Thursday, January 28, 2010

Oh hey, look at this stupid thing.

That's the cover of Justice League of America #42, as revealed on DC's Source blog today. It's by artist Adrian Melo, and it seems like a fairly typically bland image of three superheroines thrusting their breasts at the reader (compare it with Mark Bagley's cover for the issue, which suggests action, conflict, a suggestion of a story, and a bunch of heroes and villains).

But take a second look at Starfire on the right there, with her hand on her hip and all of her weight on her right foot (As always, click for a larger version). See her little comet-like fire trail? That means she's flying. That's the posture in which Melo decided to draw Starfire flying in. Your typical model standing there looking sexy pose, except she's actually flying through the air while she's in it...?

Actually, maybe the title of this post is unfair. That's actually kind of funny. Like, as a kid I always used to wonder why Superman always adopted that particular Superman-flying pose, with his hands balled into fists and his arms held in front of him. It's not like only his hands could fly and were just dragging his body after them...couldn't Superman fly in any pose he wanted?

I used to think it would be funny if he would, like, pretend to be sitting down with his hands in front of him as if he were driving an invisible car and would fly like that, or pretend he was skiing or ice-skating or whatever.

Maybe that's what's going on here, Starfire is just adopting an unusual flying pose for the sake of comedy.

That, or the artist just drew some ladies sticking their breasts out, and a colorist or someone else came in and added the flying fire trail later.

At any rate, it sure makes me not want to buy it! Luckily the Bagley cover has the opposite effect on me.

7 comments:

Patrick C said...

This stuff usually doesn't bother me that much, but could they make Doctor Light look a little bit Japanese?

Hyle Russell said...

I had to laugh at the tiny labels underneath each character: "Dr. Light... Starfire.... DONNA."

Nicholas Yankovec said...

I just can't believe the state of covers the big two have been putting out for years.

How could anybody think that cover would sell that comic to anybody who wasn't already intending to buy it? Sigh.

esteban138 said...

In all fairness: flying in that pose is completely in character for Starfire.

Also, Wolfman was incredibly creepy.

Earlofthercs said...

Melo's a woman, right? Does that make the pose more or less likely to be intentional comedy or would it have no baring in your estimation at all?

Inkwell Bookstore said...

I thought they were going for the 14-year-old boy's dream trifecta: Big boobs, costumed superheroes, and lit farts.

Siskoid said...

Superman flies like that because he has to punch out gravity.

Don't know how Starfire flies.