Sexy Batman: A Look At Sexual Representations of Men and Women in Batman Covers (Full Title)

The question has arisen recently over whither or not women are overly sexualized in comics, and in an effort to amass data to lend some insight into the matter, I decided I would do a series of blogs in which I analyze the last 25 years of comic book covers from a dozen of the most popular comics in the industry.

The way I approached this was by a point system. Whenever I would see an instance of one of the following elements within a comic book cover, I would mark a point under either male or female and then tally up the points. I would only mark points for major characters and I would not mark them if they appeared in the ledgers.

If the points fell in the range of 0-6, it was “Non-Sexual”. If it fell within the range of 7-13, it was “Sexual”. And if it fell within 14+ it was “Hyper-Sexual”.

The elements being tallied were as follows:

• Skin-Tight Costume (Uncovered)

• Exposed Shoulders/Neck/Arms

• Exposed Cleavage/Chest/Back

• Exposed Legs

• Exposed Midriff

• Leather Clothing/Corset/High-Heels/Collars/Fishnets

• Underwear/Thong/Bra/Panties/Trunks/Bikini/Lingerie

• Overly Muscular/Overly Curvy (Beyond normal human anatomy)

• Styled Hair/Make-Up

• Emphasized Buttocks/Thighs

• Emphasized Crotch/Breasts

• Arched Back/Tilted Hip

• Lying Down/Sitting/Straddling/Stretching-Out

• Seductive Eyes

• Pouty/Parted Lips (Not smiling, Grinning, Yelling, etc.)

• Touching Lips/Body Seductively

• Touching Other Seductively

• Cute Surprised Look/Orgasmic Look

• Washing Self/Wet/Sweaty

• Sexual Weaponry/Whips/Giant Guns/BDSM Gear

• Domination Themes/Strangulation/Bondage/Wrestling/Fetishism

Needless to say, when applied literally, these qualifications yielded unusual and startling results.

Quick Notes:

You can't judge a book by it's cover. Although a cover may only show Batman, for example, the pages within could show a dozen more sexualized representations of women than of men or vice versa. However, due to time and financial restraints, I decided just to focus on the covers.

I would also just like to say that sexiness isn't intrinsically a bad thing. It's only an issue when it's exploitative or teaches harmful ideas to impressionable readers. And that is why I feel it's important to write on it at such length.

Also I try to impart a little humor into the captions. They are meant to be taken lightly, so I ask you to try not to take offense.

And every picture used below, unless specified otherwise, was an example of either a Sexual or Hyper-Sexual comic cover.

The Results:

1987-1992

For the most part, this five year period was incredibly tame. The only occasions in which a comic would almost fall into the “Sexual” category was whenever Robin made an appearance (or, like in the example above, when his costume appeared twice.) It's difficult to fault the artists for giving him a sexy costume, though, since that has been his costume since his creation. However, they have a lot of explaining to do for KGB beast during the Ten Nights of the Beast, story-line...

This cover pre-dates a period in which homoerotic BDSM would become a prevalent and recurring theme.

1993-1995

Perhaps inspired by the 1992 film, Batman Returns, in which Catwoman was given heavy BDSM themes, and by the sudden wave of “extreme” 90s comic book art that was in vogue at the time, DC took a new direction with Batman by making his stories darker and grittier and introduced a new villain to Batman's rogue gallery, Bane (seen below), who they hoped would appeal to new audiences.

DC also hired Kelley Jones to do the artwork for Batman and Detective Comics. During his time on Batman and Detective Comics, Jones built his style around three common motifs: grotesque exaggerations of human anatomy, strangulation, and (mostly homoerotic) domination themes (as seen below):

(And just as a side-note, I included domination themes and strangulation before I laid eyes on his covers, not afterwords.) I will touch on those themes more during Sexy Batman Part II, in which I look at Detective Comics.

This period also had three (yes, just three) instances in which women were sexualized, all of which were pretty tame by today's standards (and even more-so by early 90s standards):

Gallery

1994-2002

With the exception of just a single issue (seen below), no covers in this time were categorized as either “Sexual” or “Hyper-Sexual”.

This is quite an amazing feat especially when one considers that in this time we saw the introduction of some of Batman and DC's most popular female characters, Oracle, The Huntress, and Batgirl (Cassandra Cain). I think that this can mostly be attributed to the influence of Batman: The Animated Series and the introduction of feminist favorite, Greg Rucka, to the series.

2003-Now

With Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee at the helm, Batman: Hush finally brought the amazing streak of equal, non-sexually exploitative imagery to it's inevitable end – and with a bang. This era saw the only two covers in the last 25 years labeled “Hyper-Sexual”, both of which involving women. (See above for one example.) In fact, this arc contained almost every appearance of a “Sexual” comic cover in last eight years.

Gallery

One thing that is striking, however, is that in the last few years with the increased appearances of Robins it seems as though men were actually starting to be depicted in ways that could appeal to women (unlike in previous years). Batman and the Robins genuinely look quite dashing and attractive. And their suits, though less revealing than in the 80s, make them look datable. It's no surprise that with so many cute boys and relatable female characters (The Birds of Prey, Batwoman, Cassandra Cain, and Stephanie Brown) Batman gained a sudden increase in young female readership.

Conclusion:

The last 25 years of Batman comics were more likely to show sexual images of men than of women. But, of course that would be the case given that Batman, being the titular character, appears on nearly every single cover (and roughly seven times out of ten was the only character featured on an issue). However, that being said, the only cases in which a cover was labeled Hyper-Sexual were when women appeared, suggesting that while the cases of male sexuality weren't intentional (or subconscious: looking at you Jones), the cases of female sexuality definitely were. In fact, a cover was much more likely to be labeled Sexual or Hyper-Sexual with a woman on the cover than with a man (except during Greg Rucka's run).

Full List of Comics Labeled Hyper-Sexual:

Batman #609

Batman #621

Full List of Comics Labeled Sexual:

Batman #419

Batman #456

Batman #470

Batman #479

Batman #489

Batman #495

Batman #497

Batman #498

Batman #500

Batman #503

Batman #504

Batman #568

Batman #611

Batman #612

Batman #613

Batman #620

Batman #654

Batman #657

Batman #713

Very Very VERY insightful Cosmo. I like this idea a lot. I look forward to Sexy Batman II.

Interesting facts about the sexual themes too.

Wow. That was excellent and very eye-opening. Very informative and thorough. Thanks for this.

I'm going to consider your blog a 14+ on the scale of blogginess. (so thought this was going to be about Kate Beaton though...)

@Hawkeye446: @lykopis: Wow. Thank you so much. I thought this blog might get overlooked. ^^;

@SC: Haha! :) Thanks :)

And it originally was going to include her, but I thought I would save that strip for the Detective Comics blog.

@cosmo111687 said:

@Hawkeye446: @lykopis: Wow. Thank you so much. I thought this blog might get overlooked. ^^;

No Problem. I was slightly hesitant at first but I saw what you were doing. That end part keeps getting me.

The last 25 years of Batman comics were more likely to show sexual images of men than of women. But, of course that would be the case given that Batman, being the titular character, appears on nearly every single cover (and roughly seven times out of ten was the only character featured on an issue). However, that being said, the only cases in which a cover was labeled Hyper-Sexual were when women appeared, suggesting that while the cases of male sexuality weren't intentional (or subconscious: looking at you Jones), the cases of female sexuality definitely were. In fact, a cover was much more likely to be labeled Sexual or Hyper-Sexual with a woman on the cover than with a man (except during Greg Rucka's run).

Utterly fascinating.

@cosmo111687 said:

@Hawkeye446: @lykopis: Wow. Thank you so much. I thought this blog might get overlooked. ^^;

A blog as well written and as in depth as this? No way. Very appreciated on my end.

@lykopis said:

@cosmo111687 said:

@Hawkeye446: @lykopis: Wow. Thank you so much. I thought this blog might get overlooked. ^^;

A blog as well written and as in depth as this? No way. Very appreciated on my end.

QFT

@cosmo111687: Not that I think your approach is without merit, but I want to point out that narrative context is far more important than tallying up the amount of skin being shown.

Interesting 

@fodigg: Sure. But I figured that it would just be best to gather data first, impartially, and then try to put it into context in my comments afterwards. Also, I felt that it was important to tally up how revealing the costume is because that's one of the major criticisms surrounding how women are represented in comics.

@cosmo111687 said:

@fodigg: Sure. But I figured that it would just be best to gather data first, impartially, and then try to put it into context in my comments afterwards. Also, I felt that it was important to tally up how revealing the costume is because that's one of the major criticisms surrounding how women are represented in comics.

Certainly, and I didn't mean to imply what you're doing is without merit or the wrong approach for this. I just wanted to point out that context is critical and it's hard to apply context to bald numbers like that. Just something to keep in mind for future installments I guess.

@fodigg: Any constructive feedback is welcomed. ^^ So thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely make more of an effort to put things in context, both in a narrative and cultural sense, with Part II. ^^

I always hated Kelly Jones covers,his description of the human anatomy was shockingly bad.

@entropy_aegis: He's probably my least favourite artist. I've delayed work on Part II for so long because it's actually quite an unpleasant experience dredging through and examining his artwork (that whole early 90s period was pretty grotesque, as far as the cover artwork was concerned.)

@cosmo111687 said:

@entropy_aegis: He's probably my least favourite artist. I've delayed work on Part II for so long because it's actually quite an unpleasant experience dredging through and examining his artwork (that whole early 90s period was pretty grotesque, as far as the cover artwork was concerned.)

Yeah but on the upside Batman still had pretty good interior artists in Norm Breygfogle,Graham Nolan and Jim Aparo(RIP).They're worth it.

This was extremely interesting and insightful! Looking forward to another retrospective like this :)

Ab. Solutely. BRILLIANT! You sir, are blogtastic. Brilliant work.