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Wednesday, January 03, 2007
The Less Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Now, lest anyone be tempted to think otherwise, it's not as if the Greg Lands, Michael Turners or Jim Balents of the comics scene are anything new. Character inappropriate cheesecake and titillation shots have been around as long as comics, and even staid old Joe Staton was wont to indulge from time to time, as The Huntress: Darknight Daughter amply demonstrates. The book is almost certainly worth checking out for any Huntress or Earth 2 fans, though many of the shots make me wonder who, given that the strip ran as a back-up in Wonder Woman, DC execs thought was reading Wonder Woman at the time.
I'm not so much worried about the talking to herself as I am the posing seductively to herself.
Here we see Helena has learned to keep her mouth shut while expositioning, but not to tie her damn robe front.
Joe Staton apparently really liked drawing Huntress from behind. Seriously, the book is full of oddly angled butt shots. This is rather tame.
I'm willing to over-look the bondage, because it's something of a Batman comic tradition, but the strategically torn shirt and threats from a phallic object are a bit much.
Earlier in the book, Helena refers to Dick as her "step-brother." And yet, there's an awful lot of flirtatious banter and longing looks passing between Helena and Dick. It's just sort of creepily odd, is all I'm saying.
Of course, what's really interesting is that, despite Staton's obvious fondness for drawing Helena's derriere and Power Girl's bosom, both PG and Huntress have, by comics standards, healthy and realistic physiques. So, maybe at least some things were better in the pre-Crisis days; super-heroines actually ate every once in awhile.
Oh, all right, one more completely subtext-free panel: