To be strictly accurate - none of them started out as comic characters, but there have been several Buffy and Firefly comics, at least.
errm, also, Agatha has been stripped down to her bloomers on occasion, but nothing like, say, Emma Frost.
Of course.
In defense of EC you might want to be a bit more clear about what you mean by most people not finding the women in comics to be attractive. EC mentions the following heroines in the OP. Bomb Queen (anti-hero at best more a villain), Power Girl, Witch Blade, Vampirella, and Red Sonja, all of whom are fairly attractive on a phsyical level even if they don’t have realistic proportions, which is sometimes determined by whoever the artist is that month. So I think EC is likely correct when he says most males would view the images of these heroines as attractive.
I would also concede that drawing someone to be sexy doesn’t necessarily equal sexism. I’ve already outlined why I think many comics are sexist., but to be fair, this can be a difficult line to draw in the sand. Is this sexist? I think it’s hilarious myself.
It seems rather silly that Red Sonja would fight in what amount to little more than a glittering bikini. Then again, in most of the issues of Conan I had he was fighting in little more than furry underwear. It seems to me that Conan and Red Sonja are pretty given the same treatment when it comes to clothes. Although this might hurt EC’s argument about male comic book readers not wanting to see beefcake.
My argument for sexism doesn’t stem from the fact that comic book heroines look attractive. Heck, the males look attractive too, it stems largely from how heroines are treated.
Marc
I’d recommend them, if you get the chance.
I’d also toss in Eve Hammond from V For Vendetta. She’s a little more problematic, given that I have issues with her mock imprisonment, torture and humiliation at the hands of her mentor V, but her degradation was never titillating or sexualised: it was meant to be an horrific ordeal. Whether V was justified in doing it, even for her “own good” is a moot point, but it was never fetishised.
I’m on the case. Have there been any trade paperback collections?
We could probably save time by just stipulating “all female Alan Moore characters.”
And Princess Victoria from Bryan Talbot’s Heart of Empire miniseries.
Betcha ten bucks Evil Captor hasn’t even heard of her.
Sure have. Course, some of us are still waiting for Book Four…
Like you’ve been waiting for the final issue of 1963 and the last 10 issues of Big Numbers?
I’ll grant you that Power Girl vs. Power Woman thing – she sure doesn’t look like a teen with those amazing gozongas of hers. (Ooh, that was naughty!) Power Woman would be much more appropriate. Plus, most of us are more comfortable with women being sexy than girls being sexy.
I almost think Power Girl was purposefully invented as a lightning rod to attract the kind of responses you’ve made to the character. Except, what would be the point of that? I dunno. But the huge chabobs in the peekaboo window of an outfit does create the impression that somebody is pokin’ somebody with a sharp stick – a sharp stick shaped like an enormous pair of breasts!
And the fact that all that pulchritude is wedded to a person with near Supermanian powers and a no-nonsense attitude where sexist behavior is concerned also points to Power Girl as a culturally as well as sexually provocative creation.
Frankly, I don’t find Power Girl all that interesting. She’s got a great bod, yes, but a person who walks around with a pair of obviously store-bought breasts in a costume specifically designed to reveal them, who then insists that people not pay attention to the things she so obviously has put on display … well, she’s clearly deeply confused at some level, but given that there’s never been any indication that she’ll ever work that confusion out, she’s uninteresting. Stuck in a rut, as it were.
I agree, that’s a fair attitude. However, I see a lot of criticism of the fact that women look sexy and that’s therefore sexist, a position no one here seems to be maintaining, but it’s definitely out there. And given that huge numbers of Americans were persuaded that George Bush wasn’t an idiot, but presidential material, not once but twice, it’s obvious that anyone can be convinced of anything if it gets repeated enough.
So I am afraid that it is possible that all the stuff online may at some point convince some comics fans that looking at a hot woman in a slinky costume and thinking, ‘Wow, she really looks great!’ That’s hot! I wouldn’t kick her out of my Fortress of Solitude, even if she put little plastic snowflakes in that city in a jar and then shook it vigorously,’ is somehow wrong.
Three pages of this thread, and you still don’t even understand what you’re arguing against.
Oh, I know what I’m arguing against. I’m just not sure what YOU’RE arguing against.
:dubious:
Yeah, Captor, you just don’t get it.
Miller shouldn’t have to explain it to you, you should know.
You’re just so self-centered.
And I bet you just roll over and go to sleep after you finish posting.
I don’t know what the hell the argument is either, but you folks sure do love talking about tits.
In our defense … go to the OP and copy and paste the link for Power Girl and look at the illustration. That’s not fan art, that’s official Power Girl art by the official artist. It is really hard to talk about Power Girl in relationship to sexiness/sexism in comics without talking about her breasts. They’re the 800-pound gorillas in any discussion on this topic relating to her.
Well, they’re big, but I wouldn’t say 800 pounds 
.
Heh. I kinda lost interest in this topic so I stopped posting (and that’s not meant to be dismissive or anything, there’s a reason I have sub-1k posts in 7 years, my thread attention span isn’t great), but I seriously disagree some of the above listed characters are “all sex object all the time”.
To take one example, I know I’ve seen you praise Simone’s work before, so was Black Canary’s long run in Birds of Prey all sex object all the time? For that matter, while I’m sure you hate Kelly’s run on Supergirl, her attractiveness is far from being her only character trait; she’s also sullen, angsty, and confused. 
(Which isn’t to say that I think the above characters aren’t often sexualized in their manner of dress and way they’re drawn, etc. But there’s a big difference between that and suggesting their sexual attractiveness is their only defining character trait.)
Black Canary certainly isn’t indicative of any recent trends, judging from her first appearance in 1947 when she already had the bodice and fishnet stockings.
And this 1941 debut is pretty much indistinguishable from what current complainers are on about, and as far as I know, it didn’t utterly destroy gender relations.
If that’s her first appearance, why does the cover say “At last! Black Canary in a feature of her own!” as if the fans have been clamoring for it?
Am glad someone made this argument. Because even if some guys find them attractive, whenever I see female superheroes/comic book characters with ridiculous costumes and proportions beyond the reach of the most skilled plastic surgeons, I can’t help but think of embarrassing stuff like this and this (so which came first, black and Asian people reading American comics or…?)
Her debut was a few issues earlier in Flash Comics #86 (the splash cover announcing her getting her own feature was on Flash Comics #92) and aside from a small mask, her costume was identical.