It is covers like those that make checking solicits at work particularly nerve racking for fear of being seen browsing past such a cover without context.
It's the Dynamic Duo! Batman and Robin!... and Red Robin and Red Hood and Nightwing and Batwoman and Batgirl and Orphan and Spoiler and Bluebird and Lark and Gotham Girl and Talon and Batwing and Huntress and Azreal and Flamebird and Batcow?
Since when could just anybody do what we trained to do? It makes it all dumb instead of special. Like it doesn't matter anymore.
-Dick Grayson (Batman Inc.)
Well, even though it's not Adam Hughes, there is an audience. I'm not going to lie, I bought Deathstroke Inc. 1 for a reason...
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I think being sexless and being horny are largely unrelated.
Comics back in the day were just horny in a shallow, pandering way. Sex wasn't treated as something normal, but instead as a way to entice the reader.
Modern comics portray sex in a more healthy and positive manner.
Keep in mind that you have about as much chance of changing my mind as I do of changing yours.
The cover felt like it was channeling Adam Hughes so on that level I think it works.
I think quite the opposite.
Sexuality was dealt with with more serious hand in days of yore or just not dealt with at all. In modern post-CCA days, its a punchline. Serious relationships are rare to find. In some ways it's great that sexual freedom has its place but in other ways it feels more like just a pandering move.
* discussion might deserve a thread of its own. Over in Xbooks there's a whole branch of discussion about Storm being shown waking up naked imbed with a character she's only been shown going on one date with*
Protected by the Comics Code Authority
YES Capes. YES Masks. YES Secret Identities.
I don't think we are speaking about serious relationships.
In the past, characters were sexualized a lot to entince the (horny) readers, while the characters don't really have or deal with sex. That isn't a serious way to handle the topic.
Now, characters being promiscuos isn't really pandering. The pandering only happens if the artist takes the opportunity to oversexualize the character.
The sales for the Birds of Prey comic seems to be pretty good:
In october 2023, its position was 15 in ICv2 ranking. Now, this isn't necessarily a reliable source, but it's pretty good Birds of Prey is so high.
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/vi...s-october-2023
Depends on the time I think. In the 90's to the 2000's sure you had a lot of overly sexualized characters and lots of hookups of no substance but I think generally speaking comics used to play up on the soap opera aspect of relationship even more than they do now. It used to be fun figuring out the romances, love triangles, unrequited feelings etc but outside of the Krakoan Era I don't comics take on sex and relationships have been very conservative the last few years.