The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines
Comic book superheroines bend steel, travel across time and space, and wield the awesome forces of nature. These mighty females do everything that male superheroes do. But they have to work their wonders in skirts and high heels.
The Supergirls, a cultural history of comic book heroines, asks whether their world of fantasy is that different from our own. Are the stories of Wonder Woman’s search for an identity, Batwoman and Power Girl’s battle for equality, and Manhunter’s juggling of a crime fighting career and motherhood also an alternative saga of modern American women?
- ISBN
- 9781935259039
Shelved by 1 Litcadian
Reviews
- adventurousinformativelightheartedMedium-paced
Started February 27, 2024 · Finished February 29, 2024
A good starting point, but hardly rigorous and not in any way academic (there are no citations, and the author owns the press that published it, so I strongly doubt there was much fact checking). Since it is basically all the author's own opinions, it feels more like a very very long blog post. It is also very clear that the author prefers Marvel and doesn't read much DC besides Wonder Woman. Historically pivotal characters like Starfire or Cassandra Cain don't have so much as a mention but the X-Men get constant focus. (And I don't care about Marvel much so this got annoying pretty fast.) The author is also disappointingly snide about lesbian couples in comics, assuming they are all only included to sell comics to men, with no apparent awareness of/respect for the large numbers of female fans of these characters. (I suspect some of this is also due to not putting much effort into understanding them since they are DC characters.) However, most of the book is focused on very early comics, and since the author's own fan opinions are less relevant there those sections are very good. Since there are very few other easily accessible books on the topic I recommend it (especially the portions covering the era pre-Seduction of the Innocent) but I hope there will be other books covering these subjects more professionally and with more actual sources.