Everything Girl Wonder has to say about this cover is true.
Sure, it’s not like drawing Supergirl like a rubber sex toy is anything new for DC; thus far, only Barry Kitson seems to be able (or willing) to draw her like a spunky teen superheroine instead of a model asking to be spanked in a Just 18! photo spread. But it bears pointing out, repeatedly, because this is one of DC’s most iconic characters, and one with the most potential for attracting young, female readers, and DC keeps using her as some pseudo-porn-panties model. Bleah.
But that’s not what bugs me. (I’m kind of numb to that by now) No, the bizarre thing here, for which I’m entirely blaming Jim Lee, is the prominence given to Nightwing’s boot tread.
No, really.
What’s the point? What’s the need to see what kind of boot tread Nightwing uses? What kind of bizarre logic makes the bottom of Dick Grayson’s foot the focal point of the cover? If you’re going to draw a porn star on the cover, at least make sure the audience is looking at her breasts or her tantalizingly short skirt.
We never used to see this sort of thing. In fact, I can’t ever remember seeing it before this:
It’s one of those things that makes audiences say “Oh! How detailed!” And oh, the detail. But it’s a pointless detail. It’s an unneccessary detail that doesn’t actually say anything beyond “Look at the detail!” Sure, it’s good for key objects to be detailed in any artwork, but why is the sole of someone’s foot the key object? Why do we really care about Batman’s foot? And if we don’t care about Batman’s foot, we sure as hell don’t care about Nightwing’s foot. And if we don’t care about Batman’s foot as drawn by Jim Lee, then we’d really rather look at anything other than Nightwing’s foot as drawn by Rob Liefeld Michael Turner Ian Churchill.
Really, Ian: If you’re that concerned about detail, how about a pose for Nightwing that actually makes sense. He seems to be kicking out at the reader, but the buildings also suggest he’s coming down. And his legs are going one way, but his torso is going another, which doesn’t make much sense while swinging from a rope. Maybe Todd McFarlane or Erik Larsen could put Spider-Man in that kind of pose and make it look cool, but on Nightwing? And by Churchill? I think not.
On second thought, just about everything about this cover bugs me. It’s really very bad.
But, to end on a positive note, how ’bout Barry Kitson’s cover to Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes for the same month?
No, it’s not a great cover. I’ve seen much better from Kitson, and I really just chose it because it was from the same month as Churchill’s abomination. But look at her: She’s wearing the same costume, yet her skirt isn’t flying over her head. She’s not thrusting any bodyparts out into space. She’s got a tough, heroic pose; she’s there to kick ass and take names, not show ass and collect phone numbers. She’s the star of the book, not just a decoration.
Also, note how we have no idea what the soles of her boots look like.
There might be hope after all.