Over the summer, it was announced that Tony Stark’s metal suited descendent would be a MIT student by the name of Riri Williams. Dubbed Ironheart, Riri will be taking over for Tony after the events of Civil War part two. She’s black. She’s smart. She’s black. She’s inventive. She’s black.
Did I mention that’s she’s black?
Underneath the excitement with the announcement of Ironman’s predecessor being a hyper-intelligent black female, people were waiting patiently for Marvel to somehow f*ck it up.
And f*ck it up they did.
For the uninformed, whenever a new comic book is in development different, variant cover art is released for the first issue of the comic, showcasing a myriad of different art styles from various artists. This was one of the ones released by Midtown Comics, done by an artist by the name of J. Scott Campbell.
Nothing unlike most comic book covers, right? What if you knew that Riri Williams was only fifteen years old?
Yeah, this cover got a bit creepier, didn’t it?
Yes siree Bob, Ms. Williams is only 15-years-old in the comics. How many 15 year olds did you know that are trussed up in leather low risers and a crop top?
Needless to say, fans were not happy. Who knew that the blatant sexualization of underage girls would be met with such controversy?
Thankfully, this cover has been pulled from shelves and Marvel has released much more age-appropriate interior illustrations of Marvel’s newest heroine from artist Stefano Caselli.
The internal art, which is much closer to how the accurate to how the character will be portrayed in most incarnations, is drastically different than the sexed up cover.
Now, to be fair, the artist of the controversial cover was known for his very sexualized, pin up style of art and did tone it down drastically from his usual works.
Which begs the question of why Marvel would choose him to do the cover art for an underage character? And why make the cover look so drastic from how the character actually looks?
Jill Pantozzi, former editor-in-chief for the Mary Sue website, summed it up best.
“…you don’t see variant covers like this on Ms. Marvel. That probably has a lot to do with editor Sana Amanat who has a strong idea of who that character and her audience is…They don’t need a teenage character sexualized into order to lure them into buying the book and they, hopefully, won’t be offended if there’s a lack of sexualized characters because they’re there for the quality story and art, right? But Marvel and others do need to make sure other readers (read: women, new readers, etc.) aren’t actively turned off from buying it.”
While there is a demographic for sexed-up comic book heroines, faithful comic book fans certainly don’t need boobies flopping out in order to generate comic sales. So why make the covers so overtly sexual to begin with? On one side of the argument, these images can be potentially empowering, portraying powerful, emotionally complex women being overtly sexual. But the key word is potentially.
The majority of comic book artists are men and these sexy women are made with the male gaze in mind.
And whether you find that to be a problem or not, we can all agree that underage girls should not be sexualized at any costs.
Speaking as a former 15-year-old girl, you learn that along with awkward hair and blood pouring out of new areas, that men start to look at you in a new way. Girls have had enough of being treated like sexual objects for male consumption. Now we cannot pretend 15 year olds don’t know about sex but instead of exploiting their budding sexuality, educate them on it. Don’t sex up minors and justify it with sex positivity.
It’s creepy.
No one should find a 15-year-old sexy. Ever.
If they’re too young to consent, they’re too young to be jerkoff material.
End of story.