A "depiction of women's bodies in comics" discussion we haven't had before: Height

[Corrina]

Battle of the Network Stars had Lou Ferringo knock the battery off with no reprisal.

You're too young to remember Battle of the Network Stars, son!

[GlitterPill]

I've always been struck by how often even the women who are or started out human are listed as fairly tall for women in the official guides. Off the top of my head, Carol Danvers, Batwoman, Psylocke (in both bodies), Storm and Emma Frost are all supposedly just an inch or two short of six feet. I don't see anything wrong with this, really.

Just vaguely annoying as cosplayer who stands at 5'3 and would like to be able to wear comfortable, low-heeled shoes when dressing up. More petite characters with really cool costumes, please.

[ZimMan2]

I'll admit, I got a thing for tall girls, so more tall girls in anything is a good thing in my book.

[zemo]

Well, we can look at it the other way around: Men aren't allowed to be smaller than women. Wolverine was supposed to be smaller than average from the get go. Nowadays he's basically looming over all the women around him.

[AthenAltena]

Well, we can look at it the other way around: Men aren't allowed to be smaller than women. Wolverine was supposed to be smaller than average from the get go. Nowadays he's basically looming over all the women around him.

That's probably thanks in part to Hugh Jackman, who only looks short next to Shaq. I actually heard that in that movie they had to put James Marsden on a box next to Lanky... er, Famke Janssen.

[JBK405]

Wasn't Wolverine originally supposed to be ugly, too? As in ugly ugly, not just "rugged"?

[AthenAltena]

Wasn't Wolverine originally supposed to be ugly, too? As in ugly ugly, not just "rugged"?

Yup. And allegedly an actual wolverine who was transformed with magic before they changed their minds about that. Again, Hugh Jackman's probably part of the reason, since even in the 90s cartoon he wasn't exactly a looker.

And what's kind of ironic is that even if you use the modern backstory where he's over a century old him being short would still work, since people are a lot taller now than they were then. Even my apartment building, which was built in the 1890s, was clearly designed around shorter people.

And in terms of tall women, I'm always a little suspicious of artists that draw Wondy and try to downplay how tall she is. She's an Amazon, that's kind of one of their defining traits. It's one reason I love how Cliff Chiang is drawing her because she looks physically imposing.

[The Mandarin]

Well, we can look at it the other way around: Men aren't allowed to be smaller than women. Wolverine was supposed to be smaller than average from the get go. Nowadays he's basically looming over all the women around him.

Quite true. I find it interesting that even fiction written by women for women mostly have really tall men and short women. Women are attracted to men being tall. And men want to be tall so they can feel powerful. If it were just a fantasy from the male perspective I could see it eventually changing, but with so many women wanting it that way too, I don't see the tendency in fiction changing anytime soon.

[AthenAltena]

Quite true. I find it interesting that even fiction written by women for women mostly have really tall men and short women. Women are attracted to men being tall. And men want to be tall so they can feel powerful. If it were just a fantasy from the male perspective I could see it eventually changing, but with so many women wanting it that way too, I don't see the tendency in fiction changing anytime soon.

Yeah, I think when women write it that way it's just because that's what they're used to seeing and what they think people want to see.

It also took me quite a while to realize that the fact that my mom is slightly taller than my dad and my dad really doesn't care actually says a lot about him. He's on the short side for a guy (around 5'3", since his side of the family tends towards shorter, especially the women) but it really doesn't bother him, and it's only since I became taller than he was that I even noticed that he's short for a guy. He's not really the type to really say how he feels about a lot, but if it bothers him he's never indicated that it does.

[The Mandarin]

I'm not so sure it's just culture. I think it may be just that most women are attracted to tallness, so they write and buy stories where the men are taller than women by an even bigger margin than is typically true in real life. In other words, it's not much different than the reason why do many women in stories written by men have big tits.