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Marvel's Female Superheroes Are Gradually Becoming More Super
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.
Seems a bit condescending, why wouldn't a girl be able to do this?
This should be entertaining to watch.
Super-diaper changer? As long as the feet stay bare all is A-Okay.
Super cooties!
Does slashdot have an option to filter stories by tag? I can't seem to find a functional one, as the exclusions tab doesn't seem to be implemented properly.
isn't majority of comic buyers male? would make sense to make male chars super duper = $$$
People know comics arent real? right?
I get it, I'm an evil being for being born with a penis.
Can we please knock off this stupid SJW bullshit on Slashdot? I come here for tech news, not to be told how evil I am for having XY chromosomes.
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.
FTFS:
>Over 200 individual comic books from Marvel's 50+ year history were compared for the study
FTFA:
>After reading 788 comics from 68 different Marvel titles
So, yeah, it's over 200.
Is that in Supermans per second or Dr manhattans per minute or metric spider men per cubic meter.
I am an old fashioned guy and my only reason to read something like that would be to masterbate with those female "super-heroine" - sorry, i am an awful person, i know, but...
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Not only are they becoming more super, their super power seems to be "invisibility"
Secretly, we all know a male SJW wrote this.
super baby producer... 12 in 12 !
Super sammich damn it!
Captcha: cheerily
Stop the presses, this is front page news! The idea that as acceptance of leading ladies grows they'd be more accepted? Holy crap that is unbelievable.
50 years ago women were always the damsels in distress now we have entire film series based around strong female characters. OF COURSE comic books will feature more and more women as it becomes more mainstream to have them as worthwhile characters and not simply used as something to be captured by the baddies and saved by the goodies.
Marvel wouldn't have been going for 50+ years without adapting to the current trends. Why has there been this sudden spate of research which is telling us exactly what we already knew?
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.
Already done.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I suppose that's interesting, but considering the subject matter maybe not so much. Now, if it had been a 60 year old, I would have found it disturbing. Anyway, the kid found a very good excuse to read lots of comics.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
So, her big conclusion was that, " female readers want to see women represented equally, so comics publishers have been delivering that." If a 17-year-old boy had made the same conclusion -- a conclusion that any 11-year-old with a lemonade stand would come to -- this article would never have been written.
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?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Let me know when they stop drawing them with FF tits and thighs and asses you could crack walnuts on.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I would love Super Hero Woman movies... But you can't apply men Super Hero logic to it...
Whatever happen, a men in general will be stronger than a woman physically... Sure there is exception, but we talking about Super Hero against villain. And in general the villain is strong too...
So anything that have to do with physical fight wont make much sense as a Super Hero... Don't get me wrong, there is more to strength in a fight, but there is always a moment when one of them get in a 'hard position', though men on men would give the possibility that one is a little bit stronger than the other, it won't compute for an audience of the reverse.
But there is some Super Hero movies that could work... Like Superwoman... She an alien, so we can't be sure than men and woman on their planet have difference in strength (though, there is some indices of this). But even if she is stronger, people would associate them with the normal Human Men vs Woman role so it not going to work very well.
This all rely on Men vs Woman physical fight... If for example a SuperWoman doesn't really have to be physically stronger opponent... But something the Super strength is used to save peoples and that is fine... She might be super smart and beat the enemy complex and evil plan...
So there is place for Woman to be a Super Hero, but they have to be tailored for woman and that is fine !
But the biggest problem is finding woman to play those role...
The role as men as a super hero and the type have been well defined, and most men have though them self as one of the Super Hero... But not the woman super hero, making the job even harder... Because every super hero movies you make that people doesn't like, make it even harder to make people believe into a woman super hero movies.
Anyway, that my slashdot comment take on this. :)
"it was hypothesized from the investigator that the reason was change in reader demographics as well as writer demographics"
The data shows a change, but at least from the summary it is definitively not shown it is due to demographic (younger population - controlled for the same effect in previous generations, or change in gender which read comics) change. it could simply be a cultural change. A cultural change could simply be the same writer the same demographic (age population rading the comics and gender split) BUT as a society women tend culturally to be seen as more equal. Unfortunately the summary does not show how this was taken into account as a confounding factor compared to demographic change.
Metrics used were SJW nonsense. Women in cover, did they talk to each other, have a job with power etc.
No power rankings, saw Wolverine level vs. Captain Marvel or Nova.
Women are not an important customer base of comics which lose miney but are published to retain corp ownership of copyright vs creators. Rather it s sales to Hollywood movie studios that makes miney and generates SJW comics ... Scott Pilgrim, Kickass etc.
Dirty secret? Comics make money off movies taking work done decades ago to appeal to boys.
Let me know when they don't have GGGG tits, 5 inch heel boots, and no pockets.
I could do the exact same analysis on Superman and find the exact same result that over time his powers have inflated. Power Creep is a well known issue in comics. The score of 12.2 in the 60's to 22.5 for female characters today is absolutely meaningless without the corresponding male character scores.
There is very little development in the existing super hero universe.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
the world needs an effective defense against social justice whiners.
But the press didn't show that.
Just like they did after WW II, pretending that all the superheroes who were women went "home".
Adapt. Because change is coming regardless.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Can we knock it off a little? one week, one fucking week without SJW or gender nonsense. Please, just stop for a bit.
The world of MRAs is in a new uproar because that boycott of Mad Max they were calling for last week? IT TOTALLY DIDN'T HAPPEN!
Before you go to this story for a good chortle, remember that Dean Esmay is the proprietor of "A Voice for Men" which is considered one of the "serious" and "moderate" MRA forums. There goes my hero. Watch him as he shits on the floor in fury.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/0...
You are welcome on my lawn.
...it wouldn't be an interesting study if it wasn't a 17 year old girl doing it?
Score another point for equality folks, the solution is obviously to lift one gender over the other.
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.
If you're going to do a silly study on comic book heroes then do it for all the superheroes not just a subset.
Ah, of course: Feminism. The New Sexism.
Powder Puff Girls kicked her butt.
Among the uniquely feminine super powers is the ability to transport ping pong balls while keeping their hands free.
Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
Female character powers have gone up, along with boob dimensions, whilst waistlines, hemlines and clothing coverage have dis-proportionaly shrank! God Bless comic books, if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have developed the keen interest in realistic female body types that I posess today! I truly appreciate powerful, statuesque, scantilly clad women!
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.
zzZZzz
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
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.
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.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Invisible Woman has almost always been one of the most powerful and versatile superheroes in Marvel. She can knock out the Hulk. She can kill Wolverine. She can redirect a gamma bomb blast, saving the lives of all the other superheroes who have gathered (in that canon issue, her husband was already dead).
Duck and cover, boys - here come the MRAs, PUAs, and other useless twats to shout about how this is just one more example of the feminist hegemony.
I'm not even wearing my tinfoil, this just makes business sense. This study portrays a specific company too positively to not be a part of some social engineering ploy. See: Employees fired for offensive tweets and the decidedly feminist slant of last Superbowl's ads. There's a huge incentive for traditionally male-dominated fields of entertainment (video games, football, comics) to say, "Look! We're progressive too!"
Note that I'm not criticizing the social trend of gender-equality. However, when a profit-first publishing monolith like Marvel tries to manipulate public perception by using some faux moral high ground as a marketing point, it makes me nauseous. That is what is happening here, it could not be more transparent.
Okay, what this kid did is fun and interesting, but it is completely misleading to call it a "study." The original article stated she was part of a group which presented their "science fair projects."
Unfortunately, and I wish it were true, but the story about Powergirl being expanded that way was pretty easily debunked by looking at the issues in question. Some stories are just too good to check.
Some essay on the web discussed how male superheros had hard powers (massive strength, power beams, etc.) where female superheros had soft powers (invisible force fields, hex waves, etc.) illustrating psychological perceptions.
mfwright@batnet.com
If she conducted real research and science where is the link to her paper and the data used as the basis for her conclusions. Reproducible research or it never happened.
I for one welcome our Marvel Super-Powered Over-Ladies. - Deadpool
...I assumed most readers are 17-year-old boys with sore wrists too.
Or unable to think for themselves.
Or both.
Second... I stopped reading Marvel at all. Let them make Thor a cunt and Captain America a nigger. But let them do it without my money.
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Character makes the difference no matter who you are.... Marvels make the all character like super hero and heroine.