Over at Comics Alliance, Laura Hudson explains some of the Power Girl back story:

It's hardly breaking news that there have been complaints over the years about both the ample assets of DC superheroine Power Girl and her costume — specifically the oval cutout that sits directly over her cleavage. Some female readers have taken issue with the high cheesecake factor, some writers have tried to explain the costume in a way that makes it more than eye candy, but overall it pretty much is what it is (boobs).

Now Esther Inglis-Arkell at 4th Letter has pointed out something a bit new: A scene in the recent "JSA 80-Page Giant" #1 (scripted by female author Jen Van Meter) where Power Girl actually appears to lecture female readers for complaining about her costume. [...]

You know what, Jen Van Meter? Go write an op-ed. I'm not even being sarcastic. You're entitled to your opinion about Power Girl's costume, and if you'd like to explain to the female readership about how they're totally misunderstanding the personal empowerment and meaningful symbolism offered by the cleavage window, then I would be very interested in reading about that.

But quite sincerely: Do not lecture me when I'm in the middle of reading a superhero comic about why you think I'm reading it wrong. Or at the very least, write a scene well enough so I don't feel like you're lecturing me, because there are few things more disruptive to a narrative experience that watching the writer peek around the curtain and set up a teleprompter for the characters.

In Inglis-Arkell's own words:

Wow, I've never read about many female characters giving her a hard time in the comics . . . oh. Oh. That was meta. The ‘most women' comment. The character looking out at us from the panel. This is a little speech given to the women who, for some crazy reason, criticize Peej's uniform. [...]

Are you kidding me? I'm getting an ‘I choose my choice' speech from a fictional character? Feminist fans are getting a slap because they won't accept one bullshit excuse after another for why male heroes are mostly fully-clothed and female heroes mostly walk around in their underwear?

Let me make this clear: No matter how many times you have the female characters talk about how they decided on their outfits, they are still fictional characters. These aren't women who have decided on what they want to wear for reasons of their own. These are characters who are dressed as playboy bunnies because a bunch of creators decided to dress them that way for fun and profit.

Ragnell, over at Written World actually likes the costume - but notes that liking is different from bad justification:

That said? I like Power Girl's cut-out ("boob window") costume. It was stylish when she was introduced, and now it's retro. It's actually very classic looking and when originally designed it was actually pretty classy looking too. The design is just plain good. The design is actually great, I'd say. I'd wear it if I could pull off white myself.

That's why they keep going back to it, because it's a good basic costume and as it was originally just a small cut-out on an invulnerable character it's not inherently lewd/impractical. (Unlike the midriff-baring Huntress, or the monstrosity Carol Ferris is parading around in—though my hat's off to Mahnke for making it less eyesearing.) All the attempts to change it have had her going to worse costumes. (The one with the normal neckline actually tends to show even MORE boob than the cut-out.) And it doesn't need a reason any more than she liked the look better than any emblem she tried to put there, and now she's just used to it. Anything beyond that is downright insulting, like you're trying to fool us into thinking there's something inherently empowering about baring your breasts. There isn't.

Ragnell refers to the original costume, which looked more like this:

However, as Hudson points out at Comics Alliance, the modern interpretations of her costume look more like this:

And while most people definitely understand the over used mantra of "sex sells," Hudson lays a few nails into that coffin, in response to a commenter who points out that Van Meter is getting a pass on using sexualized images in the first place:

My problem with this is that the scene comes off as contrived, condescending, and an attempt to spin cheesecake into feminine liberation, when in fact it is BOOBS.

I don't mind people selling sex if you call it selling sex, but don't pretend that you're not doing it, and certainly don't turn it into a lecture on third-wave feminism.

Power Girl [Wikipedia]
Power Girl Lectures Women for Complaining About Her Costume [Comics Alliance]
Comics, Etc. [Cheesecake and the Art of the Pin-Up]
Okay. Now I'm Getting Mad. [4th Letter]
On the Power Girl Cut-Out Costume [Written World]

The issue, which CNN reports will arrive at comic book stores in August, features Archie proposing to Veronica in a jewelry store and will reveal what happens to Archie and company after they graduate college.

Veronica already blogged about the proposal, saying:

I am so excited, I am getting married to Archie. There is so much to do, so many plans to make. I wonder if Betty wants to be my Maid of Honor? I bet she is so happy for me!

No such luck, Veronica. Betty posted on her blog:

I am so sad, I don't even know what to say.

At first glance Betty, who is described in her online profile as, "completely unaffected, loyal and sweet," seems like the more logical choice compared to Veronica, who is, "very conceited, usually fickle, and extremely flirtatious." But in addition to surveys that indicate more billionaires have brown-haired wives, and most men would rather marry a brunette, a look back through the annals of pop culture shows that the sassy, dark-haired girl is more likely to come out on top than the boring, blonde girl-next-door.

Allow us to illustrate with the highly scientific study below:

Marissa Cooper vs. Summer Roberts
Summer: Sassy brunette marries Seth in series finale. Moves on to feature films.
Marissa: Blonde girl-next-door dies in a fiery car crash at the end of season three. Will appear in yet another CW series premiering this fall.

Point: Brunette.

Gabriella Montez vs. Sharpay Evans
Gabriella: Gets Zac Efron in High School Musical and real life.
Sharpay: Consistently humiliated in song. Ends up on cover of this week's OK! talking about her decision to dye her hair brown.

Even when the roles are reversed and the blonde is the bitch, the brunette still triumphs. Point: Brunette.

Lauren Conrad vs. Audrina Patridge
Lauren: Leaves The Hills, fashion line cancelled.
Audrina: Gets bigger role on The Hills, is dating Chris Pine (a.k.a. the new Captain Kirk).

Point: Brunette

Joey Potter vs. Jen Lindley
Joey: Loses boy, gets boy, dumps boy for his best friend, people stop watching Dawson's Creek when she goes to college, ultimately chooses sassy brown-haired boy and moves to New York.
Jen: Dies in final episode.

Dawson's Creek blurs the blonde vs. brunette sterotypes, making this a hard call. Jen lives next door to Dawson and is blonde, but she's a bitchy sexpot too. Joey is more of a "good girl," yet she is also sassy. Taking Dawson vs. Pacey into account as a tie breaker, in both scenarios the brunette gets the guy/girl. Point: Brunette.

Serena van der Woodsen vs. Blair Waldorf

Feud still in progress: Disqualified.

Tina Fey vs. Amy Pohler

Also disqualified, based on mutual awesomeness.

Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie
Angelina: Won an Oscar. Has six absurdly cute children. Is either happily married to Brad Pitt, feuding with Brad Pitt, pregnant with Brad Pitt's baby, or some combination of all three.
Aniston: Dated and broke up with John Mayer. Marley and Me was a box office hit and earned more than Angelina's Oscar-nominated film The Changeling. But, she's also so lonely.

Point: Brunette.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck vs. Rosie O'Donnell
Elisabeth: Ongoing feud with Rosie culminates in split-screen argument on The View. Survives to argue her conservative points another day.
Rosie: Said the right-wing media portrayed her as a bully attacking "innocent pure Christian Elisabeth." Broke her contract to leave The View.

Technically, Elisabeth wins, but she loses a point on grounds of general obnoxiousness. Tie.

Luke Skywalker vs. Han Solo
Luke: Becomes a Jedi, tries to kill his dad. Loses girl on account of incest.
Han: Completed the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. Survives being frozen in carbonite. Gets the girl on account of being a scoundrel.

Point: Brunette.

While many have viewed Veronica and Archie's engagement as yet another triumph for the dark-haired, is marrying Archie really much of a prize? It's taken the man 67 years to graduate from high school. Plus, he stupidly ignored Dylan McKay's advice that picking either girl would just lead to trouble. Why were Betty and Veronica sitting around and waiting for Archie to pop the question anyway? The New York Times points out that the issue in which Archie asks Veronica to marry him is only the first part of a six-part-story, so presumably anything could happen. Hopefully both Betty and Veronica will come to their senses and reject Archie, and the widespread, idiotic notion that their personalities should match their hair color. As for Archie, there's always his third love interest, Cheryl Blossom, the redhead.

Comic Suspense: Archie Andrews Pops Question [CNN]
Archie Makes His Choice (Or Does He?) [The New York Times]

Earlier: Want To Marry A Billionaire? Be A Brunette
The Marrying Kind
An Open Letter To Archie Andrews From Dylan McKay

"This project has been like a dream come true for me as a writer and as a former graphic designer," says Butler of the series, "not only am I adapting a book I love, I am doing it in the one forum, comics, where words and pictures carry equal weight." [Marvel]

[Image via Bronette]

Earlier: An Excerpt From Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

"The idea behind the series was to have some sudsy fun and lift the curtain a bit and take a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines," says Marvel's Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, "In the series, they're an unlikely foursome of friends–Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar, and Photon–with TWO things in common: They're all leading double-lives and they're all having romantic trouble. The pitch started as "Sex and the City" in the Marvel Universe, and there's definitely that "naughty" element to it, but I also think the series is doing to a deeper place, asking question about what it means…truly means…to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.) But mostly it's just a lot of hot fun."

Oh, awesome! Now I can find the same stupid Carrie Bradshaw bullshit that has invaded every aspect of my life from television to magazines to the internet since 2000 in a comic book, too! Because I don't care about how awesome superheroines are when they're out kicking ass! I just want to know what they're like when they're having some hot sudsy fun and talking about shoes and boys!

Can we just stop for a minute and call shenanigans on this, please? Do you think there's a series in development that features Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker just chillin' at the Applebee's, shooting the shit about a Mets game and calling each other bro? No. And do you know why? Because it would be BORING. Just like a bunch of superheroines bitching about their love lives and waiting around for Mr. Big. The only people who are going to get excited about this series are those who want to see the "hot sudsy fun."

If this is Marvel's attempt at drawing in a female fan base, they are missing the mark , as these Robot 6 commenters prove:

Jennifer de Guzman
April 9, 2009 at 3:26 pm

I've been trying for years to get my waist be roughly 2/3 the circumference of my thighs! And to find friends whose measurements are exactly the same as mine so we can share latex costumes! And no matter how many doctors I ask, none will agree to break my feet and realign them so they're perpetually in the much-coveted "wearing stiletto f-me shoes" shape. What is these ladies' secret?!

Obviously, it's something to do with what it "means… truly means…to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns." I, on the other hand, am a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and convention hot dogs, so I'm not so lucky.

Amy
April 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm

What the hell is wrong with these people? Let's just parse that little paragraph. So, for women characters to have an active sex life, they are "naughty." And they supposedly want to really, truely explore what it means to be a woman in a male dominated industry, but at the same time it's going to be "good hot fun"? Good, hot fun for whom exactly? The (most likely) all male writing and art staff? The all male comic fanboys this series is aimed at?

Apparently these folks have not grasped the inherent contradiction between really, truly exploring what it would actually be like to be a woman hero in a testosterone and violence dominated world AND still titillating the male audience. You can't have your cake and eat it too, boys. To really explore what it would be like to be a woman in this situation, you would have to acknowledge the essential sexism and misogyny in the comics field. And we can't harsh the fanboy libido with that kind of thing, now, can we?

The closest thing I (as a newbie) have seen to seriously confronting these issues is the series "Alias," and even that was written by a man and had some really skeevy elements. Try getting a woman's creative opinion, here, boys, if you're so "serious" about addressing these issues.

Really, Marvel, is this your plan to bring in more female readers? Because this female newbie comic fan feels like running screaming into the night and never giving another dollar to this industry.

R.
April 9, 2009 at 7:37 pm

Wow, this is in fact an excellent example of women in a male-dominated industry: marginalized, defined by their sex lives (defined as "naughty" no less), and the only reason their stories are told are as an excuse to titillate men. Well done. I couldn't have summed it up better myself.

Throw in a pink cover. All girls like pink. Make sure you pose the women as sexy as possible, because that's totally necessary for a female audience. Oh, and the characters should talk about shoes a lot; women LOVE shoes. Also, keep in mind that when women hang out together, we ALWAYS wear skimpy nighties, CONSTANTLY touch each other, and ALL of our conversations revolve around men. Especially if we're, you know, crime-fighters who're giving up a lot of their lives to do this thankless job. Women don't talk about serious stuff.

Bonus points for bubble baths or pillow fights.

Can we just get a comic book featuring these three, please? Because these are the kind of kickass ladies worth reading about.

Sex And The Single Marvel Heroine [Robot 6]

Interviewer Judy Berman bills the book, The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, as an alternative to the same old diet books "by steely personal trainers and smug, tanned nutritionists." But Lay doesn't sound all that different from any other diet guru when she says,

I saw a photograph of myself, looking apparently happy. But I saw that, "Wow, I'm overweight, and I'm tired of doing this to myself." I make the suggestion, "Get yourself photographed." Cameras are much better tools than mirrors. I've got my mirror trained to show me exactly what I want. The camera is out of my control.

She may be be using a new form, but she's trotting out some of the same platitudes that have been pissing us off for years — that you can't really be happy if you're "fat", and that your motivation for losing weight should be looks rather than health. Lay also says,

I used to be a very angry, negative person, and I put a lot of that into my work. Umpteen years ago, in the strip, I was blowing up the world every month or so. These were funny little fantasies. But I lost interest in that as I started shedding my negativity and anger. That period coincided with understanding myself and losing the weight.

We're glad Lay is feeling better, but, as is so often the case with people who discover inner peace, it sounds like she was a lot more fun before. "Shedding your negativity and anger" may not be the best way to make funny comics. Luckily, with the world as it is right now, these qualities aren't in short supply.

This comic book can make you thin! [Salon]

A recent study has found that keeping an active mind with activities like crosswords can prevent dementia. My grandma will be thrilled! • A group of brides are super pissed at a shop owner who went out of business and never supplied them with their dresses or a refund. • Venus Williams is set to write an inspirational book for HarperCollins about memorable advice her coach once gave her. Wasn't her father her coach? And wasn't he kind of an asshole? • A 33-year-old man in Michigan was caught trying to meet with a 14-year-old girl for sex wearing a "World's Greatest Dad" t-shirt. Irony or social statement? • Authorities have found thousands of marijuana plants being grown in a remote part of a Girl Scout camp in Indiana. Thousands of "badge for pot farming" jokes coming to a blog near you!

Simone got the Wonder Woman gig after starting a website, Women In Refrigerators, devoted to chronicling the misogynistic treatment experienced by many female superheroes. "These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator," Ms. Simone writes on her site's homepage. "Some have been revived, even improved — although the question remains as to why they were thrown in the wood chipper in the first place."

Some examples of humiliated superheroines from WIR include Christine Helvin of Troublemakers who was the victim of date rape and then discovered she was sterile because she was no longer human (what?!?); Shrinking Violet, who lost a leg; and perhaps worst of all, a character called Ms. Marvel I aka Warbird, who was, in the words of Ms. Simone, "mind-controlled, impregnated by rape, powers and memories stolen, cosmic-powered then depowered, alcoholic - SHEESH!"

It's safe to say that Wonder Woman will avoid such indignities at the hands of Ms. Simone and novelist Jodi Picoult, who, earlier this month, published a five-part Wonder Woman storyline involving Wonder Woman's "people", the Amazons, engineering an attack on the United States. Something tells us this version of Wonder Women is interested in more than hot pants.

Wonder Woman Gets a New Voice, And It's Female [New York Times]
Women In Refrigerators [Unheard Taunts]