Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
|
Hobbes: Is Amazon Girl's super power the ability to squeeze that figure into that suit?
Calvin: Nah, they can all do that.
Whether the hero is a mutant, an Amazon princess or an alien humanoid, if the character is female, she is straining against the bonds of gravity... but not in a flying sort of way. This most common of metahuman attributes seems to range from a D-cup size upward for any character just past the onset of puberty. Usually, their assets are less pronounced when they wear cotton or rayon street-clothes than in their more usual attire of spandex, latex or leather. You'd think this would create an effective disguise, but no.
Of course, this may fluctuate under different artists.
Arguably, a male version of this exists, where most male superheroes seem to be incredibly muscular and toned, with large pectorals. But no one seems to care about that, because guys are not role models.
Essentially Fanservice in the days of the Comics Code.
See also Gag Boobs and Gainaxing, and Third Person Seductress for the video game version. If you need Mundane Utility for this superpower, it can be made into Victorias Secret Compartment.
Examples:
- This is so common at Marvel, DC and even most independent publishers that it'd probably be easier to list those ladies and young women who lack this attribute.
- Wolfsbane of The New Mutants and, later, X-Force, X-Factor, and Excalibur, tends to be more realistically endowed, in both human and half-wolf forms. This is probably a deliberate choice on the part of artists, as the character herself is not particularly sexually active, and may until recently have been a virgin (though her actions since then indicate that she is far from a nonsexual being; being a nice religious girl while having bestial instincts seems to be finally cracking her composure).
- Her former New Mutants teammate and (very?) best friend Dani Moonstar, despite being older and noticeably more sexually active, is also usually depicted as a modestly endowed rangy/athletic sort. At least until she showed up in Avengers: The Initiative. Now she's "poppin out all over".
- Shadowcat is usually depicted as being skinny, which tends to hold over across most artists, though she was thirteen in her first appearance. At the very least, even when shown having a healthy bust herself, she's depicted a smaller than the other X-Women.
- Likewise, the young Jubilee from Generation X is "under-endowed" by usual standards, especially after artists began emphasizing her Asian features. In one issue, she's standing between Psylocke and Black Widow; Jubilee pointedly comments on their assets. However, after appearing in the recent New Warriors series, it appears that someone has implanted something resembling Microsoft's X-Box into each side of Jubilee's chest. Whether or not this is the artist or something different is still unknown.
- Some artists have insisted on giving even the above characters DD or larger breasts for the length of their term. A rumor claims that when one writer complained about the enormous breasts on a character, the artist (*cough*Liefeld*cough*) said that he didn't know how to draw "flat-chested women."
- You could leave off the last three words of that claim and it would still be perfectly valid.
- The latest post-Post-Crisis version of Supergirl has a notably smaller bustline compared to her pre-Crisis and "Matrix" incarnations, and especially in comparison to her alternate-earth counterpart Power Girl (see below), a fact explicitly pointed out by the similarly less-endowed Stargirl (especially when drawn by Michael Turner and Brandon Peterson, the main artists who "originated" the re-invisioned character). However, both Kara and Stargirl are not consistently portrayed in this regard by all artists.
- Though she's normally very well endowed in the comics, the Justice League Unlimited version of Hawkgirl is much less pronounced in this regard, especially when compared to Wonder Woman.
- Some artists at least make an effort to give teenage martial artist Cassandra Cain (Batgirl III) a plausible build for her age and lifestyle. Others... don't.
- For that matter, the female members of the Bat-family, if we don't count the '90s Catwoman (and even today she's pretty well-endowed) are at least slightly less chesty than most other DC superheroines--possibly because they aren't superhuman and so don't have the physiology required to support a 40-inch chest like it was nothing.
- Caitlin Fairchild from Gen13 both follows and subverts this trope; whilst in her superhero persona her clothing is frequently destroyed but she's left unharmed, and in civilian attire she complains internally about getting lecherous stares from passers-by...and her teammates (one of whom is female)!
- In the most recent version of Gen13, when Grunge absorbed Caitlin's power, he also acquired her bust size. Apparently, boobs ARE part of her superpowers. (At least for the post-Worldstorm version, who was explicitly genetically engineered for attractive appearance.)
- Her bustiness was always somewhat a part of her powers; in her first appearance, she suddenly turns from a mousy and petite to muscular and curvy whan her powers activate. This is attributed to an increase in "muscle mass". Well, carrying those around could count as weightlifting...
- When Joss Whedon decided to continue Buffy The Vampire Slayer in comic book form, he had to search for an artist who could draw the main character with any kind of anatomical correctness. In keeping with the feminist themes of the story, the final product features women with normal-sized chests. Except Dawn, but she became a giant, so at least they're still proportional.
- Death from The Sandman managed to be quite beautiful while also quite realistically proportioned.
- Though Squirrel Girl of Marvel comics is fairly well-endowed by normal standards, she looks positively skinny next to most superheroines.
- Spider-Girl has always had a realistic build for a teen athlete (despite her mother's body rivaling even the most curvaceous female super in some depictions; she seems to take after her father, both in powers and body type)...and while not quite on par with Jubilee, she doesn't have a "super-bust", either.
- The Ur-Example: The story goes that legendary comics artist Wally Wood, one of the original artists for Power Girl at DC, started enlarging her chest issue-to-issue to see how far he could go with it before the suits upstairs caught on. It started a tradition, and it's often considered
one two of the main features of the character, i.e. that she has even larger breasts than the average generously-endowed superheroine. Plus the "boob window" over her cleavage making them that much more obvious.
- Lampshaded in the Superman/Batman comic when Batman, Superman, Katana and Power Girl are discussing the need to distract the Toyman (a 13 year old Japanese boy genius). Power Girl (in her costume with the big window in the chest) asks why everyone is suddenly staring at her before realizing the obvious. Well, the pair of obvious.
- The same issue gave us this other great lampshading, when Superman and Batman talk with the Toyman about his invention after Power Girl is done distracting him:
Superman: "Will it work?"
Toyman: "Does Power Girl have big– "
Batman (cuts him off): "Alright then, let's go."
- Although, to be fair to Power Girl, many of the artists and writers over the past decade or so have had other characters point her figure out (such as in the preceding example), unlike other heroines in skintight and revealing clothing that other characters seemingly ignore.
- Also, she's rarely simply drawn as a generic skinny, busty woman (as is expected in comics). Most artists (at least in the last decade or so) draw her as muscular, built like a body-builder. Apparently, she's one of the few female heroes who hit the weights at the gym.
- The Wally Wood story is actually an urban legend
 ; he drew her consistently full-figured but within the bounds of reason. Power Girl's bust didn't reach the ridiculous proportions she's known for until the late '80s/early '90s Justice League International era.
- Webcomic example: In Scott Kurtz's PvP, Jade complains that she can't make a super-heroine on NCSoft's City Of Heroes MMORPG without producing an avatar with a back-breaking pair of breasts. When Brent and Francis explain that this condition fits the genre, Jade retaliates by naming her character the Titillator with the battle-cry macro, "Eyes up here!"
- More recently, though, City Of Heroes has allowed bust sizes to range from petite to Russ Meyer. However, it is still not possible to make a truly flat-chested female character.
- In the same webcomic, Brent dreamed of Jade in a classic comic-book style, and was awestruck with the results.
- Both Ms. Deep and Yomiko in Read Or Die, although Yomiko's "assets" are rather well camouflaged by her frumpy vest.
- Cinematic example: In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, the advent of G-Girl's metahuman abilities is heralded by an, er, expansion, of her bosom, followed by several other cosmetic changes.
- Subversion: During the classic "Judas Contract" storyline in the 1980s Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans, modestly-endowed Tara "Terra" Markov makes several disparaging remarks about the other female Titans' larger bust sizes, including the immortal appellation "Balloon-Bod" for Starfire.
- Alternately parodied and embraced in the webcomic Supermegatopia, especially by the characters of Buxom Gal, an explicit parody of Power Girl whose breasts expand as she absorbs energy and contract as she uses it, and Distraction Damsel, whose "super power" is to distract bad guys (and everyone else) with her assets and precisely-timed "wardrobe malfunctions".
- Midway through each season of Who Wants To Be A Superhero, the remaining contestants receive cover art for their potential comic books. All the female contestants are inevitably depicted with some serious cleavage, even those that are actually flat-chested. (But to be fair, all the male contestants were drawn as buffed out, regardless of their actual physique.)
- Subverted in The Slayers, where heroine Lina Inverse is decidedly modestly-endowed, and not particularly happy about it. The subversion is reversed (and the source of her hang-ups exposed) in the OVAs, which introduce her ludicrously well-endowed rival/gal-pal Naga. Naga never lets Lina forget it, either. When asking after Lina, she once said, "Have you seen this small-breasted girl?"
- Amelia, however has ample assets, even though she's four years younger than Lina. It's probably the family resemblance.
- In the Elf Quest comics, Dewshine is pretty much the only elf without a D-cup. Of course, most of them wear skimpy clothing most of the time, as well.
- Somewhat justified by the fact that a fair amount of the guys are skimpy dressers too.
- Almost all of the females in the anime/manga Eiken have ridiculously huge breasts. Even the Lolicon character, disturbingly enough.
- Of course, that was the entire point of Eiken. Some have come to use the series' name as a pun (ie, "Oh, my Eiken back!")
- Subverted in the Capes backup of Invincible#27, wherein Knockout dons ludicrous prosthetic breasts while getting into costume. Her (also superpowered) boyfriend comments that he wished she "didn't have to wear those anymore," to which she replies that her salary has doubled since she started wearing them, and that "the world just doesn't want flat-chested Super-heroines."
- Played with in the online story Interviewing Leather: Leather is a supervillain who used to be a superhero. Amongst her reasons for her Face Heel Turn is the fact that she didn't look like a superhero: she was only a B cup and most heroines had at least double D's. "You know what they call it? Side Kick physique."
- This appears to be part of the driving force of Dragonaut: The Resonance. Conspicuous CG dragons and large breasts everywhere. Even Sieglinde, one of the younger characters, has a sizable pair for her age.
- Hung a lampshade on: in one onsen episode, character Akira (whose breasts are modest at best) looks around at the many girls with swimming suits, then inside her own, only to let out a depressed sigh.
- Rushuna Tendo from the anime Grenadier puts this trope to practical use by using her cleavage to store extra bullets.
- Even Pokemon is not immune to this. Experienced trainer Lorelei (Prima in the anime dub) sports a pair which frequently occupy over 1/3 of the screen. Additionally, though not nearly so ludicrous as that, AG heroine May is a bit too endowed for a 10-year-old girl...
- The MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes includes a huge amount of ability to customize the look of your character--there's a slider bar for amount of overbite, for heaven's sake. Nonetheless, the smallest breasts one can give a female character are rather generous, a fact which depressed this editor, who is rather over-endowed in real life, to no end.
- Gun X Sword manages to keep the female characters under reasonable limits, but the only flat female characters are children. In "Follow the X Spot", a lampshade is hung when Wendy, after seeing the other women in swimsuits, looks down the front of hers and sighs.
- Boo Cat and Licorice Dust are the least-endowed characters in Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, which means Jim Balent didn't give them gigantic bazookas like the rest of the female cast.
- Raven Hex's diary entries in one issue are a protracted rant against her enormous rack and the reaction she gets from the townies, and then end with a declaration of "I've got it, I'll flaunt it."
- Balent gives 99.9% of female characters gigantic bazookas. He drew Catwoman for DC a couple times...let's just say Catwoman's not supposed to be an E-cup.
- Asuka Langley Soryu, from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- It depends on the episode and on the artwork in question: in many of them, she is kind of flat while in others she looks really booby.
- IIRC, Rei Ayanami was somewhat bigger around the Bust.
- I'm surprised Misato Katsuragi wasn't mentioned instead.
- Then there's also Ritsuko Akagi. And Yui Ikari. And Maya Ibuki is basically Shinji with big boobs!
- Two Words: Seras Victoria.
- Real life example from (of all places!) the 2008 US presidential primaries: Internet viral video campaigner "Obama Girl" revealed a new persona: Super Obama Girl, who made sure that the Most Common Super Power was included among her powers demonstrated in the aforelinked video.
- This troper doubts either You Tube or political ads count as anything like "real life".
- Subverted and somewhat justified in these two Ps238 strips. Villainess "The Kestrel" is blackmailed with medical pictures proving that hers aren't all-natural. She had it done because she's "got a mystique to maintain in this business."
- A notable recent exception is DC Comic's new Manhunter. Although it varies by artist, Kate Spencer's appearance was deliberately designed to have more realistic proportions.
- Spoofed in the comic Young Justice, when mousy archaeologist Nina Dowd is tranformed into the super-villainess Mighty Endowed, and finds her breasts are now so big she can't stand up without help.
- Ty Lee of Avatar The Last Airbender has rather large breasts for a fourteen-year old gymnast. The Beach Episode even has several conspicuous, generous looks down the front of her bathing suit.
- Although not a super hero (she's married to one at least), Mary Jane provides plenty of fanservice with her disproportionate upper torso (as mentioned above). There is even a panel in one of the Amazing Spider-Man comic books where Mary Jane, Peter, and Aunt May are standing next to each other and it looks as though Mary Jane's Mount Everests are bullying Aunt May's face they are so unrealistically exaggerated.
- "Unrealistic" is a misnomer, as women with large breasts do actually exist in reality (A few are even natural). "Uncommon" would be a more accurate description.
- Ellen from El Goonish Shive has this pretty literally: her "superpower" is to transform anyone, including herself, into a beautiful, busty, long-haired girl.
- A Justified Trope (mostly) in the webfiction Whateley Universe, since the Exemplar power that a lot of these teenaged mutants possess reshapes their body image to what they subconsciously think it ought to be. Hence, a lot of these teenaged girls have huge tracts of land for their age, just as a lot of these teenaged boys look way too buff for growing high school boys.
- However, main character Phase is an A-cup, and main character Generator is ecstatic when she gets all the way up to an A-cup, having been flat as a boy beforehand.
- This troper recalls an amusing lampshade hanging from one of Tokyopops' "Rising Stars of Manga" stories:
Buxom Villainess: What are you travelling with that flat-chested loser for?
Somewhat Less Buxom Heroine: F-flat chested?! I'm a c-cup!
Buxom Villainess: (comforts heroine) I know, you poor thing.
- The Sekirei in Sekirei may have a variety of Elemental Powers, but the most common power? The boobs. Every single Sekirei but the loli and the the few men have huge ones.
- Izumi Curtis of Fullmetal Alchemist. She has no problem showing it, either.
- Olivia Armstrong from the manga too. An Omake Lampshades this by stating that her only family resemblance to Alex is that they're both too 'busty' to button their uniforms completely.
- There's also Winry, Riza Hawkeye, Maria Ross, and quite a few minor or joke characters. And Trisha may dress in a simple and modest way, you can still see that she has good 'arguments'!
- Halflings in Dominic Deegan apparently all have the Most Common Super Power.
- As do dwarves, but theirs are hairy.
- Survival Of The Fittest has a fair amount of busty female characters, though often they're balanced out with less-endowed characters and overall rather reasonable. One of the more notable examples of an absurdly buxom SOTF character is the v2 villain Mariavel Varella, who has a rail thin figure but was still originally described as having large, DD cup breasts. When transferred from pregame to the actual game, it was retconned to a D cup, but considering her very slender build she was still ridiculously well endowed, especially considering she was a gang member and a cheerleader, far more athletic than her figure would suggest.
|
|
