Anyone who grew up reading comic books from decades past will surely recall the ubiquitous "Hey Skinny!" ads for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding program. They featured a pigeon-chested weakling named Joe who gets humiliated in front of his girlfriend by a beefy bully; after trying the Atlas program, Joe gets ripped, clocks the bully and wins back his girl, who exclaims: "Oh, Joe! You are a real he-man after all."
I don't know how many comic-book readers actually wound up looking like bodybuilders with busty bikini babes on their arms, but I'll bet you good money the ones who did no longer read comic books. Either way, though, you have to hand it to Mr. Atlas; he certainly knew the superhero fanboy demographic.
No comic book character captured the readership's body-anxiety better than Captain America. The Captain was once a bullied wimp himself, an asthmatic 4-F draft reject during World War II, which was enough to render any man dateless. But thanks to an injection of secret super-steroids, skinny Steve Rogers sprouted muscles that would make Sly Stallone Hulk-green with envy. A beefy body without any exercise — that's kind of the boys' equivalent of the girls' Cinderella fantasy.
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