That might be a little harsh, what with Black Widow and Maria Hill in the Marvel-verse and Wonder Woman’s upcoming appearance in Batman and Superman, but aside from those three can you name any other lady Superheroes? Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique doesn’t count, because she’s an antihero at best. Aside from the DoFP she’s a villain and a sadistic one at that.
The important question is why? Female characters are just as interesting as their male counterparts. Many also have a long enough history that no idiot could say "The character isn't established enough." And for a large Cinematic Universe one does need a few females to balance out all of the testosterone.
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| She's well known for a reason. |
Part of
the reason behind this issue could be due to the supposed target demographic. You make a
superhero/comic book movie and the majority of your audience is going to be
dudes, right? Yes, but there is a sizeable female population of fans as well.
Don’t believe me? Look up anything on Comic Con or a similar event. True the
majority are dudes but the overall female contribution is noticeable, and
growing. Why? Because loving people dressed in brightly colored costumes knows
no gender.
Another
part of the problem is perceived content. Let me explain. As a man, do most of
the films I see have a male protagonist? Yes, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t
watch one with a woman lead. The problem is that the majority of the films that
I find interesting have male leads, while most of the movies with ladies in the
top spot are romantic comedies. I like rom coms every now and then but usually they
aren’t my cup of tea. There in lies the problem. A superhero movie with a lady on the poster might make
a nonfan think it’s going to be a rom com with super powers. My Super Ex-Gilfriend leaps to mind. But if the film
execs make it clear in the promotional stuff that it is a serious female
superhero with an interesting back story, I’ll guarantee you there will be
plenty of dudes that will watch the crap out of it. Look at films like Bridesmaids, which did the reverse. It was promoted as a female equivalent to The Hangover, but what I saw was a standard rom com with more group scenes. Advertising is a powerful thing. The costumes wouldn’t hurt
either. What can I say, we men are simple creatures and that doesn’t hurt the box
office one bit.
Now
that I’ve brought up those silly things keeping super ladies off of the big
screen, I’ll name four that I feel deserve their own movie. These are the best
and brightest lady heroes that aren’t household names. So no, I won’t be
mentioning the big big names, but the ones that could be big names. Two Marvel,
two DC, just to keep things fair.
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| A beautiful blonde blaster. The alliteration writes itself. |
First up is Air Force Officer Carol
Danvers aka Ms./Captain Marvel. She’s one of my personal favorites. Danvers
gains her powers when she’s saved from a Kree (blue aliens, they are at constant
war with the Skrull/Ch’itari) bomb by Kree scientist/super warrior Captain
Mar-vell (mispronounced as Marvel). The bomb infused Danvers with Kree DNA,
giving her superhuman strength, the ability to fly and absorb absurd amounts of
energy and discharge said energy. Needless to say, she didn’t need to be saved
anymore. She’s gone through a few different identities, the most well-known
being Ms. Marvel and Captain Marvel. She’s one of the most powerful Earthborn
heroes of the Marvel-verse. And while she started off as the damsel in distress
she’s evolved into one of the most iconic ladies of Marvel. In the Marvel
animated series Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (2012), she’s introduced in
season 2 and quickly makes up for lost time, becoming an instrumental part of
the team. It also probably helped her popularity when DC’s Captain Marvel changed his name to Shazam.
Little less confusion that way.
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| Classic and kind of...risque. |
Second on this list is Kara Zor-l
aka Power Girl. She’s a parallel universe version of Super Girl, Superman’s
cousin. As such she has all the standard Kryptonian powers on our little blue
ball under a yellow sun. Invulnerably, flight, various types of super vision
from heat to x-ray, and of course a winning grin. Her biggest appearance
outside of the comics is in Batman/Superman: Public Enemies (2009), as the only
hero (other than the Dark Knight) that doesn’t believe that Superman murdered
longtime nemesis Metallo. (Evil android powered by a Kryptonite "heart")
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| New and a little more reserved. |
Of the two Kara’s, Super Girl is the more popular one,
but I don’t know there’s something about Power Girl that I like more. Not that
you pervs. It could be that while she’s rarely been shown in the expanded DC
media, she just leaves a strong impression. Maybe it's the unorthodox design of her costume. I'm talking about the half over the shoulder cape thing, just so we're clear. Or it could be that while Super Girl is more popular, she is often shown at the "still figuring out stuff" part of the super alien thing while Power Girl is only ever shown when she's the confident super being. We didn't have to deal with the typical great power great responsibility style speeches because she'd already figured that out. At least that's what I thought when I saw Public Enemies. And let’s face it, her choice in superhero identity
is a little less of an obvious rip off of her male counterpart. Way to be your
own woman Power Girl.
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| Smaller but still leaves a big crater. |
Next up is Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk.
She’s the cousin of famed PhD. Physicist turned green rage monster Bruce
Banner. Walters was in an accident and needed an emergency blood transfusion.
Deciding that her life was worth the risk, Bruce gave her his blood. Shockingly, the radioactive cocktail
running through his veins had unforeseen circumstances. Thankfully, radiation resistance seems to be in the Banner gene pool. Instead of dieing horribly Walters was morphed
into the She-Hulk, a female version of the Hulk. Unlike her cousin, She-Hulk
kept all of her mental faculties but her transformation is “more stable.”
Meaning she’s seven feet tall and green all of the time. 24/7. As much as it
sucks to be Banner, at least he can blend into a crowd so long as he’s calm.
Walters doesn’t have that. That fact alone makes her story a bit more
complicated. She-Hulk has been featured as a supporting character in a number
of Hulk shows, namely The Incredible Hulk (1996) and Hulk and the Agents of
SMASH (2013, and no SMASH doesn’t stand for anything). She fits well into the
expanded Marvel Cinematic Universe, since in the comic’s she serves as the
Avenger’s legal representative on the occasion the team is sued. Something
about a big green defense lawyer really pushes up the wins.
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| Breaks your limbs and ear drums. |
Last but not least is a heroine
that fans of the Arrow series will recognize, Black Canary aka Dinah Laurel
Lance. What is with ladies and the color black? It pops up a lot. Back on task.
She’s a master hand to hand combatant and unlike her TV series counterpart she
has the added bonus of a set of pipes that can shatter glass. It’s real useful
in a number of odd situations. She’s a master tactician rivaling that of DC
heavyweight Batman. Yeah, I said it, other heroes rival the brooding
billionaire psycho in a bat costume. In the DC animated TV series Young Justice
(2012) she’s able to take on much more powerful opponents like the Amazo
Android (Evil robot that copies powers and fighting techniques as he is fought)
and Superboy (Think if Lex Luthor and Superman had a baby, cause that’s what
happened) while only taking moderate damage. The other big thing she's in is obviously Arrow (2012), where her identity is split between the sisters Laurel and Sarah Lance.
There you have it, four super
ladies that would do well on the big screen. Sure, She-Hulk and Power Girl
would need to be introduced in their male counterpart’s film first but they’d
make excellent leading ladies on their own. They smash, blast, make witty
retorts and all of the things we love about their male colleagues. Here’s
hoping they get a movie deal sometime in the near future. Next time: Green Lantern why it sucked in some places but didn't suck in others.
http://marvel.com/universe/Black_Widow_%28Natasha_Romanova%29
http://marvel.com/comics/issue/49018/captain_marvel_2014_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Girl
http://dcinfinite.com/directing-traffic-the-10-best-costumes-in-the-new-52/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She-Hulk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canary
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