18 February 2005

Supervillainesses

Whoa: I've just been caught at a bit of sexism. Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey, talking about the year's superhero comics, makes an observation that I'm embarassed simply never occurred to me.

There are some very talented writers working on female heroes. Gail Simone; Waid always does them well; call me a slut for him, but Warren Ellis treats ‘em right; Giff, of course; Rucka with Tara Chace and that new SCU boss … and of course a few others. But what we need, really need, is some good female VILLAINS. Somebody maybe a little different from the Madonna/whore complex of Selina Kyle or the “deadly kiss” of Poison Ivy. Even Harley Quinn, as much fun as she is, is a villain because she’s Joker’s girlfriend.

It’s time for some cunning bastard with a double XX-set. Some woman who, when she pops up with a grin on the JLA viewscreen, makes Batman’s teeth grind.

Conan Doyle created Irene Adler in 1891. And comics are still catching up?

Now in recent years, my superhero diet has been restricted down to the occasions when Snarky Brit Masters — Moore, Gaiman, Ellis — deign to write for the genre, plus Busiek's delicious but infrequent visits to Astro City. But regular readers of my blog know that superheroes are as dear to my heart as pirates. So why hadn't I noticed this?

In the superheroine department, things are a bit better than one might expect, especially considering that the primary audience of the genre. You have Wonder Woman together with Superman and Batman among the Big Three characters. The X-Men are pretty badly misnamed, as just about half of the characters to fill out the X-Roster over the years have been women, including many of the most beloved and interesting of them: Storm, Rogue, Jean Grey in her many variations, plus pretty cool second-stringers like Kitty Pryde, Jubliee, Dazzler, and a zillion others. In fact, many of the most interesting second-stringers in the superhero biz are women: Black Canary, the Wasp, Black Widow, and the coolest of the many Captain Marvels. Don't forget the simply sensational She-Hulk, who isn't quite as silly a character as she sounds.

And if you're up for a visit to the rarefied air I breathe with the snarky Brits, there's a feast. Warren Ellis gives us a bunch of nifty superheroines, the best of them being Jakita Wagner ... or maybe Jenny Sparks, who could probably defeat the whole soddin' Justice League while nursing a hangover from the night before. And I can't let this pass without mentioning Alan Moore more than atoning for his two Silk Spectres with the magnificent Promethea.

But great supervillainesses? Okay, you've got Elektra, supremely badass and cool. Catwoman, likewise. (What other character in any genre could deserve Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry, and ... surprise ... Gina Gershon and Adrienne Barbeau?) And Mystique in the X-Men films is great. And, ho-hum, as Rogers pointed out, you've got Poison Ivy who's, uh, kind of silly. And ... ah ... did I mention Elektra? Very tough, she is, and she has a great costume. Beyond these few, you're looking at the White Queen and Black Cat: other than being excuses to have exiles from the Victoria's Secret catalogue standing in the panel, is there any point to them?

And none of these are even close to the epic villain league of the Joker, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Darkseid, or Galactus. (Don't give me Madeline Pryor in Goblin Queen mode, okay? It's pathetic.)

What's up with that? It's weird.


Update: Tamar Altebarmakian has a great comment about why this is important, referencing how Xena handles this well.

It’s just as important to have female villains as it is to have female protagonists, and this is perhaps doubly important in a show that has a female protagonist at its center, because it shows that these heroes come from a community of strong women and that an empowered woman is the norm as opposed to an isolated incident.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Winnowill.
Thread.

Jonathan Korman said...

There are precious few things in life as pleasing as making a nerdy blog post about supervillains, and then getting out-nerded by a beautiful woman bringing up Elfquest.

I submit, however, that while Winnowill is an epic villainess, she is not a supervillainess, as ElfQuest is simply not a superhero book. It's very clearly a post-Tolkien swords & sorcery book. So she doesn't answer the plea for an epic supervillainess. But implicitly I was wondering if someone could scare up an epic villainess in some genre, as I couldn't think of one, and she certainly qualifies.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I always wished they'd done more with Feral.
http://shdictionary.tripod.com/superheroes/feral.html
Thread

Indri said...

How about two beautiful women out-nerding you? Brace yourself.

The problem with the villainesses you mention is that they're not really all that evil. Even Elektra isn't really evil; sometimes it seems she spares more of her contracts than she hits. She is plagued with a conscience. Ditto Catwoman, who's more clever than she is evil.

Off the top of my head--because I have thought about this--a few things come to mind. The biggest one being that I don't think writers and publishers are ready to give us a female villain who really has no redeeming qualities. Or one who's badly maimed or disfigured, as are so many male supervillains. Think about it; a big part of Victor VonDoom's problem is that those cosmic rays made him all ugly and shit, and now he's got an axe to grind.

Unless we're talking about the ones Wonder Woman fights, and that raises a whole 'nother issue: it's not "okay" for men to fight women, but women can fight women. And does WW ever: the Villainy, Inc. crowd includes Giganta, Cheetah, the Silver Swan, and Cybergirl. Then there's Circe and Devastation. Of those, Deva is a complete psychopath, which you don't see too often. Deva gets lines like "I was born to bathe in blood!" and means them; she's out to destroy the world, not steal things or kill individuals.

Jonathan Korman said...

Indri delivers a knockout punch, spot-on about Elektra and Catwoman as ambiguous not-quite-villains. I'm not quite sure how to interpert the intrafeminine conflicts of the Wonder Woman universe. It's okay for girls to hit girls?

We have a film noir tradition of unredeemably evil women. Though it occurs to me that the revealation that they are truly unredeemable is basically the driver of the story arc in that medium. Hard to do in episodic comics.

Also, I cannot resist using this space to observe that simply by writing women well, Mr. Warren Ellis has developed a dedicated fanbase of hot young women.

Randy said...

Off the top of my head--because I have thought about this--a few things come to mind. The biggest one being that I don't think writers and publishers are ready to give us a female villain who really has no redeeming qualities. Or one who's badly maimed or disfigured, as are so many male supervillains. Think about it; a big part of Victor VonDoom's problem is that those cosmic rays made him all ugly and shit, and now he's got an axe to grind.

Jonathan Korman said...

Funny you should say that Randy; I think you're right. Though I just finished up Avatar: The Last Airbender, and in that show it turns out that there is a villainess who proves to be an unredeemable psychopath.

Interesting ...