ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the developments in the costuming of girl superheroes since the turn of the millennium. The chapter demonstrates a trend of diversification in how super-girls are visually portrayed, as well as how their agency is explored through discussions of costuming and changes to the costumes of established characters. Surveying a range of costuming choices and situating them within the chronological development of girl-led titles, the chapter argues that super-girls increasingly move away from overtly sexualized costumes. Instead, borrowing a term from feminist visual studies, super-girls are shown to be ‘appearing’ as feminized subjects in a wider variety of ways. Touching on themes of embodiment, do-it-yourself costumes, cosplay, and animality, the chapter concludes that super-girls are increasingly given agency in determining their visual appearance, and that the same agency is offered to readers.
