DC’s Lack of Female Led Franchises!?

[Agent Z]

I don't understand...

How did DC do a better job with Superheroines?

By consistently giving them more solo comics compared to Marvel.

[scary harpy]

What kind of logic? Many people gravitate towards bad guys (or gals in this case), hence the most popular ones are developed as morally ambiguous to get more screentime regardless of gender.

Marvel has reformed Emma Frost, Black Cat, Moondragon, and on the male side Punisher, Magneto, Eddie Brock, so does that mean they are doing terribly with heroes all around?

Mavel has many, many more quality villains and villainesses. IMHO, Marvel has done a better job with their villains for both genders.

When DC reforms the Bats best villainesses, there are almost none to fill their absence.

[Agent Z]

Mavel has many, many more quality villains and villainesses. IMHO, Marvel has done a better job with their villains for both genders.

When DC reforms the Bats best villainesses, there are almost none to fill their absence.

How many quality villainesses does Marvel have left? Almost any great female villain they have has reformed, same as DC. They arguably have less since DC still has Granny Goodness and the Female Furies and most of Wonder Woman's rogues gallery is female.

[Confuzzled]

1) Wonder Woman
2) Catwoman
3) Hellcat (Patsy Walker)
4) Supergirl
5) Lois Lane
6) She-Hulk
7) Spider-Girl (May Parker)
8) Captain Marvel
9) Harley Quinn
10) Batgirl (Barbara Gordon)
11) Elektra
12) Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)
13) X-23
14) Batgirl (Cassandra Cain)
15) Ms Marvel
16) Black Widow
17) Powergirl
18) Black Canary
19) Batwoman (Kate Kane)
20) Squirrel Girl
21) Green Lantern (Jessica Cruz)
22) Spider-Gwen
23) Jessica Jones
24) Moon Girl
25) Jane Foster


That’s the list as of December 2020, in terms of number of solo issues led.

DC- 11
MARVEL- 14

Obviously characters like Lois and Patsy benefited from the olden days where series would last 100+ issues, which doesn’t happen in modern times, as evidenced by them not being able to support a book anymore. So if you remove them, everyone moves up one and you get Amethyst and Dazzler next. Numbers remain equal

Nice but not completely the entire picture when it comes to female-led titles as solos can't consider all-female teams like Birds of Prey and Gotham City Sirens. Just for my curiosity, if you had considered BOP, where would it place on this list?

[Confuzzled]

How many quality villainesses does Marvel have left? Almost any great female villain they have has reformed, same as DC. They arguably have less since DC still has Granny Goodness and the Female Furies and most of Wonder Woman's rogues gallery is female.

Yeah, the Wonder Rogues alone outnumber Marvel's anemic villainess line-up. Add Granny and the Furies and the lead over quality villainesses doubles.

[Confuzzled]

Maybe, but I think Barbara is better off as a character as Batgirl than she is as BOP's Oracle. BOP just needs to find a way to work without needing Bab's in a wheelchair.

I mean, it can work, but then it's just another team whose only USP is they are all female.

[warzon]

This is why i've gone back to Marvel at least they give other characters a chance even if it fails they gave it a chance DC should just go ahead and change their name to ''I'm BATMAN COMICS'' cause it seems like everything revolve around him.the book i collect from DC right now is Justice League nothing else has my instrest.

[Confuzzled]

This is why i've gone back to Marvel at least they give other characters a chance even if it fails they gave it a chance DC should just go ahead and change their name to ''I'm BATMAN COMICS'' cause it seems like everything revolve around him.the book i collect from DC right now is Justice League nothing else has my instrest.

I mean, if Marvel had ALWAYS retained the movie rights to the X-Men, they'd be X-MEN COMICS at this point too. It's not DC's fault people just throw money at anything Bat-related.

[Korath]

Well, when DC tries something different, nobody's here to support them. New Age of Heroes anyone ?

The Silencer was one of the best book out of DC at that time. Where is was the support ? Same for Brimstone or Sideways or Damage or The Unexpected or The Immortal Men ?

Some of those books blew up in flight for various reasons, but each one of them tried at least. It really tried to tell different stories from the rest of the DCU at that time and even today.

They weren't properly supported by readers and then DC dropped them, sadly.

[CosmiComic]

Well, when DC tries something different, nobody's here to support them. New Age of Heroes anyone ?

The Silencer was one of the best book out of DC at that time. Where is was the support ? Same for Brimstone or Sideways or Damage or The Unexpected or The Immortal Men ?

Some of those books blew up in flight for various reasons, but each one of them tried at least. It really tried to tell different stories from the rest of the DCU at that time and even today.

They weren't properly supported by readers and then DC dropped them, sadly.

So why does this keep happening?

[I'm a Fish]

So why does this keep happening?

For starts, it's harder to launch new or unknown characters in solo's. I'd say Kamala Khan and Miles Moral's are the most successful in recent years. Both are legacy characters, Miles already having some star power being a Spider-Man character and coming of the heels of the well received Ultimate Spider-Man comic. In Kamala's case, the President of the United States brought attention to her book when it was first released (word-of-mouth doesn't get any higher than that.)

Marvel has a strategy to keep the book sales higher by constantly relaunching them with a new #1. Captain Marvel alone has had 6 volumes in the last 9 years (only counting the ones that have Carol as CM), that's more than Wonder Woman has had in her 80 years of existence. Black Cat is already on her second volume after her first one debuted a 1 1/2 ago. DC doesn't do that nearly as often (instead they hit the reset button on the whole universe, lol) I'd say Cat-Woman and Harley Quinn are the only ones who are comparable, also Green Lantern titles, but that's a little different since they usually relaunch with different characters as Green Lantern.

[warzon]

Well, when DC tries something different, nobody's here to support them. New Age of Heroes anyone ?

The Silencer was one of the best book out of DC at that time. Where is was the support ? Same for Brimstone or Sideways or Damage or The Unexpected or The Immortal Men ?

Some of those books blew up in flight for various reasons, but each one of them tried at least. It really tried to tell different stories from the rest of the DCU at that time and even today.

They weren't properly supported by readers and then DC dropped them, sadly.

Why Create new Heroes when you have Heroes who are in limbo not been used.the New Age of Heroes wasn't even needed

[CosmiComic]

For starts, it's harder to launch new or unknown characters in solo's. I'd say Kamala Khan and Miles Moral's are the most successful in recent years. Both are legacy characters, Miles already having some star power being a Spider-Man character and coming of the heels of the well received Ultimate Spider-Man comic. In Kamala's case, the President of the United States brought attention to her book when it was first released (word-of-mouth doesn't get any higher than that.)

Marvel has a strategy to keep the book sales higher by constantly relaunching them with a new #1. Captain Marvel alone has had 6 volumes in the last 9 years (only counting the ones that have Carol as CM), that's more than Wonder Woman has had in her 80 years of existence. Black Cat is already on her second volume after her first one debuted a 1 1/2 ago. DC doesn't do that nearly as often (instead they hit the reset button on the whole universe, lol) I'd say Cat-Woman and Harley Quinn are the only ones who are comparable, also Green Lantern titles, but that's a little different since they usually relaunch with different characters as Green Lantern.

I didn't know Obama promoted Kamala

I'm not saying DC should copy Marvel, since I'm not a professional in this industry, but maybe DC could at least look to Marvel for some level of, idk, inspiration. Plus DC seems more invested in villainesses than heroines. Does being legacy characters help any new DC characters?

[I'm a Fish]

I didn't know Obama promoted Kamala

Obama is cool like that.

I'm not saying DC should copy Marvel, since I'm not a professional in this industry, but maybe DC could at least look to Marvel for some level of, idk, inspiration.

DC could probably get away with it for lesser other characters outside of the Trinity (it would probably piss a lot of people off if they kept relaunching Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman with a new #1 every 2 years). DC has also been expanding their Digital First comics and I don't think it would be a bad idea to have characters like Amethyst have digital series.

Plus Marvel uses DC as a testing ground in a way (and vise-versa). Black Cat was definitely created to combat Cat-Woman (who had recently gotten her solo back), and Captain Marvel to combat Wonder Woman (ironically the character Carol Danvers was sort-of created to be the Wonder Woman for Marvel back in the 70's, in the sense that she was supposed to be a feminist icon. But it didn't go so well.)

But, DC doesn't seem to interested in copying Marvel lately.

Plus DC seems more invested in villainesses than heroines.

Yeah, Marvel is a quite lacking when it comes to female villains. Most of their female villains become heroes (Black Widow, Scarlett Witch, Emma Frost), and since the X-Men (who had a bulk of the villainesses) have pardoned all of their villains, Marvel is really lacking on that front. DC also knows they lead in terms of iconic villains and uses that to their advantage. They literally had that Year of the Villain event not too long ago.

Does being legacy characters help any new DC characters?[/B]

Hmmm, it really only seemed to help Wally West. I think, as someone put it, "Marvel is big on legacy heroes, DC is big on side-kicks." And those sidekicks usually go on to become their own heroes under different code names.

DC did just do Future State, with some legacy characters, similar to what Marvel did in the 90's with the 2099 timeline. The only character that seems to have stuck was Yara Flor, who will be released in a Wonder Girl ongoing this year.

[scary harpy]

Yeah, the Wonder Rogues alone outnumber Marvel's anemic villainess line-up. Add Granny and the Furies and the lead over quality villainesses doubles.

I agree about the Wonder villainesses and the Furies. DC seems damned determined not to develop these characters.

Why Create new Heroes when you have Heroes who are in limbo not been used.the New Age of Heroes wasn't even needed

Agreed.

I guess about 5,000 characters sitting on a shelf in limbo. What a waste.