Quote of the Week: Necessary Attributes

"There was no doubt, I wanted to explain, that boobs were a big part -- literally -- of the female superhero package. Almost every superwoman apart from explicitly adolescent characters such as the original Supergirl or the X-Men's Kitty Pryde came equipped, as if by the nature of the job, with a superheroic rack. Furthermore, the usual way of a female superhero costume was to advertise the breasts of its wearer by means of decolletage, a cleavage cutout, a pair of metal Valkyrie cones, a bustier. In their unitards and tights, all comic book superheroes, male or female, are fundamentally tinted naked people, and this convenient fact has often tempted the (overwhelmingly male) anatomists of costumed heroes to let themselves get a tad carried away in carving the figureheads, as it were, of their dreamboats. Back in the early pre-Comics Code days, there had been a popular subgenre known as headlight comics, complete with its own genius, the mysterious African-American artist Matt Baker, whose lyrical mapping of Phantom Lady's planetary system continue to this day to haunt the fantasy life of some grey-haired old boys of the fifties. Today's female costumed characters tend to sport breasts so enormous that their ability to simply get up and walk, let alone kick telekinetic ass, would appear to be their most marvelous and improbable talent."
- Michael Chabon, "Surefire Lines," pp.226-227 in Manhood for Amateurs