[AlexG]

UGH… it makes BIG MAX want to SMASH!  ;D

Actually, it should be:  BIG MAX wants to SMASH – and CRUSH them, too!  😉

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Prophet Tenebrae]

The problem with She-Hulk is, she has been pretty inconsistent.

First it was the sometimes angsty, mostly horribly cheesy Savage years… then she mellowed out in her time with the Avengers and Fantastic Four. Then Byrne got a hold of her and made her popular but probably made it impossible for the character to be thought of seriously and now we have Slott somewhere in between… and of course, generally her getting stronger means she's gone mental and/or fugly. Like "To Live And Die In LA" and "Search For She-Hulk" or "Avengers Disassembled"… although, her fight with the Champion of the Universe let her buff up… for a time at least.

All of this – combined with a general fanboy loathing of She-Hulk because "she's just a female hulk" – means that She-Hulk is probably never going to be the poster girl for buff superwomen… even if she is the most logical candidate, what with hulk being synonymous with big, green and muscular.

I think it's a tricky issue though. Inherently – as the Powergirl wrangling shows – as soon as you make a woman too buff, the fanboys instantly start the ol' "man with boobs" chants.

Perhaps you'd do best to start with a character, establish her ass kicking credentials and then gradually have her improve her physique or something… In much the same ways as Powergirl's breasts became bigger as time passed.

All in all, there's just no easy answer – there's an engrained disdain for muscular women and it would be hard to circumvent it.

[MaxxC]

I think we have Japanese cartoons and comics to blame for that.  One of Anime and Manga's Cardinal Rules is:  The Smaller, More Petite, and Kawaii/Cute It Is… The More Likely It Will Destroy The Planet.

I really believe there's validity in that. Two words come to mind: Little Washu. Not Strong or powerful, but so incredibly smart, she builds things that usually explode in a mushroom clouds destroying a mass of things.

Eiko I believe once threw a 30-50 foot robot in the first movie. <shrugs> She's cute but… yeah, no biceps.

Actually, it should be:  BIG MAX wants to SMASH – and CRUSH them, too!

*Grows to 250 feet and crushes said robot junk in frustration… GRRR!* Happy now Alex? 😀

But, there are notable exceptions like Jun in Iron Virgin Jun, Jun Fudou in Devilman Lady and most strong women in Go Nagai's work. Those are a couple star characters I can think of.

Most of the realistic and good strong women characters are secondary characters that complement the main character well as far as I know.

[Grandmaster]

All of what you say does have merit, as in regards to not treating the subject (genre?) purely as a fetish interest in the creative process.  However, that being said, when anyone does remove the sexualized fetish from the concept of femuscle, well – the appalling lack of expressed interest by those that should be supportive is nearly deafening.  This is especially apparent in story writing and to a lesser degree with certain types of the artworks posted here.  It’s almost as if the majority who do have an interest in the idea of strong, powerfully built women aren’t at all interested in a purely fantasy-fiction / adventure format, only ones that involves a powerful sexualization of the subject matter.

I didn't think I was the only who noticed this, but think I understand why it doesn't come up here. 😉

I'm curious to know if you think that whether or not one is more interested in muscle women sexually than heroically(?) has anything to do with what context that individual first comes across them. If the "first sighting" has a fetishistic/sexual connotation, do you think a person is more likely to gravitate to more of the same rather than anything "tamer" (which seems to be less common anyway)?

[AlexG]

I didn't think I was the only who noticed this, but think I understand why it doesn't come up here. 😉

I'm curious to know if you think that whether or not one is more interested in muscle women sexually than heroically(?) has anything to do with what context that individual first comes across them. If the "first sighting" has a fetishistic/sexual connotation, do you think a person is more likely to gravitate to more of the same rather than anything "tamer" (which seems to be less common anyway)?

Hard to say, but I think the age bracket of the given individual(s) has large element to do with it, especially with males (young and horny – Foreplay? Let's get on with it already! vs. a more mature understand about the relationships between men and women).  Today, thanks to the internet, the first sighting / contact of muscular women comes at a much earlier age then it did in the past – but also at a price of being much more removed and thus shallow, too, in character.  Instead of seeing them as living individuals with wills and personalities of their own, as would be the case with a real world encounter, they’re perceived as sexual objects.  Given this scenario, I think in general, most would gravitate toward sticking with "fetish as entertainment" over that of a broader interest.  Again, another factor you'd have to take into consideration is the growing decline in book reading by the general population – if you ain't exposed to it at an early age, you'll almost never acquire a taste for it.  This, is in part, why, with some very rare exceptions, you don't see the posting of novella (even rarer still, novel) length stories on the forums these days.

In the past, I would have said that there was a relative degree of balance between the two principle groups of people, i.e. those with a broader interest in the subject vs the sexual fetishist types.  Now, you don't see this, the scales have decidedly tipped in favor of the fetish over the broader interest.  This is, again, I think is a reflection of the current generation involved on-line, which is decidedly younger (in general as a group) then it was, say ten years ago.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Ashlee]

DC's Donner was part of a team, and the crappy Story lines , Hidding her a lot & making her a hardden lesbian did not help!
Its really the artist& editor who control the art, If they are not into Muscle women, they will do everything they can to avoid doing it!
It shame really , I enjoy comics a lot but last ten years its been a real bad Drought.

[00tree]

DC's Donner was part of a team, and the crappy Story lines , Hidding her a lot & making her a hardden lesbian did not help!
Its really the artist& editor who control the art, If they are not into Muscle women, they will do everything they can to avoid doing it!
It shame really , I enjoy comics a lot but last ten years its been a real bad Drought.

Agreed Donner was cool then they started to mess with her character and when they didn't get the Xina warrior princess responce they all but took her out of the comics. during the early 80's there where a lot more muscle girls in comics.  :- Oh I miss them so…

[Chuck]

Sounds to me like a time to an independent publisher…

Maybe Top Shelf will let a poor femuscle girl into their stable of cute characters and Alan Moore pornography projects?

[Ashlee]

Well I keep telling(Yelling) the artists here to submit to Overstreets White lighting productions, Just come up with a story !any story! sword and sandel,Medevil,slice of life and send it in!!There already Crappy artist getting there used nose tissues published from the WLP and Radio comixs!!

[David]

I liked Donner and Blitzen in Shadow Cabinet. Thought it was well written as well. Soooo they were a couple. Big deal. The stories were good and it being a team book they did get shunted to the side a lot. What hurt it was it was all in the seperate universe that DC tried to pull off. Overall there were some good ideas.
But good ideas don't make a big seller and women super heroes don't make leading books. They sell well but not overly so. What I see as a cop out is the constant strong woman as a skinny gal. There are artists who just don't get it that women with muscles look good. I think Terry Dodson is one of them. As good as he is he just doesn't draw it.
When a seriously popular artist starts drawing a leading women well built regularly it will become more popular. Slowly insidiously it will creep into the fan boy psyche as artists move to emulate him.

[Author]

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