You Win Some, YouLose Some?:“Increased”Diversity In DCComics’ “New 52”

You Win Some, YouLose Some?:“Increased”Diversity In DCComics’ “New 52”“Increased” Diversity InDC Comics’ “New 52”

Julie Kessler

Digital Initiatives Press: Rhode IslandCollege

Providence, Rhode Island

You Win Some, You Lose Some?:“Increased” Diversity In DC Comics’ “New52” by Kessler, Julie is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

This book was produced usingPressBooks.com, and PDF rendering wasdone by PrinceXML.

Contents• Acknowledgements• Abstract• Main Body• Introduction• Literature Review• Methods• Findings• Discussion• References• Appendix A: List of sampled titles

• Appendix B: Code sheet for comicbooks

• Appendix C: List of sampledtelevision episodes

• Appendix D: Code sheet fortelevision episodes

1

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Dr. Roger Clark foradvising me during this research project andfor all the support and assistance heprovided.

Next, I would like to thank Rhode IslandCollege for allowing me to complete myresearch.

And thirdly I would like to thank myreaders, Dr. Roderick Graham and Dr.Mikaila Arthur, for their feedback on mypaper.

2

AbstractThis study investigates the assertion ofincreased diversity in DC Comics’ “New52” relaunch by examining visibility ofwomen and people of color in titlespublished before and after the relaunch.Thirty titles were sampled, fifteen from themonth before the relaunch was establishedand fifteen published specifically as “New52” titles. The portrayals of these characterswere also inspected. Further, animatedsuperhero-themed television shows with thesame name as sampled comic book titleswere studied qualitatively, looking atconnections between the shows and thecomic books, as well as amongst theprograms themselves. Ultimately, amongstthe sampled titles, the “New 52” comicsdisplayed greater visibility of people ofcolor, but less visibility of women. Theiranimated counterparts also had a strongerrelationship to the “New 52” comics thanthe pre-relaunch titles, likely due to theinclusion of so-called “Legacy Characters”in the latter. As the issues sampled from the“New 52” only included the first issue fromeach series, visibility will likely change asthe continuity progresses.

1

Introduction

Walk through a supermarket. Undoubtedly,in almost every department you will passsuperhero paraphernalia, probably withouteven noticing. In the Jewelry departmentyou will see Batman dog-tag necklaces andsunglasses; in Health and Beauty you maynotice Avengers toothbrushes andtoothpaste; move on to Toys and you’llproverbially drown in the Spider-man,Batman, and Avengers-themed actionfigures, props, and costume accessories.When you arrive in the electronics section, itwill be hard to miss the large displaysadvertising the newest superhero movie (andthey are, indeed, released in a steady stream;in 2012 alone, we saw The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, and TheAvengers, with more promised to come,especially given the Blockbuster success ofThe Avengers). Even when you make it tothe grocery section, Avengers characterswill decorate the boxes of frozen pizzas,various superhero characters will be featuredas chewable fruit snacks, and Superman,Batman, and Spider-Man will be thedecorative tops to kids’ juice drinks. As youwander by various forms of apparel, you

will stroll past Superman boxers, Batmanbelts, and (occasionally) a Wonder Womanshirt, all hanging along shelves that you’llwalk by without much notice.

These various items that you pass in thesupermarket litter various other stores, andthe items sold are worn, consumed, ordisplayed by the masses, viewable by,likely, millions of people, in the U.S. alone.And that is just one instance of comic bookculture’s subtle propaganda. In many ways,it is an age of superheroes. These charactersare icons to many, and heroes to children.And yet, if one were to glance back at thatlist, the name of only one character wasfemale: Wonder Woman; and, even then,she is featured less prominently than hermale counterparts. In fact, of the billion-dollar-grossing Avengers film, only four ofthe main six characters are prominentlyfeatured on posters, advertisements, andpizza box covers: Iron Man, Thor, CaptainAmerica, and Hulk, making it seem almostas though Hawkeye (a lesser knowncharacter) and Black Widow (the onlyfemale on the team) play very minor roles,when, in fact, Black Widow is the characterwho figures out how to prevent more alienantagonists from coming to and furtherattacking Earth. In the film, her role isactually quite substantial. Yet, from various

endorsements, it would be hard to tell shewas even a character.

Lack of diversity (and the visibility ofdiverse characters) is one of the majordrawbacks of the comic-book medium. Tocontinue with the Avengers example as itremains one of the highest grossing moviesin history and thus was quite universallyviewed, of the Avengers team, five out ofsix are white males, with only Black Widow(Natasha Romanoff) as a female teammate.The only main character of color is NickFury, the man who assembles the team.While it may be noted that these charactersare presented well, with Black Widowdepicted every bit as competently as herteammates (if not more so), and Fury as aman of high political power, being the leaderof the government agency, S.H.I.E.L.D., thismovie still remains sadly limited in itsportrayal of diversity, despite having beenwritten by Joss Whedon, whose stories oftenhave feminist undertones (e.g. Buffy theVampire Slayer).

In fact, in the three well-known comic-book-based movies released this year, the titularor most visible characters were white males.In The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker isthe protagonist, with Gwen Stacy acting ashis love interest. And while Stacy is

portrayed as more competent than MaryJane, the main female character of theprevious Spider-Man trilogy (from the early-to-mid 2000s), she is still relegated to loveinterest. The Dark Knight Rises deals withthis slightly better in its portrayal ofCatwoman, but while she is central andultimately saves Batman, the story focuseson the white male protagonist. Further, toreiterate a point already noted, white malescomprise five-sixths of the Avengers team.

These movies, far more well-known than thecomic books upon which they are based,craft their characters and stories from thefoundation of their original printcounterparts. It is the comic book narrativesthat emphasize which characters areprominent, and which ones are worthconverting to theatrically-released films orprograming for television (be it live-actionor animated).

The comics themselves feature various typesof diversity; however, the broadness of thesedepictions is often lackluster. Sometimesthese characters are racially diverse, likeBlack Panther (Black), Batgirl (CassandraCain, the second Batgirl, Asian), or WhiteTiger (Latina). Sometimes the lead characteris female, like Batgirl, Wonder Woman, andShe-Hulk, or compiled of women like the

super-team Birds of Prey. Increasingly inrecent years, characters are displayingdiverse sexual orientations: in Marvel,Karolina Dean of Runaways is a lesbian,Julie Power (Lightspeed) of AvengersAcademy is bisexual, and Billy Kaplan andTeddy Altman of Young Avengers are gay.DC Comics’ recently included an openlytransgender character, Alysia Yeoh, asBarbara Gordon’s roommate in the ongoingBatgirl series. Long before the increasedpopularity, Marvel introduced the characterNorthstar, who revealed he was gay in 1992,and who married his partner in 2012,(Associated Press 2012). DC’s mostprominent lesbian character is Batwoman,who, after an arc as the lead character ofDetective Comics (Phillips 2012), is thetitular character of her own on-going series,as one of the new titles featured in DC’sNew 52 relaunch.

In 2011 DC Comics relaunched (rebooted)their continuity (i.e. the history of theirfictional universe) with what they called the“New 52.” Essentially, the company decidedto erase the previously established historyand start their titles (52 titles) back at “#1,”in an attempt to make the characters moremodernized and relevant (Truitt 2011).Besides bringing in new readers, thecompany has also claimed that the new titles

would bring about increased diversity intheir characters (Wheeler 2011), likely aspart of their gambit to pique the curiosity ofpotential buyers. While the “New 52” hasbrought characters like Batwoman to theforefront, it has also eliminated previouslydiverse characters from continuity, such asCassandra Cain (the second Batgirl and pre-reboot character Black Bat), who no longerexists. Because of the alterations incontinuity, the New 52 has both created andeliminated diverse characters; the question,however, is whether (with the addition ofnew characters and destruction of previouscharacters) DC Comics has brought aboutgreater diversity in its stories?

2

Literature Review

Depictions of race in comic books can varybetween poignant and stereotypical. In his2002 article, “‘Black Skins’ and WhiteMasks: Comic Books and the Secret Race,”Marc Singer describes diversity and itsfaçade in various comic books. Singer notesLegion of Super-Heroes is a title that servesto undercut true diversity. He writes, “Theseries Legion of Super-Heroes serves as anexample of a comic which espouses

platitudes of diversity while actuallyobscuring any signs of racial difference”(Singer 2002:107). He explains that at onepoint the team claims, “When it comes torace, we’re colorblind! Blue skin, yellowskin, green skin… we’re brothers andsisters… united in the name of justiceeverywhere!” (Singer 2002:110). Yet, ofthese different skin types, blue and greenrefer to aliens, while the “yellow” refers to acharacter that is sometimes drawn withAsian features, depending on the artist(Singer 2002:110). Conversely, Singerpoints to protagonist Black Lightning as acharacter of color who is depicted in a waythat focuses on the social problems for hisrace; he notes that the plots involving BlackLightning examine a motif of identity, tyingto representations of race (Singer2002:112). Ultimately, he comes to theconclusion that “Comics still perpetuatestereotypes, either through token characterswho exist purely to signify racial clichés orthrough a far more subtle system of absenceand erasure that serves to obscure minoritygroups even as the writers pay lip service todiversity” (Singer 2002:118). However, heallows that “superhero comics also possess ahighly adaptable set of conventions; a fewtitles display the genre’s and the medium’spotential by using the generic vocabulary ofthe secret identity to externalize and

dramatize the conditions of minority identityin America” (Singer 2002:118). Whilerepresentation is very important, so isvisibility of characters, and often timescharacters of color are invisible.

With women making up about half of theworld’s population, one would think DCComics would target this vast group as ajackpot of potential buyers. In the 1950s,when “women readers were an importantpart of the market… a number of comicbook genres were available, includingromance, westerns, adaptions of populartelevision shows, crime comics, and horrorcomics” (Nyberg 1995:206). The mid-1970schange from selling comics in newsstandoutlets to private specialty shops altered thatdemographic (Nyberg 1995:210). Instead, ifwomen wanted to purchase their titles, theyneeded to frequent specialty shops, whichwomen described as “cliquish,” (Nyberg1995:211), “offputting,” (Nyberg 1995:211),and permeated with a “male club-likeattitude” (Nyberg 1995:211). This alienatingattitude is one that has grown since itsinception; however, with the increasedpropensity of online shopping, this trendmay eventually dissipate.

Additionally, although less well-known thansuperhero comics, other comic-book genres

still exist today, and are often more invitingto female readers. For example, Brian K.Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s series Y: The LastMan takes place in an alternate version ofnow, in which every male organism on theplanet drops dead at the same moment, withthe exception of the protagonist, YorickBrown, and his Capuchin monkey,Ampersand. As they try to survive in thisnew world and find a way to save the humanrace from extinction, they are aided byAgent 355 and Dr. Allison Mann. In thisstory, the latter two central characters areboth women of color (Black and Asian,respectively), and Dr. Mann is also alesbian. While the series could easily bewritten in a way as to poke fun at women(who comprise the vast majority of thecharacters), it instead tries to handle thesituation with realism, managing to presenttwo prominent and competent women ofcolor, without whom Yorick would not havesurvived. While less political, anotherexample of a non-superhero comic bookpopular amongst readers regardless ofgender is Bill Willingham’s Fables, whichtells the stories of fairytale characters whohave moved to New York City, settling in asmall community called Fabletown, afterbeing ousted from their homelands by theAdversary. While less populated withcharacters of color, Fables presents readers

with a more mature take on fairytalecharacters, and like Y, connects to readersoutside of the superhero genre. This patterncontinues in Vaughan’s new ongoing comic(published by Image Comics), called Saga, asci-fi, space-Romeo and Juliet, where thetwo alien protagonists from warring planetsrunaway and have a baby together (insteadof killing themselves like Romeo and Juliet),and must try to keep their small family alivewhile fleeing the many forces that wantthem dead. In the reader-response sectionsof Saga, Vaughan notes of a survey from hisreaders: “We didn’t ask about your gender,but a surprising 35% of you volunteered thatyou were female. A good start,” (Vaughan2012). This differs vastly from the comicbook readers surveyed in 1995, 5% of whomwere female (Nyberg 1995:205) and the 7%of female readers who responded to DCComics’ 2012 Nielson survey (Pantozzi2012).

Additionally, portrayals of female charactersare alienating to women readers. Nybergnotes:

Market research shows that women donot buy superhero comics. Even thetitles featuring female superheroes areintended to appeal to the male reader.One marketing representative

acknowledged this, noting that comicsfeatured “great-looking women inSpandex” and saying there was“nothing for women” in such titles.Another pointed out that womencharacters are either victims or, if theyhave special powers, are unable tohandle them; or women are tormentedcharacters because of the powers theypossess. This sets the female superheroapart from her male colleagues.(1995:208).

Although this varies with each writer, manyfemale characters are not written for theengagement of women, but instead formen’s fantasies. Nyberg explains that“superhero comics are adolescent malepower fantasies” (1995:208) but the same isnot true for women. A clear example of thisis seen in the “New 52” comic, Catwomanwhich Andrew Wheeler sardonicallydescribes in his article “No More Mutants:52 Problems:”

We’ve known for a while that the coverto the Catwoman reboot has thecharacter lying on her back barefootwith her legs in the air, baring hercleavage and pouring sparkling whitedroplets over her boobs. It’s verytasteful. It sets the tone. She’s a thief,

you see, and that’s what thieves do; atthe end of a long day of thieving theylie on a rooftop and throw diamondsaway. Erotically. (Wheeler 2011).

He goes on to describe the opening pages ofthe comic: “The first panel is framed not onthe protagonist’s face, but on her brassieredchest. Page two ends on a shot of herderriere… The third page also gives us thetitle of the issue, ‘And Most of the CostumesStay On’” (Wheeler 2011). The first pagesof any story are meant to set the tone. A firstimpression of Catwoman indicates that thewriters prefer to emphasize her appearance –especially her more sexual attributes – ratherthan her brains. Her characterization differsfrom that of a sexually liberated character.Catwoman is not half-naked because sheenjoys walking around with the zipper to herskintight cat-suit down to her midriff; she’spartially-clothed because that is what themale readers want to see. She is not acharacter, she is an object. After Catwomanhas sex with Batman – a full-spread imageon the last page – Wheeler explains,“Catwoman is not trying to please the manin the comic, but she is trying to please theman holding the comic” (Wheeler 2011).

Figure 1: Catwoman #1 cover,©DC Comics

Red Hood and the Outlaws presents anotherexample of this depicted in the “New 52.”Starfire, an alien from the planet Tamaran,was typically presented as a sexually-liberated character in her pre-rebootcharacterization. However, with the majorityof her history erased, this Starfire “wantsemotionless, casual sex with people whosenames she can’t remember [which is] verymuch a departure from her previousincarnation, where she came from a culturethat was primarily about love, not being

available for joyless hookups with randomdudes” (Hudson 2011). In her article, “TheBig Sexy Problem with Superheroines andTheir ‘Liberated Sexuality,’” Laura Hudsonexplains:

This is not about these women wantingthings; it’s about men wanting to seethem do things, and that takessomething that really should beempowering — the idea that womencan own their sexuality — andtransforms it into yet another malefantasy. It takes away the actual powerof the women and turns their “sexualliberation” into just another way fordudes to get off. (Hudson 2011).

Hudson notes that if Starfire were trulysexually-liberated, she would likely prefer tohave half-clothed men drawn in seductiveposes around her, rather than the image ofher, rising out of the ocean in her stringbikini, with her back arched, and argues thatfemale characters are only portrayed the waythey are — as “barely dressed aliens andstrippers” (Hudson 2011) — becausesomeone decided to “make them that way”(Hudson 2011). The characters do not createthemselves. These female characters arecreated to engage male readers, not femalereaders. Ultimately, Hudson clarifies, “The

problem is not Star Sapphire. Or Catwoman.Or Starfire. Or Dr. Light raping Sue Dibnyon the Justice League satellite or that stupidrape backstory Kevin Smith gave Black Cator the time Green Lantern’s girlfriend gotmurdered and stuffed in a refrigerator. Theproblem is all of it together” (Hudson 2011).Essentially, the images culminate in the sumof comic book culture’s parts.

The way men write and draw femalecharacters has a significant effect on howwomen are treated, especially inside whatcould be known as “Geek Culture.” Womencrave to be considered insiders (Nyberg1995:215). Nyberg notes that:

As with other comic book readers, thepleasure for these women is found asmuch in their knowledge about thedifferent titles as in the reading. Thisknowledge is important if a reader is tobe considered an “insider.” As onediscussant observed, part of the appealof a long-running series is “being in theknow” about various characters andwho worked on the titles during whichperiod of the comic’s history. (Nyberg1995:215).

Figure 2: Starfire from RedHood and the Outlaws #1,©DC Comics

While Nyberg wrote her piece in 1995, itstill holds relevancy today; being versed in“insider” knowledge is necessary to avoidbeing called a “Fake Geek Girl” (Brown2012). As such, female readers are expectedto be knowledgeable on all comic-relatedsubjects; if they fail to memorize details,they are viewed as interlopers, or Fake GeekGirls. Male readers do not seem to have thisproblem; there is no such thing as a FakeGeek Guy. In her infamous article “Dear

Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away” TaraTiger Brown asserts that “pretentiousfemales who have labeled themselves as a‘geek girl’ figured out that guys will pay alot of attention to them if they proclaim theyare reading comics or playing video games”(Brown 2012). Brown’s article implies thatmany women pretend to be geeky (e.g. readcomic books) in order to attract men,indicating that gaining male attention is themotive, in that attracting men is a woman’smost important goal. Worse is some of thediscourse from people who agree with her.The potency of the “Fake Geek Girl” waspermeated further by the words of comicbook artist Tony Harris, who gave hisopinion of women at comic bookconventions on his Facebook wall (Johnston2012). Snippets of his notorious rant(capitalization, poor grammar, andmisspellings included) contain:

Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl, youare more pathetic than the REALNerds, who YOU secretly think areREALLY PATHETIC… You arewilling to become almost completelyNaked in public, and yer either skinny(Well, some or most of you, THINKyou are) or you have Big Boobies.Notice I didnt say GREAT Boobies?You are what I refer to as “CON-

HOT”… You have this really awfulneed for attention, for people to tell youyour pretty, or Hot. (Johnston 2012).

Were these the misogynistic ramblings of ano-name, anonymous bigot, they couldeasily be ignored. Harris, however, is aprominent comic book artist. He is well-known throughout the industry; he workswith the writers who create these characters,and is one of the people who illustrates thesecharacters. Yet, there are people whoconsider his words valid. The idea of the“Fake Geek Girl” is a poison for the geekcommunity, and for society as a whole; itnot only alienates potential new femalereaders and current female readers, but itindicates that men view women as simplycraving of male attention, and not asautonomous creatures of their owninvention.

But, why does this matter? If superherocomic books are targeted for males andinevitably alienate female readers, then is itstill a problem? Yes, it is. Although there isvery little literature available on thesocialization effects of comic books, what isavailable demonstrates a relationshipbetween reading violent comic books andresponses (by gender) to different scenarios(Kirsh 2002:1160). While this does not

relate to portrayals of gender or race, it doesindicate that comic books do matter and thatreaders can be affected by the content.Further, studies on children’s literature showthe effects of sex typing on preference andrecall, indicating that children betterremember stories where the sex-roles arereversed (Jennings 1975:222). As a popularand widely viewed form of media, televisionviewing can also foster stereotypical viewsof gender and race (Liebert 1986:47);however, it can also do the opposite andcounteract such stereotypical views(MacBeth 1996:56). Regardless, childrenlearn from television – even when programsdo not intend for them to – and thesemessages can be both negative and positive(MacBeth 1996:39).

In that vein of thought, if children grow upviewing positive social images – withwomen and people of color in positions ofpower, like those of superheroes – it canimpress upon them egalitarian ideals. At thesame time, if the presentation of charactersis negative, this effort can have the oppositeeffect. In his book on children’ssocialization, Tuning in to Young Viewers:Social Science Perspectives on Television,MacBeth warns, “Although television cancounteract stereotypes, the predominantcontent may serve to reinforce and maintain

views that women are helpless andincompetent; men are aggressive; mostpeople are white, affluent Americans; andthe principal racial-ethnic group membersare African Americans residing insituational comedies” (1996:56-57).Ultimately, he notes, “Television as amedium is neither good nor bad; its effectsand value depend on the types of programsbroadcast and the ways in which they areused by viewers” (MacBeth 1996:57).

One of the flaws of television is itsportrayals of persons of color. MacBathwrites:

Most television characters wereportrayed positively, but Latinos(as)were almost twice as likely as AfricanAmericans to be portrayed negatively.Latinos(as) were also twice as likely asEuropean Americans and four times aslikely as African Americans to beportrayed as lawbreakers. Even in localnews presentations, African Americanswere more likely than EuropeanAmericans to be presented as physicallythreatening or demanding.(1996:65-66).

The socializing effect of negativepresentations of race can be very detrimental

to the development of ideals, especially inimpressionable children. In a similar vein,MacBeth also notes:

Compared with European Americans,Latinos(as) were three times as likelyand African Americans and AsianAmericans were two times as likely tobe cast as lawbreakers. The greaterlikelihood of visible racial-ethnicgroups being depicted as criminals inturn dictates the likelihood and thenature of their ingroup interactions,making them infrequent, mainly formal,and nonfriendly. (1996:66).

Yet, positive depictions of ingroupcommunications can have the oppositeeffect. MacBeth describes, “Televisionrarely shows ingroup interaction in a socialcontext. Under conditions of friendship andmutual interest, it is possible not only toshow positive interaction but also to presentpositive discussion of difficult issues”(1996:81). One of DC’s animated televisionprograms deals with this matter: Teen Titansin the Dwayne McDuffie-penned episodeFear Itself. The five-person team consists oftwo women, and one person of color. Theepisode includes teachable moments,focusing on the idea of accepting one’s

feelings, and confronting fears rather thanburying them.

Although DC Comics began its animationdecades ago with Superfriends, its dominant,continuity-driven programs were instated inthe 1990s, beginning with Batman: theAnimated Series. Edgier than manyanimated shows, Batman quickly gainedpopularity, spurring the creators to addanother show to their fictional universe:Superman. The two shows did somethingpreviously rare; they connected plots, havingtheir characters meet, and making theuniverse that much more substantial. Assuch, after the two shows concluded theirruns, a new show was created in the early2000s, yet again utilizing the characters:Justice League. Justice League broughttogether a team dynamic: Batman,Superman, Martian Manhunter, GreenLantern, Flash, Hawkgirl, and WonderWoman. Three of the characters were whitemales, one a green alien, one man of color,and two female characters. The show builtoff of the previously established continuity,and ultimately integrated various charactersfrom the comic book continuity into itsstorylines. The show crossed over severaltimes with another animated show, StaticShock, which shared a writer, DwayneMcDuffie (who produced Justice League

and was the creator of the Static Shockcomic book). McDuffie also wrote for DC’snext animated program, Teen Titans, whichattempted a relatively diverse cast.

Depictions of diversity and genderegalitarianism are essential for creatingtolerance and equality. These images affecthow people view women, persons of color,and people in the LGBT community. Themindset of some men in the comic bookindustry engenders the idea of the “FakeGeek Girl,” to the detriment of all women.Indeed, the current mindset also affects thewomen who want to read comics. In order tosatisfy and bring in new readers, Wheelerexplains:

First you need to build a diverselandscape. Even with good books likeWonder Woman and Batwoman, DCisn’t doing that. It only has sevenfemale-led titles among its new 52.That’s a step up from how things usedto be (and no doubt a damn sight betterthan Marvel has ever done), but thiswas meant to be for new readers. Thiswas DC’s best effort to attract a femaleaudience. When you look at it like that,‘they’re doing better than Marvel’doesn’t seem like much of a boast.(Wheeler 2011).

He goes on to elaborate:

The reboot was meant to help thepublisher find new readers, and femalecomic readers represent a massiveaudience that DC hasn’t successfullytapped in to. Female characters are agood way to reach those readers,because underrepresented groups like tobe recognised. Catwoman would havebeen a smart title to re-engineer tocapture those readers. Instead it’s themost insular exercise in fanboypandering this side of Green Lantern.(Wheeler 2011).

It seems as though, if the intention was tobring in new readers, DC actively attemptedto fail in the regard of female readers,because although they created more female-character led titles, the titles are not intendedto be read by women readers. Instead,characters would be better served to cater tothe general public, and to be reflective ofrace, gender, and sexual orientations. Thecharacters created in comic books impact thecharacters crafted for their animatedcounterparts; thus, the more egalitarian theirdepictions, the better the incarnations ontelevision, and the better the lessons learnedby children. Ultimately, theserepresentations are important for reducing

stereotypes, both through the comic mediumand the animated medium, to ensureegalitarian messages reach children.

As such, certain questions need to be askedof the rebooted DC Comics: 1) Are femalecharacters more visible after the relaunch?2) Are people of color more visible after therelaunch? And, 3) How similar is thepresentation of gender and people of color inanimated superhero-themed programs andthe comic books on which they are based?

3

Methods

As indicated by the name the “New 52,” DCComics launched 52 comic book titles withits reboot. Using stratified sampling, Icompared the list of titles published themonth before the relaunch to those listed inthe first month after the relaunch; from that,I selected titles that existed both before andafter the relaunch. For example, titles likeBatman and Action Comics both concludedtheir pre-reboot runs and were restarted atissue #1 for the relaunch. On the other hand,the comic book Red Robin existed before therelaunch, but not after (and was thuseliminated from the sample), and the comic

book Red Hood and the Outlaws wascreated for the relaunch, but did not existbefore the reboot (and was, also, thuseliminated). After dropping the books thatdid not appear before and after the relaunch,30 comic books remained: 15 titles frombefore the relaunch and 15 titles from after(see the Appendix A for a full list of the 30sample comic books). While this madecomparisons between the titles themselveseasier, it also eliminated titles likeBatwoman, a title that has only existed afterthe relaunch, which possesses a leadcharacter who is a lesbian.

My measurement strategy was similar tothose employed by Clark et al. (1993) andClark et al. (2013) in their studies ofchildren’s picture books, coding fordepictions of gender and race. Strategies forexamining gender include: percentage ofcharacter images that are of females,centrality of female characters, physicalappearance of female characters, and rolesof female characters in the story (e.g. hero,villain, civilian). To find the percentage offemale images, first I counted the images inthe comic book that include characters; fromthere, I counted the number of images thatcontained only female characters and thenumber of images that contained bothfemale and male characters, and divided

each by the total character images in thebook. The remaining images consistedsolely of male characters (dubbed “male-only images”) and were also divided by thetotal count of character images to find apercentage. Centrality of female charactersindicated whether a female character wascentral to the story; I coded first for whethera female character was present at all in thecomic book, and further for whether sheplayed an important role in the story. Howthe artist drew the female characterdetermined her physical appearance andwhether the image was sexualized; forexample, the character Supergirl appeared asa character in five of the sampled pre-rebootbooks: Supergirl, Batgirl, Teen Titans,Justice League of America, and ActionComics. In each one, her depiction varied.While her uniform remains mostlyunchanged with each version, the art issexualized in Action Comics, and slightlyless sexualized in Justice League ofAmerica; Teen Titans and Supergirlmaintain the same outfit, though the art forthe character is less sexualized than in theformer titles. Although she appears moreprominently in the penultimate Batgirl issue,she does make a brief appearance in thesampled issue of Batgirl as one of Batgirl’shallucinations; in this depiction her outfitdiffers as Batgirl imagines her and her

friends as fairytale princesses fighting offvarious mythical creatures. The dress inwhich she is depicted still bares her midriff;however her skirt is much longer than itstypical depiction, and is slightly lesssexualized than the comparative titles.

For persons of color, I implemented similarmeasures: percentage of all character imagesthat are of non-White characters, centralityof non-White characters, and depiction ofnon-White characters. In some instances,there was an ambiguity in determiningwhether a character was a character of color.In a similar way to how the sexualization ofart varies based on the artist rendering theimage, whether a character is drawn as aperson of color depends on the artist. Singernotes in his article that the character KarateKid of Legion of Super-Heroes was drawnwith Asian features by artist Mike Grell, butthat subsequent artists drew him asCaucasian (Singer 2002:111). Thisinconsistency amongst writers and artistsstill exists today and caused for difficultiesin coding characters like Damian Wayne andKyle Rayner. Damian, who has maternalArabian and Chinese roots, is typicallydepicted as a miniature version of hisCaucasian father, Bruce Wayne. In the pre-reboot issue, all of his depictions portrayhim wearing a mask. Post-relaunch, we see

Damian in civilian attire alongside severalother members of the so-called “Bat-Family” (i.e.

Figure 4: Post-Relaunch “Bat-Family” fromBatman #1, ©DC Comics

people who work with Batman). With theexception of his father, no one else picturedis related to him by blood; yet, Damian ispractically a clone of the other characters(who, like Bruce, are White), and there areno indicators of his Arabian or Chinese roots(see Figure 4). Readers unfamiliar with hisheritage – if his heritage is the same as hispre-relaunch origin – would have no way ofknowing his history. Kyle Rayner is anothercharacter who is depicted as White by thewriters and artists, though he is halfMexican. When first reading the pre-relaunch Green Lantern comic book, I wasunaware of his heritage or of much of hisbackstory. Based on the issue I read, I codedhim as White. It wasn’t until months laterwhen I stumbled across a social mediamessage about Kyle from Giancarlo Volpe,the creator of the recent Green Lanternanimated series, that I had any inclinationthat Kyle has Mexican roots (Volpe 2012).A quick Google search verified this

information, though this fact seemed littleknown, even amongst fans. After muchinternal debate, I chose to only codecharacters as non-White if there was someway of knowing – through either the art orthrough the story itself – that the characterwas a character of color. It should be notedthat the inclusion of either character wouldnot have significantly affected the differencein percentages, which still would have beenroughly the same.

As with examination of gendered images, Ifirst counted all of the images withcharacters; then, I counted the number ofimages that depicted non-White characters(including but not limited to Black, Asian,and Latino/a characters), and divided thenumber of images with non-Whitecharacters by the total number of characterimages to find the percentage of the imagesthat contained characters of color. On mycodesheet (see Appendix B for the codesheetused for comic books), I noted whether thetitle possessed any non-White characters, aswell as whether the non-White characterswere central to the storyline. Finally, Iexamined how non-White characters weredepicted by determining whether they wereportrayed in a manner focusing on socialproblems, in a manner celebrating culturaldifferences, or in a fashion indistinguishable

from the presentation of White characters(Clark et al. 1993:229).

Further, I examined the animated children’stelevision programs related to several of thetitles. Of the fifteen titles to compare, fourhad animated counterparts: Batman,Superman, Justice League, and Teen Titans.I examined three episodes from each ofthese shows (see Appendix C for a full listof episodes sampled). For both Batman andSuperman, I found disk sets that contained atelevision-season worth of episodes(Batman: the Animated Series, Volume 3and Superman: the Animated Series, Volume2); for Justice League, the disk I was able toacquire possessed only three episodes, andthus those were the three I was able to view;Teen Titans contained a disk with sixepisodes. With the exception of JusticeLeague, a simple random sample was usedto determine which episodes to study. Foreach series, the episodes on the volume ordisk were assigned a number; then threenumbers were selected using a randomnumber generator, and the correspondingepisodes were the ones examined. TeenTitans, for example, only had six episodes:“How Long is Forever?,” “Every Dog HasHis Day,” “Terra,” “Only Human,” “FearItself,” and “Date with Destiny.” They werenumbered 1 through 6, respectively. An

online random number generator selected 3,5, and 6, and thus “Terra,” “Fear Itself,” and“Date with Destiny” were chosen. The sameprocess was used for Batman and Superman,though both disk sets contained a greaterselection of episodes.

The animated programs were examined intwo ways. A modified version of thecodesheet used for the comic books wasimplemented (see Appendix D); further,detailed notes were taken throughout eachepisode and searched through for patterns.The codesheet implemented varied from theone used for the comic books, though manyof the inventories remained. Through thisform of qualitative analysis, an exactpercentage of female images wereincalculable; instead, the notes taken oneach episode took care to describe thegender of the characters in each scene togive a rough estimate of how prominentfemale characters and characters of colorwere. Centrality of female characters and ofpeople of color remains as inventories,determining first whether the episodecontained said characters, and whether thesecharacters were central. The appearance offemale characters is also a variable codedfor, and descriptions were taken of theoutfits female characters wore. As well,inventories remained for noting the

depictions of race in the animated televisionprograms, continuing to note whether theportrayals focused on social problems,whether they celebrated cultural differences,or whether their depictions wereindistinguishable from White characters. Asthe shows were released in varying years(with Batman in the early 1990s, Supermanin the mid-to-late 1990s, Justice League inthe early 2000s, and Teen Titans in themid-2000s), the programs could becompared amongst themselves, as well as totheir comic book counterparts.

4

Findings

The New 52

To answer our first research question, pre-relaunch comic books displayed morefemale visibility than post-relaunch comicbooks. Table 1 shows that for female-onlyimages (or character images in which onlyfemale characters were displayed), 24.4percent of the pre-reboot comic images weresaid images, while 15.9 percent of post-reboot images were of these images (adifference that is both substantial andsignificant). Similarly, the pattern continues

for character images depicting at least onefemale character (including images wherethere are both female and male characters, aswell as images with only female characters),with 62.3 percent of all pre-relaunch imagesbeing of such images, while only 45.3percent of post-relaunch images being ofthem (an even more substantial andsignificant difference). This pattern ofgender visibility continues for male-onlyimages (character images depicting onlymale characters), as 37.2 percent of all pre-relaunch images were of such images, while54.2 percent of all post-relaunch imageswere of such images. An example of thechanges in gender visibility is evident on thecovers of the pre-reboot and post-rebootJustice League titles. On the cover of thepre-relaunch Justice League of Americacover, four of the seven protagonists arefemale (Supergirl, Donna Troy, Jennie, andJesse); starkly contrasting this is the cover ofthe post-relaunch Justice League cover,which features a sole female character,Wonder Woman, amongst its seven heroes.

Table 1: Visibility of Gender and Race inComic Books

Gender Visibility Racial Visibility

Pre-Relaunchf

Post-Relaunchg

F/Oa F/Ab F/O F/A

Pre-Relaunch

Post-Relaunch

JusticeLeague 27.0 82.5 0.0 5.3 0.0 20.0

TeenTitans 10.8 73.5 10.8 53.9 15.7 9.2

Legion ofSuper-Heroes

13.7 61.6 11.1 59.3 4.1 35.8

GreenLanternCorps

30.4 48.1 10.3 55.2 1.3 58.6

GreenArrow 6.5 50.0 7.7 39.7 33.9 34.6

ActionComics 8.1 50.0 1.8 30.4 4.8 12.5

Superman17.6 61.2 5.2 39.0 23.5 15.4

Supergirl36.3 83.3 87.0 100.0 36.3 8.7

Superboy8.2 41.9 15.3 72.9 22.5 18.7

DetectiveComics 12.7 38.0 2.3 8.7 0.0 0.0

Batman2.6 40.3 2.0 11.8 11.7 5.9

BatmanandRobin

1.4 27.4 0.0 4.0 0.0 0.0

Batgirl49.2 90.5 28.0 75.0 7.9 32.0

Birds ofPrey 39.5 79.0 42.0 80.3 0.0 49.4

WonderWoman 95.4 100.0 49.5 86.1 8.0 26.7

Total24.4c 62.3d 15.9c 45.3d 12.2e 20.9e

Notes:

aF/O represents the percentage of imagesthat depict only female characters

bF/A represents the percentage of imagesthat depict at least one female character(though these images may depict malecharacters as well).

cIndicates this percentage is different thanthe post-relaunch female-only percentage,where p<.001.

dIndicates this percentage is different thanthe post-relaunch female-any percentage,where p<.001.

eIndicates this percentage is different thanthe post-relaunch racial visibility, wherep<.001.

fTotal pre-relaunch images: 1181

gTotal post-relaunch images: 1274

The results differed in terms ofcharacterization of female characters. Fromthe comic books sampled, females weredrawn slightly more often in over-sexualizedways in the post-reboot comics (21.2percent) than in the pre-reboot comics (18.8percent). However, the costumes worn bythe female characters were more practical inthe post-reboot comics (78.8 percent) than inthe pre-reboot comics (62.5 percent). As

discussed earlier, artists render theircharacters in a variety of ways despite theprotagonist’s costume remaining unchanged,such as our previous example, Supergirl. Asseen in Figures 7 through 11, Supergirl’scostume remains the same. However, howthe costume is depicted varies with the artist.In Figure 7 (from the pre-relaunch Supergirltitle), Supergirl’s costume comes down tojust above her belly-button; if the imagecaptured the full outfit, the skirt would fallto about halfway between her knee and herhip. The depictions of Supergirl in JusticeLeague of America and Teen Titans (figures8 and 9, respectively) hold true to thisimage. However, her costume in ActionComics (figures 10 and 11) differs. In thisrendition, the top half of her uniform (whichusually falls to just above her belly-button)rests just under her breasts, revealing themajority of her torso. In this image, herbreasts are emphasized much more than theother depictions. Further, it shows her skirtto be much shorter, appearing to be only afew inches of material. Although hercostume remains the same in all of her pre-reboot appearances, she is portrayed withvarying levels of sexualization. This is trueof other characters, as well. So while acharacter may be wearing a tank top andjeans (a typical ensemble for many women),if her outfit is drawn with excessive

emphasis on her breasts and cleavage theimage may be considered more sexualizedthan a picture of Supergirl in a short skirt,depending on how the artist portrays her.Ultimately, while female charactersexperience less visibility after the relaunchand are portrayed with art that is slightlymore sexualized than the pre-relaunch art,the costumes they wear are now morepractical (i.e. more feasible for combat,mobility, and everyday activities, asopposed to outfits that would expose thecharacter if she moves the wrong way).

While images of female characters are lessprominent after the relaunch, these resultsdo not hold true for racial visibility. In fact,Table 1 shows that post-reboot titlesfeatured greater visibility of non-whitecharacters (20.9 percent) than pre-reboottitles (12.2 percent), a difference that is bothsubstantial and significant.

In the context of the issue, I examinedwhether the characters were depicted inways that focus on the social problems forthat race, in ways that celebrate culturaldifferences, or in ways that areindistinguishable from Whites. None of thepre-reboot or post-reboot titles focused onpresenting social problems. Both groupspresented celebrations of cultural differences

with the same amount of frequency (13.3percent). An example of once such characteris Kiran Singh (Solstice), an Indian teenagerfrom Teen Titans, who appears to be proudof her roots (Figure 12). However, post-relaunch titles were more likely to portraymelting-pot images (86.7 percent) than pre-relaunch titles (66.7 percent). In someinstances characters embodied bothcategories, and in some titles there weremultiple characters, with some fitting intoone category and some fitting in another.The differences in depictions may be due, atleast in part, to the greater percentage ofnon-white images in post-relaunch books, astheir increased number of images gives themmore opportunities to portray the charactersas melting-pot.

Of the comic book titles sampled, fouranimated television programs possessed thesame name and titular protagonists: Batman:The Animated Series, Superman: theAnimated Series, Justice League, and TeenTitans. These series share likenesses withtheir print counterparts.

Batman: The Animated Series made itsdebut in the early 1990s, acting as the firstprogram in the DC Animated Universe(which also includes Superman: theAnimated Series and Justice League,

amongst others). When the series began in1992, the only character to have taken up themantle of “Batman” was the original, BruceWayne. However, in comic book continuity,Dick Grayson (the first Robin) reluctantlybecomes Batman in 2009. As such, the pre-reboot Batman titles (Batman, Batman andRobin, and Detective Comics) feature DickGrayson as Batman with Damian Wayne(Bruce’s son) as Robin. With the relaunch,Bruce Wayne returns to the role of Batman,with Damian as Robin (and Dick Graysonreturns to his former title, Nightwing).

Within the Batman series, the pre-relaunchtitles displayed greater visibility of characterimages containing at least one female image(35 percent, averaged amongst the three pre-relaunch Batman titles) than the post-relaunch titles (8.5 percent, averagedamongst the three post-relaunch Batmantitles). The animated series falls somewherein between. Because the number of imagesis difficult (if not impossible) to quantify inan animated television program, an estimateis all I am able to provide. One episode ofBatman (“Read My Lips”) contains nofemale images at all. However, in theepisode “Harlequinade,” the characterHarley Quinn stars alongside Batman. Shereceives a decent amount of airtime besidethe Caped Crusader; I would estimate that

roughly 40 percent of the images are ofHarley (and that another 5 percent consist ofunnamed background images of females,calculating to approximately 45 percent ofthe shows’ images including females).Finally, in the episode “Bane,” I wouldestimate that the character Candice makesup approximately 25 percent of the images.If we divide 45 by 3, then the female imagesin the episode “Harlequinade” make up 15percent of the total female images amongstthe three shows. When we do the same tothe percentage of images of Candice (25),the images in “Bane” make up 8.3 percent ofthe female images amongst the three shows.Ultimately, that would leave approximately23.3 of all of the images from the sampledepisodes of Batman: the Animated Series asimages of female characters, which fallsalmost directly between the percentage ofimages of female characters of both the pre-reboot and post-reboot comics.

Indeed, gender is characterized similarly inthe animated series and in the pre-rebootBatman series. In the two episodes femalecharacters appear in in Batman: theAnimated Series, the two featured femalecharacters are antagonists. Although Harleyhelps Batman and Robin stop the Joker, herloyalties lie with him, and she betrays theheroes to aid him until discovering that he

was planning to leave her for dead in hisgoal to decimate Gotham. Harley ultimatelytakes the Joker down, going as far as to pullthe trigger when aiming a gun toward him;but when the gun sounds, a little flag popsout of the end and Harley frowns, and theJoker glares, and Harley shrugs, and theJoker laughs, and the episode concludeswith her jumping into his arms and himswinging her around. Ultimately, Harleychooses the Joker; and though she’s acomplex character, more often than not shealigns herself with the “bad guys.” The onlyother female character central to a storylineis Candice from the episode “Bane.”Whereas Harley’s characterization is farfrom simple, Candice’s goal isstraightforward: to take out Batman. It isunclear whether Candice truly cares forBane or whether she is using him as a meansto an end; regardless, while Bane battlesBatman, Candice fights Robin. In all threeBatman episodes, Harley and Candice arethe only named female characters to appear,or to play a role in the plot, and in both casesthey are antagonists.

The Batman comic books continue thispattern. In the pre-relaunch issue of Batmanand Robin, one of the antagonists is awoman called Sister Crystal. She is the onlynamed female character to appear in the

issue, and not much is said about her. Alongwith her cohorts, she attempts to take downthe dynamic duo (and their assistant for theissue, Nightrunner, the French Batman).Similarly, in the pre-relaunch Batman,Batman finds himself shot by Gilda, Two-Face’s former love. Though Batman rushesto rescue her when Two-Face aims his gunat her, she chooses to shoot Batman insteadin an attempt to save the man she loves. Twoother named female characters appear in thatissue in subplots: Enigma (who is workingwith the Riddler) and Kitrina Falcone(former Catgirl). While Enigma acts as anantagonist, Kitrina appears to be an ally, andleaves a note for Batman telling him thatshe’s decided to attend the school he signedher up for, but that she’ll eventually be back.The only pre-relaunch Batman title in thesample that does not possess femaleantagonists is Detective Comics, in whichwe see Dr. Leslie Thompkins and former-Batgirl/current-Oracle, Barbara Gordon.While Leslie believes that the antagonistJames Gordon (Jim Gordon’s son andBarbara’s brother) has changed, Barbara setsout to discover the truth behind the man(who she believed as a child murdered a girltheir age); after testing a pill her father stolefrom James, she discovers that the pill isn’tthe nutritional supplement it’s supposed tobe. Instead, it would act as a suppressant of

the chemicals that promote empathy,essentially turning the children who areintended to take the medication intopsychopaths like him. Ultimately, about halfof the female characters who appear in thecomic books are antagonists, while all of thenamed female characters who appear in theanimated series are.

Very few non-white characters appear in anyof the sampled Batman comic books, andthose that appear are not named. With theexception of the episode “Bane,” this patternis true of the animated series, as well. Bane,a Hispanic character, is portrayed in a waythat celebrates his culture, in that he speakswith an accent and his mask resembles thoseof a Mexican Lucha Libre.

Several years after Batman’s premiere,another series in the same fictional universewas created: Superman: the AnimatedSeries. In comparison to its comic bookcounterparts, the mythology of Supermanremains relatively unchanged; he still has analter ego, Clark Kent; still is an alien fromthe planet Krypton; and Lois Lane remainsthe love of his life. Unlike the Batmancomics (in which all three series arecomparable to the animated series), thecomparability of the Superman comic booksvaries depending on if the issue is from

before or after the relaunch. For the pre-reboot comic books, only Action Comicscontains the character Superman; despite thetitle “Superman,” the Superman comic bookfrom before the reboot actually stars thecharacter The Guardian. However, thisdiffers for the post-relaunch titles in thatSuperman acts as the protagonist for bothAction Comics and Superman, and thus bothare comparable to the animated series.

In terms of female visibility, the pre-relaunch title Action Comics contained areasonably high number of female images.Of the character images in the comic book,50 percent contained at least one femaleimage; post-relaunch, the average betweenthe two is 34.7 percent (30.4 percent forAction Comics and 38.9 percent forSuperman). Like with the percentage offemale images for Batman: the AnimatedSeries, the percentage of female images forSuperman: the Animated Series is anestimate. In the episode “Action Figures,”reporter Lois Lane and a little girl namedSarita make up about 40 percent of theimages. Both characters play large roles inthe story. This is the same for the episode“Ghost in the Machine,” in which Loisappears various times throughout theepisode, and Mercy Graves (Lex Luthor’sbody guard) aids Superman in rescuing Lex.

Like “Action Figures,” in “Ghost in theMachine” Lois and Mercy appear in roughly40 percent of the character images. Finally,in “Bizarro’s World,” Lois also appearsoften, volunteering herself as a hostage tobuy time for Superman to arrive. She andpolice officer Maggie Sawyer make upapproximately 25 percent of the characterimages of the episode. When calculated inthe same way as the Batman: the AnimatedSeries images, about 35 percent of thecharacter images are of females, whichaligns itself closer to the post-relaunchgender visibility.

The post-relaunch comic books are alsocloser to the animated series in terms ofgender characterization. While in the pre-relaunch Action Comics several heroes(including Supergirl) come to Superman’said, in the post-relaunch titles, femalecharacters are more often civilians. This istrue of the animated series, in which LoisLane and Sarita are civilians, and MercyGraves (though she works for an antagonist)also lacks superpowers.

Likewise, the post-relaunch books aresimilar in racial characterization. Theanimated series presents characters asthough from a melting-pot, in that charactersof color are not depicted differently than

White characters (such as Sarita, her brotherBobby, and their father Dr. Felix). Althoughthe images in the pre-relaunch ActionComics depict characters in a similar way,those of the post-relaunch title vary,portraying characters in a combination ofway, with some as if from a melting-pot, andothers with seeming to celebrate differences.However, the latter characters are depictedas such through the art, and are thusunnamed (with few even speaking any linesof dialog).

The Justice League animated series buildsupon the established continuity of Batman:the Animated Series and Superman: theAnimated Series. In fact, the majority of thefirst episode consists of Batman andSuperman, with a brief glimpse of WonderWoman and a short introduction in the lastfew minutes of the episode to the MartianManhunter. Like both the pre-relaunch andpost-relaunch comic books, Justice Leagueultimately has a cast of seven: Batman,Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern (JohnStewart), Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl, andWonder Woman. Of this team, two of theseven members are female. The post-rebootcomic bears a closer resemblance in thisregard; of its seven members, the onlywoman is Wonder Woman. The rest of theteam is made up of: Batman, Superman, the

Flash, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Cyborg,Aquaman, and Wonder Woman. However,in the pre-relaunch Justice League, four ofthe seven members are female. This is likelydue to the way history has progressed in thecomic books. Wonder Woman, Batman, andSuperman have all served their time with theLeague; instead, so-called “LegacyCharacters” take their place. A LegacyCharacter is just what the name implies: acharacter who carries on a legacy. Instead ofSuperman, this Justice League has Supergirl.Rather than Wonder Woman, her youngersister Donna Troy (also known as Troia)steps up to the plate. The League still has aBatman, but Bruce isn’t the one wearing themantle: it’s Dick Grayson, his first protégé.Because of the development of continuity inthe pre-relaunch comics (and thus theinclusion of Legacy Characters), thesampled episodes of the animated series bearlittle resemblance.

While a whopping 82.5 percent of pre-relaunch character images are of at least onefemale image, the post-relaunch characterimages only include 5.3 female images. Thisis a stark contrast. Meanwhile, the numberof female images in the animated televisionprograms comes to approximately 21.7percent of all images. Part one of “SecretOrigins” possessed very few female images

(with only a glimpse of Wonder Woman andvarious background characters), and is thusequated about 5 percent. Both the secondand third parts of “Secret Origins” (the othertwo episodes sampled) showed females inabout 30 percent of the images. AlthoughHawkgirl and Wonder Woman are central tothe show, they share the spotlight with theirfive male teammates, and thus appeared tocomprise about 30 percent of the images.Thus, about 21.7 percent of images in thethree shows contained women. If anything,this is closer to the post-relaunch JusticeLeague comic book, which makes sensebecause the episodes sampled were the firstthree created for the series and the issue ofJustice League sampled was also the first,and thus both stories served as introductionsto the characters. As opening episodes, theyare more likely to focus on the characterswho the creators believe fans will be moredrawn to; in this case, the first episode of theanimated series primarily deals withSuperman and Batman, who both headlinedshows in the same fictional universe andwho therefore already have a fan-following.Similarly, the Justice League comicspotlights Batman, who was featuredrecently in the blockbuster ChristopherNolan trilogy, and who is currently verypopular amongst both avid comic bookreaders and casual fans, thus being more

likely to draw readers than a character likeAquaman, Cyborg, or Wonder Woman, whohave not been recent foci of media attention.

The pre-relaunch comic book does notcontain any non-white characters (in a racialsense; it does, however, contain characterswith blue skin and red skin). Post-relaunch,the comic book reintroduces Cyborg(Victor); but he only appears in two pages ofthe title, and is thus only seen as melting-pot. Similarly, what is seen of GreenLantern (John Stewart) in the sampledepisodes of the animated series involvesonly melting-pot characterizations.

Teen Titans does not exist inside the samefictional universe as the other seriessampled. It was produced by a differentcreator, with different animation, anddifferent depictions for the characters. Forexample, Robin is portrayed differently inTeen Titans than he was in Batman: theAnimated Series. In Batman: the AnimatedSeries, Robin is very much a sidekickcharacter in the episodes he appears in;although he assists Batman well, he iskidnapped and used as bait in “Bane” andlikewise also bound in “Harlequinade.” InTeen Titans he is the leader of the team andon equal ground with his teammates; in thisversion he is characterized as the “cool

guy,” as evidenced by the materialisticKitten’s desire to date him for status in theepisode “Date With Destiny.” This animatedseries connects more to the pre-reboot TeenTitans comic book than the post-reboot, atleast in terms of character inclusion. Fromthe sampled issue, at least two characters arethe same as those in the animated series:Beast Boy and Raven. In fact, if we were togo back to the first issue of the same pre-relaunch series we would see Starfire andCyborg, as well, and a younger version ofRobin (Tim Drake, the third to take themantle). As with Justice League, most of thecharacters in the sampled issue are LegacyCharacters: Wonder Girl, Superboy,Supergirl, Robin, Red Robin, Speedy, andKid Flash (amongst others); this issue sawthe return of the majority of their allies totake down one of their greatest threats. Thepost-relaunch comic book differs in thisregard. Unlike the pre-relaunch title, in thisone we do not see any of the characters fromthe animated series.

While gender visibility for this animatedseries is much higher than those of theothers, it is lower than the visibility in bothcomic books. In the pre-relaunch TeenTitans, 73.5 percent of all character imagesincluded at least one female character; of thepost-relaunch character images, 53.9 percent

included at least one female image. In theanimated series, about half of the images (50percent) were of females. Like all of thepreceding programs, the percentages areapproximations. Each of the episodesfocused at some point on a female character.As such, in all three episodes (“Terra,”“Fear Itself,” and “Date with Destiny”),about 50 percent of the images were femaleimages.

The sampled issue of the post-relaunchcomic book possessed only a few non-whitecharacters, and those characters weredepicted as if a part of a melting-pot.Similarly, Cyborg, who appears in all threeof the sampled episodes, is also depicted asif part of a melting-pot, with no cultural orapparent societal differences from histeammates. The pre-relaunch comic book,however, includes the character Solstice, anIndian teenager, whose culture seems to becelebrated.

Table 2 provides one instant glance at howclosely related the presentation of femalecharacters (in terms of visibility) is relatedin the animated series and the comic bookson which they’re based. The Spearman’srho for female visibility in the post-relaunchcomics and the relevant animated series is aperfect 1.00. The rho for female visibility in

the pre-relaunch comics and the relevantanimated series is a positive 0.40. Onemight think it odd that the correlation withthe pre-relaunch series and the animatedseries is lower than that with the post-relaunch series. After all, weren’t theanimated series based upon pre-relaunchcomics? Recall, though, that the pre-relaunch comics had evolved over time andthat, for instance, the Justice League comic(the outlier among the late pre-relaunchcomics) had many fewer female charactersat the beginning of its history. The earlierpre-relaunch continuity (the Justice Leagueof America series from the mid-1990s)presented a team almost identical to that ofboth the post-relaunch Justice Leaguecomics and the Justice League animatedseries: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman,Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, andMartian Manhunter. The success of themid-1990s Justice League of Americacomics likely had some impact on thedevelopment of the Justice League animatedseries, which was created mere years laterand featured a similar team, with six of theseven characters as the comic book.Consequently, the early post-relaunchcomics probably provide better indicators ofthe way things stood in the early pre-relaunch period than late-pre-relaunchcomics. If this is so, then Table 2 provides

strong evidence that the visibility of femalecharacters in the animated series is stronglycorrelated with their visibility in the comicson which they are based.

Table 2: Viability of Gender in ComicBooks and Animated Superhero

Programs

Pre-RelaunchGender

Visibility(Female-

AnyImages)

Post-RelaunchGender

Visibility(Female-

AnyImages)

ApproximatePercentageof FemaleImages inAnimatedTelevisionPrograms

Batman135.0 8.5 23.3

Superman250.0 30.4 35.0

JusticeLeague 82.5 5.3 21.7

TeenTitans 73.53 53.94 50.0

Notes:

1Includes averages of Batman titles. Forboth pre-relaunch and post-relaunch titles,this includes Batman, Batman and Robin,and Detective Comics

2Includes averages of Superman titles. Forpre-relaunch, only Action Comics is used, asthe pre-relaunch Superman stars theGuardian. For post-relaunch, this averageincludes Action Comics and Superman.

3Spearman’s rho relating female visibility inpre-relaunch comic books to animatedtelevision programs = .40

4Spearman’s rho relating female visibility inpost-relaunch comic books to animatedtelevision programs = 1.00

The Animated Series Compared

The four animated series sampledrevealed interesting patterns. Of all of theprograms, Batman: the Animated Series(created in the early 1990s) was the onlyshow containing a sampled episode thatomitted female characters (the episode“Read My Lips”); the sampled episodes of

Superman (late 1990s), Justice League(early 2000s), and Teen Titans (mid-2000s)all have at least one female image in theepisode. Concerning centrality of females,only the same episode of Batman (“ReadMy Lips”) and an episode of Justice League(“Secret Origins #1”) lack such characters.Every episode of each series in the samplepossessed at least one image of non-whitecharacters; however, centrality of thesecharacters was lacking, with non-whitecharacters becoming more visible over timein the sample. Non-white characters are onlycentral in one episode of Batman (“Bane”)and in one episode of Superman (“ActionFigures”). Two of the three episodes ofJustice League featured central characters ofcolor (“Secret Origins #2” and “SecretOrigins #3”), but all of the episodes of TeenTitans possess such characters. In thissample, non-white characters are more likelyto play a prominent role in the story whenthey are part of the on-going cast in showsthat focus on teams (like Justice League andTeen Titans). Of all of the sampled episodes,only one contained a portrayal thatcelebrated a culture (“Bane” from Batman);the rest of the characters from the sampledepisodes were depicted as though part of amelting-pot.

The character-type female charactersembody (e.g. hero, villain, civilian) seems tochange over time. In Batman, femalecharacters played the role of antagonist.While Harley attempts to aid the Joker in“Harlequinade,” Candice (from “Bane”)seduces Bane in a play for power. AlthoughHarley assists Batman and ultimately stopsthe Joker, her allegiances still lie with thepsychotic criminal; Candice operatesdifferently – with her own goals in mind –but still acts as Batman’s enemy. Of the fourshows, Batman was the first. Next wasSuperman, in which the female characterstook on different roles. Lois is mostly acivilian, though she acts heroically in theface of danger. Sarita, the little girl who co-stars with her brother in “Action Figures”also plays the role of a civilian. Mercy,however, is a bit different. She appears inthe episode “Ghost in the Machine” as LexLuthor’s body guard. In this episode, sheexpresses her loyalty to Lex and worksalongside Superman to save him, claimingthat Lex was the first person to give her achance and was the person who made herwho she is. Although Lex is an antagonist,in this episode they were up against a greaterthreat to the world than him – Braniac – andMercy acts as a neutral character, fightingalongside Superman to save her boss (andultimately being left for dead by said boss).

In Justice League, a solid transition is madefrom civilian to hero. Both female characterswho star in the series fall solidly into thesuperhero category, working alongside theirmale teammates to save planet Earth fromdestruction. Similarly, in Teen Titans, themain characters Starfire and Raven areeasily distinguished as heroes; unlike JusticeLeague, however, there are also more femalecharacters to classify, and various differentfemale characters are civilians, antagonists(like Kitten in “Date With Destiny”) andunclassifiable characters like Terra from“Terra.” Terra is a bit unique in that she isattempting to be a hero in the sampledepisode, but not only does she inadvertentlycause destruction at every turn, she alsoflees at the end of the episode, leaving herfate inconclusive (though viewers whowatch outside of the sampled episodes findout that she ultimately joins the antagonist,Slade, who promises to train her to use herpowers, and nearly kills her former Titanfriends, but finally ends up sacrificingherself to stop Slade when she realizes hermistake). The episodes sampled from morerecent times tend to possess more “heroic”females than those from farther back.

Further, in three of the four series studied, atleast one episode possessed a story of afemale character returning to a hurtful

boyfriend. The Batman episode“Harlequinade” concludes with Harleythrowing herself happily into the Joker’sarms, despite his attempts only momentsearlier to destroy Gotham with her stillthere. She aims her gun at him and he tellsher that she wouldn’t dare; her fingerpresses on the trigger and out of the endcomes a little joke-flag. They glare at eachother. He smiles. She shrugs. And he spinsher around, laughing. It’s meant to beamusing, though in reality Harley was sovery close to finally leaving the man whoconstantly ridicules and abuses her (whomoments earlier was quite content to let herdie). The exchange between Mercy Gravesand Lex Luthor in the Superman episode“Ghost in the Machine” is similar. Mercydoes everything she can to save Lex, whomshe clearly cares about deeply, but when theroles are reversed, Lex leaves her for deadunapologetically. Still, in the final scenes(after Superman has saved her), we see heropening the limousine door for Lex andstepping into the drivers’ seat. Supermanwatches her somberly from a distance. Thisdrama is played less amusingly than that ofHarley and the Joker in Batman, though itstill shows a female character remainingdevoted to a man who couldn’t care whethershe lived or died. The last instance occurs inthe Teen Titans episode “Date With

Destiny.” In this story, the antagonist Kittenblackmails Robin into taking her to promafter her boyfriend, Fang, dumps her. Thisdiffers from the previous examples in thatKitten is the one in control – literally, shehas the control to destroy the city in herhand. She is also the character doing themanipulating. When Fang crashes the promin a fit of jealousy, she is pleased, happilyaccepting the stolen jewelry he gifts her.Although he hurt her emotionally, sherekindles their relationship when given theopportunity. Teen Titans presents thisparadigm much more innocently than itspredecessors; still, it is troubling thatbetween 1994 and 2004, the same type ofstory remains.

5

Discussion

Ultimately, the “New 52” manages to bothfail and succeed in increasing diversity intheir new titles. After the relaunch, I foundthat the titles sampled depicted less visibilityof female images; however, while the art ismore sexualized, the post-relaunchcharacters are more likely than their pre-

reboot counterparts to be depicted infunctional costumes. It should be noted thatonly the first issue of each post-relaunchseries was sampled; therefore, it is possiblethat this could change and that femalecharacters (and more images of femalecharacters) could become more prevalent asnew issues are released.

However, while the post-relaunch comicsfail to increase diversity of gender, they dopossess greater diversity of race. Of the titlessampled, post-reboots series possess moreimages of non-white characters. With thatsaid, the vast majority of these imagesappear to have come from a melting-pot,meaning that these characters are depicted asno different than their white counterparts.There are various reasons this could be so.The mostly likely is related to an underlyingethnocentrism. That is, because white-culture (American culture) is viewed assuperior to others by much of the Americanpopulation, non-white characters are writtenas though they are identical, with only theirskin colors to differentiate them; the lack ofcultural diversity is likely intended to be acompliment, to indicate that non-whitecharacters can be ‘just as good’ as whitecharacters. This depends on how to writerchoses to depict them. For example, KiranSingh (Solstice) a member of the Teen

Titans who is from India and is depicted in away that celebrates cultural differences, butat the same time still proves herself as avaluable member of the team. Alternately,books like Legion of Super-heroes arepopulated with alien characters who often,like Superman, resemble humans. Theypossess non-white characters, like ChemicalKid (also known as Hadru Jamik) fromLegion of Super-Heroes, but, as he is fromthe homeworld Phlon, he does not seem toembody cultural diversity.

One animated series that that sought toexemplify differences in culture and thatfocused on social problems for people ofcolor was the early 2000s animated series,Static Shock, which existed in the samefictional universe as Batman, Superman, andJustice League. Unlike the other series,Static Shock (based on the comic book of thesame name) headlined a non-whitecharacter, the African-American VirgilHawkins, who, along with other Dakota Cityyouth was affected by the “Big Bang,” achemical gas explosion, giving him electric-based powers. Dwayne McDuffie, a mainwriter for Justice League and the writer ofthe sampled Teen Titans episode “FearItself,” co-created Static (the character) aswell as Static Shock (the animated series).One episode that focuses on social problems

is the episode “Sons of the Father,” in whichVirgil finds out that his best friend Richie’sfather harbors a deep prejudice againstAfrican-Americans. When Virgil overhearshis racist attitudes, he decides to go home;and Richie, embarrassed and ashamed of hisfather, runs away from home. In order tofind his son, Richie’s father is forced towork alongside Virgil’s father, and hisbigotry is confronted. The episodeculminates in both father’s together findingRichie (who had ultimately been kidnappedby a super-villain named Ebon) and teamingup with Static to save him. Richie’s fatherapologizes and acts far more respectfullytoward Virgil at the end of the episode,indicating his attempts to change.

Indeed, this episode is laced with powerfullanguage. The writer never shies away fromstating outright that Richie’s father (Mr.Foley) is racist. When Mr. Hawkins, Virgil’sdad – social worker at the local youth center– speaks with Virgil the next morning aboutMr. Foley’s words, Mr. Hawkins explains tohim that that type of hate feeds in on itself,breeding a “cycle of intolerance” (Riba2000); he also notes that Richie does notalign himself with his father’s opinions, andhas therefore broken that cycle. Further, Mr.Hawkins discusses this with Mr. Foleyhimself as they search for Richie. When Mr.

Hawkins reminds him that Richie wasn’t theonly boy who ran away from him the nightbefore, Mr. Foley tells him his wordsweren’t about him specifically, causing Mr.Hawkins to retort:

No, you were talking about his kind, that’sall. Well, I know your kind, Foley. I’veseen your kind all my life. The fine,upstanding bigot. His nose so close to thegrindstone he can’t see anything else.Meanwhile, the world changes and grows,and he’s blind to it! Ignorant! And proud ofthat, too! And you know the worst part?….You’ve got a terrific son. One of the bestand brightest around. And because of theway you are, you’ll never really know him.(Riba 2000).

The way this episode is depicted certainlyspells it out for child viewers: kind Mr.Hawkins (portrayed as a loving father whorespects his children and helps others) is therighteous hero against Mr. Foley’sprejudice; and ultimately, his words (andMr. Foley’s love for his son) prompt theman to adjust his attitude. The socialproblems surrounding persons of color areindicated to the viewership, and challengedboth in the show and outside of the show, asit teaches children to strike back against thecycles of intolerance that linger in society.

While Static promotes positive messages,others are more problematic; the propensityof women returning to and staying loyal tobad men is one such issue. This patternoccurs at least once in three out of the fouranimated series sampled: Batman,Superman, and Teen Titans. Each instance ismeant to elicit a different response. Harley’sreturn to the Joker in Batman is meant to becomedic, despite his willingness to leave herfor dead. In Superman, Mercy’s loyalty toLex Luthor results in Superman (theprotagonist and moral voice of the show)watching her with sadness. Teen Titansportrays the teenage antagonist Kitten’smanipulative attempts to coerce the criminalex-boyfriend (who dumped her beforeProm) to return to her. While in Mercy’scase the relationship seems platonic, theothers follow the stereotype that girls areattracted to the “bad boy;” in Harley’sinstance, she was, in fact, corrupted by the“bad boy,” leaving her profession as aclinical psychologist to join his crimecrusade. Indeed, all three depict womenreturning to men who treat them poorly,implying that these women believe suchtreatment is acceptable. Further, all of thesewomen are morally ambiguous, at best.Harley Quinn often assists the Joker in hisschemes (under the claim that it’s all just abig joke), despite the harm that comes to

civilians. Mercy Graves works for LexLuthor, one of Superman’s mainantagonists, as a bodyguard and personalassistant, with seemingly no qualms abouthis questionable morals. Kitten, the daughterof a super-villain, who is trying to compelher criminal ex-boyfriend Fang to return toher, threatens to destroy the entire city if herdemands are not fulfilled. In these programs,it is the antagonist females who are depictedin unhealthy relationships, indicating (in away) that only the “bad” girls are willing toallow such treatment, while the “good” girls,like Starfire, are in happy, healthyrelationships, platonic or otherwise.

Although the general presence and highoccurrence of these situations isproblematic, they do not appear to glamorizeor condone the action. Even Harley’srelationship with the Joker, which in manyinstances is depicted as humorous, portraysthe pain endured when a girl stays with afiendish boyfriend; this, however, wouldhave been accomplished far more effectivelyif, at the conclusion of the episode, she hadleft him, rather than jumping into his arms(and thus continuing her spree of criminalactivities). Mercy’s example is the clearestin terms of messages; Superman, the hero,wants her to sever ties with Luthor, whileMercy insists that he cares about her. At the

end of the episode, after he leaves her fordead, Superman views her sorrowfully,indicating to the audience that staying loyalto a person who hurts you is frowned upon.In Teen Titans, the audience is meant todislike Kitten, and is meant to see her desireto take back her old boyfriend as pathetic.The episode does not seem to promote thenotion that girls should want to reclaim boysthat hurt them; instead, they are supposed torelate to Starfire, who arrives to protect theboy (Robin) who she has feelings for. Theissue in these episodes is not, necessarily,the message that they are trying to portray; itis more the messages they aren’t trying toshow; the ones that are unintentional, likethe juxtaposition of villainesses in abusiverelationships versus noble female charactersbeing in healthy ones.

A tendency found in the sampled Batmancomic books and television episodes is toportray women as antagonists. In all of theepisodes that featured named femalecharacters, these characters wereantagonists: Harley Quinn from“Harlequinade” and Candice from “Bane.”Similarly, with the exception of the pre-relaunch issue of Detective Comics, eachcomic that featured a named femalecharacter featured female antagonists: SisterCrystal from pre-relaunch Batman and

Robin and Enigma and Gilda from pre-relaunch Batman. In fact, like Harley Quinnin the animated series, Gilda’s antagonisticnature is prompted by her love for herformer husband, Two-Face; she attacksBatman to save him, despite the fact thatTwo-Face was seconds away from killingher. Further, each of these femaleantagonists appears to be defined by the menin their lives. Harley is forever associatedwith the Joker, Candice wants Bane to killBatman for her, Sister Crystal worksalongside her lover, Enigma appears to bethe Riddler’s daughter, and Gilda is theformer wife of Two-Face. With theexception, perhaps, of Sister Crystal, thesecharacters assist their male partners, and arealmost always secondary to them. Even theBatman episode named for Harley Quinn,“Harlequinade,” is focused on the Joker,with Batman using Harley as a means tocatch him. Batman as an animated seriesaired in the early 1990s, before cartoons likeKim Possible and The Powerpuff Girlsheadlined female characters as seriesprotagonists, and may have taken its cuesfrom the classic Batman comic femmefatales – like Catwoman, Poison Ivy, andTalia al Ghul – for female characters. As faras the comics are concerned, femaleprotagonists do appear prominently inDetective Comics and neutral characters

appear and are alluded to in Batman; thus,that many of the female characters appearingare villains may be an attempt at visibilityby trying not to limit antagonists to malecharacters. As Batman focuses on a maleprotagonist, there may be feweropportunities to portray female characters(unlike a title like Teen Titans, in whichseveral of the protagonists are female).Detective Comics does, however,occasionally spotlight other charactersbesides Batman, such as the issues in whichBatwoman is featured; however, whetherthis connects to its greater likelihood in thesampled issue of portraying protagonistfemale characters is unknown.

Within the superhero genre, female heroesare often secondary to their male cohorts.Women appear as superheroes in thesampled episodes of only two of the fouranimated series. In Justice League, WonderWoman is barely mentioned in the firstepisode, put on the backburner in favor ofSuperman and Batman; it isn’t until she andHawkgirl appear in the other two episodesthat they receive comparable airtime to theirfive male teammates. However, in thesampled episodes of Teen Titans, thefemales are the main characters of thestories. Newcomer Terra (who, for thatepisode at least, can be considered a hero) is

the main focus of the episode “Terra.”Meanwhile, “Fear Itself” centers aroundRaven learning to accept her emotions andher fear, teaching the message that it is okayto feel fear, and that it needs to be felt inorder to be fought and overcome. “Date withDestiny” stars Kitten as the antagonist, butalso focuses on Starfire, who wishes toprotect Robin on his forced date with Kitten.In the comic books, the roles of women aresimilar. In the pre-reboot team books (withthe exception of the all-female Birds ofPrey), super-heroines fight alongside theirmale counterparts, like they do in the JusticeLeague animated series. For the most part,the only time they are main characters are intheir own solo titles (or titles that focus onone character), like Wonder Woman, Batgirl,and Supergirl. Otherwise, they act asassistants to the male heroes, like they do inAction Comics, Detective Comics, andSuperman. Post-relaunch, women act as aidless often, though that is likely because theyappear less often. Further, because the post-reboot universe is younger (e.g. the previoushistory was compressed to take place in ashorter period of time, and many aspectswere flat out omitted), many of the femalecharacters who were prominent pre-relauncheither no longer exist or are restarted as newheroes. This is true of characters likeSupergirl, who, in her New 52 title, is new

to Earth and has not yet begun her career asa superhero. Similarly, characters whopreviously led their own titles, like formerBat-family member Stephanie Brown fromthe pre-relaunch Batgirl series, no longerexist, which decreases the pool of super-heroines to draw from for assistance. Withthe exception of the Superboy title, whichfocuses on a Superboy through the lens of afemale researcher, the only titles that focuson female characters are the characters’ ownsolo titles.

Very few of these female characters, hero orvillain, could be considered “prime movers;”that is, less than a handful made a significantimpact on their surroundings via their ownautonomy, without external influences. Themajority of the animated females weremotivated by outside forces, usually the menin their lives: Harley Quinn by her love forthe Joker, Mercy Graves by her loyalty toLex Luthor, Terra out of fear of her powers,and Kitten by the desire to win back herboyfriend; even Hawkgirl and WonderWoman were, initially, psychicallysummoned by the Martian Manhunter to aidthe other heroes. Antagonist Candice could,potentially, be seen as a free agent, as heractions were motivated by her own self-interest, though she uses Bane as her meansto achieve them. Indeed, Starfire and Raven

are mostly autonomous actors, though in“Date with Destiny,” Starfire’s actions aremotivated by her jealousy of Kitten and herprotectiveness of Robin, and in “Fear Itself”Raven’s suppressed emotions almost destroythe team because of her childhood trainingto control herself at all times. The characterthat most embodies the role of a “primemover” is Lois Lane, who acts based on herown objectives and will not let anything oranyone deter her; this, however, often putsher in harm’s way, prompting her rescue bySuperman. Regardless, as a news reporter,her work affects a large number of people,and she is motivated by her own curiosity,rather than external forces. In the comicbooks, Wonder Woman is always motivatedby her own interests, saving people bychoice. Similarly, both pre-relaunch Batgirl(Stephanie Brown) and post-relaunch Batgirl(Barbara Gordon) fit this mold, though thelatter, at times, hesitates due to lingeringPost Traumatic Stress Disorder after beingshot and paralyzed years earlier. Pre-rebootSupergirl seems to be acting of her ownaccord in the issue sampled; post-relaunch,however, she had not, in the issue sampled,begun acting as a superhero, having onlyjust landed on Earth. Further, in both issuesof Birds of Prey, the female characters aredriven by their own goals, rather thanexternal forces. Thus, women seem more

likely to be “prime movers” when they arethe leads of the text they appear in, ratherthan secondary characters.

In comic books, there appears to be apatriarchal collusion between the authors,artists, and readers that allows femalecharacters to be portrayed as often over-sexualized and underrepresented. While notall titles fall into this mindset, many do, andin order to do this there needs to be someform or unwritten agreement between theproducers and consumers that suchrenderings are acceptable. Likely, thisoccurs because both the majority of writersand authors and the majority of buyers aremale (Hudson 2011a); thus, it is considerednormal, if not encouraged. The heterosexualmale readers likely prefer to see femalecharacters with model-like proportionsdressed in form fitting, low-cut costumes,giving them no reason to complain; and, inorder to make a profit, publishers likely wishto meet those demands. In titles that focuson male characters, the writers often likelywant to keep the story centered on the lead,therefore making female charactersbackdrops. This is the way comic bookshave been for decades; if this tendency is notpointed out to the producers of comics, theyhave no reason to think there is a problem. Itseems that even when the subjection of

female characters is pointed out, suchcriticisms are often ignored. If heard, thesecomplaints may be infantilized under theassertion that comic books are just a form ofentertainment and that female readers areoverreacting. When such controversyemerges, these companies point to their fewfemale-led books, saying that their existencefixes the problem, and that readers should behappy with what they receive. Further, manyfemale readers likely don’t want to admittheir discomfort for fear of being ostracizedby the male-dominated fan community. It isa vicious system, in that such depictions andattitudes alienate female readers; yet,without more female readers, this tendencywill continue. As women make upapproximately half of the world’spopulation, one would think that if the goalsof these companies are increasing sales, thenencouraging females to read comic bookswould benefit all parties; however, this hasnot happened. Creating a more diversefictional universe seems like a simplesolution to these problems, but only timewill tell if this will come to pass.

Regardless, this study focuses on visibilityof gender and race, not characters. While itdemonstrates that DC Comics lacks femalecharacters and characters of color, it doesnot qualitatively examine the relationships

between characters. A more in-depthexamination into how women and non-White characters are portrayed could examthe titles in full story arcs, rather than singleissues to better understand the dynamics ofthe plot and whether the characters developin any meaningful way. Further, a look intowhether female characters compete for maleattention may be beneficial, as the idea ofgirls in competition for male attention –embodied in the notion of the “Fake GeekGirl” – seems to be dominant in the comicbook fan community, as well as society as awhole. Comic books, as a medium, have thepotential for presenting stories with bothpositive messages and harmful ones. Thecharacters they create are the inspiration forchildren’s role models; making thesecharacters more diverse will teach childrenmessages about egalitarianism. Further,these stereotyped images are harmful to thecurrent readers and promote damagingmessages about women and people of color.The way in which characters are presentedmatters to readers of all ages, and to viewersof comic book related media; as such, futureresearch about how these characters aredepicted could prompt publishers to finallymake the change that seems so sorelyneeded.

1

ReferencesAssociated Press. 2012. “Marvel ComicsPlans Wedding for Gay Hero Northstar.”CBSNews.

Retrieved December 9, 2012.(http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57439386-10391698/marvel-comics-plans-wedding-for-gay-hero-northstar/)

Brown, Tara Tiger. 2012. “Dear Fake GeekGirls: Please Go Away.” Forbes.Retrieved November 30, 2012.(http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/03/26/dear-fake-geek-girls-please-go-away).

Clark, Roger, Rachel Lennon and LeannaMorris. 1993. “Of Caldecotts and Kings:Gendered Images in Recent AmericanChildren’s Books by Black and non-BlackIllustrators.” Gender & Society 5: 227-245.

Clark, Roger, Allyssa Coon and JulieKessler. Forthcoming 2013. “Who Envisionsthe Distaff Side?: Female Visibility inChildren’s Picture Books over Time and by

Authors’ Race, Ethnicity, SexualSympathies and Gender.” InternationalReview of Modern Sociology.

Hudson, Laura. 2011a. “Answering DanDidio: The Problem With Having Only 1%Female Creators at DC Comics.” ComicsAlliance. Retrieved April 23, 2013.(http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/28/dc-dan-didio-female-creators)

Hudson, Laura. 2011. “The Big SexyProblem with Superheroines and Their‘Liberated Sexuality.” Comics Alliance.Retrieved November 30, 2012.(http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/22/starfire-catwoman-sex-superheroine)

Jennings, Sally A. 1975. “Effects of SexTyping in Children’s Stories on Preferenceand Recall.” Child Development46(1):220-223.

Johnston, Rich. 2012. “‘Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl, You Are More Pathetic ThanThe REAL Nerds’- Tony Harris.” BleedingCool. Retrieved November 30, 2012.(http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/11/13/hey-quasi-pretty-not-hot-girl-you-are-more-pathetic-than-the-real-nerds-tony-harris)

Kirsh, Steven J. and Paul V. Olczak. 2002.“The Effects of Extremely Violent ComicBooks on Social Information Processing.”Journal of Interpersonal Violence17(11):1160-1178.

Liebert, Robert M. 1986. “Effects ofTelevision on Children and Adolescents.”Journal of Developmental and BehavioralPediatrics 7(1):43-48.

MacBeth, Tannis M., ed. 1996. Tuning in toYoung Viewers: Social Science Perspectiveson Television. Thousand Oaks: SagePublications.

Moore, Alan, Brian Bolland, and RichardStarkings. 1988. Batman: The Killing Joke.New York: DC Comics.

Nyberg, Amy K. 1995. “Comic Books andWomen Readers: Trespassers inMasculine Territory?” Pp. 205-26 in Genderin Popular Culture: Images of Men andWomen in Literature, Visual Media, andMaterial Culture, edited by Peter C. Rollinsand Susan W. Rollins. Cleveland:Ridgemont Press.

Pantozzi, Jill. 2012. “DC Comics NielsenSurvey Results Are In, They AreInteresting.” The Mary Sue. Retrieved

December 9, 2012.(http://www.themarysue.com/dc-nielsen-survey-results/)

Philips, Dan. 2009. “Batwoman Takes OverDetective Comics.” IGN. RetrievedDecember 9, 2012. (http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/06/11/batwoman-takes-over-detective-comics)

Riba, Dan, director. 2000. “Sons of theFather,” Static Shock. Warner Bros.Animation. 12 March 2013.

Singer, Marc. 2002. “‘Black Skins’ andWhite Masks: Comic Books and the Secretof Race.” African American Review36(1):107-19.

Truitt, Brian. 2011. “DC Comics Ready fora Risky Yet Relevant Publishing Change.”USA Today. Retrieved December 9, 2012.(http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/comics/2011-06-01-dc-comics-why-the-change_n.htm)

Vaughan, Brian K., and Fiona Staples. 2012.Saga. Berkeley, CA: Image Comics. Issue#5, pg. 23.

Volpe, Giancarlo (Giancarlo_Volpe). 8December 2012, 6:27 p.m. “@Darth_Joe27

Good point – but I understand Kyle Rayneris half Mexican. Would people freak out ifwe brought up that side of his background?”Via Twitter. [https://twitter.com/Giancarlo_Volpe/status/277555142927187968]

Wheeler, Andrew. 2011. “No More Mutants:52 Problems.” Bleeding Cool. RetrievedNovember 29, 2012.(http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/09/22/no-more-mutants-52-problems-by-andrew-wheeler).

2

Appendix A: List ofsampled titlesPre-Relaunch:

Justice League of America #60

Action Comics #904

Wonder Woman #614

Teen Titans #100

Batman and Robin #26

Supergirl #67

Batgirl #24

Batman #712

Birds of Prey #15

Detective Comics #879

Green Arrow #15

Superman #692

Superboy #11

Legion of Super-heroes #16

Green Lantern Corps #63

Post-Relaunch:

Justice League #1

Action Comics #1

Wonder Woman #1

Teen Titans #1

Batman and Robin #1

Supergirl #1

Batgirl #1

Batman #1

Birds of Prey #1

Detective Comics #1

Green Arrow #1

Superman #1

Superboy #1

Legion of Super-heroes #1

Green Lantern Corps #1

3

Appendix B: Codesheet for comicbooksPre Reboot or Post Reboot:

Title:

Author(s):

Artist(s):

Creator (if listed):

Does this title have a female character?

Does this title have a central femalecharacter?

Do the female characters pass the Bechdeltest?

Percentage of images of females:

If female characters are present:

Is her uniform: Modest/practical,Skimpy/implausible, or Neither modestnor skimpy

Do other characters make comments onher beauty?

Is she a: superhero villaincivilian

Is she involved in a battle?

If she is in a battle, does she win thefight with assistance?

If yes, is the assistance male or female?

If the assistance is male, was thecharacter “saved” in a Damsel-in-distress fashion, or was it simplyassistance?

Does the series feature a team?

If the series features a team, what proportionof the central characters are female?

Does this series depict non-whitecharacters?

Are the non-white characters central:

Percentage of images of non-whitecharacters:

Are these depictions socially conscious,culturally conscious, melting pot, or other?

Does this series depict homosexualcharacters?

Does this series depict central homosexualcharacters?

Do any of those categories overlap? (i.e. isthere a black lesbian, or an Asian female?).

If yes, which categories overlap?

What is the apparent socioeconomic class ofthe main character? (if applicable)

What are the apparent socioeconomicclasses or supporting characters? (ifapplicable)

CentralCharacterCentral Character

(OppositeGender)

Is the character:

Dependent

Independent

Incapable (i.e. Damsel in Distress)

Capable

Intelligent

Strategic

Brave

Reckless

Other notes:

4

Appendix C: List ofsampled televisionepisodesBatman: The Animated Series

“Read My Lips”

“Harlequinade”

“Bane”

Superman: The Animated Series

“Action Figures”

“Ghost in the Machine”

“Bizarro’s World”

Justice League

“Secret Origins #1”

“Secret Origins #2”

“Secret Origins #3”

Teen Titans

“Terra”

“Fear Itself”

“Date With Destiny”

5

Appendix D: Codesheet for televisionepisodesTitle:

Episode:

Writer:

Date:

Creator (if listed):

Does this title have a female character?

Does this title have a central femalecharacter?

Do the female characters pass the Bechdeltest?

If female characters are present:

Is her uniform: Modest/practical,Skimpy/implausible, or Neither modestnor skimpy

Do other characters make comments onher beauty?

Is she a: superhero villaincivilian

Is she involved in a battle?

If she is in a battle, does she win thefight with assistance?

If yes, is the assistance male or female?

If the assistance is male, was thecharacter “saved” in a Damsel-in-distress fashion, or was it simplyassistance?

Does the series feature a team?

If the series features a team, what proportionof the central characters are female?

Does this series depict non-whitecharacters?

Are the non-white characters central:

Are these depictions socially conscious,culturally conscious, melting pot, or other?

Does this series depict homosexualcharacters?

Does this series depict central homosexualcharacters?

Do any of those categories overlap? (i.e. isthere a black lesbian, or an Asian female?).

If yes, which categories overlap?-

What is the apparent socioeconomic class ofthe main character? (if applicable)

What are the apparent socioeconomicclasses or supporting characters? (ifapplicable)

CentralCharacterCentral Character

(OppositeGender)

Is the character:

Dependent

Independent

Incapable (i.e. Damsel in Distress)

Capable

Intelligent

Strategic

Brave

Reckless

1. Other notes: