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11.5.06 

Slice of Cheesecake #2



This is Phantom Lady.

Phantom lady was the spoiled daughter of a senator, who decided one day to fight crime, as a member of Uncle Sam's Freedom Fighters. She was also the first crimefighter who decided that wearing an outfit which causes your boobs to spill out was a good idea. In that regard she was a trendsetter.

She used to be reasonably dressed until her title was sold to Fox Features, who decided to remove large parts of her outfit. This was in 1948, mind you, when not all superheroines dressed like skanks.

When she moved to DC comics, her outfit actually shrunk further - something that may have been impossible to conceive. Also, it was decided to remove her sole superpower (a blindness ray). Shortly after that, she was given unreasonably high heels to wear too. So she was now a powerless woman who ran around fighting crime in heels with her breasts spilling out. I'm sure this must have seemed like a good idea at that time.

Shortly after this, another character took over the mantle - a student at the school she was headmistress of (yup, thats right - go and knock your head against the wall for not attending such a school). This woman also thought it was a fantastic idea to make the ouotfit skimpier, though it resulted in her being practically naked.

Exactly how brilliant an idea it was, was revealed in Infinite Crisis, when Deathstroke shoved a spear into her wide-open cleavage. Considering she did not have super-invulnerability, or unbreakable skin, or similar abilities like the other super-sluts, its a wonder why no one thought of it earlier. Her last word, as she passes into the realm of the dead was "Why". One assumes, had she lived long enough to complete the sentence, it would have been - "Why the fuck didn't I go with the full-body kevlar?"

Of course, you can't keep a good character down. Now there's a new Phantom Lady doing the rounds in Battle for Blüdhaven, and who is soon to appear in a new title. The current bearer of this famous mantle has decided that the outfit needs a minor revamp. Of course, her breasts are also so much larger than previous Phantom Ladies, that the net effect is quite negligible, displaying enough cleavage to drive a truck through... or any suitably sharp stabby object, if you're a supervillain.

Sigh! Some people never learn.

I am reading the series right now. Hope its good. Never heard of the Freedom Fighters before though, must admit.

I think you'd enjoy Infinite Crisis, though it is very continuity heavy, and it would read better if you knew exactly why you should care about all the characters who get offed page after page.

the pix are just fantabulous, with clear evidence of the lycra revolution in the way the costumes are conceived. you can see the earliest attempts try to look like real cloth, thereby defying the laws of physics in the interests of phooaarrr! then you have the impossible body paint of the woman who gets speared in the sternum. And finally: the hot pants and silicon overdose with ultra polygon finish. history of textiles, anyone?

Well, as Jim Lee has pointed out - he just draws naked people and then the colourists just fill it in. So any discussion on the scantiness of superhero costumes is moot because everyone in those comics is essentially naked with body paint.

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