Mamacita says: As an immensely huge (shut up) comic fan since before I even learned how to read (comics are wonderful for helping little kids learn to read!) I never really noticed the lack of female super heroes because there always seemed to be some.
The Legion of Super Heroines
If the males were in the majority, it didn’t bother me because the stories featuring the females were my favorites. I also didn’t envy or resent seeing men solving problems sometimes. Wonder Woman (and her former selves Wonder Teen and Wonder Tot) and even her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Queen of the Amazons), were all awesome.
Batgirl was cool.
Batgirl
No kid who loved the vintage Legion of Super Heroes saw problems of that kind. Supergirl, Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, Triplicate Girl, Shrinking Violet, Light Lass, Dream Girl, Princess Projectra, Shadow Lass, the White Witch. . . and these were just DC women. I knew their real names. I knew their planets of origin. I knew their crushes.
When their costumes and backstories were changed, I was furious. I might still be furious.
DC comics logo
The Marvel women were equally awesome, but I was a DC girl. I didn’t fall in love with Marvel until years later.
Marvel Comics logo
But I digress. We are discussing the DC heroines.
Who were allowed to grow up, marry, and have children, by the way.
And when they grew up, “girl” or “lass” was replaced with “woman.” Saturn Woman. Phantom Woman. Teachers used to forbid comics and Mad Magazine, but for my generation, these are the things that made us WANT to read, because Tom, Betty, and Susan just didn’t cut it as far as interest went.
Tom, Betty, and Susan: horrendously boring family of elementary reader fame
Too many elementary level stories are ridiculously boring and not worth bothering, in fact. But we won’t go there. Not with this post.
Later, we will. Just not now.