Marvel's Female Superheroes Are Gradually Becoming More Super 228
New submitter RhubarbPye writes: A new study shows an increasing trend in the power and significance of female superhero characters in the Marvel comic book universe. Several criteria were used to examine the trend, including cover art, dialog, and the actual superpowers. Over 200 individual comic books from Marvel's 50+ year history were compared for the study. What's of particular interest is the study's author is a 17-year-old high school student from Ohio.
Bottom Rising (Score:5, Informative)
This is more a result of low powered secondary characters gaining power, the main female characters have always been over powered compared to the male characters on the Marvel side.
If you look at mutants, they all get exactly 1 power, healing factor, or eye beams or telepathy or teleportation... unless they're women in which case they often get several. Jean Grey has a couple, Pixie has several, Wanda has several, Emma Frost has a couple, Rogue only has one but it gives her more
Even for non-mutants if you look at the fantastic 4, they all get 1 power... except Susan Richards. Arguably Reed Richards has two as he is also a super scientist, but that wasn't a result of the accident.
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Ororo only has one power, but when that one power is weather control, who needs more? I can't think of any male mutants with that level of power, except Magneto.
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(Magneto, possibly Prof.X, and uh, ... )
You forgot Apocalypse [wikipedia.org]. His level of power is unsurpassed (as far as I know) and has many powers.
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Even in the X-Men universe, the stories are concentrated around Wolverine, Professor X and Magneto.
I know we all have blocked out XMen 3, but that movie was 100% about Jean Grey (and we knew it would be from the end of X2).
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Originally Susan Richards' powers were turning invisible and creating a force shield around herself. This wasn't for doing cool things, it was for staying safely out of the way while the boys did the fighting. By the mid 70s when I was buying comic books her purely defensive powers were upgraded to being able to produce a shower of spherical force bubbles, which on the offensive force scale was about one step up the awesomeness scale from telekinetically throwing couch pillows.
I don't think the reason for
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Katherine focused on seven different criteria, and ranked each on a scale from one to five. Was a woman on the cover? How did the female characters look? Did women in the comic book talk to each other about important issues? Was the storyline about a woman? Were women in positions of power? Did they make their own decisions? Did they have jobs?
Not that what you are talking about wouldn't be a legitimate and interesting study topic as well. It just isn't what was being studied here.
Race to godhood (Score:2)
It has always been the case that comic superheros have escalated in power. From the first superman to now, their powers have increased in the manner of schoolboys yapping about who's better.
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Yes, but with great power comes great responsibility. But you knew this already.
Seriously, that's the best part of comix; their super powers are helpful, but do not always save the day. Sometimes the powers get in the way of having a normal life or doing things without getting a giant stone boner. This is the bane of the Incredible Thing Guy.
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On the plus side, it's better than the ADD MORE DIGITS mentality some developers have for hit points shown in games.
That started with pinball machines. Now get off my lawn.
More super? (Score:3)
Okay, the most powerful super in the setting is one SQUIRREL GIRL!
She's the living embodiment of "Chuck Norris Facts" for the Marvel Universe, and is basically on par with the Living Tribunal (a fundamental entity of the universe and essentially a godlike manifestation).
How, pray tell, does one get "more super" than that?
ASIDE from grating on about the feminist implications of "Name+GIRL" vs "Name+WOMAN" or "Name".
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Okay, the most powerful super in the setting is one SQUIRREL GIRL!
I don't know the background and I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but on the off chance you're not, "Squirrel girl" is about the least bad-ass name since Pillow Man.
http://smbc-comics.com/index.p... [smbc-comics.com]
Are we not men? We are devo. (Score:5, Funny)
I have a vague memory of a time when children read comics and adults read books and newspapers. It seems now that children are busy with Twitter while adults are living in a fantasy world. Where will the de-evolution of humanity end?
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Many have commented on this shift. It appears - at least to casual observation - that the social conventions regarding age-appropriate media and activities are becoming less important. Things that would once have been regarded as shamefully childish for anyone past their teenage years are now a lot more acceptable for all ages.
The reaction to this seems to fall along political lines. I've seen a number of columns from conservative authors warning about the infantalisation of society and suggesting it will w
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The reaction to this seems to fall along political lines. I've seen a number of columns from conservative authors...
I'm not sure if you read slashdot, because there was an article posted last week from a left-leaning writer / psychologist [insidegov.com] basically saying these kinds of hobbies are bad:
http://games.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
In fact, the "men are failing to grow up" is a common theme in many feminist circles, which are largely characterized as "liberal". Example: http://time.com/179/men-are-ob... [time.com]
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Why do liberals tend hate comic books?
It's because it suggests to people that government is at best impotent and more often then not evil. However, some rich dude can be a hero (e.g., ironman, batman) can come in an save the day (generally against yet another rich evil dude, not an ideologue). This generally isn't the narrative they want to hear. Of course comic writers throw the liberals a bone once in a while (e.g., a gay character like iceman)...
However, most comic books are simply apolitically anti-e
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"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence." - C.S. Lewis
Let me know (Score:5, Funny)
Let me know when they stop drawing them with FF tits and thighs and asses you could crack walnuts on.
Re:Let me know (Score:5, Funny)
NO! Just stop this, right this minute! No one ever solved a problem by making boobs smaller, unless that problem is a bad back caused by excessively large breasts.
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I'd like to test Rule 34 involving walnut cracking via female comic heroines using various parts of their anatomy, but I'm at work
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Okay, but only when they stop drawing men with packages so large they look like they're wearing a codpiece and muscle structure that makes them look like they're popping steroids.
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The guys too... It makes sense for some, but most of them are basically ordinary guys in good physical condition, but get drawn like steroid pumping bodybuilders.
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They will get to that right after they stop drawing male heroes in ripped and in skintight clothes or shirtless.
Power Creep Unless Proven Otherwise (Score:5, Interesting)
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Power Creep is my favorite superhero.
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Katherine focused on seven different criteria, and ranked each on a scale from one to five. Was a woman on the cover? How did the female characters look? Did women in the comic book talk to each other about important issues? Was the storyline about a woman? Were women in positions of power? Did they make their own decisions? Did they have jobs?
If you did the exact same study with Superman, you'd certainly not find his "story power" has been increasing. In the early comics he was the sole hero, so he'd be getting perfect scores for all those.
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If you did the exact same study with Superman, you'd certainly not find his "story power" has been increasing. In the early comics he was the sole hero, so he'd be getting perfect scores for all those.
Perfect score? You really think Superman was the only Golden Age Hero too?
Lets assume you're correct and Superman would have got the Perfect Score of 35 because he was the only hero. This assumes that all the characters were put on a scale, and ranked from best to worst. This would imply that 18 would be the median score meaning that the modern day score of 22.5 implys ether a favoritism towards women, or that it's reached equilibrium, but since the measurement error wasn't given in the article that makes
They're of almost no cultural relevance (Score:2)
There is very little development in the existing super hero universe.
And yet (Score:2)
the greatest Superheroine of all time was "the new Wonder Woman" of the 79's. A Diana Prince who lost her powers
WW the comic was dying, and this version revived her.
She was killed off by the 70s version of SJW.
Nah. (Score:2)
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Not if I Ching is with her!
Not Just Marvel (Score:3)
Honestly this is a trend in all of TV, and to a certain extent it's really silly.
Show writers desperately want to put women in positions of power and control, essentially switching the male and female roles. Take "The 100", where literally every military (and thus population) leader of the Grounders is a female. Except... that doesn't even make sense. In what universe have women ever aspired to be military leaders? You have some native american tribes for example, where the female "healer" or "shaman" might be a clan's spiritual leader, but they put women in positions that are so diametrically opposed to how women behave in real life, it becomes a laughably unrealistic scenario.
I mentioned this in another thread, but other shows like "The Flash" depicts every single fracking woman as a supersmart, unmatched computer or mechanical engineer, programmer, physics whiz, etc. What universe does this show even take place? When was the last time you saw more than a tiny fraction of women showing interest or excelling in something like engineering or computer programming? Heck in "The 100" the best mechanic to grace the Sky People in 52 years is a young woman named Raven. Really??? My university had something like 95% male engineers, 5% female. And the brightest were always guys. It's almost laugh out loud funny how out of place these actors seem in their roles. Well it might just be the bad acting, but that's also magnified by bad casting.
ZZzz (Score:2)
zzZZzz
And both genders are relentlessly de-aging (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was 13, I was reading stories about competent 30 year old war and super heroes. Reed Richards had a decade of experience.
Today, everyone seems to be 19 to 22 yet they are somehow completely experienced and more competent than anyone older than they are. (re: the recent Star Trek films). Rogue especially has deaged tremendously from about 30 to about 20.
For some reason, when i was a kid, you didn't need children to attract an audience but these days you do.
It's so unrealistic that it is really jarring to me. These young children lack the experience and gravitas to be in the parts they are playing.
Wolverine at least still has an appearance of being in his mid 30's but he's basically immortal so it doesn't really apply to him except... it seems like a lot of "tricks" he would have seen a dozen times by now.
Sue Storm has always been powerful (Score:3)
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soft vs hard powers (Score:2)
Re:Last sentence (Score:5, Informative)
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Considering his level of obsession with female superheroes, I assumed he was a 17-year-old boy, with sore wrists.
Re:Last sentence (Score:4, Informative)
The summary makes no mention of the author's gender.
RTFA: "Katherine Murphy, 17"
Re:Last sentence (Score:4, Informative)
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That poor little boy Kathy, I'll bet he got beat up a lot
I guess you never heard the Johnny Cash song, "A Boy Named Sue"
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If you think being smart and being tough are mutually exclusive, then you are neither.
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... because that is Very Important.
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Seems a bit condescending, why wouldn't a girl be able to do this?
What are you talking about? A girl did do this.
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That's his point. The "What's of particular interest..." suggests it's an unusual and unexpected occurence (although the summary doesn't even say it's a girl, the OP seems to have thought it did).
Seems a bit condescending, why wouldn't a girl be able to do this?
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Yep, I read it the other way.
The fact that the gender wasn't mentioned in the summary at all let alone the sentence he singled out; led me to initially assume he'd just assumed it was a boy. So I read it as:
I read it as:
"A boy did this, so what?... why wouldn't a girl be able to?"
I realized as the thread developed that he meant:
"A girl did this; why would we think she couldn't?"
And he originally replied to the thread himself essentially confirming this and also WTFing the fact that the gende
Re:Last sentence (Score:5, Funny)
Seems a bit condescending, why wouldn't a girl be able to do this?
Er... the last sentence was "What's of particular interest is the study's author is a 17-year-old high school student from Ohio." - the "interesting" part is that they're a highschool student and 17 years old, with a published scientific paper to their name. The summary doesn't even mention that they're a girl, you'd have to go and read the article to find that out.
Reading the article... what kind of first post-er are you?
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the "interesting" part is that they're a highschool student and 17 years old, with a published scientific paper to their name
I'm pretty sure all the authors of papers presented as the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair are high school students.
Re:Last sentence (Score:4, Funny)
For the last time, it's "I swear she told me she was 18". If you mess it one more time you'll have to find another lawyer.
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If reading comics counts as science, no wonder it's in a state.
Re:Last sentence (Score:5, Informative)
I imagine it comes under "sociology", which is counted as a science. This study probably has better research practices than 90% of the sociology papers out there,
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Well it does have the same ending as Astrology, so I suppose it must be.
Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
So your thesis is that males would prefer to look at drawings of men in skin tight costumes over women in skin tight costumes?
Re:*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
To give some small sliver to credit to comics, their stock-sexyness isn't just a female thing. While it is true that their female superpowered characters generally wear accessorised bikinis, have breasts bigger than their heads and spines made our of rubber, the men fare no better. Just about every male superpowered character gets the torso of a bodybuilder and a face angled like a brick.
Blame the readers. The publishers just make what they know will sell.
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I think most the readers don't care until they are older and have been reading comics for a while. The boobs, porn faces, and porn poses are a result of the artists. Powergirl specifically has big boobs as a prank by the artist.
Once the readers are a bit older (14+), then yea some would like to buy a sexy version of the superheroine they've read about rather than a sexy poster of some random victoria's secret or sports illustrated model. Either way, the 16 year old boy is going to have a sexy poster of
Powergirl Expansion a Myth (Score:2)
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I found the article you were referring to.
http://ragnell.blogspot.com/20... [blogspot.com]
It was written after the principles were dead and after several of them had confirmed the story.
Sure- they may have been lying. But also, looking at the older issues, her breasts do not seem like the double G whoppers they became later.
They do complement Woody in the article on at least drawing her with realistic anatomy.
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you are confused, males want fanservice type females in their comics
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SHE HAS A NAME, and it's Lara Croft, you insensitive clod! And she IS my heroine, same thing
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it's a little hard to kick ass in a suit and tie. It would probably look kind of funny too.
I think John Constantine would dispute that
Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, but why the sigh? The aim of the study was to see if portrayal of women in the comics had changed over time. It was found that this was the case and indeed it was hypothesized from the investigator that the reason was change in reader demographics as well as writer demographics. Sounds like a nice little study (especially as they hint to a somewhat randomized process in selecting the comic books), would have loved to actually see the data though rather than just the summary.
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It's a chicken/egg question. Do boys buy most comic books because girls have no interest in such things? Or do boys buy most comic books because the existing books are all marketed to boys? Historically, the answer has been believed to be the first option, but society generally has discovered over the last 50 years that with comic books as with many other things, the answer is the latter option... people make assumptions about what boys and girls want and thus drive the market thereby leaving out many consu
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Yes, but there has been such a rise in feminism over the past 10 years that it seems every facet of society - no matter how trivial - is viewed through the prism of how it affects females.
If school boys were exposed to as many "news" articles covering the topics in which males are screwed - e.g. in the areas of health, education, criminal law, family law, etc - then you would also see school boys motivated to research and publish articles focused on males. Unfortunately, the popular media only ever publishe
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Yes, which means that women - 50% or so of the population - aren't a large portion of comic buyers.
Not if you understand math and market segmentation. You can pander to the people who *already* buy your product, in the hope that you'll get them to buy one or two extra comic books a month, or you can get aim at the group of people who have never bought a comic book in their lives, and hope to convert some percentage of
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Your explanation makes less sense to me than the question.
Heterosexual male here. I prefer stories where the femaile characters are strong and independent. I dislike stories (and real life) that makes assumptions about peoples capabilities which are based on stereotypes.
Just maybe, this is a result of changing cultural norms rather than catering to a female audience. Don't be fooled by how loud the knuckle dragging frat boy voice is on Slashdot.
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You'd also have to break it down by how much control the CCA had over the industry and how they exercised that control and then by art style. Also you'd want to look into current CEO's and see if there's any trend there. Merely ascribing it to time or some feminist hook seems to be immensely shortsighted. Of course, she is in high school, so that might be why the science portion of her science project was so shitty.
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Already done. [unemployedman.com]
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WTF Supermans per second? It specifies Marvell right there in the title.
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Than it must be Spidermen per cubic meter...right?
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I thought the best measurement was Multiple Men per second.
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Marvel you fool!
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Well only those of you who didn't bother with reading the opening paragraph of the linked article.
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Well only those of you who didn't bother with reading the opening paragraph of the linked article.
So...everyone.
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BY BETHANY BROOKSHIRE 7:00AM, MAY 19, 2015
Yeah...I guess so, but RhubarbPye isn't quite as clearly female.
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I guess if you don't know what the headline, byline, and article text are then other simple concepts might be an issue too.
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I will quote what you replied to so that maybe you can read and understand it a little better:
Secretly, we all know a male SJW wrote this.
You then go on to tell AC that the researcher was female. The word "this" could refer to TFS, TFA, or TFRP, not just TFRP. I was pointing out that the person who wrote TFA, was indeed female, but the person who wrote TFS wasn't as clearcut. Your lack of understanding of the GGFP does not mean I failed to understand what you typed.
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wow, your chromosomes are XY? Damn you must be ugly.
Personally I have an X and a Y. I can't imagine the poor sod with XY XY
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You only have one X and one Y? How do you survive!?
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Given that half their characters are either aliens, engineered or highly unusual mutants, their genetics might not even be xx/xy.
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Geez. Are you overly sensitive. There wasn't any mention in the article of 'see these results prove women are still oppressed', or calling for 'more female represenation'. In fact the results from the study would suggest that 'see women are represented rather well in Marvel comic books' (or at least 'better than they used to be') but it makes no such conclusions one way or the other. As a good study should it simply states the results without interpretation of 'what they mean for society'. Though the articl
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A certain species of whiner that brings up SJWs at every opportunity is actually an irritating SJW itself.
Ironic.
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Aren't we touchy?!
Equality makes boys feel inferior. Men can live with it.
So, shut up, you big baby!
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Any one makes you suspicious and any two seals the deal. I say embrace it. Be the evil they claim. There's even prizes: if you commit 1 million documented microaggressions you'll get a free puppy (to kick) from the Patriarchy.
Re:There's more. (Score:5, Funny)
Could She-Hulk lift a glass ceiling?
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Yes! Nice one, Centurion!
Also, Susan Storm agrees with this thread. She's a Fantastic gal, I mean person with super powers of any gender
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I find it more interesting that it was a 17 year old girl. I have never known a woman that was into comics, and Big Bang Theory even makes jokes about it, so I guess I'm not the only one. Do all the guys in the comic book store stare when she goes to buy her comics?
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Back in '83-'84, when I was at UCSC, we had a geek crowd that was into comics. We had two women in our group.
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Comics? Don't you mean serialized graphic novels?
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**points at wife and daughter** I know two....
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Off the top of my head...
Aeon Flux
Ultraviolet
Black Widow*
Jean Grey
Rouge
Storm
The Invisible Woman (Fantastic Four)
Can't think of any more, but I am sure there have been other female super hero movies.
*though I wouldn't exactly call Black Widow a super hero, she still holds her own in the Avengers movies, even against the Hulk
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I read that as a list of characters who appeared in bad movies.
Black Widow appeared in good movies, but as a fairly minor character. I've not seen Age of Ultron yet, I hear she gets her own sub-plot in that.
Women are actually human (Score:2)
If you think every story that mentions women is saying the same thing, then 1) you didn't read any of them very carefully, and 2) you're one of the worst examples of sexism in existence.