Women are sexy!

Go on argue with that one.

   I'm not saying they have to be or that they should be treated as sex objects but I am saying that in comics women are, on the whole, curvy and delicious, even when the're hacking limbs off ala Wonder Woman, which I would like to add is actually bloody good comic.

   But with the current controversy over Catwoman flouncing through her comic as if she were a a trollop at the docks and Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws offering sex like it was a bag of Werthers Originals in a nursing home I'm begining to think comic readers are living up to the virginal steriotype everyone see's them to be.

   Catwoman herself has for a long time pranced about in skin tight black leather and indeed in the last version of the DCU started out as a prostitute so to think she isn't going to flash her cleavage to her advantage is naivety on parr with people who believe we didn't land on the moon. Artists are going to draw on this to, it's part of her character and the comic could well be classified as 'erotic thriller'.

Frankly my first thought was Batman...you LUCKY bastard.

   As for Starfire being a promiscuous sexually liberated alien what's the big deal? I'll give you that there is more cheesecake in that book than diabetics wet dream but for the most part we're seeing Starfire through the eyes of a man who's been in jail for a while and who's sexual experiences have probably left him  with a bad taste in his mouth and the ability to fart in a lift without anyone knowing it was him.

He doesn't say this in the comic, but the sentiment is there.

   Is the sexuality of these two female characters depicted in a rather overtly fashion more fitting to a playboy spread than a comic aimed at teens? Yeah I would say for the most part it is but they are also depicted as powerful ass kickers with individual characters of which being sexually liberated is part of the package, and you can't depict a sexual liberation without showing sex.

 I think something that bothers me is fandom's unhealthy attitude towards sex and it's depictions and there non-committal attitude towards say this...

                         

   Starfire's cheesecake is only on show for three or four pages in a 22 page comics whereas scenes like the above are prevalent in the other seventeen or eighteen and yet the fans don't get all worked up about the violence, which let's face it is a bit worse.

   Other than the sexual immaturity of most comic fans the bigger problem here is their expectations are clouded by old habits and promises DC made about 'diversity'. Cries of 'How can you claim this is diverse?' and 'Women as objects' are erupting across the net like the spots of a teenager on prom night.

   But here's the thing, taking four comics, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws you actually have 4 very different approaches to sexuality, as well as very good diverse female characters. Batwoman is a lesbian thrown out of the army for being so and is thus a rough tough and very capable urban warrior. Wonder Woman has no real sexual orientation as she grew up on an island of woman so while she can hack up most of the cast of Homer's Illiad I'm guessing she wouldn't know what to do with a willy if you presented one to her with a set of instructions written by Heff'. To Catwoman sex is a weapon and one she can use either like a scalpel or a cannon, after all when is a man most off guard? Yeah even Batman's going to pass out after a knobbing from her. To an alien like Starfire sex is just something to enjoy or use to reproduce, her level of maturity is actually way above ours and sex is an easy way to show it.

   I'm not saying there's never been any gratuitous ass shots in comics or that every depiction of sex in comics was handled with a level of maturity fitting the subject matter, but what I am saying is after one issue don't condemn the character or comic and for fucks sake grow up.

Fabulous helmet!