Originally Posted by
I'm a Fish
Yeah, whenever there’s a really powerful female superhero in the room it always has to be debated if she’s the strongest one (that’s a comic-book troupe in general though, I suppose). I think the X-Men are the exception to this (Jean and Storm, obviously), but with in the Justice League anyone sharing the room with Superman is going to get compared to him. Same over at the Avengers with Thor and Hulk competing for top spot. (The MCU is different because they are actually pushing Wanda into that spot, but comic-book wise Wanda has had terrible luck ever since M-day.)
With Cheetah sitting next to Lex and Joker, there is no debate. You’d have to stick Lex in a suit for him to even stand a chance and even then it was build to fight Superman, not someone who can slash through kryptonian skin like paper. Plus, intellectually she’s no slouch either.
They tried hard to make Joker scarier in New52 with him wearing his own face, but that was clearly taking it to far. His instability is what makes him scary. Even the Harley Quinn show gets that right, even if he’s way more over-the-top with how often he kills. It can be harder to translate that into a comic than a movie or cartoon (since there’s no tone of voice) but plenty of stories have done it just fine.
But yes, I think doubling down on the deformed aspects of Cheetahs character design has helped her tremendously. She doesn’t look like a lady in body paint and a tail anymore. And I haven’t seen any terrible jobbing since. Like the jobbing is still there but she’s not getting K.O. by random street level characters anymore.
What I liked about Sharp’s drawing as well is her face would change from panel-to-panel and become more cat-like when she got angry. It just gave off this unnerving impression that her bone structure was constantly changing and that she was always experiencing some form of agony.