About that Manara Spider-Woman cover...

[alschroeder3]

A lot of talk in the fan press about the sexism of that Milo Manara Spider-Woman cover. Generally, I am with people when they talk about the oversexualization of females in comics.

But in this particular case...oddly enough, I'm not so sure.

Let me explain why...

This is the Manara Spider-Woman cover....

And yeah, I can understand a lot of people's outrage. Some people even posted a male version, a la that Hawkeye page, to show how ridiculous it was. I probably shouldn't reproduce that without permission, but surely I can link to it.

The only thing is--I've been a fan for quite a while of comics. And THIS is the "pin-up" of Spider-MAN from Spider-Man Annual #1 by Ditko.

Which if anything was MORE, ummm, objectionable?-- than the male version of the Manara cover. Ditko had hundreds of similar shots of Spider-MAN...and if Manara had reproduced that particular pose EXACTLY, the furor might be much worse!

So...discuss? Is there a double standard here, or is the outrage justified?

(I tried to do a relatively unsexual-exploitive heroine in my webcomic MINDMISTRESS about a modern heroine inspired by Athena (in the same sense Flash was inspired by Mercury, Superman by Hercules, etc.), but even I had her wear "armor" that fit her as snugly as say, Tony Stark's was, because I thought it made a more pleasing image. So I'm probably as bad as Manara.)

Anyway...I'm not taking a side either way. I'm not really sure myself, in this particular case. Certainly I could name HUNDREDS of examples where comic artists have gone out of their way to present heroines in sexually suggestive poses where they wouldn't if it were a male hero. I'm just not sure if this particular case justifies the outrage.

Just presenting the images, and seeing what others have to say...

Have at it.

Comments

[jlbarnett]

to me it looks like a frozen action image. Like she's wall crawling and something makes her look up