If I were offering a carved beef buffet above a pork sausage special, that's how I'd dress. Mere physical strength would be enough superpower to make me go full Doctor Manhattan. I show off my tits because I'm such a dumb blonde I can't even finish my own clothes. I also cry. Girls do that, right?"

The most common (and ridiculous) explanation is, "I am strong and empowered and therefore love being naked and stared at." You know, the same reason Superman flies around in a thong. One writer claims it's to show that she's healthy, so we can only be grateful that Krypton never discovered gynecology. Another is the idea of distracting villains, because when you mainly fight robots and aliens and can punch through a tank, your best weapon is nudity. Oh, and the absolute best explanation:Seanbaby will tell you, Wonder Woman's classic outfit makes her look like a cross between a stripper and a stripper who can't afford enough clothes to get to work. And that's not the outfit we're looking at. A recent comic story line featured an "emotional spectrum" of Green Lantern rings based on different colors: red rings use rage, yellow rings use fear and violet rings use weaponized male relationship anxiety. The all-female Star Sapphires use the rings to steal superheroes, encasing them in the wonderful brainwashing power of love until they don't want to hang out with their old friends anymore. And while every color ring puts the kidnapped character in the same "skintight with highlights" look, the Sapphires decided to forgo that "tight" bit and just paint their bodies in a few places:

I'm not saying the designers view women as sexual targets, but she has big glowing red weak points to help you aim at her throat and crotch. Charged with making a female Superman, Power Girl's costume designer's only thoughts were "breasts" and "done." They'd already given Supergirl a miniskirt (and, as a consequence, the entire population of Metropolis got a panty shot). With Power Girl, they upped the ante and opened a tit-window. Most spandex heroes have a symbol on their chest summarizing their character, and so does Power Girl: an empty hole full of cleavage.Behold five characters whose costumes are so impossibly, illogically sexual that they look like they were designed by M.C. Escher after he didn't get laid for 20 years. 5 Power Girl A posing pouch and dressing gown. His whole wardrobe says "I get laid too often to bother with clothing." His most common plot point is banging another character's wife (Sue Storm from above). He's not just included for the 10 percent of guys who got this far despite not liking girls, but to make a point. (And not just in their trousers.) It's stupid to say that the art is equally unfair because the average man can't be used as a teaching model in medical college. That's like Bond claiming it's fair that henchmen can't hit him with machine guns because he also has a ridiculous level of accuracy. It's a lot of fun, and we all go to see it, just don't claim that it's equality. If you're thinking near-total nudity is just the Star Sapphires' thing, here's their gender politics with a male Star Sapphire. Thinking about how many outfits really accentuate cleavage on women, I thought it would be funny to actually make myself into a really big boob. First, I thought about how I would actually achieve it. A uni-boob? No. Making my face into a representation of boobs? No. Even weirder. After a decently embarrassing list of solo person ideas, I realized I needed a partner in crime. I would be one boob, and my friend (Allyson) would be the other. I had to do just a little convincing, but she agreed! Materials for our Funny Couple Costumes

There is no counterargument. Fans and writers have tried to explain Power Girl's breast-viewing port several times, and each theory is more ridiculously unsupported than the breasts they're attempting to justify. The costumes were so ridiculously naked that Wonder Woman's had to use her iconic WW logo to hold her boobs, facing toward the camera. This shows that at least her designer's subconscious is good at making clothes suitable for their intended purpose. Starfire has always been the Captain Kirkiest character, a brightly colored alien demanding to be shown "more of this Earth thing called love," but her latest iteration is about as sexy as a speculum. It's certainly going for the right place, but it's so cold and clinically aimed that only those who've given up on regular sex could enjoy it.

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Of course, in the story that revealed her costume, she spent most of her time nude and bikini-clad, presumably because that was the only way to make her costume look reasonable. This "equally idealized" bullshit is actually used by people. People paid to sell comics despite their first decision being "We'll only target half the population." We know you're in the comics industry, fellas, but that argument is the wrong type of comical. Namor is the ultimate exemplar: He's exactly what any guy would wear if he thought he could get away with it. Even when Namor puts on more clothes, they're ridiculous and show off more chest than Tom Jones during heart surgery.