The more I read this thread, the more my opinion evolves.

I don't think there's anything wrong with characters being sexy, be they male or female, as long as they're functional and developed people.

I think the avengers poster falls into a grey area; yes Black Widow is posed provocatively but having seen the film, and now understanding her character, that in itself doesn't bother me. In context to the rest of the scene however, it changes the interpretation of her status.

For a long time comics have been a juvenile pursuit, and perhaps that's fed into the stereotype of women as mothers, or strange sexual things. In general young men do not spend a huge amount of time in introspection (that comes later). However just because it's always been that way, doesn't mean it should stay as such. I think the media which caters to younger audiences, be they male or female, needs to take much greater responsibility for how it presents genders, race, creed, and orientation.

Small things matter, nothing changes through inaction.

Okay, let's say that men are sexualized in this industry too (they're not, but let's do with it). If we're talking about sexism you have to look at it within a larger context. Are male characters going to have their agency taken away from them time and time again? No. Are male readers lacking for representation in an industry that has been repeatedly hostile to them? No.
I'm fine with some female characters being sexy. I'm not okay with every female character being set dressing.

Also everything Dorkman has said.  Way to be on top of things, bro.

Same here. I thought my Handbrake/VLC Player needed updating, but it turns out the Avengers DVD specifically cannot be played on computers. Because everyone who bought the Blu-Ray is a potential pirate. Fuck us, right?

Have you guys tried a program called AnyDvd (or Anydvd HD for Blu-Ray). It allows you to bypass the HDCP on the disc so you can watch it on your computer.

Unfortunately it's not free, but you can get the trial to see if it works for you, it does for me.

Finished the commentary. I'm stunned that there are apparently large numbers of people who haven't heard of shawarma. I could probably walk to three shawarma places from my house...

...ok I just checked the internets and apparently I live in 'the shawarma capital of the world', or at least outside of the middle east, so I have sampling bias. Anyway, it's delicious. And a bit sketchy since they saw the meat off this large rotating column of meat of unknown history. A delicious large rotating column of meat. And then they add garlic and who cares what else and stuff it into a pita.

I wonder if much of the dressing and posing of women on comics covers (because internal art tends to be a lot less provocative) isn't done just because it's a shorthand for femininity. What I mean by this is that rather than an intentional effort to draw a woman as a sex object, the artist may simply draw the character as a figure with over-emphasised female features (akin to adding 2 circles on a stick figure to make it female) and putting her in what is perceived to be a feminine pose, or rather a non-masculine one. Artists then end up relying on these features and don't truly ever develop a skill for drawing female characters with the same expressive range, such that an alluring character translates into 'larger lips' or strong willed becomes 'longer hair'. Beauty especially just becomes idealised, and it's a short step from idealised to sexism. I bet if many artists changed the stances of their females to more natural looking ones, they'd just look masculine. And with close-ups of faces, I bet if the women weren't drawn with long hair and Julia Roberts lips, we'd have trouble telling that they were female.