My Superheroine Fantasy

I’m rushed, so this might be disjointed. 

I used to be all for super heroines in skimpy outfits. As Brea Grant’s comic book drawing character in Best Friends Forever said, their revealing costumes “are essential.”  My feelings, however, have changed with age. Now I look at a heroine dressed in a revealing onsie and thigh-highs and laugh. I don’t think that’s the impression the creators wanted to make, but make it they have.

Really? In December? How's this working
for you, Huntress?

I like gritty, I like real, I like dark, but put a girl in a leotard and tights and I don’t think badass, I think what does she do in January, take the month off? I recently read Greg Rucka’s Batman: No Man’s Land, an excellent book in which I met The Huntress, a vengeful young woman attempting to play the superhero game with a crossbow, second-rate equipment, and quiver full of doubt. On cold nights, she wrapped her cape around herself, on long stakeouts she grew bored, and when bossed by Batman, she grew resentful--in short, a flawed, believable character. Then I saw her comic book costume. In one glance, it destroyed the very real character Rucka had created.

We don’t put Batman in a Speedo, why to we have to force female superheroes into swimsuits? Let them be woman. Beautiful, yes, but also focused, diligent, not concerned with trapping a man’s eye with their curves, but rather, trapping a criminal with their wit.  I want artists to draw Huntress, Elektra, and Emma Frost believably clothed, ready to do battle. Sell the comics on the character, not the curves. That’s my fantasy.

Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver, he is the author of Desert Moon, an exciting mecha, military scifi novel with a twist, with plenty of damn science fiction in it despite what any reviewer says, as well as World at War: Revelation, a creepy, military action, with a love story, alternate history, World War Three novel thing, Everyone Dies in the End, and numerous short stories. They are all available from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing right here. Give them a try. I mean, what the hell?

Sign Up for Mark's Newsletter