About Sexing Up Mary Marvel

[bensanaz]

Okay, so apparently Mary Marvel is getting a Sexy Evil Makeover Seduction Whatever. The feminist-comics blogosphere is abuzz about it, or at least it was sometime last week - I don't read comics blogs as regularly as some, so I'm only now catching up. Anyway, I've got

Comments

[kouaidou]

I am getting increasingly sick of media being written (and/or characters designed) specifically to pander to the pervert crowd, both male and female. For women, you mostly see this in Japanese stuff, which I think is basically why I'm running away from that scene as fast as possible now...

[bensanaz]

The really annoying part is that I'm pretty sure they think they're pandering directly to me and people like me with this one, and they're only succeeding in writing stories that piss me off.

[scooterbird]

See, I'm coming at this from a slightly different angle. I loved Mary Marvel as a member of the Marvel Family, fighting Mr. Mind and Dr. Sivana...hokey stuff that nonetheless had me eagerly awaiting the next issue.

I also loved Omaha the Cat Dancer - in an entirely different way, quite literally. Omaha was intelligent, but it was smut, and really good, sexy smut. The idea of zOMG Mary Marvel pr0n is to "prove" how "edgy" DC is, taking an "innocent" character and "updating" her to make her more "real". Unfortunately it makes them look as sad and desperate as they are. I don't want Mary Marvel to be real. If they want to do a sexy character, cool by me, but do something original, okay?

[bensanaz]

No, that's the Mary I love in comics too. I've read Marvel Family stories from the Golden Age through the Silver Age to the present day, and Mary is simply one of my favorite elements for reasons unrelated to her attractiveness.

I also read and write pr0n about her. That doesn't mean I want the official Mary Marvel canon to be one of those stories, and trying to do that kind of offends me and pisses me off.

[anonymous]

Who's writing and drawing the interiors? That could mean all the difference between whether the damage will be widespread or limited to the ill-advised Benes cover. I still say wait and see. Rip on the cover all you want, but we don't know what the story is like yet.

[bensanaz]

Yeah, if it's just Benes getting carried away then whatever.

I don't have confidence that this will be the case, though.

[mattcomics]

I really don't see what is to be gained from making Mary Marvel evil and even less from trying to design her as gothy fanservice. Besides, the characters has always been attractive. Even in the 40's when her costume had puffy sleeves and the skirt was down past her knees.