![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sana "Heroes for Hentai" Takeda will be handling art duties on Ms. Marvel from #39, until I don't know when. At least #44 according to the previews. Check out this preview for #39, and the two covers under the cut. ( Read more... )I've kept up with this book despite the myriad dropped characters and plots, and even through the 'death' of the title character, and its being handed over to Karla "Moonstone" Soffen, because Carol is one of my favourite characters. (For those of you out of the know, Karla is the one in the red and blue costume woman-handling Carol). But honestly guys? I don't know if I can stomach Takeda's art. I don't want to read a superhero comic about Evil Malibu Barbie enacting violent, hentai fantasies on Good Malibu Barbie.
Superhero comics have a long history of cheesecake and sexualized violence. This is not news. It's also not news that many creators have also worked on sexually explicit, and fetish comics. That's part and parcel of the whole 'power fantasy' thing, I suppose. But even with all the bondage that was going on in Marston's Wonder Woman, and all the ass shots in Benes' Birds of Prey, I still felt that the characters were heroes.
Sana Takeda's art does not sell me on the heroism (or villainy) of her characters. Instead, it leaves me feeling like someone's substituted a Marvel comic for a hentai doujinshi. "Let's see if she notices!"
And what did I notice? Let's break this down.
- Carol's impossibly arched spine
- the chain that drapes artistically across her throat
- Carol and Karla's salon-perfect, wind swept hair
- their soft, delicate seeming skin and lack of developed musculature
- the boobs: Karl's sporting boob socks; Carol has orange halves strapped to her chest
- the ridiculously high-cut, thongs - do neither have genitalia?
- their expressions: Karla all come hither; Carol bordering on O-face
- the Dark Avengers in the background of the first cover: their comparatively undetailed rendering; their bulging roidly muscles; the Sentry's almost Neanderthalic face; their positioning around Karla and Carol all but screams Rape Tiem!
- Carol's pose in the second cover: arms and legs splayed; her heavily made up eyes closed; her lips parted; Karla's foot pushing her head back. It's almost like a Land porn lift.
So to sum up: Sana Takeda should not be working on superhero comics. Rather than the suggestion of sex and sexiness that other artists impart, her work is all sex, all hentai. No power.
This is absolutely not what I'm looking for in a superhero comic. Hell, at the end of the day I don't think it's what most men are looking for in superhero comics. Most of the superhero titles I read center on female characters, and/or have strong female characters as part of the supporting cast. That kind of book was already harder to find than it should have been, but the raft of cancellations and implosions early this year, means that I'm reading even fewer. Even the books that by all rights should be happy-making suffer from marketing ineptitude. Porntastic covers. "Sudsy fun." The recently revealed character designs for Marvel Divas make it clear that this book is Not As Advertised. How did Marvel get from this adorable vespa-riding Firestar to this monstrosity. "Sudsy fun," guys? Really?
But I'm losing my point, which is basically this: Sana Takeda - out of my fandom! And take the Divas cover with you.
Superhero comics have a long history of cheesecake and sexualized violence. This is not news. It's also not news that many creators have also worked on sexually explicit, and fetish comics. That's part and parcel of the whole 'power fantasy' thing, I suppose. But even with all the bondage that was going on in Marston's Wonder Woman, and all the ass shots in Benes' Birds of Prey, I still felt that the characters were heroes.
Sana Takeda's art does not sell me on the heroism (or villainy) of her characters. Instead, it leaves me feeling like someone's substituted a Marvel comic for a hentai doujinshi. "Let's see if she notices!"
And what did I notice? Let's break this down.
- Carol's impossibly arched spine
- the chain that drapes artistically across her throat
- Carol and Karla's salon-perfect, wind swept hair
- their soft, delicate seeming skin and lack of developed musculature
- the boobs: Karl's sporting boob socks; Carol has orange halves strapped to her chest
- the ridiculously high-cut, thongs - do neither have genitalia?
- their expressions: Karla all come hither; Carol bordering on O-face
- the Dark Avengers in the background of the first cover: their comparatively undetailed rendering; their bulging roidly muscles; the Sentry's almost Neanderthalic face; their positioning around Karla and Carol all but screams Rape Tiem!
- Carol's pose in the second cover: arms and legs splayed; her heavily made up eyes closed; her lips parted; Karla's foot pushing her head back. It's almost like a Land porn lift.
So to sum up: Sana Takeda should not be working on superhero comics. Rather than the suggestion of sex and sexiness that other artists impart, her work is all sex, all hentai. No power.
This is absolutely not what I'm looking for in a superhero comic. Hell, at the end of the day I don't think it's what most men are looking for in superhero comics. Most of the superhero titles I read center on female characters, and/or have strong female characters as part of the supporting cast. That kind of book was already harder to find than it should have been, but the raft of cancellations and implosions early this year, means that I'm reading even fewer. Even the books that by all rights should be happy-making suffer from marketing ineptitude. Porntastic covers. "Sudsy fun." The recently revealed character designs for Marvel Divas make it clear that this book is Not As Advertised. How did Marvel get from this adorable vespa-riding Firestar to this monstrosity. "Sudsy fun," guys? Really?
But I'm losing my point, which is basically this: Sana Takeda - out of my fandom! And take the Divas cover with you.