Faces of Cheesecake I: The Nimbo

nimbo. n. a generic comics character archetype taking the form of a scantily dressed female with Japanese weapons and spike heels; "ninja" + "bimbo"

All but the most stodgy of comics pay tribute to the cheesecake traditions of comics. This ranges from Alex Ross' treatment of Wonder Woman (with an odd likeness to Lucy Lawless) to depictions of impossible anatomies that even extreme surgeries can not yet achieve.

However, the nimbo represents one of the most recognizeable, inflexible, and annoying approaches to comics cheesecake. The formula just has too few elements, too inflexibly depicted: half-nekkid women of unlikely anatomy kicking butts with Asian weapons and Frederick's of Hollywood footwear.

Antecedants

Comics has had a history of cheesecake that actually predates the superhero tradition, as defined by the first fully costumed characters like the Phantom (1936) and Superman (1938).

The Golden Age had prominent talents whose repertoire included a proficiency with depiction of the female form, not limited to luminaries like Will Eisner and Nick Cardy.

It took until the 1970s for the full spirit of adventure- comics sexploitation to erupt in creations like Frank Thorne's treatment of Red Sonja, originally an obscure Robert E. Howard character made into a claymore-wielding nymphette in a chainmail bikini.

However, the bawdy depiction of underclad female characters followed various, if predictable, channels at least until the 1980s, with the invention of a character archetype that would eventually infest comics, especially in the early nineties, unto nauseam.

Elektra, Mother of the Nimbo

In some ways, Elektra deserves better than to receive enumeration as the Mother of Nimbos, but fairness compels me to name her as the ancestor of the type. However, in the beginning, she evidenced much less of the cheesecake element; did not display such a consistent and mind-numbing shallowness of the imitations; and served as the template of her type.

Generally, prototypes show more merit than knock-offs. Seminal characters like Wolverine and the Punisher - whether you can stand them or not - work better than most of their cheap imitations; Iron Man has managed to produce only a single imitator of merit (Steel); and Superman imitations tend to succeed precisely to the degree to which they attempt to remain true to the borrowed concept (Supreme).

When Frank Miller created Elektra in the late 1970s, he had created an original character that fascinated readers and evoked much lamentation by means of her (impermanent) death.

Yet the elements were there: a sweaty babe in motion, in a costume inappropriate for nontropical climate zones, armed with oriental weaponry and/or techniques, all derive from her prototype. A nimbo could fairly bear the title "Elektra clone" with conderable truth to the concept.

Nimbos, however, dumbed down the concept. Take away the interesting history (connections to assassin societies and Greek shipping families), double the girlie quotient, have the character remove her insignificant costume frequently for no particular reason, and have same spend too much time bed-hopping, and you convert Elektra into a mere nimbo.

The Ur-Nimbo herself seems pulled both ways, one of which leads to an interesting character with some depth, and the other, which leads to maximum exposure of hip, thigh, breast, and bun.

Catwoman

Catwoman, as originally conceived, stole jewels and wore a green dress and had her goons do the ugly violent parts. She developed into a costumed villainess by the late fifties and early sixties, and, after three successive hormone-drenched portrayals by Lee Meriwether, Julie Newmar, and Eartha Kitt, definitely became a regular for cheesecake treatment.

Through some twenty-five years of various treatments, Catwoman had managed to become a one-woman fashion display, showing forties slit skirts (plenty racy enough in the early days), skintight leather (on TV), and even the inevitable fishnet tights (in a short-lived sixties outfit), but these outfits never quite reached a level one might label "decadent." In the fiftiesish Detective Comics cover pictured here, she wore a look that would attach to the character for some time, including her rehabilitation as a character after Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, something in the chemistry of the character clicked in the mid-eighties, with the slit skirts acting in tandem with her weapon, a leather whip, that portended a smutty future for the character. The cheesecake crowd licked it up like a Betty Paige pin-up, and DC gave them more where that came from, even unto the point of reducto ad absurdam.

This character had to await a later age, with the concretization of the nimbo concept, to truly reach the breasts-and-bondage lows she would ultimately achieve. Handled by the talented Jim Balent, the character became less a creation of Bob Kane and more one of Bob Guccione.

Although not perfectly within the nimbo mold, Catwoman has the look - that of exposed or painted skin - and makes do with a whip (suggestive of sadomasochism for a cheap and tawdry turn-on) rather than Japanese weaponry, which spares the reader the need to explain how a troubled young jewel thief in Gotham City might receive advanced training in obscure archaic Nipponese steel.

In many ways, though, Catwoman helps define the nimbo standard, with an impossibly pinched waist, gravity-resistant mammae, and in-your- face gluteals, so she belongs in this discussion. Jim Balent must understand, because his pictures implicate his awareness.

The character concept includes a history as a teenaged prostitute who turned to jewel theft as a way out, and has tried semisucessfully to leave behind her criminal past. The picture to the right suggests that she never completely made it out of Gotham City's red light district, even if the Comics Code Authority chose to ignore it.

Psylocke

Comics occasionally try to redeem characters with flagging or nonexistent reader interest (or, for that matter, creator interest) with some of the most Godawful makeovers that ever assailed the senses. Consider, for instance, the leather-and-mohawk stage of Storm from the X-Men.

From somewhere within X-book land - I leave it to someone more qualified to recall who came from which X-book and when - came a female mutant with the very period name "Psylocke." She received the nimbo treatment somewhere during her career. Note the contrast from the first picture, where she wears an X-uniform. Artist's conceit gives her an impossible set of proportions, including standing some nine heads high (this writer stands only five and a half heads high and the average human might stand six to eight heads high before seeming too tall or short). However, aside from the inevitable cheesecake quotient one must expect of comics, the character does not, in this illustration, elicit the "Oh, God, not another one" reaction one expects from nimbos.

This character began differently but got tracked into the nimbo career ladder at some stage, although some controversy exists among the occasional Psylocke fan who doesn't care to come to terms with this character's refabrication as someone with almost no costume, a lot of exposed skin, and Japanese weapons.

Note the second treatment from a collectible card. Aside from the color scheme, the differences from Elektra (above) do not immediately commend themselves. Do the garters increase her combat readiness, or did Frederick's of Hollywood just have a big sale the week she designed this costume?

Equally Inappropriate Everywhere

The nimbo's origin lay in urban superhero comics, specifically Daredevil, but seems most suited for that context, partially because martial arts don't seem too impressive in the context of villains like Galactus. Thus, the semi-nimbo Catwoman fits into the Batman mythos.

Through Frank Miller's additions to the Wolverine mythos, the nimbo also connects into the X-franchise, which contains a number of elements that do not dovetail well with the original Lee/Kirby mutant concept. Perhaps the Japanese connections that belong to Wolverine's history tempted creators to make over Psylocke in the Elektra mold.

However, the nuisance factor that accompanies the nimbo, in any version, renders the type bothersome regardless of context. Even in a mythos that presumes the improbable, some things cross the line; regardless of the context, doing aikki-do in fishnet hose and six inch spike heels has to elicit either groans or snickers.