By now, you may have heard of DC’s mass reboot of most of their comic books, and some of the expected backlash. A new spin, though, is the shall we say gratuitous sexyfication of females that occurred along with it. You can read this response to what’s happened to Starfire from a 7 year-old comic fan, as told to her mom, an author. Now none of the ‘boobs and skin’ focus in comics is particularly new, or specific to DC, although these recent changes kind of drive it all home. As an occasional comic reader, I’ve always rolled my eyes at fact that you have to be a designated ‘kid sister’ type character in a comic to NOT have large projectiles jutting out in front of you, held perfectly in place by – of course! – a skin tight costume. Looking at them now as a parent, I’m even more uncomfortable. I am actually much more likely to avoid the books with female characters, as I don’t want my kids to think this is normal. Male superheroes can be tall, short, skinny, musclebound whatever. Why are all females scantily clad and buxom? It’s like the big companies got caught in a loop of declining sales – make it edgier/sexier – slight improvement – go further! – until they reached a point where it was too much. The uncanny mountains are a bit too in your face.
I don’t know, now I’m rambling. I know there are good independent artists doing fine work, and probably one or two of the ‘mainstream’ books that would be OK, but these are the characters I grew up with. I’d like to share Spider-Man with my son {and later, my daughter} without wincing every time someone like the Black Cat slithers onto the page.
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