Why areMarvel's Superheroines Less Popular than DC's?

[Agent Z]

Yup.

They don't have a niche, or an archetype

Well that simply isn't true

Black Widow - atoning former villain

Kamala Khan - ascended fangirl and breakout hit of 2014

Squirrel Girl - Silver Age throwback without the sexist writing

She Hulk - basically Boston Kegal with sup

Jessica Jones - hard boiled noir

And so on and so forth

[darkseidpwns]

Batman and Superman largely,Marvel's best ladies are affiliated with the X-men whom Marvel seem hellbent on not pushing.

[JediKage]

Lots of reason.....

1) How much do spinoffs from Bat and to a lesser extent Supes really count? Cause that makes up what at least half of DC's Top Women?
2) Most of Marvel's Top Women are from the X-Men Franchise...a Franchise Marvel Comics is marginalizing because they cant use them in the movies and Fox really does the X Women no favors.
3) Thus Marvel is far behind when starting to build up their female roster and cant rely on solo franchises to churn out winners ala DC
4) WB needs to get some cash from girls...Marvel though is owned by Disney who has a whole Princess Franchise to get money from girls...thus the Marvel stuff is more boy focused, the princess stuff is girl focused and KK is making Star Wars more 50/50.

[ZoomZolomonZoom]

My brain completely skipped over the word superheroine in the title, my mistake.

[Flash Gordon]

Well outside of Storm, Ms. Marvel (who is pretty new), Captain Marvel, and Black Widow...what female characters does Marvel have that can really shine?

The Wasp isn't really going to move thousands of copies.

Storm is rad but she's an X-Man and barely gets a push these days. Remember how HUGE she was in the 90s? She was like THE character.

Black Widow needs her own film still. Captain Marvel is gonna be massive once her film hits.

Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel is like one of the best characters to come along and still I worry that they'll marry her to the Inhumans too much.

[mathew101281]

Most of Marvel's more popular female characters are team characters, and most team based characters struggle as solo acts.

[MikaelNovasun]

To date Marvel's best selling and longest running super-heroine was MayDay Parker/Spidergirl. To bad Marvel let her fade into obscurity.

[dietrich]

Not even the Spider-females?




and let's not forget

Good lord these are disgraceful.

[Atlanta96]

Because aside from the X-Women, most of Marvel's ladies aren't as interesting as the women of DC. Simple as that.

[ultradav]

When you think about it, it's pretty damn impressive that Wonder Woman has been basically published continuously since 1941. No other female character comes even close to that record.

[Frontier]

Because aside from the X-Women, most of Marvel's ladies aren't as interesting as the women of DC. Simple as that.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration...

[My Two Cents]

There is not a single Marvel female currently with out a book or on a team that I wished were.
But there a dozens of D C females that I wished had there own book or at least were part of a team.

[El_Gato]

1. Wonder Woman ~ 700+
2. Supergirl ~ 245+
3. Catwoman ~ 232
4. She-Hulk ~ 169+
5. Lois Lane ~ 165
6. Spider-Girl ~ 145
7. Captain Marvel ~ 125+
8. Spider-Woman ~ 104
9. Harley Quinn ~ 96+
10. Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) ~ 73
11. Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) ~ 68+
12. Elektra ~ 66
13. Batwoman ~ 49+
14. X-23 ~ 46+
15. Dazzler ~ 42

Those are the top 15 females in terms of solo success (up to October solicts). As you can see Wonder Woman is in a league of her own! Anyway those marked with a plus sign (+) currently have solos so that number is rising.

Women with current ongoings that can potentially make the top 15 soon:

Ms Marvel ~ 41+
Jessica Cruz ~ 30+ (double ships)

Women with fair number of solo issues but no current title:

Black Widow ~ 40
Amethyst ~ 37

[Jim Kelly]

Martin Goodman's publishing empire started out with pulp magazines, often with women featured on the covers in peril and various states of undress. Goodman's Timely then got into the booming comic book business and at first their primary big sellers were the male super-heroes--e.g. Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Angel, Captain America.

However, in 1942, they began publishing MISS FURY, which reprinted Tarpe Mill's comic strip. After that Timely introduced Miss America (Madeleine Joyce) in MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS in 1943, before spinning her off into her own title in the following year. At the same time, Timely published TESSIE THE TYPIST, who was also featured in GAY COMICS. With its second issue, MISS AMERICA took on a magazine format and introduced another feature, Patsy Walker. In addition to eventually taking over that mag, PATSY WALKER won her own title and would have a long life with Marvel.

At that point there was a female population explosion: THE BLONDE PHANTOM, RUSTY, MILLIE THE MODEL, NELLIE THE NURSE, JEANIE COMICS, JUNIOR MISS, LANA, MARGIE COMICS, CINDY COMICS in additon to PATSY WALKER and MISS AMERICA and more to come--the post-war era was populated mainly by leading women. At the same time, SUB-MARINER COMICS prominently featured Namora, while VENUS and SUN GIRL were added to the super-female ranks.

Martin Goodman’s comics followed the trends. So when teen humour or super-heroes were out, then there were western and romance comics. Yet Patsy Walker and Millie the Model--with their gang of friends--stayed in publication through the 1950s and even into the 1960s, when the company now called Atlas shifted toward fantasy and science fiction.

Meanwhile, Goodman published a line of paperbacks that followed the themes of the old pulps. And he launched a line of men’s magazines: FOR MEN ONLY, BACHELOR, STAG and SWANK--these included sexy comic strips like the Adventures of Pussycat. As well, there was a line of humour digest magazines that included girly cartoons.

Talents from the comic book side of the business were also contributing to these stroke books and lad mags. And needless to say, women were prominently featured in all of these.

[Jim Kelly]

Patsy Walker was co-created by writer Otto Binder and artist Ruth Atkinson, while Atkinson created Millie the Model all on her own. Ruth was one of the few women working in comics back in the 1940s. So I think it’s quite a feather in Marvel’s cap that two of their longest running female characters had Ruth Atkinson to thank for their existence.

Millie and Patsy continued publication as the Marvel Age progressed and they even crossed over into a few of the super-hero comics.

MILLIE THE MODEL ended her title’s run in 1973, but Millie has continued to pop up in the Marvel Universe. PATSY WALKER ended her eponymous title in 1965, while the title she shared with her friend, PATSY AND HEDY, ended in 1967. But Patsy was not done, as Steve Englehart revived her character as the super-hero Hellcat in 1972 and she’s been active ever since.

I can see the advantage to the Marvel branded movies in having a character named Captain Marvel as their flagship female character; however, I think it’s too bad that she’s more of a spin-off character rather than a singular named character in her own right. And if they had to go down that road, I think Monica Rambeau, an African-American female, would have been a bolder choice for the role of Captain Marvel in the movie universe.