So are women really cold-hearted Succubi out to take advantage of all the men in the world? Probably not, but I’m sure that first controversial question will grab the attention of quite a few angry onlookers. Still I have to say that comics happen to be setting a different tone here lately in the regards of some women – or perhaps creators have always have done this in comics – and the conniving nature of certain characters that just so happen to be women. What these women are doing is that they are using their sexual wiles to use others,-- particularly the opposite gender -- to achieve some sort of ulterior motive. Granted that men do this too in a social standing, but I’m not arguing gender specifics here.
What we are looking at is the Deceitful Seductress trope. One of the earliest stories of the Deceitful Seductress is the story of Samson and Delilah from the Bible where Delilah tricked Samson into telling her the true source of his strength which turned out to be his hair. While he was asleep Delilah cut his hair and handed him over to his enemies, and when Samson tried to fight back he discovered that he had lost his strength. He was defeated, blinded, and imprisoned. Since then Delilah has been the epitome in which all other deceitful seductresses are based after.
The Deceitful Seductress has most recently appeared in Daredevil issue eight and Nightwing issue five. In Daredevil, Black Cat has entered into an intimate relationship with Matt in order to steal a piece of evidence in his possession. While Raya Vestri in Nightwing distracts Dick Grayson -- at first by sleeping with him then by not speaking to him -- in order to assist Saiko who has been attempting to kill Dick since the beginning of the title. These two are pretty straight forward in their deception in that they are using their sexuality and to some extent a little drama in order to deceive their victims, which is the nature of the Deceitful Seductress.
In truth, this trope has been around for quite some time in comics. It appears most commonly in Batman with characters like Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Talia Al Ghul. Catwoman first appeared in the Spring of 1940 and she has been seducing Batman ever since. Even though the seductress just so happens to be a very old cliche it sometimes can make for very entertaining stories and other times it can turn into an insulting disaster. As readers, we can only hope that the creators are competent enough to only give us the former; however, as we all have seen from the countless comics that have been produced over time the "insulting disaster" seems to be the more likely of the two stories to be produced.
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