Ming: Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the S-K system. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet...Earth.
Ming: How peaceful it looks...[Causes an earthquake.]
Klytus: Most effective, Your Majesty. Will you destroy this...ah...Earth?
Ming: Later. I like to play with things a while, before annihilation. - Flash Gordon (1980)
Actually, I strongly, strongly suspect that the rise of hypersexualized depictions of women was directly tied to more realistic, occasionally erotic depictions of roided up men in Marvel/DC comics. In that sense, I think the role of women in “mainstream” comics is similar to that of women in pro wrestling—they’re there to provide cover for the screamingly obvious homoerotic displays of male flesh.