How Can There Be Any Question?

Another day, another wince inducing image that fanboys just don't get. Here's the cover for Heroes for Hire #13. What could possibly be wrong with that? Could it be that, despite a male arm in the background, we have a bunch of women bound, nearly bursting from their tops, and looking helpless as tentacles approach? Could it be that Black Cat, not so long ago retconned as a rape survivor, is shrinking in fear as not-semen drips on her breasts? Could it be the learing onlookers?

This cover is an obvious homage to the tentacle rape scenes found in manga and hentei. It takes a book that was supposed to be about strong women starting a business in kicking ass and makes them helpless victims. The worst part about it, as ever, is that most comic fans out there just don't see the problem. Like the Mary Jane statue, they just think it's a bit of sexy that has people overreacting. Or, as Gail Simone said about fanboys in response to this cover, "NO whining is too trivial if it's a character they like. But shoot spermsnot at the actual exposed cleavage of a favorite female character and it's, "Them silly dames is so hysterical!"" Actually, the thread that quote came from it far better than most on this topic, though if you don't have time to read over twenty pages of posts you can always just skim for Gail's bits of insight.

The award for the most absurd defense on this topic, however, goes out to those guys that think there's nothing wrong with the cover because the cover artist was *gasp* a woman! How could a woman ever act in a way that's offensive?!

Though certainly not the be all, end all of the argument, the simplest explaination of why this is offensive is: Would this cover *ever* be made with men substituted for the women, pose for pose, expression for expression? The answer is, of course, not in this man's comic's continuity.