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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.
This should be entertaining to watch.
The summary makes no mention of the author's gender.
Seems a bit condescending, why wouldn't a girl be able to do this?
What are you talking about? A girl did do this.
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?
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.
Is that in Supermans per second or Dr manhattans per minute or metric spider men per cubic meter.
Strawman arguments are lies.
Considering his level of obsession with female superheroes, I assumed he was a 17-year-old boy, with sore wrists.
The summary makes no mention of the author's gender.
RTFA: "Katherine Murphy, 17"
So your thesis is that males would prefer to look at drawings of men in skin tight costumes over women in skin tight costumes?
super baby producer... 12 in 12 !
The person I was replying to was clearly referencing the summary.
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?
Well only those of you who didn't bother with reading the opening paragraph of the linked article.
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.
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.
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!”
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
The big question on everyone's mind:
Could She-Hulk lift a glass ceiling?
... because that is Very Important.
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!!!
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.
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 article does indicate that the 'cause' may be because there are more female comic book readers & artists/writers....surprise surprise...someone catering to 1/2 the population with disposible income using people who might understand more about the demographic than the other 1/2....
Look there is SJW 'bullshit' all over the place that can & should be called out, but if every story about women leads you to believe its an 'SJW conspiracy' you need to grow up, pick your battles wisely.
Well only those of you who didn't bother with reading the opening paragraph of the linked article.
So...everyone.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You only have one X and one Y? How do you survive!?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
SHE HAS A NAME, and it's Lara Croft, you insensitive clod! And she IS my heroine, same thing
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Dear God, you moron. Can you read the fucking OP and see why it is relevant? It isn't that hard.
BY BETHANY BROOKSHIRE 7:00AM, MAY 19, 2015
Yeah...I guess so, but RhubarbPye isn't quite as clearly female.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
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.
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
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
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.
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! --
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
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
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.
Given that half their characters are either aliens, engineered or highly unusual mutants, their genetics might not even be xx/xy.
Aren't we touchy?!
Equality makes boys feel inferior. Men can live with it.
So, shut up, you big baby!
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"
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 consumers who don't fit the stereotypes.
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.
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.
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.
In japan, where comic books/novels are more accepted form of reading you see that the demographic of readers are across gender, age and class groups.
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 a girl of some kind. And there are sexy boy posters for the girls at that age too tho most are teen bands.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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.
You forgot the part where she calls it "science".
Powder Puff Girls kicked her butt.
If reading comics counts as science, no wonder it's in a state.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
you are confused, males want fanservice type females in their comics
First of all, it's masturbate.
Thanks - i struggle with my English, so i (as most non-native speakers i think) appreciate grammar NaZi's!
Second, your old-fashioned line reminds me of a great poster. Tradition: just because we've always done it this way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid. We're moving forward whether you like it or not.
I liked the poster's message - BUT:
a) what does that mean for "super-heroines"? You think people like me (even the next generation of awful people like me) will stop masturbate with them just because some SJW will get angry?
b) who is "WE" (i.e, "YOU") "moving forward"? I had a great reply from an anonymous commenter here
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
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.
Woman vs. man in a bare-knuckle, no-rules fight? It happened, and the story is a wild one
http://mmajunkie.com/2014/10/w...
âoeI have total respect for him, for taking that fight,â Pereira said. âoe ⦠Iâ(TM)ve been asked if I was crazy to set up that fight. Thatâ(TM)s true. I was crazy. I was crazy to have her fight against one man only. To make it fair, she should have fought two men.â
I'm 6'5" and I'm sure Ediane Gomes could kick my ass six ways from sunday in a fist fight. It would be entirely credible.
---
The only reason that a female superhero wouldn't be credible is acting, direction, and writing.
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).
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 publishes articles on "male privilege", rarely (if ever) on "male disadvantage". Conversely, we often see a lot of "news" articles that highlight "female disadvantage", and rarely (if ever) "female privilege".
Women and girls encounter notable disadvantages in every day life. The goal of the Mens Rights Movement (MRM) is to raise awareness of the disadvantages that men and boys also encounter in every day life. Unfortunately, some people see this as a zero sum issue; any government funds diverted to assist boys represent funds taken away from girls. So sadly, we end up with a number of people who try to silence Mens Rights Activists whenever such issues are raised in a public forum.
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 them to lifelong customers. Men have PLENTY of "super duper strong" male comic book heroes to choose from. While that may be of interest to some females, it's human nature to enjoy reading stories about people to whom you can relate somehow.
Unfortunately for your point, sales and marketing *is* a real thing, and that explains 100% of the drive to capture more of a female market in comic books.
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.
If you think being smart and being tough are mutually exclusive, then you are neither.
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,
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.
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.
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.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
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
Or the man they call Jayne.
How are they embarrassing all men? Are female MRAs embarrassing all women?
They are embarrassing themselves. It has nothing to do with me or any other non-MRA man.
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.
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
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
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?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Maybe I WANT to be sexually harassed. I also want more oxidizers in margarine as well as permeate in my milk. And for good measure, I'll add my own woosh.
WOOSH!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
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 gender he thought was in the summary wasn't actually present. /shrug. one of those cases where I wish I could at least edit posts or add an update to them after the fact...
?? Oh, yes... 'Hear and Obey' was already taken. Though I still think 'Listen and Believe' is in this context a lame plagiarism.
Well it does have the same ending as Astrology, so I suppose it must be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I guess if you don't know what the headline, byline, and article text are then other simple concepts might be an issue too.
A certain species of whiner that brings up SJWs at every opportunity is actually an irritating SJW itself.
Ironic.
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.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I think at this point SJW is about as useless a term as hipster is. It's got no meaning other than "those other people, not me though".
(can't say it ever really had any meaning, just like hipster)
I can't believe I'm having this conversation:
Well, you have it, so you better believe it.
a) You're never too old...welll I haven't found the age yet
For What? "Never too old" for WHAT?
b) THIS is where you fall off the 'clue train'....along with 'real' SJW's as opposed to what you probably see as an SJW.
I'm 52 so I guess I can claim being 'old-fashoioned' too...when I was heavy in to comics (teen years through well in to my 20's...I still think their cool but moved on & can't catch back up) I saw nothing wrong & still see nothing wrong with viewing a hot super-herione as a strong super-herioine AND 'holy crap is she hot' (Starfire from the New Teen Titans). That's what I mean about 'your adolescent mindset' as you seem to think these two thoughts are entirely incompatible (they aren't)...
I respect that but i was speaking for myself - i am a sexist old Greek, and i wrote "sorry, i am an awful person, i know, but..."
and if you were REALLY 'old fashioned' you'd know something about decorum & politeness & wouldn't spew every random thought out of your head on the 'internet' that you wouldn't say in public...and trust me I've read/heard it all (so I'm not shocked by anything) I was on newsgroups long before the rest of the world discovered the 'internet'.
The SJW's didn't make it 'TMI" for this forum it's ALWAYS been 'TMI' for this forum, there are forums where that's not TMI, go find them (this isn't alt.sex.masturbation).
That's where our cultural backgrounds conflict. I am Greek: saying in public (even in front of ladies) "i will masturbate to a super-heroine" is an "Aristophanic" way to make my (sexist) point. I am new to THIS forum (a month old account), but i have the feeling that you are right: too "UN-Aristophanic"... but i am not sure if it always was this way, or it is because of the current SJW insurgency. Anyway, i know "this isn't alt.sex.masturbation" but you should watch/read some Aristophane - he wrote his work for grown ups like you and me, not teenagers who can't handle a fact of life!
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Or the Men In Black.
Character makes the difference no matter who you are.... Marvels make the all character like super hero and heroine.