Lovingly rendered butts for all: Our favorite pinups from the Marvel Swimsuit Specials

Superheroes are meant to be the best of us. As a result, they’re also the sexiest of us. So it stands to reason we’d want to see what they look like in swimwear — though it could be argued many of them wear bathing suits as standard dress.

For five years in the 1990s, Marvel released annual swimsuit specials, inspired in part by the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues that had been in publication since 1964 but also bikini-centric shows of the time like Baywatch. The pinup collections gave some of the publisher’s top artists (including a pre-Image Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri and Whilce Portacio) a chance to draw Marvel’s Brutes & Babes at their sexiest. And because Marvel has far more male heroes than female ones, it gave the artists a chance to experiment with something many of them likely assumed to be a myth: the female gaze. Not to mention queer gazes. (Notably, two of the Marvel Swimsuit Specials were overseen by openly gay writer/editor Christian Cooper, who also edited Northstar’s coming-out story a year after the debut of the first special.) Lovingly rendered butts for all! Huzzah!

Since then, other comics publishers have put out their own swimsuit specials, for character franchises ranging from Lady Death to Street Fighter. And while there have been a couple of false-start attempts to relaunch the Marvel Swimsuit Special — and an homage in an issue of Matthew Rosenberg and Andy MacDonald’s 2018 Multiple Man miniseries — if we wanted to see Marvel superheroes in swimsuits, for the most part, we’ve just had to … read regular Marvel Comics.

Until now.

This month, Marvel announced the special’s return with Marvel Swimsuit Special: Friends, Foes & Rivals #1, coming in July. The new special will feature an A cover by Adam Hughes, a Wasp-centric framing story by artist Nick Bradshaw and writers Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs (who did a swimsuit special homage in their Image series Local Man) and additional art by Luciano Vecchio, Marguerite Sauvage, Nic Klein and more. The special also will include outfits that will make their way into the popular online video game Marvel Rivals, because it’s 2025 and cross-media synergy is everything.

But before all that, we here at ComicsXF went back through the old Swimsuit Specials and pulled some of our favorite pages, a mix of cheeky, choice-filled and, dare we say, downright sexy.

Psylocke

Jim Lee, Marvel Illustrated: The Swimsuit Special, 1991

Nothing says early 1990s quite like, “Jim Lee,” “Psylocke,” “Swimsuit” and “Pouches.”

— Austin Gorton

Boom-Boom, Jubilee and Cable

Whilce Portacio & Scott Williams, Marvel Illustrated: The Swimsuit Special, 1991

The first Swimsuit special is stacked with talent from the soon to be Image founders. And while elsewhere The Rob depicts Boom-Boom as a pin-up girl for Sam, Roberto and (ugh) Cable to ogle, Whilce Portacio and Scott Williams deliver this hilarious portrait of Tabitha, Jubes and Nathan that perfectly captures Boom-Boom and Jubilee’s sense of humor and Cable’s more extreme vibe. The only thing missing here is a follow-up image where Cable actually wears this teeny weenie polka dot bikini bottom … perhaps in a tub big enough for him and Domino to fit?

— Adam Reck

Nomad 

S. Clarke Hawbaker, Marvel Swimsuit Special #1, 1992

Nomad in a g-string, posing like a bodybuilder on the beach next to a beautiful sunset? That’s pretty standard fare for the Marvel Swimsuit Specials. No, what makes this one super weird is the presence of baby Bucky, who not only has to sit on the beach while Nomad poses near nude nearby, but — as the caption tells us — is also striking a pose of her own. Luckily, this is the only baby posing in a swimsuit in the pages of these specials, but it was probably one too many. 

— Adam Reck

Doctor Doom & Kingpin

Gary Barker & Mark Farmer, Marvel Swimsuit Special #1, 1992

No Marvel Swimsuit Special pin-up mystifies and confuses me more than this entry from the 1992 special, wherein Daredevil and Black Panther are ostensibly playing a “prank” on the supervillains Doctor Doom and Kingpin. Were it just a barrel full of monkeys wailing on Victor and Wilson, that might make sense, but the addition of a monkey wearing a full Daredevil costume (not Matt’s, as he wears his in the background of the image) and Doom holding a blow-up sex doll raises a lot of questions. Is it a prank to have monkeys unmercifully beat someone? Why were Doom and Kingpin consorting anyway? Why does Doom have a blow-up doll? Have the monkeys intruded on a private moment between these titans of evil? And how the heck did the inflatable make it to print? It’s been over 30 years since I first saw this image, and I still have no clue how to properly explain it.

— Adam Reck

Gambit & Rogue

Greg & Tim Hildebrandt, Marvel Swimsuit Special #2, 1993

There are a lot of scantily clad people in these issues. A lot of skin showing, muscles bulging, butts and boobs shoved in your face. A lot of very in-your-face attempts at being sexy. Most of them fall far short, although some come pretty darn close to actually arousing the senses.

But none do it as well as this stunning image by the Hildebrandts.

Rogue and Gambit have always been comics’ sexiest couple. The burning desire, that could never be fulfilled, is just hot. And the Hildebrandts really sell it here. Both Rogue and Gambit are painted with all the right curves, oiled up perfectly, skin glistening in the sun. Their forms are just as sexy as anyone else’s in these issues. But what really elevates this is that aforementioned unquenchable desire. They’re so tantalizingly close to each other, their lips literally hovering inches apart. We can feel the frustration in Gambit’s hands, to finally be with the woman he loves. The breath caught in their lungs, waiting forever to be released after their kiss. The kiss we know will never come (yes, I’m ignoring the last decade or so of their stories, because for the majority of their time, this was the status quo).

This painting is all desire. And nothing’s sexier than that.

— Rasmus Skov Lykke

Punisher

Cindy Martin, Arthur Nichols & Tom Smith, Marvel Swimsuit Special #2, 1993

Good branding is important. If you’re going to strip down to next to nothing and frolic in the waves with … demons? In … Limbo? You still have to make sure people know which Marvel Superhero™ you are. Honestly, what choice did Frank Castle have but to cover his crotch with a skull? The real question is, is he packing a tiny gun under there? Duh, of course he is. Again, good branding is important.

— Dan Grote

Ghost Rider

Tristan Shane, Marvel Swimsuit Special #2, 1993

The Spirit of Vengeance is unafraid to bare all, as he flashes the camera that come-hither Penance Stare. Still, it’s worth nothing that both of Danny Ketch’s hogs are missing from this pinup — his motorcycle and his penis. 

— Dan Grote

Morbius

Gary Barker, Jimmy Palmiotti & Tom Smith, Marvel Swimsuit Special #2, 1993

One look at the Living Vampire’s bikini briefs, and Doctor Michael will have every woman screaming, “IT’S MORBIN’ TIME!” But also, the text implies that Morbius is going to kill all these women, and because they’re not named characters, we’re less concerned with their deaths than we are with making a joke about going swimming after eating.

— Dan Grote

Dr. Valerie Cooper

Adam Hughes, Mark Farmer & Greg Wright, Marvel Swimsuit Special #2, 1993

We live in an age where many of the far-right’s favored government women — your Pam Bondis, Kristie Noems, Alina Habbas and such — resemble cracked-mirror versions of Barbie. But Val Cooper — back in the zeitgeist thanks to X-Men ’97 — that was a government woman you could respect (while still not totally loving the moral gray areas in which she operated). Originally a Reagan-era bureaucrat in the go-go ’80s who kept Mystique and Freedom Force on what she believed to be a short leash, she morphed in the Bush-and-Clinton ’90s into the harried workplace-sitcom boss of X-Factor. But the Swimsuit Special showed off her playful side, while likely also leading some impressionable pre-teens to wonder what in the world was under Carmen Sandiego’s trenchcoat.

— Dan Grote

Captain America 

Lou Harrison, Marvel Swimsuit Special #3, 1994

THAT is America’s ass. 

— Austin Gorton 

Wasp & Friends

Adam Hughes, Marvel Swimsuit Special #3, 1994

In general, I think men are the biggest size queens, and that’s mostly what’s going on here, in a shrinking scenario that seems like it would probably benefit the generously endowed gentlemen more than the similarly swollen albeit diminutive lady sandwiched between their prodigious packages. However, this isn’t just any lady. This is Janet Van Dyne. Janet’s never succumbed to stereotypes or shied away from a sausage fest. This woman who’s named and dressed the Avengers and unapologetically ogled most of them can hold her own at any size and restyle any setting to suit her needs. She’s spent a lifetime navigating the possibilities and pitfalls of Pym Particles and was always better at being small than Hank was at being big. In other words: Those packages feel like they’re there for Janet, and I’m here for that.

— Anna Peppard

Cyclops & Phoenix 

Joe Madureira, Terry Austin & Tom Smith, Marvel Swimsuit Special #3, 1994

This image haunts me. It’s a good example of how being a strong artist isn’t the same as being able to draw sexy swimsuit pinups. Yes, the placement of Scott’s left hand is risqué, but also, it looks like a flesh-colored version of AzBat’s gauntlets. Why is it so large? Why does the middle finger have a right angle so sharp it could slice cheese? Where is his other hand?!?

— Austin Gorton

Doctor Strange 

P. Craig Rusell & Tom Smith, Marvel Swimsuit Special 1995 

While I’ve always appreciated the Marvel Swimsuit Specials for their dedication to the appearance of equal-opportunity exploitation, in practice, too many of these supposedly special men in swimsuits do what superhero men usually do — show out in scandalous spandex while simultaneously frustrating erotic gazes, whether through irony, an emphasis on male impenetrability at the expense of touchability, or by relegating men to bland window dressing for spreads prioritizing more overtly sexy ladies. But while P. Craig Russell’s spread of the spreading Sorcerer Supreme is definitely funny, it’s also definitely sexy. That come-hither gaze. Those taut but touchably realistic curves. That lazy hand rubbing the pages of his upside-down, forgotten book against his bare belly. That salacious sun tendril drizzling down the Doctor’s thigh toward a speedo that actually looks like it has a dick in it (as opposed to an anvil or a sack of rocks). Rarely (if ever) has anyone drawn such a supremely sexable Stephen Strange. 

— Anna Peppard

Namor

Joe Quesada, Tom Palmer & Tom Smith, Marvel Swimsuit Special 1995 

Normally, I’m a woman who knows what she likes. Which is why I hate this image of Namor. And love this image of Namor. And hate this image of Namor. … This image is my boss battle. My archnemesis. My Kryptonite. Or maybe it’s just my Mesmero (who’d make a great swimsuit pinup, btw), since it clearly has the ability to hypnotize me. But instead of making me think I’m an old-timey circus performer for nebulous evil reasons, this image of unspeakable power conjures concentric vortices of repulsion and desire anchored by fetishistic fascination. Does that clamshell hurt? Is Namor threatening or seducing me? How can he be both this dangerously dehydrated and this worryingly wet? Why is the water sticky? Is it water? Why is it that if you spend more than three seconds staring at any given part of Namor’s body, you see a penis that’s simultaneously erupting and painfully strangulated? Or is that just me? In any case, now it’s both and all of us. Welcome to my quagmire. C’mon in. The water(?)’s fine.

— Anna Peppard

Tigra

Amanda Conner & Gregory Wright, Marvel Swimsuit Special 1995

Who needs the male gaze, or for that matter the female gaze, or any other human gaze, when you have cats? Three of them, or the Monster Island equivalent, giving our orange cat-girl — who shows her stripes literally from head to toe — all the affection that most of the other pinups in this issue seem to crave, and most of the other artists, and most of the implied viewers, seem to seek. Sometimes pleasure in the moment beats desire all hollow, and sometimes all you need is the nested S-curve that Amanda Conner gives these kitties’ overlapping tails. It’s like Taylor Swift says (look for the clip online): If you’re lonely, adopt a cat. If you’re still lonely, adopt more cats. Drink whole milk. Close your eyes when you’re tired, and don’t be afraid to stretch out. Having taken such good advice, Tigra’s got what she wants. Including her nap. That cat-o-saur in the northeast corner, though? Somebody could use a belly rub, stat.

— Stephanie Burt