman in a scintillating pose
is wrong but a woman doing it is empowering?
This is an honest question, please enlighten me.
There are so many things that we
can be raging about as a society…is this really the mountain you want to plant
your flag on? I would much rather
question Marvel’s choice of giving Greg Land another comic book to draw than
the choice of who draws a variant cover.
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