Sunday Mailbag- Male Superhero Bodies?

Q: Seeing your Captain Rochester picture made me wonder what you think of the evolution of the depiction of the male heroic physique in comics since the 1960s, as a bodybuilder yourself. I haven’t bought comics for many years, and it was partly the advent of what I saw as the weirdly unpleasant overdeveloped character representations that made me stop.

A: The “Captain Rochester” character (see above) is of course an exaggeration of a male comic book hero physique (although not by much by modern standards).

I’m no expert but it seems to me the superhero physique of the day is a reflection of society’s (or rather male society’s) idea of the ideal, and then pushing that to superhuman levels. That changes with what is considered the “ideal ” of the day. This is nothing new, look at historical artist’s depictions of historical “superheroes” like Achilles, Perseus, Hercules, Sampson, David, etc. They reflected an ideal of masculinity at the time.

The advent of Superman and costumed comic books heroes in the 1940’s represented a new modern day mythology, and these characters were physically depicted as the ideal of the day. The whole “trunks outside tights” that became ubiquitous in superhero costume design allegedly came from the circus strongman archetype, from which many superheroes were based. The body type was big and thick, with a rectangular shaped torso with a “barrel chest”. They were muscular but without the kind of hyper-definition that latter day characters have now. This look dominated the comics of the 50’s and into the 60’s.

The comics of the mid-later 60’s had a cartoony sort of look to them, and the figures followed suit. 8 1/2 to 9 heads tall, broad shouldered and with more emphasis on the upper body, especially the chest, shoulders and arms, and less on the legs. These characters were more slim hipped… must have skipped leg day in the superhero gym too often.

The 70’s had a bit of a “realism” shift driven by leading artists of the day like Neal Adams. The figures became longer and more athletic, and less bulky. They were still bigger than life, though. They reflected more of the modern athlete than the circus strongman type. Professional sports (outside of baseball) were really starting to become a big part of American culture and I think the less cartoonish, more athletic look to superheroes was a reflection of the popularity of athletes like O.J. Simpson, Tom Seaver, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mark Spitz, Roger Staubach, Reggie Jackson, etc. The 70’s was when athletes became real celebrities… pitching products and being on TV shows bringing them to the attention of non-sports fans.

The 80’s saw a return to the bulky, very muscular physiques of the earlier male heroes, but with a modern look. Gone were the thick midsections and overall stocky nature of the strongman and in was the ripped, over-developed musculature and “V” shape of the modern bodybuilder. You can probably credit two things for that: advances in both steroids and the science of bodybuilding, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The combination of new, muscle building drugs and training created physiques in the body building world that were unprecedented in their freakish size and development. The world was seeing exaggerated musculature that was just frankly unimaginable before. Then Arnold brought the world of body building out of dark, sweaty gyms and onto Venice Beach and ultimately into major motion pictures and the public consciousness. Comic book heroes followed suit.

By the late 80’s and throughout the 90’s, the physiques of male comic book heroes became more and more ridiculously over-muscled. They didn’t ignore the legs this time, however. There was a period of time where it seemed like the most popular artists of the day were in a competition to see who could get their character’s thighs the biggest and still make them appear to move about. Backs/lats also made a BIG appearance. Waists became thinner and thinner as heroes apparently could continue to perform greats feats of strength and athleticism at 2% body fat. Costumes were apparently painted on because every vein, styration, and ripple was 100% visible on any body surface not covered by a cape. Frankly, at the height of the Image comics aesthetic depictions of the male superhero physique had reached such levels of caricature as to make an “exaggeration” like the one I did above look almost realistic.

I’ll be honest, in the late 90’s I tuned out of most mainstream comic books. Part of that was the ridiculous nature of the art, but a lot of it was being uninterested in a lot of the storylines. Everyone seemed bent on doing a Miller/Moore “reimagining” of characters and a lot of the fun was being sucked out of comic for me. So, I don’t have much perspective on where the evolution of the male comic book physique came to arrive at today. Looking at mainstream comics on the shelves today, there seems to be such a diversity in style there is no one look or trend to point to and say “this is how they draw superheroes today”. That’s a good thing, IMHO. For the most part I see a backing off of the ridiculously over-muscled caricatures of the 90’s and a return to some form of sanity with physiques that, while still “ripped” and huge beyond real life, they are not so IMPOSSIBLY ripped and huge as to look ridiculous. At least most seem to be believable in their ability to move about and occupy a chair in a restaurant without knocking over every patron in the place when they need to visit the restroom.

The bottom line is that, as with with anything, each artist has his own approach to the “superhero physique”, and each reader has their idea of what they like and do not like. Personally I like the modern ripped look without being cartoonishly over-exaggerated. I also appreciate characters that look as if they are wearing their costumes and not having had them painted on. But, to each their own.

Thanks to Hugh Morris for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!