15 Most Inappropriate Comics Storylines Of All Time‏

5. Every Swimsuit Special

Cheesecake is one of the most disheartening aspects of mainstream comic books. You can't go down an aisle in a comic shop without being faced with dozens of titles featuring female characters in various states of undress, or in impossible "seductive" poses, or with exaggerated busts that would give them serious back problems. If that wasn't inappropriate enough for a form that's still read by a lot of young, impressionable kids, well, there's the Swimsuit Specials.

Still going strong today, Swimsuit Specials drop any pretense of telling a story and simply show female and male characters alike (although mainly female) posing in double-page spreads that have more than a hint of the Playboy about them.

To DC's credit, they've mainly kept out of this sleazy practice, whilst Marvel had one every year between 1991 and 1995, the already-bikini-clad Lady Death has made a cottage industry out of it, and Image were the pioneers in the nineties. It's bad enough seeing the sorts of costumes characters put on in the pages of regular comics, without having to see them in their undercrackers, doing lad's mag poses on the beach. Bah.