The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

Another series I got distracted by is apparently the longest-running all-female superteam book of all time: Birds of Prey, which ran solid for ten fucking years from 1999-2009, and then returned again twice in 2010-11 and 2012-14. (Edit: It's now back for a 4th volume in 2016..although the art is terrible..see below.) So the concept obviously has staying powers. All through the series (at least the ones I've read so far) Canary and Huntress are drawn exquisitely. I don't know if Volumes 2 and 3 are the same way (I suspect the closer we get to the present, the more political correctness would kick in), but the original series was drawn brilliantly and for most of the time it was helmed by Gail Simone, who also did the more recent Red Sonja books that I'm still reading. She seems to have a great knack for combining the beautiful cheesecake we all enjoy with powerful storytelling and just enough peril (though not enough to get empowered females killed, or anything) to keep the heart racing a bit. I have massive respect for this ten-year run..it makes A-Force look silly in comparison really. I obviously couldn't start from the beginning, I started reading in the middle and was amazed to encounter all of these great female characters (some created by Simone) that I didn't even know about or had just heard about vaguely before. I had to keep going to Wikipedia to grab all of these female characters' backstories, whether it was Spysmasher or Misfit, Manhunter or Black Alice or Judomaster or Knockout or Lady Shiva or False Face, etc, even Lady Blackhawk and Gypsy (neither of whom I'd read about in decades) and that was just the tip of the iceberg I'm sure. Here are a couple of the hot covers of some of the issues I've read online:
Rose and Thorn


Manhunter



Black Alice - the concept is so hot...each time she transforms it's a different costume, and she does it because of t**n angst and rage!




Canary & Huntress w/Lady Blackhawk


Lady Blackhawk is drugged and hypnotized to become the villainess Queen Killer Shark (yup, lack of consent!)



Quick appreciation for how hot Lady Blackhawk is in her aviatrix costume:

Thank you for this trip through memory lane ! Such good old days.

For something a bit more recent, I just picked up (for only $5) the first tpb ("Trouble In Mind") of the 3rd volume of Birds of Prey which was part of the New 52. Poison Ivy joins the team..in this version she wears the green costume that covers her all up and she is very malevolent looking with all of the plant tentacles coming out of her. Also Starling (Ev Crawford) is a new character who was created to be on the team, and she has the sexiest outfit with her bustier, ponytail, retro-ish hairdo and arm tattoo sleeve. Rounding this out is still a great-looking Canary, Katana and Batgirl.

I would say that this series still delivers on some sexiness, though, even if it isn't quite on the level of the earlier Gail Simone stuff. For one thing, the first story arc is about a male villain using very sophisticated methods of mind control so it's certainly a very perilous journey. I'm on a journey, too - lookin' for every Birds of Prey tpb I can find at a used price!

Dont know if you have noticed this or not but everything you just say is already on the comic you post

I don't quite understand what you mean by that? I'm trying to review and assess the comics so people know what to expect.....?

The new Birds of Prey Rebirth issue is shit, unfortunately. Look how terrible the art is, how poorly these heroines are represented with some half-assed schlumpy costume nonsense and high-school level artistic skills. Really sorry to say that. Hopefully some other artist takes over and it gets better?
Here's an example of how the three heroines (Canary, Batgirl, Huntress) look today.

A-Force is a joke. If you can, try to find the Typhoid Mary arc from the mid 80's Daredevil. A truly amazing story line that is timeless. And of course, the seminal Elektra/Daredevil/Bullseye story arc by Frank Miller.

These stories are 30 + years old but still amazing.

I just started reading a brand new book call "Faith". Don't worry, it's not a religious book but a story of a young woman with special abilities. Picture classic Spider Man combined with Supergirl but none of the fluff from either.

I'd be curious to know your thoughts on the new Killing Joke release featuring far more Batgirl than the original comic.

The female version of Manhunter was also a tragically brief run. Very underrated.

Yes Manhunter quietly ran for over 4 years and was pretty great. They need to bring that character back, she's more of a female Daredevil. Although I was astounded by the lack of substance in her origin: all she does is grab some gear from the evidence room? No combat training, nothing? And she plunges directly into a confrontation with an extremely dangerous metahuman with very little fear? Doesn't make much sense.

I heard that the new Killing Joke reboot features a lot more Batgirl as active agent and less as victim, which makes sense. I'll check it out.

Yes, I know about Faith. One of Valiant's lead titles. It's supposed to be the breakthrough comic for the "size-positive" female superhero lead. I keep wanting to read that just to see if it can still be presented in a visually stunning (sexy) manner.

But back to the actualy thread topic:
Do you think the new Birds of Prey looks as shitty as I think it looks?

I agree with Shevek's point about the Birds of Prey art being really bad. I'm surprised that the big two--DC and Marvel--can't have better talent for most of their titles. I'm guessing they don't pay well, but it does seem like both a bad strategy and short-sighted. And with all the skilled artists out there, I would think many would want to have a gig drawing for a mainstream comic book company.

Sorry but there's really not much that's sexy about the Faith book. It may be self-affirming
for plus-sized women who need to "see themselves" in a visually depicted heroine (rather than just being happy with the body they have..and maybe do body-positive cosplaying without any set role model, which I'm all for!) but it ain't hot. It's entertaining if you want to read about the adventures of a nerd who tries to be a heroine, but personally I'd rather see the nerd transform and become hot (a la Vampblade) since transformation is one of my big things. Your mileage may vary.

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So, back to Birds of Prey. I actually found what may be one of the sexiest BofP tpbs out there, and it's not even from the original run. There was a brief Vol. 2 run in 2010 before Vol. 3 started up in 2011. On Vol. 2 Gail Simone returned to the fold, and once again, you had the consummate female writer at the helm who can expertly balance feminist power with visual cheesecake, as evidenced by "End Run", the tpb which collects Vol. 2 issues 1-6.

This gives the lie to third-wave feminist claims about representation of the female image in comics: here, there's nothing "disproportionate" or "distorted" about the artistic rendering..everyone is just really, really beautiful. (or like Garrison Keillor used to say about Lake Wobegon: "all the women are above average".) Because, y'know, it's not the real world and it doesn't have to reflect the real world, it's a comic book. Nobody's hiring ugly people to star in their superheroine fetish videos, are they?

Gail knows how to tell powerful stories, but she doesn't get in the way of letting artist Ed Benes' almost preternaturally sexy art, with such detail, shading and contouring that it almost seems 3-D or at least realistic. What's most telling is this collection's inside front pages: the second title page has an incredibly perfect rendering of Lady Blackhawk, Black Canary, Huntress and Dove standing confidently, and then on the next page they are writhing in a come-hither, I'm-about-to-have-an-orgasm pose. Dove even has her hands on her breasts looking like she's about the pleasure herself..it's pretty hot (see below).

Inside, we have great stories about Canary rescuing a girl from terrorists; Hawk & Dove joining up and trying to deal with the very sexy Asian villainess, White Canary (think of Executive Assistant, or 90s ninjettes like Shi) and her erstwhile partner, The Penguin (who has a dream sequence of what he'd like to do with Dove...don't we all). There's also a side story about Barbara Gordon as Oracle (and despite being in a wheelchair, she is still drawn incredibly beautiful and shapely) as she deals with the betrayal of former associates Savant and Creote (who have a light homosexual relationship..that's sweet).

The latter issues in this tpb are apparently drawn by two other artists, Adriana Melo and Alvin Lee, but neither of them tamp down the sexiness of the figures and costumes, and the story (a continuation of the White Canary arc, where Dinah tracks her down to Asia) still remains at fever pitch. Huntress follows Dinah, and gets a very sexy beatdown from their other Asian adversary, Lady Shiva..it's almost like a SHIP video.

If you're looking for possibly one of the last mainstream remnants of the "90s" aesthetic (but done in the best style possible, without visual distortion)..look no further, because "End Run" is highly recommended in that regard.





this is how you draw women. good job, Ed!





panel after panel Ed just keeps givin' it to you:





White Canary and Oracle





damn, ladies!



Dove: Damn right Penguin's got you!



Quit staring at Dinah's perfect ass. I mean it.



Penguin fondles Dove in his dreams.



They're gorgeous up close, too.



Now let's see some of that beatdown from issue 6:



first, the sexy buildup, as Huntress puts on her costume. Then Shiva pulps her:









You think Gail Simone didn't know what she was doing?

WOW such a sexily drawn comic and DC gals rule the world as far as im concerned!

Yes, and as I've said, the greatest thing about it is that it's Gail Simone. 2011 was probably immediately before Twitter and Facebook were a huge thing (or maybe it was just on the cusp), but nonetheless you never heard a peep of protest about this Birds of Prey run like you did a little while later with the likes of Spiderbutt and Wonderpanties, etc.

The reasons probably were 1) it's Birds of Prey which already had a run of more than ten years and where the characters have almost always been drawn sexily like this..and 2) it's Gail Simone, not some white cis male, so it'd be hard to criticize someone who's basically the founder of modern comicbook feminism.

Six years later, still nobody criticizes any female writers who create obviously sexy books.
Case in point, Marguerite Bennett with Insexts, which is blatantly promoted as exploring "female sexuality" (I've been meaning for quite a while to buy the first tpb). The Progressive Stack of Oppression creates a double standard, even though the white cis women are the second biggest oppressors in the ladder of punching-down, nobody will say anything about the obviously titillatory aspects of their work.

Also, I'd like to point out that Ed Benes and his cohorts do not slack on depicting the sole male hero, Hawk, as being sexy in this book, as well as putting him in peril (he gets stabbed). He is a well-oiled and muscled individual, as classic DC heroes tend to be. This would lead me to think that over the years (and still today) it is still mostly the "nerd stigma" of reading comics that prevents a lot more straight women from ogling the bodies of well-contoured male heroes.

I mean, over the past few years of re-discovering comics, I've noticed that there are a fair number of straight females who are familiar with superhero characters from seeing them in TV shows and movies (for example, they'll be well-versed on Chris Hemsworth and have a crush on the actor who *plays* the hero) but still not so much in comics (except for a few cosplayers here and there). This gives the lie to the myth that women are not "visual"..I think they are certainly are, but comics still have a social stigma.

This is a good question which I think has been rarely addressed, and maybe even deserves its own thread. So let's see if I get a response in this thread first, because if you are an avid Birds of Prey reader then you definitely know a lot about comics.

Straight women on this forum (and gay males as well, why not?):
Have you admired and been attracted by the depiction of well-proportioned males in comics? We're all (or mostly) anonymous on this forum and there seems to be no good reason not to admit it (although I understand it's technically out of the boundary of the general "superheroine" topic).

Let me know what you think.