Super Sex
Superman was the first comic book superhero. Created by two imaginative young men, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, in the late 30s and brought to newsstands in Action Comics 1 in 1938. Superman had his roots in the sexy world of pulps and probably in the novel Gladiator, by Philip Wylie, but there is nothing overtly sexy about Doc Savage or Wylie’s hapless superman (despite the Avon paperback cover shown here).
Still, that tight uniform, those muscles, that power… Yummy.
After Superman’s success, hundreds of other superheroes appeared and some of the more lurid publishers saw the value of sex appeal right away. Even in the cleanest of the early superhero comics, bondage was common and, in William Moulton Marston’s Wonder Woman, practically raised to the level of a sacrament, but superhero comics were aimed at kids and none of the publishers really pushed the envelope the way they did in crime comics and horror comics.
As the baby boomers aged, comics grew up with them – just not on the newsstands. While the Code kept mainstream publishers from adult topics, underground comics flourished and the wildest forms of sexual expression were explored by artists like Robert Crumb and S. Clay Wilson, but for the most part these artists were not interested in superheroics, except as the occasional object of parody. Superheroes were still kids stuff.
The tide began to turn in the 1980s when comics like Marvel’s X-Men began to focus more on relationships, including sexual relationships, between characters, but for the most part sexuality was still juvenile, more an expression of adolescent fixations on anatomy and fantasies than any real exploration of grown-up sex.
In one memorable issue of The Avengers, the superhero Antman uses his power to shrink apparently to provide some intense clitoral stimulation to his partner The Wasp. Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne lives up to his playboy reputation. DC comics based an entire world-changing event, “Identity Crisis,” on the fallout from a super villain raping a hero’s wife. Much of the sex in comics today is still more likely to appeal to 14-year old boys than to adults, but at least our super folk get laid.
My story, “Lawman”, in the Circlet Press anthology Like a Mask Removed, Vol. 1, is about a retired superhero, forbidden from pleasure by a Comics Code-like morality, looking for illicit fulfillment. I’ve written a little more about the story’s genesis in a guest blog entry for M. Christian’s blog Frequently Felt and you can find an excerpt there as well.
Posted by Angela Caperton at 3/28/2010 2:37 PM 
Categories: Superheroes, Circlet, Comics, Angela Caperton, Erotica
Tags: Superheroes Circlet Erotica Comics Angela Caperton M.Christian
Categories: Superheroes, Circlet, Comics, Angela Caperton, Erotica
Tags: Superheroes Circlet Erotica Comics Angela Caperton M.Christian
Comments