WTF Is Going on With the Sexy Spider-Woman Cover?

Source: Marvel

So close, Marvel. You were so close.

In July, the comic company announced that Thor would now be a woman. Hooray! Around the same time, it also announced that a brand-new Spider-Woman series was in the works. More claps for women everywhere! But then, just yesterday, Marvel revealed two of those Spider-Woman #1 covers, one of which we wish we never saw.

The illustration in question is by the artist Milo Manara in which Spider-Woman is crouched low on the ground. Can you see anything else besides her butt in the air? Would you want any little girl to get her hands on a copy of this? Exactly.

After feeling the backlash for the cover being too sexy, Marvel's senior vice president of publishing Tom Brevoort wrote on his Tumblr: "Given that the character is covered head-to-toe, and is crouched in a spider-like pose, it seems far less exploitative to me than other Manara pieces we've run in previous months and years."

Really?