Question

[trinityvixen]

I was thinking about my earlier post (in which I objectified at least two men and hinted at a history of doing so to many, many others) and the oncoming onslaught of superhero movies (our taste for which is surprisingly still rapacious). Marvel has no less than a dozen movies already assumed: Iron Man 2 and, very probably, 3; Thor (with Thor 2 less likely but not impossible); Captain America (its sequel potential somewhere between that of Iron Man 3 and Thor 2); The Avengers; Wolverine 2; Deadpool; and some variety of X-Men-related films--the long idle Magneto movie and the more active X-Men: First Class.

DC has, to its credit, tried to step up production of the next Christopher Nolan Batman film and is making noise about another Superman film (though they won't film anything until the lawsuits are settled, I'm sure). And, while they do that, Green Lantern is already filming. (Seriously, someone took a shitty quality photo of Ryan Reynolds on set with what looked like a smudge on one of his fingers and the Lantern fans exploded with paroxysms of glee that he was wearing the ring.) The Flash may be getting another script treatment. Don't ask about Wonder Woman, though.

But, no, wait, let's ask about Wonder Woman for a second. Or, rather, since I don't want to hear the bullshit about how they can't figure out how to make Wonder Woman interesting enough to justify a movie, let's focus on what really bugged me as I looked at the Marvel line-up. Forget DC for a moment. I need comics fans to answer (riddle) me this: Who is Marvel's Wonder Woman?

I'm not trying to pick at wounds here, though it is a sore subject for me, personally. I really just could not think of any grand dame of the Marvel universe who stands on the sort of equal footing with her male colleagues that Wonder Woman does in the DC universe. The best I could come up with were the obviously-derivative-versions-of-male-characters, sometimes-members of the Avengers, like Spider-Woman or She-Hulk. Thinking about female Marvel characters, I immediately thought of X-Men, but they're hardly any of them anything like Wonder Woman. You can think of the iconic Marvel characters without ever touching on any X-Man or X-Woman. So the X-Women cannot be said to be iconic enough to Wonder Woman, for all that they are, by far, the most interesting women in the Marvel universe.

So, comics nerds better versed than I: am I wrong? Is there an iconic Marvel character who is on par with DC's Wonder Woman and I'm just not thinking of her?

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

There isn't.

When they ran DC vs. Marvel, they paired her up against Storm. (Superman vs. Hulk, Batman vs. Captain America, Spider-Man vs. Superboy, Wolverine vs. Lobo) When the best they have is an oft-marginalized team-book member, they've got nothing.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I was hoping you would ring in on this one. You're what I would consider an authority.

Storm and the X-Men are an interesting deviation from the model heroes, even the model hero teams that preceded them because instead of being individuals brought together (in the JLA or the Avengers), they were always parts of a whole. The X-Men exist first, the mutants making up the team are secondary. Which is why Storm, who would absolutely be my choice for highest profile non-male-derivative Marvel woman, is still nowhere near Wonder Woman's league.

Part of what frustrates me most about this is that the X-Men, especially in their second configuration--with Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, etc.--were and are fairly diverse. The female characters, too, were often way more interesting than the male characters. I'm not going to argue whether they're "Strong Female Characters(TM)," because that's an annoying diversion, but I'd say it's fair to say that, Wolverine excluded, they're the most popular X-characters. So they're awesome. They're just not icons.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

The X-Men are an iconic team (they're the archetype for the "saving a world that hates us" trope). Wolverine is an iconic character from that team because he's the archetypal representation of the '90s grim-and-gritty antihero. None of the female character have that or something similar to it.

Wonder Woman, for good or ill, is THE archtypal female superhero.

There are very few "minority" superheroes of note when you get right down to it. You're right that virtually all of them are white men. (They're also virtually all Americans with hazy Jewish or Christian backgrounds.)

Storm is probably the most well-known non-white character, followed probably by Static (who had his own cartoon show) Cyborg (Teen Titans), Steel (who got a crappy movie and appeared in DCAU Cartoons), or maybe Green Lantern John Stewart (played up in DCAU cartoons and toylines).

Asian or Hispanic characters? Average man on the street probably couldn't name any. I can only come up with a handful, and they ask me to run comic trivia panels.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Minority superheroes seem to pop up much in the same way that female heroes do. That is, they represent some offshoot of a character that was already around that was a white male. I think the Green Lantern is a good example. Well, we have this concept hero, who doesn't have to be one person...I know! We can have a minority hero! Woo! Black Superman, you say? How about Steel?

The X-Men have gotten better. They have both Asian and Hispanic characters in their books. Of course, the less said about the "exotic otherness" of Psylocke, the better. (Plus! She's actually a British white chick underneath! Bonus!)

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

Black Panther. Black Lightning. Forge. Falcon. Thunder and Lightning. Mr. Terrific. Tigra. Talisman and Shaman.

Sorry, couldn't help it. :)

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

You're right that virtually all of them are white men. (They're also virtually all Americans with hazy Jewish or Christian backgrounds.)

I guess when all your established Superheroes are from the "American Male Good, American Female Good Wife, Other Whites maybe useful, Everyone else the Enemy" era it doesn't leave a lot of room for newer characters from diverse backgrounds making it in.

The already iconic characters can have a certain amount of shift (such as Wonder Woman going from "Bondage fantasy eye candy hero" to a three dimensional, strong female character), and a few outliers like the current Green Lantern manage to sneak in, but for the most part it's a case of "We have our iconic characters who have been iconic for more than half a decade, the ball is rolling and good luck moving it"