ABSTRACT
Depictions of costumed superheroines have been dominated by overt sexualization ever since Wonder Woman first appeared in her high-heeled boots, skirt and eagle adorned bustier in 1940. Modern female characters are so thoroughly eroticized that it is near impossible to find a superheroine or villainess that is not defined primarily by her sex appeal, all in an attempt to cater to the mostly male comics consumer. Yet, while the illustrations continue to fetishize female bodies at an almost pornographic level, there has been an increased effort by the major publishers to portray superheroines as powerful and legitimate characters in their own right. This double bind of physical exploitation and narrative legitimization is apparent in Marvel’s various celebrations in 2010 of the ‘Women of Marvel’. In a range of special issues, variant covers, mini-series, and collector’s magazines, Marvel struggled to position themselves as a female friendly line with strong feminist characters without sacrificing the central role of heroines as pin-ups. The irony of showcasing sexy covers of superheroines to celebrate their strength was not lost on anyone involved with mainstream comics. What is more troubling, and more revealing of gender concerns, is that leading up to, and carrying over into, Marvel’s year-long celebration of women was the catastrophic ‘House of M’ event that wiped out or de-powered 98% of all mutants. In the ‘House of M’ storyline The Scarlett Witch essentially loses touch with reality and reshapes the universe so that she can magically recreate her lost children. That her maternal desires are portrayed as selfish, destructive, psychotic, delusional and ultimately villainous, is indicative of the genre’s conflicting messages about femininity – not just in terms of sexuality but more specifically regarding issues of maternity. The depiction of maternity in recent superhero comics reveals and reinforces cultural fears about female bodies as unstable and uncontrollable agents of abjection. Moreover, this rejection of the maternal
SUPERHEROES AND IDENTITIES
78 J.A. Brown
in superhero comic books contributes to a greater emphasis on the stability of fatherhood and by extension reaffirms cultural and legal conceptions of paternal authority.
