Impact of Marvel Heroes/Comics on Girls

[PwrdOn]

Just popped in to say that this was never meant to be posted as is own thread, it was just something that I had posted in the Captain Marvel thread that was spun off into its own topic without my knowledge. The point I was trying to make, in the proper context, was this - yes there may be a broad spectrum of male readers who read comics, but the degree to which they personally identify with a specific character seems inversely proportional to how much they actually manage to live up to the principles and ideals those characters are supposed to stand for in their own conduct, and it would be an absolute shame to see female readers led down that same path. Comics should be read for entertainment and ALWAYS from a safe distance, allowing our own lives to become entangled with those of our favorite superheroes is a mistake we should all seek to avoid.

[jackolover]

I heard of stereotypical female qualities being the ability to network and delegate, while men are shown as handling conflict by themselves. How would it look if a female super hero did delegate and call on a network of other female heroes to face the threat? To me, this is just like Ant-Man used to confront a problem in those early Tales to Astonish, and they were great reading. In fact, Hickman is starting to get the Avengers to network and send teams to different threats, in just this sort of manner.

[Kencana]

There's also double standards at play. IIRC, Gail Simone once talked about how if Dirty Harry were a woman, with no changes to the script, everyone would complain about how much of a bitch she was.

Well said. And feminist will write essay to defend her. Usually women are a bit protective to their favorite character (especially female character since it's so easy to hate women). My advice to young writer? Just write whatever character you want. Make them powerful, pretty, and smart? She's a bossy, 'bi*tch'. Make them feminine, kind and soft-spoken? Weak and useless. Make them in-between? Boring and bland. There's no escape. Anything you do, reader will find something wrong with your female character.

I'm saying this based on exprience. My favorite female characters have been called 'bossy', 'mary sue' and many gendered slur cause they're sexy and have multiple boyfriend.

[jackolover]

There are no women that come to mind that I find interesting as characters who go on adventures in the super hero world of Marvel Comics. For the most part, their origin and back story don't have any tragedy that needs constant resolving, like say a Spiderman. Wasp is sort of ditzy even though she started off as a pretty strong woman because of her fathers death. Marvel could have done something more with her than becoming a dotting secretary to Hank Pym. Janet Van Dyne could have become another Bucky Barnes in the modern world, assassinating foes, and going in early to suss out the villain before the men got involved. That would fit with her origin story nicely.

The Invisible Woman had a split personality because she suppressed herself, but we never got a solo comic about her alta ego causing mayhem, while Sue had to hide the fallout, like the Hulk. That would be interesting as a female character. Trying to hide the dark side from her brother, and her husband. You wonder what an invisible villain would be able to do if given the chance to use her power for evil?

Marvel Girl was closest as to what she was and what she became. Jean started as someone with abilities she couldn't control, so Professor Xavier had to block out her Phoenix side, so she didn't accidentally tear her fellow X-Men apart. Nobody knew Jean Grey was capable of utter chaos,,and her early controlling behaviour with the boys was just the tip of the iceberg of how she could control them. But with what Xavier left of Jeans power, she didn't put up with any shenanigans as if she had mental control of them, like Charles. Bendis had the chance to do this with Jean in his latest All New X-Men series, to make a Jean Grey way more complex than she was first portrayed, but I haven't seen much development of Jean in that respect. If we could see Charles afraid of her, or because he is dead, Jean released from the mind blocks put in place and she Phoenix's out, uses her powers to manipulate villains and friends, while struggling to be normal, and not finding anyone to confide in, she has to figure it out for herself. But this time, we get a Jean who doesn't self destruct, like Marvel always makes her. We get a resolved Jean Grey, who is angry at Charles for manipulating her, and she changes the X-Men's role to suit herself, with clashes with Cyclops and Beast. This is a female role of power that would be good to read.

[dragonmp93]

There are no women that come to mind that I find interesting as characters who go on adventures in the super hero world of Marvel Comics. For the most part, their origin and back story don't have any tragedy that needs constant resolving, like say a Spiderman. Wasp is sort of ditzy even though she started off as a pretty strong woman because of her fathers death. Marvel could have done something more with her than becoming a dotting secretary to Hank Pym. Janet Van Dyne could have become another Bucky Barnes in the modern world, assassinating foes, and going in early to suss out the villain before the men got involved. That would fit with her origin story nicely.

The Invisible Woman had a split personality because she suppressed herself, but we never got a solo comic about her alta ego causing mayhem, while Sue had to hide the fallout, like the Hulk. That would be interesting as a female character. Trying to hide the dark side from her brother, and her husband. You wonder what an invisible villain would be able to do if given the chance to use her power for evil?

Marvel Girl was closest as to what she was and what she became. Jean started as someone with abilities she couldn't control, so Professor Xavier had to block out her Phoenix side, so she didn't accidentally tear her fellow X-Men apart. Nobody knew Jean Grey was capable of utter chaos,,and her early controlling behaviour with the boys was just the tip of the iceberg of how she could control them. But with what Xavier left of Jeans power, she didn't put up with any shenanigans as if she had mental control of them, like Charles. Bendis had the chance to do this with Jean in his latest All New X-Men series, to make a Jean Grey way more complex than she was first portrayed, but I haven't seen much development of Jean in that respect. If we could see Charles afraid of her, or because he is dead, Jean released from the mind blocks put in place and she Phoenix's out, uses her powers to manipulate villains and friends, while struggling to be normal, and not finding anyone to confide in, she has to figure it out for herself. But this time, we get a Jean who doesn't self destruct, like Marvel always makes her. We get a resolved Jean Grey, who is angry at Charles for manipulating her, and she changes the X-Men's role to suit herself, with clashes with Cyclops and Beast. This is a female role of power that would be good to read.

Well, maybe we are going in that direction, but given that bendis likes take his sweet time to get anywhere, is hard to know; but something weird is that the future x-men are very wary of her, although the current phoenix host is on their side for god sake.