Despite its somewhat unsavory reputation, the comic book industry has actually historically been staffed by fairly liberal and progressive types. Which is why I am not surprised by the sentiment of the following splash panel from 1982, but rather by its very existence. I’ll explain after you’ve clicked on it and read the thing in its entirety…
So, as I said: Comic book people tend to be pretty progressive. So writing a comic in which a bunch of misogynistic religious zealots are the bad guys is not surprising to me. What is surprising is the sheer lack of subtlety…and the use of the word “slut.” (The word appears on a later page as well.)
Mind you, this comic book was published in 1982. Before Watchmen. Before The Dark Knight Returns. Comic books — especially super-hero comic books — were explicitly and expressly considered kids’ stuff in those days. They were for children and maybe teens, and maybe some emotionally stunted adults, and that was it.
As a result, to see the real-world issue of religious gender hatred spilling onto a comic book page with little-to-no analogizing is…well, like I said before: surprising. And seeing the word “slut” under such conditions is downright shocking. Not shocking as in, “Oh, no! Children will see that word!” But shocking as in, “How the hell did they get away with that in 1982?”
In any event, you will be pleased to know that Supergirl beats the hell out of these Neanderthals a whole lot in the pages that follow. After all, it’s comics.
(From Superman Family #215, February 1982. Written by Martin Pasko. Art by Win Mortimer and Vince Colletta.)