Of course they can. Imagine a hypothetical comic with characters of both genders who are all sparklingly excellent role models in the way they behave. Now imagine that this comic was drawn by people who designed all those characters to be blatantly, panderingly sexy -- a fairly common situation, since sex sells, and cross-demographic appeal makes commercial sense. Does this make the characters poor role models, in spite of their good personalities and deeds? I doubt it.
These are not hypothetical comics. If the characters are primarly tools to entice male audiences, then they are unlikely to also serve as good role models.
