Tight

So, you know how it is when you're a long time male comics geek. You've grown up with these costumes, and you don't really even notice them much any more. Well, sure, you notice them... Black Canary and Zatanna look damn fine in those fish nets, absolutely, you notice that... and maybe, when it gets a little bit extreme, like, you know, those shell casings that the Valkyrie wears over her massive boobolas, you kind of go "what the fuck?"

But, for the most part, you just move on by it. Costumes that look like someone spray painted them onto the chick wearing them, check. Martial artists launching themselves across rooftops into deadly combat while wearing stiletto heels, check. Impossibly tight tops with impossibly deep V cuts, check. Whatever the hell that thing is that Wonder Woman never quite falls out of... check.

It's all, as a guy named Bigelow once noted in an entirely different context, part of the show.

Yet even the most jaded eye sometimes... blinks.

So I go to the comics shop last week and I pick up a copy of the freebie ad rag Marvel puts out and I'm glancing over the cover. Mmmm hm, Ultimates Cap [retching noises]. Okay, that must be the Ultimates Sue Storm. I don't understand the gloves, but fine, let's move on by. And underneath there's some of those weird Strazynski grim n' gritty Squadron Supreme guys... you know, like, the Ultimates Squadron Supreme. And there's Hyperion, and the Blur, and...

Whoa. Who's the skank?

It's moments like this that rivet the eye, that glaze the consciousness, that freeze the thought process. You see something like that, and even if you're an old timer like me, who doesn't even blink at what an Asgardian sorceress puts on to fight the Avengers in, still...

You pause.

And when your brain can function again, the first... nay, True Believer, the only thought in it is...

Holy shit, what is she thinking?

I mean, please. I do not know who this character is, what her name is, what her powers are, but honest to Christ -- what woman, living or dead, real or imaginary, has ever said to herself:

"Say, it's time to fight evil -- where's my bustier?"

I really don't know anything about her, but I'm going to take a guess that her powers include telekinesis. Or the ability to project mental illusions. Otherwise, there's no way that thing is staying up.

TK or mental illusions are about the only plausible explanations for how she gets into those pants, too.

Okay. Maybe she figures she'll distract all the villains with the outfit. But if she's a member of a superhero team, you've got to figure her male teammates are all running into walls and chimneys whenever she's along on a mission, too. Even the gay male teammates. Because they're all going "DAY am that's a tacky outfit" and "Good Lord, isn't she cold?"