Marvel is one of the most recognizable and well-known universes of movies and comics. Superheroes are one of the most favourite characters to create a cosplay. Cosplay is a sort of emotional labour in which fans dress up as their favourite anime characters, creating and donning costumes, learning trademark character poses or lines, and dressing up at conventions and events. This photo was found on the Internet. A girl named Anna Blue Wolf created the image of a fictional character, a superhero mutant comic book publisher Marvel Comics-Storm, real name Ororo Munro. In the past – one of the X-Men, now – the reigning queen of the country of Wakanda after she married the king of Wakanda, the Black Panther. She was created by writer Len Vin and artist Dave Kokram, and first appeared in the giant-sized X-Men issue #1 (May 1975), becoming the first black superheroine. For a long time — from 1975 to 2005 — Storm was one of the main X-Men, often acting as the leader of the team. Storm is one of the most popular X-Men, often appeared in most comics, animated series, video games, as well as in 5 feature films, where her role was played by actresses Halle Berry (X-Men, X-Men 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days of the Past Future) and Alexandra Shipp (X-Men: Apocalypse).
Having studied the short biography of the girl who created this cosplay, it is worth mentioning that one of the reasons why I chose this cosplay is that Anna Blue Wolf is from my native country – Russia and this is her main occupation, that is, she is a cosplay model. I found a lot of her work on the Internet, on Twitter and Instagram. Most often, she creates female images of heroines based on comic books, one of the recent images was a Catwoman and a female image of the Hulk “She-Hulk”. The article “Superheroes and feminism of the third wave” touches on the topic of how an increase in the number of female characters in comics and TV series positively affects the storyline and the perception of the plot as a whole. That is, thanks to the creation of cosplays and support for the increase of heroines in comics, people improve the quality of work. Anna creates images professionally and arranges special photoshoots. People create custom-made costumes for Anna, of excellent quality and similar to the materials drawn in comics and films in appearance. She often attends various conferences or forums held in different parts of the world, such as Comic-Con.
Cosplay on the heroine Storm includes several features, such as excessive sexualization of the female figure and the transfer of dark skin colour. Exaggeration of the volume in the female figure, according to some people, should attract more attention from others. However, given the modern social struggle for perceived women, not only as an object but also as a person, it can be noticed that there are negative reviews about overly open and vulgar attire. According to the article “Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-to-Female Crossplay,” such cosplays exemplify gender and sexuality performance that challenges hegemonic norms, providing insight into an increasingly prominent issue in the contemporary world. I would call this image partially ecological since it supports the equality of all skin colours. However, due to excessive sexualization in clothing, this will only be partial.
References:
Curtis, N., & Cardo, V. (2017). Superheroes and third-wave feminism. Feminist Media Studies, 18(3), 381–396. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1351387
Gender, sexuality, and Cosplay – Harvard University. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/13481274/Gender-Sexuality-and-Cosplay-by-Rachel-Leng1.pdf;sequence=1.
Instagram. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://www.instagram.com/annet_bluewolf.act/.
MassChester87. (2018, November 30). The best Cosplay for the Storm (storm) based on the X-men. Overclockers.ru – News, articles and blogs. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://overclockers.ru/blog/cosplay/amp/22402/luchshij-kosplej-na-shtorm-storm-po-motivam-xmen.
Nichols, E. G. (2019). Playing with identity: Gender, performance and Feminine Agency in cosplay. Continuum, 33(2), 270–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2019.1569410
Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved October 15, 2021, from https://twitter.com/annet_bluewolf.