Girl Comics - Book Review 3

Marvel's Girl Comics is the Marvel company's attempt to bring attention to the women who make their living by creating superhero comics.  The entire book (a collection comprised of entire 3 issue run of the Girl Comics miniseries) is completely created by women only, from the art and writing, down to the lettering, inking, coloring, and even editing. 

While the book contains some fantastic work in both the art and storytelling, and the idea sounds noble, the entire thing comes off as sort of condescending.  I mean, what would really be honorable to female creators would be to hire them more often and promote their regular work.  I mean no disrespect to the women that worked on this book.  Like I said, the actually content was mostly pretty amazing.  And they take the time in between stories to do dossiers on women who have led the way by working in comics during even more segregated times.  But it's pretty obvious from the get-go that the entire thing is more of a publicity stunt than an actually attempt at bringing about equality of the genders in superhero publishing.

Here's why:




While a few of the writers choose to concentrate on male characters in their stories (3 come to mind), every other story is about a female character.  Which is fine, and predictable really, but really not required when the point of the series is for the creators to be female, not the characters.  But I can't say I would have done any different had I been approached to work on the project.  What really gets me is this: although most of the stories are about female SUPERHEROES, next to NONE of them are about superheroics.  They all focus on the woman's personal, emotional, or romantic life.  You know, those things that fit into the realm of femininity.  These were great stories, that did jack-squat for the perception of women and what women are about.  Anyone who has read the work of Gail Simone (absent from the collection, perhaps because of her alliance with DC), knows that a woman can write a story, about male and female superheroes, that has badass action in them!  You can write a story about a female character that involoves her emotional state without neutering her (as the saying goes).  With stories about superheroes throwing fits about their weight and hair, Girl Comics just did way more to enforce female stereotypes than Starfire in a string bikini. 

There is a place for these kinds of stories.  But it shouldn't have been in this book.  If I pick up a book about a female superhero, I'd better open it to find her kicking a monster's ass.  Let me restate that: ALL superhero stories could benefit with a little more human emotion and weakness thrown in, but these things should NEVER be associated solely with women.  I can think of many a male character that could be improved by a little humanizing treatment.  But you would never pick up an issue of Wolverine and find a story about him realizing how stupid his hair looks or being turned down for a date.  Unfortunately, that is the norm in this collection.  The cover of the book might be the most bad-ass thing in the entire anthology. 

It was pretty hard for me to critique this book.  Because I like these kind of stories.  I read a good many independent graphic novels in the same vein as these stories.  The only difference is the lack of cape and spandex body suit.  And that is precisely what is wrong with this book.  When you go to a female creator and ask for a superhero story, you shouldn't get a slice-of-life drama with a mask thrown on.  If you want to write that kind of work, write it on your own time.  Don't cripple the rest of us by supporting a stereotype.  Especially when the book good have done so much. 

Now for the good things: the book got a lot of interesting artwork out there that you usually do not see published by a big comics company.  This is something I would like to see a lot more of.  While artwork in comics has improved greatly over the last two decades, it has also become very streamlined and unvaried. Differences between artists becomes indiscernable. In other words, it kind of gets boring.  Having more art like that portrayed in this book would be amazing.  And, once again, the writing is good.  The stories are introspective, humorous, and diverse.  I am especially fond of the Punisher story, the Jubilee story, and the Kitty Pryde story.  Even the story about the hair is actually pretty good. 

All in all, I would only recommend this book only on the basis of the writing and art, but not on the hopes of crushing a paradigm.  Do not go into it looking for a revolution.  For a kick-ass book with an all female cast, read Marvel's Heralds or DC's Birds of Prey instead.