Some Girls

Last time, I was blogging about Superhero Women at DC and concluded that: the fetishistic patriotic pin-up Wonder Woman should surrender her place in the Trinity to Captain Marvel/Shazam, who did magic and whimsy first and better; and that Vixen might be DC's last, best hope for a breakthrough female character. I also forgot to mention several All-Stars- Liberty Belle, Firebrand and Stargirl, who even appeared on Smallville; and Manhunter and Dolphin. Maybe another time.
But what about the House of Ideas? What did Stan the Man and Roy the Boy achieve in terms of promoting women's culture and female role models to Marvel's beloved collegiate audience? Again, I'm going to post, where possible, the covers of the comics wherein I first met the Women of Marvel
The first wave of Marvel Super-Heroines were Girl Fridays and Damsels in Distress- the Invisible Girl and her replacement Crystal, the "Exquisite Elemental", gorgeously depicted here by the King:

Sue Storm Richards has been the primary mother figure in the Marvel Universe for more than forty years, despite her ill-advised stripper costume of the 90s. The elfin Crystal, on the other hand, cheated on her husband, the highly-strung mutant Quicksilver, with a real estate salesman in a dismal 80s storyline.Not so heroic, then.

A flighty heiress, the Wasp rose to the role of Avengers Chair after her abusive relationship with Henry Pym- a storyline that really needs to go away for a very long time. In the 70s, Janet's shtick was changing her costume every other issue. Currently, she's in a comatose state but I expect that will be reversed for the release of the Avengers movie. For a very brief spell, she had her own co-feature in which, oddly, she hosted sci-fi stories, like Tales of the Watcher!

I bought this the other week on ebay and the Romita cover truly is a thing of beauty. As a former Romance Comics artist, Jazzy Johnny drew staggeringly lovely girls. Mutant maids Jean Grey and the Scarlet Witch are stunners here but in comics, having evolved from "point-and-faint" Legionnaire-types to Living Goddesses, they both went mad and/or died. Both characters were redeemed, however, by charming portrayals in the X-Men First Class comics of the last couple of years.
One of the most striking and individual Marvel heroines debuted as a villain:

Kirby's imperious Medusa, as I first encountered her in the Power Comics of the 60s. 

When she was revealed to be one of the Inhumans, the titian-tressed tigress got a one-off solo feature ( a scene in Paris and the soubriquet Madam made me think she was actually French) and a guest-appearance in Spider-Man, as the "most fabulous super-powered GLAMAZON in the history of comicdom". To no avail, Stan.

Another bad-girl-turned-good was also relaunched in Spider-Man and ran as a co-feature with the Inhumans in the very early 70s.

I love Neal Adams big-domed Maximus the Mad!

At this stage, I didn't realise Madam Natasha was an, er, homage to Modesty Blaise and like Diana Prince, inspired by Emma Peel. Nowadays, the tragic Widow is the go-to Black Ops character of the Marvel Universe and as co-star in Iron Man 2, one of Marvel's highest-profile heroines.
Reprint books like Marvel Super-Heroes introduced me to Miss America, who always appealed because of her mousy, bespectacled look. Roy Thomas cast her as Wanda's (unlikely) birth mother in the 70s but that was retconned later:

Miss America's DC counterpart had a brief revival in the 80s but both are pretty much forgotten nowadays.

A bevy of new Marvel heroines were spawned by the Women's Lib movement. Some satirised it or parodied it, like Valkyrie, an Asgardian who quested after a mortal identity or the Femizon Thundra who came from a matriarchal dystopia (possibly one of the "vicious voluptuaries" from Savage Tales):

The message seemed to be that Feminists were shrewish, violent and manly; so Val was rendered less strident and more vulnerable by her identity crisis and Thundra's role as on/off antagonist and ally associated her with the position of the 50s Catwoman.
Speaking of felines, a completely new character was launched in '72, written and drawn by women; but lacking a consistent creative team, the book foundered quickly:

However, Marvel rarely consigned characters to oblivion for long and spun off two heroines from the concept!

Romance comics star Patsy Walker was revived as Hellcat in a truly Liberated move but her long association with the Defenders in their least-inspired period seems to have tainted the character. Meanwhile, Tigra, a very late entry in the Horror genre, has spent nearly thirty years as a coquette and a victim, more pussycat than predator. Having contributed heinously to Tigra's victim status in recent years, Brian Bendis has, surprisingly, written Patsy Walker's character with insight and vivacity; maybe he'll rectify her situation yet.
Two more lesser lights of the Horror boom owe their existence to the Exorcist and Vampirella. Satana, the Devil's Daughter is a succubus while Lilith is Dracula's Daughter. Neither of these sinister, slinky types could be seen as heroines or role models, exactly, but Lilith really missed the boat with the Twilight fad:

The other big genres in comics in the Bronze Age were Barbarians and Kung Fu. The former birthed another future film star, Red Sonja. Her Art Nouveau origins in Barry Smith's Conan were completely overshadowed by the (bizarre and impractical) chain mail bikini which soon became her trademark:

Not really a super-hero though; nor, strictly, were this pair, although their Grindcore origins have ensured that Misty Knight, at least, is still around today:

The most significant Marvel martial arts maiden is probably Steve Englehart's Mantis; surely the only heroine to appear at three different Bronze Age comics companies (as Willow at DC and Lorelei at Eclipse, in Scorpio Rose):

Amusingly, Bendis dismisses the Celestial Madonna arc and Mantis' "this one" verbal tic via Hawkeye: "At first I thought it was a language thing and then I realized it was just a diva thing...I just felt we were all of a sudden completely involved in (her life) and drama".
One diva that I feel was dismissed and devalued is Jim Starlin's Moondragon:

My oath of celibacy is on record, Captain

Moony first appeared as the villainous Madam MacEvil in Iron Man in '73 ( a landmark year for Super Women). After a brief stint in Daredevil, she appeared with Mar-Vell in the first Thanos arc. Englehart then deftly tied her in with Mantis and began the process of building up her insufferably arrogant persona- as if heroes have to be likeable and warm. Then Shooter ramped up her manipulations until she seduced Thor and was depowered by Odin. More recently, however, she's promoted diversity having been reworked as a bisexual character in Marvel's successful "cosmic" series.
Perhaps it was the cult status of Starlin's Captain Marvel that contributed to the creation of Ms. Marvel, one of the most enduring Bronze Age heroines. I always had the sense that Marvel looked rather pityingly on Supergirl and Batgirl as feeble, watered-down counterparts to male heroes. The Superhero Women states that Stan was really trying to create a female super-star to rival  the likes of Spider-Man or Thor. So Gerry Conway got the gig and gave us an amnesiac Kree zealot, literally a female photocopy of Mar-Vell:

Man enough?

Conway has written several super-heroines, including Wonder Woman in the late 70s and he created both Power Girl and Vixen. But it really took Chris Claremont to begin to turn Carol Danvers into a sympathetic and rounded individual- "Ms. Sash Belt", in the words of Bendis' proxy, Clint Barton.
Claremont had cornered the market on approachable goddesses in tandem with Dave Cockrum on the All-New and bi-monthly X-Men in the mid-70s, beginning with Storm -Ororo- who was brought to life on screen by Halle Berry:

While his scripting has been derided in recent, allegedly more sophisticated times, Claremont's Bronze Age females were often more powerful, more experienced and more dynamic than their male team-mates; beginning with exploitation faves, the aforementioned Satana and the Daughters of the Dragon. It's significant that some of Marvel's most recognisable female film properties have their origins in the X-Men comics of the late Seventies.

Next time, I'll discuss how Marvel's Superhero Women were impacted by Reaganomics and the ascendancy of the Direct Market. Is there an inspiring female figure in the Marvel media of the Noughties?

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