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Stripperiffic / Comic Books

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Let's face it; if we had to list all the female superheroes and villains to whom this trope applied, we'd be here for most of the year. It's probably easier to list aversions and particularly notable examples. Heck, it overlaps into the dudes! The Creeper fights crime in just a speedo and a red boa! It’s also important to note that a lot of comic books, especially ones made by the big two, avert this trope nowadays, either because they realize how odd the concept is, or just because they don’t want to face the inevitable backlash from modern audiences.note 

The following have their own pages:


Other

  • In the short-lived Beatrix comic, the eponymous heroine is given an armless, strapless, backless super suit in order to make her invulnerable — even to things like fatigue, hunger, strong flavors, and more than small amounts of friction. Of course, the trope is mooted a bit in that the suit cannot be removed, since if that were possible, it would defeat the purpose of being invulnerable.
  • Edaniel of Bizenghast often wears some very low waist-ed pants.
  • Several of the Daughters of the Amazon are similarly underdressed, but between the ritual mastectomies and overall attitude the effect is rather more feral/psychotic.
  • Empowered has no shame about this. It is not the eponymous D-List Superheroine's fault that she has to wear the costume voted the most "Skanktastic"/"Do-Me-Riffic" of all the Superhomies' in a (fictional) webpoll, but neither Sistah Spooky nor Ninjette have such an excuse.
  • Fine Print: All of the Cubi outfits (fittingly as they're basically the lust spirits) show almost everything, with Navel-Deep Neckline being a common feature. One's goes even further, with nipple clamps and her breasts otherwise shown naked.
  • Despite constantly fighting superpowerful and psychotic undead monsters Badass Normal (and goth-styled) Cassie Hack of Hack/Slash only ever seems to wear tank tops, Badass Longcoats, miniskirts, stockings and occasionally other things, like really long leather gloves and boots. Lampshaded at one point in a one-shot set in a Comic Con where a character thinks she's wearing some kind of costume.
  • Being a sort of softcore-Dark Fantasy / Science Fiction blend, the stories in Heavy Metal magazine (and the film based on it) generally tend to employ liberal use of this trope.
  • Brazilian Animesque comic Holy Avenger is full of these. The most striking example is Niele, that wears a clothing composed of... leather strips.
  • Wu Wang, the wife of Deathfist in Judge Dredd, wears what looks like a swimsuit with no back or sides, and a very low neckline. At one point, PJ Maybe had a girlfriend with similar fashion sense. The trope is partly averted by the Judges themselves. Female Judges were exactly the same uniform as the men, however since the uniform is basically a skin tight body suit and most female Judges seem to have a problem getting their zipper to fasten up to the neck, just how averted is open to question.
  • Lady Death: When most of your outfits are a bra, garter belt, thong and thigh-high spike-heeled boots, what do you expect? To be fair, it was justified in the original backstory that the costume was intended for one of Satan's concubines.
  • Darth Talon from Star Wars: Legacy wears little more than a few strategically-placed strips of leather. Not unexpected, considering that most females of her race seem to be dancers or slave girls.
  • Phantom Lady as drawn by Matt Baker in the late 1940s wore an outfit that barely covered her assets and looked like it would come off in a strong wind. One famous cover was featured in "Seduction of the Innocent" (the even more famous book by Fredric Wertham condemning comic books) as an example of "headlights".
  • Lampooned in Princeless. When shown several suits of skimpy female armor (two of which resemble those of Red Sonja and Wonder Woman), Princess Adrienne quickly points out how impractical they would be in a real battle, especially when you consider how little protection they actually offer.
  • Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, whose standard outfit is little more than a scale mail bikini.
  • Requiem Vampire Knight: Pretty much all the women dress provocatively, but Mother Venus is the only one who gets called out on it by one of her minions, as she's also a gendercidal Straw Feminist. She argues that she dresses like a prostitute to punish men.
  • Most of the female characters in Sin City... including the stripper. (Most females in positions of power in the city are prostitutes or leaders of groups of them, so it fits.)
  • In Tank Vixens stripper outfits are literally required for the 101st Tank Crushing Battalion, given that their main battle strategy is to give male opponents aneurysms.
  • Tarot's 'armour' in Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose is extremely stripperiffic (her usual outfit is made of floss and hope!), as are most of the clothes that the other women wear in that book. When they're actually wearing clothes, that is.
  • Entirely averted in The 99, a comic book for Muslim audiences. The heroes channel power from the 99 Names of Allah; their female contingent are likewise practicing Muslims, and would rather be caught dead than in a Stripperiffic outfit. Covering is full-body and often includes anything from a head scarf to a full-face veil.
  • Julie Winters, the main female character in The Maxx wears buttock-baring denim cutoffs to her job as a social worker. She's trying to make a statement that women should be able to wear skimpy outfits without it being assumed they're pursuing sex (that is, a stand against the "You wouldn't have dressed like that unless you wanted it" defense).
  • Another male superhero example is Golden Age character the Green Turtle, revived in The Shadow Hero. His costume consists solely of a cowl, cape, underpants and boots.
  • Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, being a jungle warrior, is very scantily clad.
  • Yet another male example is Frank Miller's 300. In the comic, the Spartan warriors are as often as not buck naked, except for helmet, greaves, shield, and long red cape. This does highlight, however, how Stripperiffic outfits are actually Older Than Feudalism: Miller is imitating the "heroic nude" of classical Greek art, where warriors, heroes, and gods are commonly shown parading around (and even fighting) largely naked. The film version gives all of the Spartans little leather panties, which only amplifies the Stripperiffic and homoerotic nature of the costume.
  • Cobweb from Tomorrow Stories wears a see-through costume and no underwear.
  • Channon Yarrow often wore very Stripperiffic outfits throughout Transmetropolitan's run, both in casual and professional situations. Then again, she was introduced as a stripper working her way through journalism school.
  • Vampirella. Her signature outfit is a red sling suit, complete with a Navel-Deep Neckline and Thong of Shielding, with a white collar and wearing shiny black knee-high boots. Notably, while provocative to begin with, it was actually possible as a swimsuit-like outfit, but Harris Comics made it more so. Averted with the 2016 reboot where she wears clothes which are almost (but not quite) practical. Post-2016 also saw an inversion for laughs - Vampi gets trouble at an all-nude beach for being overdressed.
    • This also applies to other female characters in the comic. Pantha, one of Vampirella's friends, wears a blue two-piece outfit with gloves and boots and actually has been shown working as a stripper at times. Vampirella's mother, Lilith, often wears a golden Chainmail Bikini. Lorelai, another vampire dresses in a black jacket, corset and thong. Zaralyn the Conjuress, a Big Good character introduced in the Brandon Jerwa run wears an outfit very similar to the aforementioned Lilith. Vampirella's evil sister Draculina wears a black variation of Vampirella's signature costume.
  • Most wielders of the Witchblade are quite stripperiffic, at least until they gain enough experience to control it. Justified in that the eponymous witchblade is sentient, male, and a perv, so it shreds its hosts' clothing when it activates; when the wielder is skilled enough, they can override this tendency. Averted in the Spin-Off, Switch (2015), because the wielder of the Witchblade is a teenage girl in that continuity.
  • Unlike most of the women in Y: The Last Man, the supermodel Yorrick meets is wearing a halter top, not really practical for her new job: disposing of bodies left by the Gendercide. Much later, she wears the same thing while walking though a sewer.
  • Lady Rawhide from Topps Zorro comic series. Especially blatant as the series takes place in Colonial Spanish California. Lampshaded as various characters wonder how she can leap about in that outfit without anything showing.
  • In the original Grell issues of Starslayer, Tamara was usually running around in an outfit best described as 3 large black diamonds linked by string. During the Ostrander/Truman era, she started wearing mildly more modest Space Pirate garb.
  • Raptors: Drago and Camilla's "outfits" usually consist of a leather trenchcoat and leather pants at best. Camilla in particular resembles a dominatrix much of the time.

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