It’s a question that has been brought up over the years on many different occasions. Are there enough female superheroes out there?

Marvel

For those of us who enjoy comic books, we know for a fact that both the Marvel and DC universes are full of tough as hell women who can stand toe to toe with the likes of Superman, Batman, Iron Man and even the Hulk. However some of these ladies are not in the forefront of the comic book universe. I think that it’s been this way for a very long time, given that most of the original comic book superheroes were men.

I think that the first instance of “girl power” would be when Wonder Woman was introduced way back in 1941. A powerful Amazon Princess, she was very progressive back in the day. For me, Wonder Woman has been pretty well represented in the DC animated universe, but I don’t think her comic books as as popular as some of the other mainstream heroes.

The reason why I’m even bringing this up is because I saw a report from the Today Show that an 11 year old girl wrote a letter to DC Comics saying that she wished there were more female superheroes. Now I’m not saying she’s wrong, but there a TON of female superheroes out there for her to read up on. Perhaps she’s talking about main title characters, and maybe this is where DC has dropped the ball.

Some of the female characters that DC has going for them are some of the most famous in comic books, past and present.

DC Comics

• Wonder Woman (Founding member of the JLA, I might add)
• Catwoman (sometimes good, sometimes bad)
• Black Canary
• Huntress
• Harley Quinn
• Power Girl
• Zatanna
• Barbara Gordon (Bartgirl/Oracle)
• Starfire
• Supergirl
• Hawkgirl

The list goes on and on. They’re out there. Perhaps we just need to get them out to the forefront a little bit.

I think that Marvel has done a better job in recent years of getting their female characters more out in the open. Look at ‘Agents of SHIELD.’ The main story line is revolving around the past of a female character (Skye) and her importance. They also have two other female characters in Mockingbird and Agent May that rival any man on that show.

We also have Agent Carter, and let’s not forget about Black Widow. Marvel has done a great job of taking normally secondary roles and turning them into major players. Black Widow, for example, was not such an important part of forming the original Avengers. Now, however, she is a key player.

Marvel has been churning out great female heroes for a while now. The X-Men alone are full of some of the strongest female characters in comic book history.

They’re even doing a full on movie about Captain Marvel, who happens to be – in my opinion – the strongest character that Marvel has ever created.

I don’t think that the world is lacking in female superheroes, but maybe perhaps the actual comic book world needs to do a better job of creating compelling stories for young girls to get involved with.

Personally I can recommend the most recent Ms. Marvel run. This is an example of girls taking over and running this shiz.

To be honest if I had to form a dream team of superheroes it might include more female characters to male characters. Who wouldn’t want Storm, Scarlet Witch, Catwoman and Phoenix on their team? Crazy people, that’s who.