Smart, Nice and Sassy: ‘Good Girl’ Role Models Make Boring Heroes

[Blue_Adept]

An interesting take from Juliet Kahn over at Comics Alliance: http://comicsalliance.com/female-heroes-good-girl-role-models/

In response to a dearth of women, mainstream comics now turns to the Good Role Model for Girls as a panacea. Spider-Gwen! Spider Woman! Batgirl! Hawkeye! Black Widow! All the women in X-Men! She-Hulk! Even Suzie in Sex Criminals! And oh, how the little girl marooned in 90s comic dungeons within me sang! It’s a new age, I thought; a turning point. We’re getting somewhere. We’re really going to see a sea change across the most visible sector of comics, from the most mainstream companies. Sure, there are still very few female creators. But that’s coming, right? We’re moving forward. Even the hashtags say so.


Spider-Gwen; Jason Latour, Robbie Rodriguez, Rico Renzi

The first issues fly by, and I purchase every single one.

And I am bored.

I've read most of the books she talks about in the article myself, and largely you can put it down to a thing of "enjyoable, but safe." There's a good diverse mix of writers and artists involved, and editorial has been strong in going this route to expand the last few years.

I can definitely agree with what she's saying in the larger context. But there's also the issue that with these rebrandings and relaunches of characters, and new characters like Spider-Gwen, they're also at the starting point. So comparing them to characters that have decades of stories is problematic. You have to build up the character before the epic.

[seabeyond]

1. i do not know what they fuck you are talking about. anyone want to break it down?

it reads worse than the black willow story and i am still trying to figure that mess out.

[Blue_Adept]

2. What they're saying is that the characters...

Are being written as safe. not challenging, not diverse, not fully realized. They're superficial and by the numbers and without the drama and depth of their male counterparts.

Which is what you get with relaunched and new characters. You can't get that kind of depth from the first page of a novel.