Year: 2012

So, as we all know, not a lot of women read comics (honourable exception: me). Or at least superhero comics (another honourable exception: me).

There have been lots of theories as to why this should be, largely put out by men. However, at least one of these theories is that there aren’t any good representations of women in comics – that the female characters that there are are secondary, aren’t well characterised and are usually sexualised for the benefit of younger male readers, making female readers not seem very welcome.

Now DC hasn’t been doing particularly well here, with only about 7% of its readers female. But at least it has a few titles with female leads: Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Voodoo, Batgirl, Batwoman, Birds of Prey, and Catwoman, for starters, although some treat their female characters better than others. Over at Marvel, the situation is far worse, with the last female-led title, X-23, following hot on the heels of Ms. Marvel and Black Widow in getting cancelled.

That’s right – there’s not a single superhero title with a female lead at Marvel.

Now you’d have thought that with the largest opening movie of all time, The Avengers/Avengers Assemble, at the box office right now, it would be a golden opportunity for Marvel to capitalise on the fact that there’s a superheroine in the line up – Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow – who, thanks to the mighty word processing powers of Joss Whedon, gets to kick arse a lot, isn’t second-fiddle to the men, and isn’t there to be someone’s girlfriend.

In fact, you’d be right. Look! It’s Marvel’s The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes, a prequel to the movie available in comic stores now.

Brilliant. All those women going into movies, seeing a decent superheroine character. They’ll pick up Black Widow Strikes, see there’s nothing to fear from the medium and hey presto, loads of new female comics readers, right?

Oh, wait.

Continue reading “A great big, long, very slow hand-clap to Marvel: Black Widow Strikes”