I've been enjoying the short origins stories at the back of DC's weekly 52 comic. In week 26, however, I was stopped short by the opening image of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Quite unexpectedly, in looking at the two figures, I got an overwhelming sense of something pornographic.

Now there are many people, both comics fans and detractors, who make snarky jokes about "super underwear perverts" and think that all superhero comics are in some way pornographic, but I am not one of them. I was surprised by the mental association I had and tried to figure out what was behind it.

I started with Hawkman's bare chest: could that be the trigger? But I immediately thought of other bare chested heroes, like Warlord and, in some cases, Aquaman. My mind wandered to Sulu appearing shirtless in an episode of Star Trek. These images were indeed sexual but not exactly pornographic.

I then checked out Hawkman's gear. There was a bit of bondage imagery in the chest harness, but didn't Green Arrow wear something similar? If anything, the chest harness combined with Hawkman's ball-heavy mace seems to have more of a camp sensibility than a pornographic one. Examining his expression, I noticed that Hawkman definitely has a feral look about him, but it doesn't seem much different from Aquaman's latest scruffy incarnation.

I couldn't figure it out. I was stumped.

That is, until my last visit to my local comic shop. Gliding down the aisles, I stepped past the cover of the current Hawkgirl and came to a halt as the answer came to me. It was the combination of the close-up with the kneeling position that recalled it for me: The Story of O. The owl mask that O. wears to the party, while otherwise completely naked. That was the connection.