I originally posted this pretty far down in the discussion of misogynists and daughters, and decided I wanted it right up where folks could see it, in case anyone was in doubt of my feelings on the subject. They are violent because Colleen Wing and Misty Knight are personal icons of mine. In the 1970s they were the first female heroes I found anywhere who satisfied my desires for female heroes: strong, funny, active, straight (sorry, gay and bi friends, but at the time there was a wealth of gay female warriors out there, thanks to Marion Zimmer Bradley and her sisterhood, and no straight ones), independent, fierce, into martial arts. I didn't discover Lessa of Pern until after Misty and Colleen had me cheering with a comic book in my hands.

I'm talking now about Paul Goggle's post that includes the Heroes for Hire #13 cover. There's a good discussion of it going on there, too. Rabican in the Misogynists Don't Have Daughters thread here pointed it out. Here's what I think, re-posted and modified from my thread:

I've had mixed feelings about this incarnation [the current Heroes for Hire magazine] of Colleen and Misty from the beginning, though Tim loves the comic. Originally Colleen was a dark, doom-seeking, driven fighter--here she is far more subdued, keeping to the background. And the art has been making me daffy, not to mention the part in Misty's `fro. Yes, they are an estrogen-laden team of butt-kickers, but their outfits are painted on, and their scenes are drawn cheesecake.

And it's silly of me, but it bugs the hell out of me that Shang-Chi is made negligible. The point is f*****g equality. NOBODY has to be the lesser party.

I hated it, in the beginning, that they were against the rebels of Civil War.

Enough. They weren't the Colleen and Misty I knew. I get that. I can live with it.

This cover makes me INSANE. It is nasty. It is degrading. It is everything I fight and write against.

Three supposedly strong, war-like women, strung up by their wrists, in chains, the emblem of the slave (paging John Norman...); dazed and helpless (someone on scans_daily said it would be hilarious if they were awake and mad; I think it would be powerful and redemptive); bared practically to their navels (but no nipple showing because nurturing organs would be dirty in this screwed-up pervo-catering censorship universe) as nameless Things with glowing eyes (and probably elongated barbed dicks) slaver in the background--and phallic tentacles reach up to their crotches. Misty's clothes are ripped; she's bleeding. Do her eyes and Colleen's glimmer with tears? Colleen's mouth hangs open--to receive a tentacle?

It's not right that we have these powerful women. Let's humiliate them publicly, on the cover. Let's strip them of their power, wit, and rage, and show them off to everyone who walks by, to show what powerful women can expect, even when we've showed them being powerful. This is what happens when women strut along, kicking butt. This is what they can expect. Savor and learn!

The worst? It was drawn by a woman.

Now Marvel can say, see? We have women working for us, and moreover, she had no problem giving us the kind of cover you whiners have been squealing about. Real women give real men what they want.

I feel sick. I hope they paid her well for this. And I hope she and those at Marvel who approved and wrote this never have another decent night's sleep for the dreams of bold women who spit on them.

These women were something bold and bright to me, but that doesn't matter, not when put up against the publisher's frantic need to cater to the shrinking audience of fanboys with one hand in their laps. It doesn't even occur to them that with each egregious slap in the face to women and girl readers of pride like this, they cost themselves more members of an audience that might replenish that shrinking one, or if it occurs to them, they dismiss it with the flap of a hand, because--wait for it--to them

WOMEN JUST DON'T MATTER EXCEPT AS TOYS.

And that goes for their quisling artists. I hope the quislings don't think work like this means they really matter in the long run. They'll be dubbed "crazy bitches" and dumped the moment they start to stand on their own hind legs.