Female Redesigns

[Greywind]

And I know the whole point of this thread is to slam the artist as a gelded abomination but I don't care for pile ons.

 

Was not. Was started to show different iterations. My personal opinion happens to be that a lot of them suck. I'm not a fan of the muted colors, nor am I a fan of the "let's make them all look similar" cinematic approach. I hated it when they did it in the X-books.

[massey]

Was not. Was started to show different iterations. My personal opinion happens to be that a lot of them suck. I'm not a fan of the muted colors, nor am I a fan of the "let's make them all look similar" cinematic approach. I hated it when they did it in the X-books.

 

Yeah I agree with you.  It makes sense in the movies to have them be similar -- you've got to have an origin story and explain everything in under two hours.  But that's not necessary in comics.

[Enforcer84]

Was not. Was started to show different iterations. My personal opinion happens to be that a lot of them suck. I'm not a fan of the muted colors, nor am I a fan of the "let's make them all look similar" cinematic approach. I hated it when they did it in the X-books.

you posted the link and said they suck. Sorry if I inferred that you were merely parading it out to heap scorn upon him.

[Enforcer84]

Yeah I agree with you.  It makes sense in the movies to have them be similar -- you've got to have an origin story and explain everything in under two hours.  But that's not necessary in comics.

Well the X-Men uniforms were all exactly the same when they came out. 

[Comic]

I agree 100% with your first sentence. But...

No, she doesn't like anything. She's a fictional character. 

She'll like whatever the writer says she likes.

If the writer wants her to engage in beastiality, she'll like that. 

If the writer wants to move the boob window south and make it a crotch window, she'll be fine with it if that's how she's written. 

If the writers decide what Power Girl really wants to do is have incestuous relationships with her cousin Clark, guess what? She'll really find him attractive. 

 

No one forces fictional characters to do anything save their writers. 

 

Now that we've established that, we can say, this guy's designs are unflattering and I don't like them. The make-believe women who wear them look less attractive to me than they do currently (unless drawn by John Romata Jr or Frank Quietly in which case no uniform will save them (IMMO)) I don't like this unaffiliated artist's renditions of characters I enjoy at least tangentially, even if I don't read the comics. 

 

Gosh, it really chafes my hide when the made up people I expect to look one way do not look that way! (Insert self-directed jab at my own distaste for certain artists' work here).

 

See? It can be done with civility. I don't mean to disparage anyone's opinion of this guys clearly angry and colorless renderings of Superheroines, the designs are mostly bad in my opinion as well. But it is not censorship, and the sheer hatred dumped on this guy by some people is more than a little sad. 

 

 

Confuses aesthetics with message.

 

I have no opinion to express about the artfulness of Lord CensorCurvyCartoons. From a certain aesthetic point of view, as examples of propaganda art, they may even have merit. That's all eye-of-the-beholder stuff.

 

And I have no interest in calling someone else's aesthetic sense crap. I've not set a foot on that bandwagon.

 

My issue is the call to suppress the creativity of the original artists of the original art. I acknowledge there's another issue -- one that I don't particularly have much interest in pursuing because it seems like no one is disputing that body shaming is going on, or that it's wrong -- closely related to the call for censorship, but I'll gladly accept the win by default on that point.

 

Taken as a whole, with the indelible nature of Internet images, Lord PrefersBeardedHeroesOverHeroines's implicit call for mob violence, the elaborate efforts taken to make Wonder Woman look like a cross-eyed anorexic, Black Canary like a teenager in reform school coveralls, and Power Girl like a draftee -- beside being amply not fair use -- stand as a call for censoring their creators. We already have slim, gangly original Kitty Pryde, Jean Grey, and the characters of Next Men to represent heroines with those body images. Why do we need all female superhumans to be limited only to those shapes, if not to censor what these changes all have in common: liberty and self-respect.

[Christopher R Taylor]

No, she doesn't like anything. She's a fictional character. 

She'll like whatever the writer says she likes.

Wow, seriously?  You figured up until the point you said that, nobody was aware these are fictional characters, and required your assistance to make it clear?

 

Characters have established personalities and patterns.  I suppose its theoretically possible that this could change, but until this point, we have 40 years of history of the character Power Girl and she has yet to have been portrayed as being compelled against her will to dress the way she does.

 

Hence: she likes the clothes she's wearing.  That's how she's written.  Some women liked to dress like that, in real life, too.

 

[Ragitsu]

I agree 100% with your first sentence. But...

No, she doesn't like anything. She's a fictional character. 

 

You mean the kind of fictional character that usually has a pretty solid base for their established personality?

[Ragitsu]

...Amanda Cerny...

 

Yum!

 

Like Gabby Reese. Yum.

 

Even at her current age, she looks incredible.

[Sketchpad]

Katana from Arrow TV Series

http://media.comicbook.com/uploads1/2015/05/katana-134830.jpg

Fixed that for you QM.

[TheQuestionMan]

Thanks

[Enforcer84]

 

Wow, seriously?  You figured up until the point you said that, nobody was aware these are fictional characters, and required your assistance to make it clear?

 

 

It certainly seems that way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Comic has been arguing that the artist's redesigns as if he's imposed draconian laws against women. 

 

 

Characters have established personalities and patterns.  I suppose its theoretically possible that this could change, but until this point, we have 40 years of history of the character Power Girl and she has yet to have been portrayed as being compelled against her will to dress the way she does.

 

Hence: she likes the clothes she's wearing.  That's how she's written.  Some women liked to dress like that, in real life, too.

 

 

Characters personalities change at the whims of their creative teams. 

This is why batman can become a colossal tool and Spiderman can sell his marriage to the devil. This is why Reed Richards can decide to save the world by putting his friends in the negative zone and along with Tony Stark and a number of other "Smart Guys" form an Illuminati that secretly has run things from behind the scenes for...whatever the time compressed era allows. Wonderman wore a jetpack that burned his ass. And Hawkeye ditched his sleeves. Wolverine is a loner who joins teams like an addict and hits on any female with red hair...(actually he's been pretty consistent) 

 

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you on her outfit. And I'm assuming she likes what she's wearing currently and not doing so under duress.

 

The fact that this discussion is still going is disheartening (and quite possibly my fault ), comic book characters are written with an amazing amount of inconsistency if you look over their entire careers I'm not sure why that seems to hard to grasp. Spiderman has changed outfits, as has Power Girl as have most characters. And when they did they liked the new outfits. Then they go back to classic outfits and they like that too. If this guy was the creative team and he changed their outfits...the character would be cool with it. In fact, they'd probably use most of the talking points he did when he designed them.

 

And the readers would like it, hate it, and generally voice their opinions. It would still not be censorship. They would still not be real. So again, while I don't agree with this guy's taste the idea that he's somehow forcing the characters or trying to force them in any way shape or form to dress against their will is really...grasping...for...

 

It's really odd. 

 

Anyway, I'll shut up and let this thread take it's natural course. Sorry for my verbose sparring and generally confrontational outbursts. 

[Comic]

It certainly seems that way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Comic has been arguing that the artist's redesigns as if he's imposed draconian laws against women. 

 

 

 

Characters personalities change at the whims of their creative teams. 

This is why batman can become a colossal tool and Spiderman can sell his marriage to the devil. This is why Reed Richards can decide to save the world by putting his friends in the negative zone and along with Tony Stark and a number of other "Smart Guys" form an Illuminati that secretly has run things from behind the scenes for...whatever the time compressed era allows. Wonderman wore a jetpack that burned his ass. And Hawkeye ditched his sleeves. Wolverine is a loner who joins teams like an addict and hits on any female with red hair...(actually he's been pretty consistent) 

 

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you on her outfit. And I'm assuming she likes what she's wearing currently and not doing so under duress.

 

The fact that this discussion is still going is disheartening (and quite possibly my fault ), comic book characters are written with an amazing amount of inconsistency if you look over their entire careers I'm not sure why that seems to hard to grasp. Spiderman has changed outfits, as has Power Girl as have most characters. And when they did they liked the new outfits. Then they go back to classic outfits and they like that too. If this guy was the creative team and he changed their outfits...the character would be cool with it. In fact, they'd probably use most of the talking points he did when he designed them.

 

And the readers would like it, hate it, and generally voice their opinions. It would still not be censorship. They would still not be real. So again, while I don't agree with this guy's taste the idea that he's somehow forcing the characters or trying to force them in any way shape or form to dress against their will is really...grasping...for...

 

It's really odd. 

 

Anyway, I'll shut up and let this thread take it's natural course. Sorry for my verbose sparring and generally confrontational outbursts. 

 

I see no reason for you to be sorry for your participation, able defense of your views, and substantive arguments; they've improved the discussion and provided balance.

 

Sure, if Lord Can'tStandBrightColors had been part of the creative teams, it would not have been censorship to offer costume changes. Costume changes by creative teams happen all the time. If Lord ThoseCurvesAreTooBig had just been a fan creating a fantasy version out of mere creative expression, that would be fair use. But Lord JihadOnDC also called for violence, and went to considerable effort to assert that the creative teams were doing wrong in a way that should be shut down, and Lord Here'sHowYouMustDress ought be the person to determine what those creative teams can and can't draw. That's censorship.

 

It's not state censorship, sure. But almost all state censorship starts with public censoriousness, with censorship by religious or moral or political institutions, and those start with individual calls, individual framings, of views of what ought be allowed. If we wait for censorship to rise to the institutional or state level before we agree that it's censorship, before we realize what's going on, what's being taken from us all, then we've waited too long and put too much of our freedom in too great peril.

 

Comic is most definitely not arguing that Lord LookAwayEvilBodyPartsWillCorruptYou is imposing draconian laws against women. Draconian laws against women already exist, in almost the entire world, and have for far too much of history. We're just so used to them, we hardly notice that they're there, and that they've been there. We simply don't react when someone says something that, were the shoe on the other foot, would be considered offensive or absurd.

 

Suppose someone called for Batman to be obliged to carry a gun. There are open carry states, this isn't outside the realm of possibility. There are people who don't know that a core Batman character element is that he's psychotically opposed to guns, having witnessed the senseless shooting death of his parents as an impressionable young boy. There are people who know it, but don't think it matters. There are people who scoff that it's silly. This isn't a political stance, or a moral stance: Batman hates guns, always has, and always should, just as Superman is weakened crazed depowered unaffected by Kryptonite, and the Green Lantern is vulnerable to wood yellow light weakened will... The difference is, those changes in characters were internally brought about by their creative teams, not by someone outside demanding it and applying threats to make it come about.

 

Lord BodyPartsAreIcky's shaming of women for having too much of what they have, for flaunting it too much to tolerate, that's awful enough in and of itself. You let go instances of people doing that, it sinks into the background and people start thinking that it's acceptable to view bodies as shameful and people as wrong for liking how they look or liking being different. But that's just part of it, and yes, it's integral to those draconian laws against women that exist in far too much of the world, and have either on the books or implicit in cultural norms for far too long.

 

See, the name I go by is Comic, not Fairness. I'm not really the right champion for all women everywhere, as Lord WomenShouldDressAsISay imagines they are. I'm just defending comics from censorship, and that's what this is.

 

If you're with me, that's great. If you're not, I can respect that. Different people have different sensitivities to perils and risks, and different views on logical consequences.

[Greywind]

...except when Batman carried a gun.

 

 

Which hearkened back to the early days of Batman.

[Comic]

.. which gets us to the distinction between criticism and censorship:

 

http://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-batman-year-two/

 

This review tears DC down and takes it to task for such a ludicrous storyline, in every way imaginable, but it does not accompany that valid critique with calls for riot, nor does it preach on the morality of presenting Batman wearing a gun as being so bad for society it has to be stopped: it just points out the elements that in the opinion of the reviewer are out of character to the detriment of the storytelling. Every reviewer is entitled to their opinion.

 

No reviewer is entitled to threaten violence against artists to limit their creativity. That's the Charlie Hebdo line, distinguishing Lord GunsGoodBrasBad from a peddler of soft censorship and into real concern.

[Christopher]

http://epicstream.com/features/Practical-Superhero-Costume-Redesigns-For-Women

 

...and for the most part, they suck.

Awesome but Impractical.

Boring but Practical.

 

Open and long hair for a Martial Artist/Warrior is just insane. It's like putting a handle on your head for the enemy to grab. Not doing that is somewhere in the first 10 lessions of martial arts.

Wonder Woman is like thousands of years old with lots of training? How did that happen?

 

The only design I really disagree with a Power Girl. This interpretation explains why she choose it and it goes far beyond "author justification":

http://www.bladebunny.com/comic/filler-1/

 

For Supergirl the original outfit makes a bit of sense - she is young, she is bulletproof and have you seen what some normal teens that age wear? The argument that "superman has more skin covered" is like saying "Older people and men in particular have more skin covered, so teenager should too".

The miniskirt is a bit dumb since she flies, giving everyone below her pantyshoots. Hotpants might be more practical for her.

 

There is a certain trick to make full body coverage and let it appear almost as sexy as lot of skin:

Marvels She-Hulk costumes use this:

Somehow my eyes/male gaze always immagines/interprets them wearing a costume only containing the black or white part, wich would be very skimpy. That is why the designers choose purple. It makes these costumes less sexist and more sexy at teh same time.

Allusions of a Skimpy costume in the color sheme can beat a actual skimpy costume.

 

 

Looking at this collection I noticed something:

It appears the Marvel designs inherently are less impractical (the only mostly naked character in Avengers is the Hulk). That might explain in part why they do better in movies - they don't need nearly as many redesigns to fit a bit more realistic world.

The Christian Bale Batman is fitting, because it is still very close to the original. But try to fit the original Robin costume into that world...

The Superman redesigns in particular have been met with mixed reactions. And they just made it less bright and put his underwear on the inside.

 

I noticed that Marvel has been doing a lot better with movies, while DC was better with Series (Marvel struggles to get 2 Seasons, DC regulary makes 3 seasons). The canonical costumers being more practical/skin covering might be part of this.

[TheQuestionMan]

My personal favorite argument for skimpy costumes is flexabilty.

 

What the Superhero Film Extras. The X-Men full body costumes made it impossible to hop a threefoot retaining wall gracefully.

 

Batman's stunt doubles were constantly tripping over the capes, blinded by the mask not moving with the head, or catching on protruding objects. Alot of door jokes.

 

I cannot imagine the "armor bites" even from costume armor that the actors and stuntmen have suffered.

 

Skimpy may just be practical.

 

 

IMOHO

 

 

QM

[DShomshak]

What makes a good costume, male or female? It should be visually distinctive; not ugly (some colors and combinations just look horrible; don’t let the design get too cluttered; etc.); and even better if it says something about the character.

 

By this standard, I think Zatanna has an excellent costume. It doesn’t look bad, and it tells you instantly that she does magic, with a show biz angle. Modern stage magicians don’t go for the top hat and tails look, but it’s still a familiar trope. Several other magical DC characters also go for formal wear, such as Zatanna’s father Zatara, or the evil magus Tannarak.

 

(Ironically, the father of modern stage magic, Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, began the top hat and tails look in order to get away from outlandish “Look, I’m a Magician!” costumes as part of his effort to make magic more respectable as entertainment. He just wore the ordinary garb of a 19^th century European gentleman out for a night at the theater or a fashionable soirée. Modern magicians like Penn and Teller with their business suits do the same thing, now that top hat and tails have become archaic.)

 

What makes a bad costume? Even if a costume isn’t flat out ugly, I’ll give Mister Redesign very slight agreement that some costumes are goofy or fetishistic – though I think he overreacts and doesn’t pick very good examples, and I disagree with his ideological purpose.

 

Fishnets and heels for a street-level female hero who isn’t innately bulletproof may not make a whole lot of sense but what the heck, Black Canary’s costume is no worse than Green Arrow’s. I’ll give it a pass as just the way comic book characters look.

 

Then there’s Hawk’s costume. Basic tights, but instead of a cape he has these streamers coming off his shoulders. Looks awesome, but they should constantly trip him up and get tangled in everything. For me, it crosses the line into making me wonder how the character even functions.

 

(Oh well, he’s powered by magic. I guess that not getting tripped up by his own costume is part of the enchantment.)

 

For true absurdity, though, go to Image Comics. At least, Image Comics of 20 years ago (I don’t know what they’ve done lately). So many characters with metal pipes or cables running across their costumes that do… um… nothing as far as I know. Or the big metal pauldrons, or spikes sticking out that could so easily injure the character. Ammo pouch belts for characters who don’t have guns. (Even stupider when the belt wraps around the character’s thigh. Chafing.) So much that was done just to “look cool” but makes no damn sense. And makes the characters all look alike, to boot.

 

Instead of suggesting a function, these design elements are fetishes of power and aggression. The costumes are exaggerated to grotesquery -- rather like the physiques of the characters who wear them, who go far beyond even the usual hypermasculine or hyperfeminine proportions of other comic book characters.

 

And yes, some of the female Image characters showed a degree of fetishism as well. I will grant Mister Redesign that there’s a point where sexy becomes sexualized. One rather blatant instance I saw (I do not know the character’s name) was a female character whose costume featured split-to-the-navel decolletage, with each side flaring out and curving around to outline a heart of bare flesh. Rather more extreme than Power Girl’s cleavage window: It was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen and, I think, meant to titillate. Maybe the character was exhibitionist; I don’t know. But instead of making me want to learn more about the character and her adventures, it made me wonder a) how it stayed on the character, and what sort of obsessions the artist had.

 

True, it was visually distinctive and memorable. But not in a good way.

 

Portrayals can cross the line even if the costume itself is unexceptionable. Years back, Rogue of the X-Men had adopted coat-of-paint tights. Nothing unusual; no more sexualized, IMO, than Superman’s or Spider-Man’s costumes. The design was kind of boring. But the artist drew her and the other female X-Men with nipples showing through the tights. Again, it made me wonder what was going through the artist’s head.

 

(Do a gender flip. Imagine an issue of a Superman comic that has him consistently drawn to suggest a prominent erection. I wouldn’t call it immoral or indecent, but I would think it was a very odd choice by the artist.)

 

By comparison, Wonder Woman’s costume inspires no more prurient interest than that of any female athlete. If Mister Redesign finds bare arms and legs overly sexualizing, I think he’s the one with the problem.

 

I will grant him that the braid looks pretty good. It’s visually distinctive and appropriate for a person who expects to get in fights.

 

(My only complaint about WW’s longstanding costume is that nothing about it says “Hero from a realm of ancient myth come to the modern world.” If I were to redesign WW’s costume from scratch, I’d try for something that looked more Greco-Roman. But that’s just me.)

 

I don’t think Mister Redesign is seriously trying to censor Marvel and DC with threats of mob violence. I do think he’s trying to propagandize readers by claiming his designs are morally and politically superior, as well as “more realistic.” And I’m not too fond of self-appointed commissars trying to mandate political standards for art, even if the person has no real power whatsoever. It doesn’t matter what the ideological standards are; I don’t like it.

 

I wouldn’t censor Marvel, DC or even Image if I had the power, nor mandate uplifting social messages they should try to promote through their character designs. They can produce whatever they want. In return, I’ll critique their work on esthetic grounds if I find it exaggerated, manipulative or distracting and detracting from story – but never that it’s politically or ideologically incorrect.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Greywind]

My personal favorite argument for skimpy costumes is flexabilty.

 

What the Superhero Film Extras. The X-Men full body costumes made it impossible to hop a threefoot retaining wall gracefully.

 

Batman's stunt doubles were constantly tripping over the capes, blinded by the mask not moving with the head, or catching on protruding objects. Alot of door jokes.

 

I cannot imagine the "armor bites" even from costume armor that the actors and stuntmen have suffered.

 

Skimpy may just be practical.

 

 

IMOHO

 

 

QM

 

Jackman sliced his own legs with the claws doing X-Men.

[Christopher]

My personal favorite argument for skimpy costumes is flexabilty.

 

What the Superhero Film Extras. The X-Men full body costumes made it impossible to hop a threefoot retaining wall gracefully.

 

Batman's stunt doubles were constantly tripping over the capes, blinded by the mask not moving with the head, or catching on protruding objects. Alot of door jokes.

 

I cannot imagine the "armor bites" even from costume armor that the actors and stuntmen have suffered.

 

Skimpy may just be practical.

Practical to move? Certainly!

Practical to fight crime in? Hell no.

Without that redesign Black Canary would get quite the road-rash on her legs if she ever fell of the bike.

And I already said my piece about "long hair" and "warrior/martial artist" combo. It is actally more stupid then not wearing proper body protection while doing stunts.

 

 

For Avengers and Ironman they found an odd solution to the actors and stuntmen wearing Ironman armor. They just put Downey Jr. into the suit.

The Motion Capture suit that is. The actuall armor while he wore it was actually CGI'ed over it. Even when just walking on the ground and talking:

[Comic]

Would that be the spandex CG suit?

 

Iron Man's suit in the movies moves more like fabric than metal. In the latest comics, it's nanothreads packed into his bones, or some such.

 

What can be done in comic books, as works of speculative fiction including magic and advanced technology, and psionics and miracles and mutations is beyond what we have done yet in our world, by the very nature of speculative fiction.

 

So fishnet armor is a work of imagination, not an impracticality.

 

Amazon tube top armor is a creative statement, not fan service. Well, okay, it's both. So what? As if the red briefs over spandex on Kal El isn't? And what about Leonidas in 300? Is he impractical, or not a warrior?

 

If we can accept a Tony Stark in nanofibrous assemblage as Iron Man, why not armor forged by Hephaestus himself that works at least as well?

 

The long hair thing is situational. Go ahead, reach out your hand, and open your fingers, to grasp the queue of a samurai.

 

It'll make counting easier for you. You'll only be able to get up to five afterwards, but did you really know what to do with ten before, if you're dumb enough to match bare flesh against sharp steel?

 

In real street fights, it's seldom what a person's wearing or their haircut that makes the difference. They aren't even in the top ten. And Black Canary is primarily a street-level super.

[Tasha]

Comics are a business. As more women creators and women fans start to make their purchasing power known, we are starting to see more practical costumes. ie Batgirl's Leatherjacket and pant also Superman in Tee shirt and Jeans in his New 52 comic. Both characters kept to the essence of the character design, but made something that was really relatable to many people. Comics are changing, customers are aging, new customers are starting to buy comics. The kinds of things that worked even 5 years ago don't work for readers today. Which is why Marvel blew up it's multiverse and are throwing a bajillion ideas up trying to find the ideas that fans like and will buy.

 

There have been other artists that have proposed different ways to dress comic characters. It's not censorship to propose new costume designs. The guy mentioned in the OP isn't the first one and won't be the last one. Yes the colors are a bit too drab, but IMHO some of the designs have merit. They aren't perfect, but they are designed to engender discussion. Not kneejerk hysterical hyperbolic rants, but discussion.

 

Oh and the marketplace will ALWAYS have a strong influence on what comics are produced and what those comics look like. It's not censorship, it about making a product that people will buy.

 

If you like comics a certain way and aren't buying the comics that fit your vision, then you are speeding the change that you don't want. Because there ARE other people out there who wish to have comics they can relate to, they have money too and they ARE spending that money on comics that appeal to them. They are supporting the writers and artists that make comics they like.

[Tasha]

re Zatanna I don't know why it's bad for her to switch to flat shoes and slacks instead of fishnets. The character still keeps her essence as a stage magicican and ends up with a costume that more women can relate to.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree that many costumes are ridiculously impractical (most masks for example, capes, etc) but they look great, usually.  

 

As for Zatanna as far as I know, stage magicians still use that kind of getup for their assistants (the females, at least) mostly because its way distracting for the guys in the audience, so Zatanna wearing it kind of makes sense.  But at the same time, she might just decide stage magic isn't her thing any more and a different outfit would be better.  She's a fairly third tier sort of character anyway so changing her isn't very meaningful.

 

As long as you don't stick her in boring leather armor like every other superhero costume these days.

 

My favorite scene about costumes is in Watchmen where they compare notes about putting zippers and such in for access when you gotta go.

 

Amazon tube top armor is a creative statement, not fan service. Well, okay, it's both. So what? As if the red briefs over spandex on Kal El isn't? And what about Leonidas in 300? Is he impractical, or not a warrior?

 

In the comics, they were buck naked under the cloak.  In real life of course, the Spartans wore heavy armor and the Persians wore pants, but Miller was making a visual point: the Spartans were dressed as the Persians saw them (terrifying and huge, athletic barbarians) and the persians were dressed as the Spartans saw them (freakish monsters, alien).

[Ragitsu]

Practicality is only a concern in a fictional universe if you want it to be. All these arguments of "it must be practical" are about as hollow as Casper.

 

Also the "someone I can relate to" argument is funny, considering that men generally aren't Tumblr/Twitter/Reddit protesting for Batman to drop his Olympian-level physique or Namor to put on a shirt so that they become more relatable.

[Comic]

Comics are a business. As more women creators and women fans start to make their purchasing power known, we are starting to see more practical costumes. ie Batgirl's Leatherjacket and pant also Superman in Tee shirt and Jeans in his New 52 comic. Both characters kept to the essence of the character design, but made something that was really relatable to many people. Comics are changing, customers are aging, new customers are starting to buy comics. The kinds of things that worked even 5 years ago don't work for readers today. Which is why Marvel blew up it's multiverse and are throwing a bajillion ideas up trying to find the ideas that fans like and will buy.

 

There have been other artists that have proposed different ways to dress comic characters. It's not censorship to propose new costume designs. The guy mentioned in the OP isn't the first one and won't be the last one. Yes the colors are a bit too drab, but IMHO some of the designs have merit. They aren't perfect, but they are designed to engender discussion. Not kneejerk hysterical hyperbolic rants, but discussion.

 

Oh and the marketplace will ALWAYS have a strong influence on what comics are produced and what those comics look like. It's not censorship, it about making a product that people will buy.

 

If you like comics a certain way and aren't buying the comics that fit your vision, then you are speeding the change that you don't want. Because there ARE other people out there who wish to have comics they can relate to, they have money too and they ARE spending that money on comics that appeal to them. They are supporting the writers and artists that make comics they like.

 

 

I like the attitude expressed, the opinion, and the sensibilities.

 

Which is why I think the statements of fact in places are simply wrong.

 

If Lord FergusonStyleRiot hadn't been promoting violent solutions to the way women in comic books from fifteen or fifty years ago were drawn, but merely drew them in as disrespectful a way -- not crappy art, not drab, but outright disrespectful -- that to my mind would still be body shaming, and would still be offensive, but more to the point Lord ReduceTheSizeOfThoseNow was campaigning not for something, but against everything.

 

There is no way Power Girl and Wonder Woman's costumes are offensive to sensibilities in the same way as Black Canary's or Bat Girl's, or Zatanna's. Yet the campaign caught them all in the same fishnet of prurience. This tells me the campaign isn't about protecting the targets of the attack, but about wanting to control what is presented in public.

 

There's no way their hair is all 'combat inefficient' in the same way: Wonder Woman's headwear can severe the arm of a giant; her curls are in no peril of hair pulling. I know I've seen women MMA competitors with hair as long as or longer than many if not most comic book portrayal of female superheroes. These objections seem to me to be holdovers of unschooled prejudice and mythology of martial nonsense: if you're worried about someone grabbing and pulling hair in battle, then all those extra hand holds you're giving them with bulky jackets and armor and belts and waistbands is a dozen times worse.

 

Power Girl is Kryptonian; she moves at the speed of light natively, and every strand of her hair is tough enough to slice through an I-beam. So how plausible is this "makes practical sense" argument? Since when have comic books been how-to manuals for actual combatants?

 

I'm sensitive to the feelings of outrage, to the shifts in the market, and to business savvy and business sense. I'm just saying, if there's a big pile of censorship sitting in the middle of the room, someone should open the windows and remind people what fresh air smells like.