Hair often plays a defining role in the presentation of female characters in superhero comics, from Jean Grey’s foreshadowing flame-red hair, to Storm’s hair-centric transformation into a street-fighting badass. In this is probably because women are expected to have more hair options; it may also owe something to how these characters are often designed to look like supermodels, with very similar facial design, so that their hair is the easiest way to tell them apart. Put Emma Frost and Dazzler in the same costume (as Chris Bachalo has done) and you may have no idea who's who.
This can be a little problematic, but it actually also gives Marvel a strange way to set its prospective next big-budget franchise apart --- because if there's one thing Jack Kirby taught us, it's that Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans, has amazing hair. Continue reading…
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