The Four Color Media Monitor

Men's Health published a history item about the changing physiques of superheroes over the years. Note though, that the focus here appears to be mainly on male superheroes, probably in tune with this being a men's magazine. In any case, they don't seem particularly admiring of the superhero physique of the past:

COMIC BOOK SUPERHEROES are immaculate physical specimens, generally seen with next to no body fat, chiseled muscles, and six-pack abs. And for years, to look "strong" and "superheroic," all anyone wanted was to look like these larger-than-life characters. There's one thing: all those characters, from Superman to Batman to Speedball and Nova, looked the same.

In recent years, thankfully, society has reevaluated at how strength and muscle actually look. And that's led to a shift in the comic landscape: superheroes now come in all shapes and sizes. Why this evolution? First and foremost, comics are an artist-driven medium, and new creators and their styles have influenced the art form. There have also been changing audiences, and shifting business models. As comic book readers became more diverse, so did the characters. Hollywood's influence also changed the way audiences saw daring do-gooders; Robert Downey Jr. has always played a perfect Tony Stark, and he didn't need bulging biceps to do it.

Oh, so in other words, they're advocating for mandating "realism" at the expense of escapist idealism. As is hinted, some artists have unfortunatley even sought to absurdly pander to PC advocates at the expense of what made them visually impressive in the first place, to say nothing of their core audiences. And since when didn't superheroes come in all shapes and sizes? There's alien and humanoid characters who were created for Marvel and DC alike, and if we were to bring the ladies into this subject, Starfire from New Teen Titans was an alien girl who was pretty tall, along with having golden skin. On which note, do they think it's great that her costume design was watered down, along with her assets in the past decade? Sadly, that's surely the case. I would also dispute that comics are foremost art-driven. What about the story and script? And I can't buy that readers were never that diverse, though to use that as an excuse to distort everything the most famous past creations were all about sure destroyed much of what made the work in the first place. Nor is it impressive they'd say Hollywood influence changed things for the better, if that's what they're doing. Mainly because it didn't lead to better sales for comics themselves.

When he first debuted in the pages of Action Comics #1 in 1938, Superman had more in common visually with Dick Tracy or Little Orphan Annie than the Man of Steel we know today. The artwork across the medium was less detailed and more cartoon-like, according to Alex Grand, author of Understanding Superhero Comic Books. Artists borrowed heavily from the style found in newspaper comic strips to illustrate the Kryptonian. This would also hold true for many superheroes who followed, including Batman, Aquaman, and Captain Marvel (now known as Shazam!). But while these characters were not made to look realistic, their body types were modeled after a specific group of real world people.

“Golden Age superheroes were often patterned on circus strongmen, and that barrel-chested physique was the norm,” Tim Hanley, a comic book historian and author of Not All Supermen: Sexism, Toxic Masculinity, and the Complex History of Superheroes says.

Gee, what's this? They're getting a quote from Hanley, who's been hostile to Israel, putting his respect for Siegel and Shuster under a question mark? Well that's what damages this whole article. Woke writers like Hanley have no business addressing a medium whose founding fathers were of Jewish background at all. Nor have they any business parroting the cliches of "toxic masculinity" which no doubt have been aimed at Siegel and Shuster too.

That aside, let us be clear. Even Marvel's Golden Age output was anything but realistic, and if it wasn't wrong for comic strips like Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie to be surreal, then you can't force DC/Marvel to be either. And back in the Golden Age, most artists may not have had the luxury of a publishing deadline that could accomodate their ability to do better art than what came later. So it's best not to complain. Though their superficial take on censorship in the 1950s is worthy of such a step:

The industry would soon be swept up in a backlash, though, spearheaded by German-American psychiatrist Frederic Wertham, as Vox found. His crusade against the medium resulted in book burnings, and the United States Senate held a subcommittee on the danger of comic books. 15 publishers went out of business the summer after the hearings.

This led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority (CCA) in 1954. Similar to the Motion Picture Association of America that rates movies, the CCA was the industry’s effort to regulate itself to ward off government interference. With the restrictions created by the Code, which hindered those darker crime and thriller comics that had become so popular, superheroes received renewed attention—but would undergo dramatic changes in the way they were drawn.

Given that censorship's made such a huge comeback over the past decade, this is pointless. It's hypocritical to raise the issue in past tense if you refuse to discuss it in its present forms, which has led to really bad changes for the worse.

Meanwhile, the depiction of physical strength would continue to become more refined. In the 1970s, Neal Adams would bring a new level of physical power to several characters, most notably Batman for DC Comics. His work would shape comic books well into the 1980s, when artists such as Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld would come onto the scene and blow everything out of proportion—literally. In the decade that followed, superheroes became super-jacked. Muscles on top of muscles. Bodies became ridiculously huge, heads became smaller, and tendons and veins popped through skin-tight clothing.

“I call [the 1990s] the Extreme Age,” Grand says. “Artists really started taking anatomy to these extreme levels. The shoulders, the pecs, they were gargantuan.”

This became the dominant style in comic books. After the turn of the millennium, though, that excess began to reverse. Lee returned to DC Comics with a toned-down approach to superheroes, Hanley notes. The inflated sense of physical power in these characters became more grounded in reality. One driving force behind this shift may relate to the marriage between comic books and Hollywood.

Again, the awful Hanley's mentioned, huh? Hence, credence is ruined again. In any event, what's this about "excess"? Guess they don't think men with big muscles or even women with hot bods are the wonderful thing they could be in terms of idealism, hence, the article sounds pretty lacking in objectivity when it comes to artistic freedom and creative license. And wow, no objectivity when Liefeld's brought up either. What good did he do for the medium with his ghastly drawing of anatomies and derivative styles? Practically none. Although it's the publishers/editors who have the shoulder the main blame for hiring him in the first place.

Superman and Batman had long been seen in hit live-action feature films, but studio efforts to replicate that same success with other characters had been few and far between. Then Professor Xavier and his X-Men appeared on the big screen in 2000, and that film’s success ushered in a new era of comic book movies. Eight years later, Iron Man became a runaway hit that spawned the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These films created new fans, many of whom never read the source material. Comic books needed to feel more relatable to these new fans; they needed to seem more cinematic. The characters in the comics themselves continued to evolve, looking more and more like their on-screen counterparts.

And if that's the only way the artists were allowed to draw them, isn't that problematic? The part about new fans not reading the source material could be telling too, especially if even long after the films came out, they still didn't. And if they did, would it be the awful brand new material post-2000? The writer of this puff piece is also oblivious to what Sean Howe argued - that making comics look like "cool" movies is a recipe for failure. And it is. It only insults the moviegoer's intellects, giving the vibe the publishers actually believe moviegoers can't get used to differences between source material and adaptation, or recognize such a thing as creative license exists from page to screen. Also, since when weren't past superhero tales "relatable"?

That’s not to say the oversized muscles or grandiose artistic styles completely vanished, but the trends leaned more towards realism than hyperrealism. “It's a good mix of wild stuff, and stuff that’s more toned down,” Robert Gill, who works on Marvel Comics’s X-Force, says. He notes that as an artist, he strives to understand what’s real, and how bodies move, but also wants to add his own perspective and style to the characters. “There’s an art side of you that says, ‘How can I stylize it? Can I stretch the muscles, and kind of go wild on proportions?’ You want to put your own interpretation on it.”

Well unfortunately, women have surely suffered even worse than men when it comes to creative freedom and license. Breast physics, at least in the past decade, were restricted, or worse, made to look like they weren't even there, which made the ladies look horrific. It was virtually humiliating and hurtful to women. And yes, I'm sure even men weren't immune to the most awful steps backwards.

There’s also been a significant shift in how comic book producers see their readers. In the past, the general belief was that comic book fans were stereotypically young, white teenage boys. This isn’t the case now. Statistics suggest men are still the largest purveyors of comics, but at least a third of overall readers are women. In addition, the audience has expanded to include people from a range of racial backgrounds.

And this is just more leaning towards political correctness. I don't think the boy audience was solely white in the past, nor solely male. What I do think is that some pathetic propagandists are so lacking in confidence, to say nothing of respect for the classic writers and artists up to the turn of the century, that they can't keep themselves from perpetuating this ludicrous mishmash. By the way, what's so wrong with marketing stories foremost for boys?

Superman and Batman were among the earliest and most iconic comic book superheroes to exist—and made their place in popular culture as symbols of strength and power. Their physical depictions were crafted to echo that idea. But new schools of thinking sparked change; superheroes stopped being defined merely by their physical strength. This opened the door to new kinds of heroes with various types of bodies. Now, as comic books are reaching new and more diverse readers, the superhero landscape continues to expand. Artists are bringing new texture and detail to the art form as they craft a wide spectrum of heroes big and small.

Umm, I don't think Batman was ever defined solely by his physical strength, since it was established in the past he'd trained and used his mind in many cases for solving crimes. Even Superman did. And the part about "more diverse" readers is again, little more than code for left-wing ideologues who can't appreciate how things were done in the past. That's not to say mistakes weren't made decades before artistically. But modern leftism can't make any distinctions, and has only led to laughable ruin.

And of course, these fools can't even admire the escapist themes the past superhero fare was built upon, nor make clear most women reading comics by and large aren't interested in superhero fare, mainly because the merit's gone down. All Men's Health has done is produce yet another puff piece that doesn't give much to think about at all.

Labels: censorship issues, dc comics, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, science