Rite

Warren Ellis' Stormwatch is a story about a superhero team which is a meditation on the whole idea of superhero teams. My favorite thing in it is this Amazon, a wonder who doesn't stick around long, I suspect because this panel is enough to make the necessary point.

Rite comes from a place where magic is a female thing, as is war.

Women have a higher pain tolerance than men, and greater stamina, and so Rite is a soldier.

Women’s dialogue with the inner and outer worlds of the human race is a more intuitive, emotionally truer thing, and so Rite is a priestess.

Her presence in the greater world is a ritual thing, her people’s magical act of salvation for the world.

She is sent out as ambassador and messiah, it its strictest literal and political definition; one anointed as liberator.