The June Preview cover for "Red Hood and the Outlaws" and a riposte

[icon_uk]

Yesterday, DC released their solicitations and covers for June and one of them, well, it's caused a bit of a stir...






And this isn't even the "Bombshell" variant cover theme that DC are doing that month (So far all the examples we've seen of that are based on the 1940's "Good girl"-style Bombshell statues that DC Direct sell... and I, for one, want to see a few male beefcake variations thrown in... though of course, it's a wretched shame that the Nightwing title has been cancelled by the time this theme rolls around)

As dcwomenkickass put it

• Ed Benes on cover art? CHECK!
• Starfire with her teeniest top? CHECK!
• Starfire front and center leaning on a car in a “sexy” pose? CHECK!
• Starfire appearing to “hot” in the tropic sun while her male partners are fully clothed? CHECK!

Have to say that the guys being fully dressed did strike me as a trifle incongruous.

Seraphtonin asked and answered the standard defence that "um starfire’s powers are fueled by the sun that’s why she has to wear skimpy clothes"

with

"hey u know who else’s powers are fueled by the sun? superman. come on clark time for that toothfloss speedo chop chop"

Someone else suggested that

"His nipples are covered by tiny capes"

and in a remarkably short period of time, even by internet standards came this delight from sheva-ku! :)




I don't care how they have to do it, I want to see this used in a comic!!
 

Comments

[rainspirit]

This is probably going to come out of nowhere, but it's always been a disappointment for me that Red Hood and the Outlaws never evolved into a casual ménage à trois between superheroes, with Jason Todd and Roy Harper as bisexual. In fact I've liked the concept so much that I've thought about starting up a superhero team in one of my various roleplaying games based off that concept.

Right now it's just boring. Two guys and one gal as eye candy. Considering that both dudes have slept with the same woman at this point, you have to wonder what's holding them back from just going full throttle on the concept.

[yvonmukluk]

I think because a casual menage a trois between superheroes is a bit outside the average comic writers' comfort zone (and most likely a fair few readers'). Especially since superhero comics is still (in theory) marketed to children. The moral guardians would lose their shit.

[icon_uk]

Well, there are things like Vertigo for such themes (or was at least, is it still around?) and I think that this sort of cover pretty much confirms that the big companies (apart from Archie perhaps) don't see kids as their target market anymore and are not being marketed to them.

[wizardru]

Oh, I don't know...I think they still see their target market as boys aged 8-13, just as they always have. They just now don't try to sugarcoat it in some instances.

[zaqari_waliz]

The problem with that is, what are the chances that they'd both be bisexual? Bisexuality in comics is actually really easy. How many people in a hundred are bisexual? Now take a hundred superheroes. How many of them would be bisexual? And go.

[obsidianwolf]

Why do people always bring this up as a reason against a team being made up mainly of individuals who are some flavor of LBGT?

The population isn't uniformly divided like that hell in a comic book world the vast majority of super heroes could be some flavor of queer and it wouldn't affect the general percentage of the population at all since the rest of the population would be made up of individuals who kept the percentage the same.

[zaqari_waliz]

Because proportionate representation? Remember? We want that? And it works both ways? We can't just use it to further our own agendas?

[icon_uk]

Of course we can. Given the number of teams made up of exclusively straight white people (mostly male) we've been presented with over the decades, I really don't have a problem with the pendulum swinging the other way a bit.

In a world with a level playing field, where such a thing would not even raise an eyebrow, your point would be more valid, but until such a world exists, of course we can use a fictional narative to further an agenda as regards greater representation.

[zaqari_waliz]

Yeah, to me, it just sounds a lot like you're advocating fighting fire with fire here. It's just more destructive than it is constructive. I reckon the answer is more positive output, not more negative output. I can't really get sold on the idea that progress is a pendulum. It's not a battle that needs fighting, it's a wound that needs healing. So, writing characters passing the Bechdel test, constructive. Hawkeye buttshots? A gay person on every team? A team of only black people? Not actually hitting the mark (to those creators, I'd say maybe think harder).

[rainspirit]

I don't care about statistics in a comic book; I care about interesting relations between characters, no matter how seemingly improbable. It's not like they're an all gay marching band/chorus - it's three people, one of them being an extraterrestrial!

It just seems like a waste of potential to me.

[zaqari_waliz]

What if 100% of all superheroes were straight white males? I don't think you don't care about statistics.

[rainspirit]

Well hello, comment thread from four months ago.

I really, really don't care about statistics and I'm not sure where you're going with that argument. Anyway, I've pretty much moved on from Roy, Jason and Starfire; they're boring characters in a comic book series I'll never read!

[zaqari_waliz]

Yeah come to think of it, I'd actually have to google it to see if this was even still being written... Sorry for assuming, I feel like it's kind of a rare person who legitimately doesn't care about the statistics a team's membership fall under and is purely in it for how interesting the interactions of those characters are regardless of how adequately they represent one group or another.

[rainspirit]

Don't get me wrong; I like diversity a lot, but the idea of measuring and charting what demographic ends up where is a super turn-off for me. I like unconventional relationships, and I like it when superheroes are a bit more honest about their inherent kinkyness! I don't need a world where LGBT is meted out in carefully equal proportions.

[icon_uk]

You mean like "Pretty much the entire comic book industry output for the past 75+years"?

[zaqari_waliz]

Yup.