Marvel’s Tom Brevoort on Manara’s Spider-Woman cover

That’s right folks rolling coverage of the world’s biggest story continues to come flooding in as more and more reaction to Milo Manara’s controversial Spider-Woman #1 variant cover. So far we’ve had an artistic critique, a hilarious parody and an indifferent defense but now it’s time for some more opinion. This time from Marvel executive Tom Brevoort via his Tumblr

What does Tom have to say?

"I think that the people who are upset about that cover have a point, at least in how the image relates to them."

For starters it’s good that he can at least see where people are coming from. I too can see where a lot of the people detracting from the Spider-Woman variant are coming from. However he does go on to deliberately contradict himself with the next sentence.

"By that same token, Milo Manara has been working as a cartoonist since 1969, and what he does hasn’t materially changed in all that time. So when we say “Manara cover”, his body of work indicates what sort of thing he’s going to do."

Again, I completely agree with Brevoort here that Milo Manara is a specific kind of artist and when you commission him to do artwork you can be fairly sure what kind of artwork you’re going to get in return. However the issue is that Marvel is desperately trying to get more and more female readers involved in their comics, even having a ‘Women of Marvel’ Comic-Con and then they go and deliberately commission an artist whose work is likely to stir up criticism from feminist circles. It’s simply a bad decision is it not?

"It’s also, for a Manara piece, one of the less sexualized ones, at least to my eye. Maybe others feel differently. But given that the character is covered head-to-toe, and is crouched in a spider-like pose, it seems far less exploitative to me than other Manara pieces we’ve run in previous months and years."

Brevoort then goes on to state that it ‘could have been a lot worse’ which again is 100% true. As far as things go the Spider-Woman cover isn’t naked, and the pose can at least be explained by Jessica Drew having Spider powers, but that still doesn’t explain the curvature of the bum created by a ‘body-paint’ suit, and the fact that Jessica is presenting herself to New York City. The last line of defense is naturally that people don’t have to buy it.

"And fortunately, it’s a variant cover, so people will likely need to seek it out if they want it, rather than it being the display piece for the book."

Finally Brevoort departs with a rather succint and well-thought out statement

"I think a conversation about how women are depicted in comics is relevant at this point, and definitely seems to be bubbling up from the zeitgeist. That too is fine. Nothing gets better unless ideas are communicated."

Excellent. It’s good to know that Marvel are open to improving their product. If they’re truly open to doing so maybe they shouldn’t hire artists that draw a very specific very highly sexualised style of art to produce a variant cover for a female character that they’re desperately trying to use to appeal to woman as a strong independant female character rather than a sex object. Just a thought.

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