Marvel Swimsuit Specials

[el_bryanto]

Interesting article by Brett White on the Marvel Swimsuit Specials from the late 1990s - which are weirdly all over the map. The late 90s were a bit of a high water mark for sexism in comics, and yet after the first one (there were 4) they seem to have devoted nearly as much time to male figures as to females. And they also included their two most prominent gay characters at the time.



But of course there are some really terrible images as well - he does a good job of taking down a shot of Cable and Domino (Cable a big masculine cyborg dude, and Domino a sultry femme-fatale type), and explaining how even in a similar situation, the male characters are treated one way, and the females treated another.

Kind of an obscure subject, I admit, but I find it fascinating when a lot of impulses bubble up together in mass media. It's one thing when you can see that something is just terrible or just wonderful, but it's in some ways more interesting when you look at the conflicting impulses that bring you something that is pretty terrible but with some good bits too. Most interesting one here is - if they really did believe that only young males were buying these comics, why so many pictures of hunky male superheroes? A couple of theories spring to mind I suppose.

Bryant