Is the fear of certain perceived negative consequences holding back female villians?

[mathew101281]

We need to talk about female villians in the Marvel universe. Their are few of them that rise to borderline a list level, like Mystique, but even among those select few their is a distinct lack of variety. Your either a femme fatale type of villainess(Enchantress for example) or your relegated to being a villain that really only squares off against female heroes( Thundra). What is the cause of this? I've come to the conclusion that Marvel and to a lesser degree DC is afraid of showing a male hero hitting a female villain to some degree and their for most female villains are relegated to archetypes that will keep physical altercations with male heroes to a minimum. Could someone convince me that I'm wrong about this?

[ExodusCloak]

We need to talk about female villians in the Marvel universe. Their are few of them that rise to borderline a list level, like Mystique, but even among those select few their is a distinct lack of variety. Your either a femme fatale type of villainess(Enchantress for example) or your relegated to being a villain that really only squares off against female heroes( Thundra). What is the cause of this? I've come to the conclusion that Marvel and to a lesser degree DC is afraid of showing a male hero hitting a female villain to some degree and their for most female villains are relegated to archetypes that will keep physical altercations with male heroes to a minimum. Could someone convince me that I'm wrong about this?

Emma's not a villian anymore but that rule never applied to her.

https://youtu.be/WUX_u3-MMKg

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Titania can take it! Outstanding!

[Holt]

It's what you said, that a lot of the writers and artists don't want to show male heroes hitting women. This isn't just comics either, it happens a lot in movies and TV shows too. Think of how many action movies you've seen where they have a female villain and then make sure she gets taken down by the token female heroine of the group but not one of the guys.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Venom was supposed to be a woman at one point right? But then editorial put the kibosh on it because they didn't want Spider-Man beating up a woman.

[ian0delond]

I also feel like there is a risk that a part of the audience who crave for more female/LGBT heroes would not be confortable with a villainess.
Some creative teams had to do public apologies because they did not show X under a positive perspective.

I don't think it is necessarily the case, but just more risky.

[phantom1592]

It's what you said, that a lot of the writers and artists don't want to show male heroes hitting women. This isn't just comics either, it happens a lot in movies and TV shows too. Think of how many action movies you've seen where they have a female villain and then make sure she gets taken down by the token female heroine of the group but not one of the guys.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Venom was supposed to be a woman at one point right? But then editorial put the kibosh on it because they didn't want Spider-Man beating up a woman.

Even as a kid I always thought it was interesting in the old Batman tv show that whenever Catwoman showed up... she had a ton of Minions that could get punched while she stood in the background directing.

UNLESS....

Batgirl happened to be guest starring. THEN Catwoman could get into the fight. Apparently it was OK for Gals to hit Gals, but NOT ok for Guys to hit Gals..

[megaharrison]

There aren't any black villains either. Endless amount of black superheroes, the only relevant black villain I can think of is Black Manta in DC.

It's about public perception, yes. They don't want to be called racist.

[RobinFan4880]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Venom was supposed to be a woman at one point right? But then editorial put the kibosh on it because they didn't want Spider-Man beating up a woman.

The editor didn't think readers would see a woman as a physical threat to Spider-Man.

Nerdsync's Venom episode.

[PwrdOn]

It doesn't really have all that much to do with not wanting to show men beating up women because, as other posters have pointed out, male superheroes punch out women all the time. They might throw in some line about how they usually don't like hitting women but this time they'll make an exception because what have you, but strictly abiding by some rule like in the '66 Batman series is definitely rare.

The real reason female supervillains are rare is because neither the creators nor the readership sees them as all that dangerous. Sure we're all familiar with femme fatale type characters, but they never end up being all that fatal, at least not to important characters. It's difficult to present a woman as a credible physical threat, unless you make her a big hulking brute which is exceedingly rare, and women can't really play the evil genius role either, since they invariably end up as the "sexy scientist" whose only purpose is to be bedded by the hero. Playing a villainess as some kind of raging psychopath is even more problematic, since then it's easy to paint them as nothing more than shrill and hysterical bitches who just need to be silenced until they calm down, and they end up more as an annoyance than a threat.

There's also the issue that comics can't really come up with good villains any more, period. Since there is rarely any kind of consistent villain stable that battles the heroes on a regular basis, the only way to keep the popular ones in the spotlight is to turn them into heroes somehow, which ends up draining the pool rather quickly. And just in general, I feel like people are more willing to overlook some of the cheesy and gimmicky aspects of heroes they want to root for, but it's a bit harder to overcome that with villains because most of them are just too corny to be genuinely scary.

[CrimsonEchidna]

It's what you said, that a lot of the writers and artists don't want to show male heroes hitting women. This isn't just comics either, it happens a lot in movies and TV shows too. Think of how many action movies you've seen where they have a female villain and then make sure she gets taken down by the token female heroine of the group but not one of the guys.

Heck, we've also seen as much with Black Cat's recent Heel Turn. She's vowed vengeance on Spider-Man but since that initial arc, she's become Silk's arch-villain.

[Mauled]

Heck, we've also seen as much with Black Cat's recent Heel Turn. She's vowed vengeance on Spider-Man but since that initial arc, she's become Silk's arch-villain.

It's also one of the worst heel turns put to paper and completely misses the whole point of the character.

[mathew101281]

Titania can take it! Outstanding!

Isn't she primarily a She hulk villian, and how often does she actually show up in books really? And to the person who said Emma counts ,Emma when she was a villian was very much in the femme fatal vain. Even her powers (telepathy) were as far away from physical as possible. It wasn't until she had made almost a complete face turn that she got the dimond skin allowing her to be a more physical opponent. This whole thing disturbs me because I feel it type casts females out of particular but important roles. A lot of writers will tell you that villians make the series. What does it say when females or other minorities aren't aloud in those roles?

[PlanetaryDevastation]

You're probably right about the fear of showing a man hitting a woman. It's a squeamish subject to show or talk about.

[jphamlore]

Madame Masque has long been a part of Iron Man's rogues gallery and is making another appearance at the start of Bendis' Invincible Iron Man? Bendis also used the Viper in his Avengers run.

Hickman invented Proxima Midnight as maybe the best hand-to-hand combat fighter in Thanos' Black Order.

Thor's most powerful female opponent has been perhaps Hela, although Hela is not really a villain these days.

The X-Men have Selene, Cassandra Nova, and Deathbird.

[areacode212]

Isn't she primarily a She hulk villian, and how often does she actually show up in books really?

Yes, she ended up becoming primarily a She-Hulk villain, but she does show up from time to time as a member of the Frightful Four, or as part of a duo with Absorbing Man. And even she is getting something of a face/tweener turn in Illuminati next month. Which I'm all for, by the way, but yes, it does remove a prominent female bruiser villain from the mix. Still, there are a few out there currently in limbo that should be used. The Grapplers, Anaconda, Man-Killer (does she still count?)

You're not wrong, they probably don't want to show a lot of male hero-on-female villain violence, but with more female heroes getting pushed, hopefully this will give more female villains exposure.