Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Claws of the Cat #1 (1974)
Created By: Linda Fite, Roy Thomas, & Marie Severin
Biography

Chicago native Greer Nelson had recently been widowed when she went on a job search and somehow ended up a test subject for a scientist working on advancing human potential. As a result, Greer ended up with superhuman powers and quickly set about working as a D-list hero known as the Cat.
Things took a turn for the WTF when it was revealed that Greer’s scientist pal was actually a member of the Cat People, a mystical, hidden race of…cat people. It’s pretty much exactly like you’re picturing it. When Greer was dying from radiation poisoning after a battle, the Cat People offered to transform her into the Tigra, a hybrid warrior and defender of their people. She was all, ‘Hell yes, I’d rather not die,’ and it was done.
It turned out that Greer made for a much more effective hero as Tigra. Now wearing a sporty bikini to show off her new stripes, she was a member of several Avengers line-ups over the years. She also tried to get busy with several of her male teammates, thanks to her cat-like need for affection, but eventually her human and cat sides were able to merge more effectively. An off-on relationship did emerge between her and Hank Pym, though, because Hank gets all the awesome ladies.
This actually led to trouble when they rekindled the romance. This time around, Greer didn’t know that Hank had been replaced by a bad-guy Skrull. The Skrulls were defeated, but when she realized she was pregnant, she was unsure who the father actually was. After initially deciding on an abortion, she changed her mind and went through with the normal two-month cat gestation, giving birth to a perfectly normal…cat-person hybrid. He was named William, after her deceased husband.
These days, Greer’s mostly focusing on being a mom, rekindling her relationship with the real Hank (she hopes), and teaching at Avengers Academy.
So What’s So Great About Her?

Every comic book company seems to have at least one sexy cat-themed lady on their character roster. I’m pretty sure this was one of the requirements mandated by the original Comics Code Authority. [Citation needed.] Marvel’s definitely not an exception, with women like Black Cat, Shadowcat, and Hellcat populating one comic or another. But Tigra, nee the Cat, has them all beat, seeing how she is actually part cat.
I sort of get where the association between women and felines comes from (graceful, dainty, restrained, clean, stereotype stereotype, etc.), but as a cat owner, the idea that cat = sexy kind of baffles me. When I catch my own cat staring at me vacantly, my thought isn’t, ‘She looks hot,’ so much as, ‘KITTY FACE,’ but different strokes for different folks and all. In any case, Tigra especially epitomizes the SexCat idea, what with her skimpy bikini outfit and numerous (canon) sexual partners.
And you know what? I am totally okay with that. At one point, she says something like, ‘The bikini isn’t the costume, the stripes are,’ which I found really clever and refreshing. For a character who spent a lot of her early history in monster-themed comics, she’s never really wrung her hands or spent time dropping to her knees and screaming WHY up at the rain over her transformation. Instead, she totally accepts herself and, in fact, revels in it. Why not show off those stripes if she thinks they’re awesome? And hell, I can’t really blame a gal for hooking up with some hot dudes, especially when one of them is one of my major nerd-crushes, Hank Pym.
And while I don’t think Greer has ever been a character we were intended to take very seriously (for God’s sake, her flagship title was West Coast Avengers, which I can barely even type without laughing), I do like that we’ve seen her mature over recent years. Rather than just be depended upon to strike a pose and claw some eyes out, Tony Stark recently gave her a major vote of confidence by making her his spy during Civil War, albeit a totally unsuccessful one. She’s also become a teacher for younger heroes, both in the Initiative and Avengers Academy titles, which is pretty damn cool, and moreover there’s her long-standing devoted service to the Cat People, and oh, there’s the laughing again as I type.
Greer’s also become a mother recently. Abortion is a always a touchy issue, to say the least, and I’m glad to at least see a comic book character strongly consider the option, especially since for a while she wasn’t even certain who the father was. (It turned out to be the Skrull, by the way. But with Hank’s DNA. It’s Facebook complicated.) But I also like that the birth of William has only renewed her drive to make the world a better place.
Because hey, a slightly ridiculous T&A character can still be noble.
Notable Appearances

At the moment, Tigra is appearing as a regular character in Avengers Academy, appearing monthly from Marvel Comics.
The Cat #1-4
Marvel Team-Up #8
Giant-Size Creatures #1
Monsters Unleashed #10
Marvel Chillers #3-7
Marvel Two-In-One #19
Fantastic Four #177-184
Marvel Team-Up #67
Marvel Premiere #42
Avengers #211-215
Uncanny X-Men #155-156
Marvel Team-Up #125
Spider-Woman #49-50
Avengers #240-241
West Coast Avengers (vol.1) #1-4
Iron Man Annual #7
Avengers #250
Iron Man #191; 193
Avengers #253-254
Marvel Graphic Novel #16
Vision and the Scarlet Witch #1-2
West Coast Avengers (vol.2) #1-46
Fantastic Four #293
Avengers Annual #15
West Coast Avengers Annual #1-3
Marvel Graphic Novel #27
Avengers #302-303
Avengers: West Coast (continuation of West Coast Avengers) #47-50
Avengers Annual #18
Marvel Super-Heroes #2
Avengers Spotlight #38
Avengers: West Coast #66-74; 83
Excalibur #37-39
Avengers: West Coast Annual #8
Marvel Comics Presents #162-165
Avengers: Infinity #1-4
Maximum Security #2-3
Tigra #1-4
She-Hulk (vol.2) #7
Civil War #2-6
Fantastic Four #539
Mighty Avengers #3
Avengers: The Initiative #6; 14; 19-35
Ms. Marvel #19-20
New Avengers #35
New Avengers Annual #2
Mighty Avengers #17
Hulk (vol.2) #8-9
Avengers: The Initiative Featuring Reptil #1
New Avengers: The Reunion #2
War Machine (vol.2) #8-10
Avengers (vol.4) #1
Enter the Heroic Age #1
Avengers Academy #1-15
I Am An Avenger #2
Fear Itself: The Home Front #1
Amazing Spider-Man #661

I had planned on writing about Scandal Savage this week, since I’m featuring women who have not been included in the new DCU, but I changed my mind a few days ago when I saw this. The woman featured below is in the DCnU, but not in any way that I recognize.)
Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Legends #1
Created By: John Ostrander, Len Wein, and John Byrne
Biography:

Amanda Waller was living in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing projects when her husband and two of her children were murdered. She left the projects, obtained a doctorate, and began working as a congressional aide, where she learned of a past clandestine government agency, the Suicide Squad. Seeing potential, she started a new Suicide Squad, where fourth-string supervillains could commute their sentences by going on suicide black ops missions for the US government. (Now you know why the DCU authorities can’t seem to keep criminal masterminds like, um, Punch and Jewelee behind bars.)
Waller had an acrimonious relationship with basically everyone involved with the Sqad: the government couldn’t control her, the villains on the Squad didn’t like her, and the heroes on the Squad didn’t trust her ruthless methods. Still, her combination of brains and callousness got the job done more often than not. Eventually, the existence of the Squad was revealed to the public and Waller was put on trial for her actions; still later, she and a small team of villains tracked down and killed the heads of an organized crime cartel called the LOA. Waller allowed herself to be jailed for this, knowing she’d be out again the moment the government needed her.
Sure enough, the Wall was soon released to reform the Suicide Squad. She served as Secretary of Metahuman Affairs under President Lex Luthor and was jailed again following his impeachment-via-publicly-attacking-Superman-in-flying-green-space-armor. Politics, man.
However, following the face-heel-turn and subsequent head-neck-turn of Checkmate’s Maxwell Lord, Waller was pardoned by Luthor’s successor and asked to take command of the floundering UN organization. Despite the fact that as White Queen she was forbidden to take part in ops, Waller continued to run a covert Suicide Squad in order to further America’s agenda and her own. She also organized Operation Salvation Run, the mass deportation of supervillains to an alien planet.
Waller’s non-UN-sanctioned activities were eventually revealed and she was forced to resign. Her last appearance in the old DCU showed her newly-formed Squad clashing with the Secret Six, revealing that unbeknownst to the Six, Waller was their mysterious leader, Mockingbird. Why would she pick a fight with a team she already runs? Only the Wall knows for sure.
So What’s So Great About Her?

In my very first post on this blog, I said that out of all the characters in comics, I’d want Dinah Lance to be my best friend. I have a whole bunch of these: I also want to hang out with Stephanie Brown and Jaime Reyes, bake cookies with Mary Batson, punch Hal Jordan in the face, and marry Ralph Dibny.
And never, ever do anything to get Amanda Waller pissed at me.
The Joker might get distracted and forget to shoot me. Lex Luthor has a kernel of goodness somewhere very deep down. So does Waller, actually, but that won’t stop her from utterly destroying me if she thinks I’m a threat to her agenda.
See, ‘the Wall,’ isn’t just a cutesy nickname. It’s a statement of fact. Amanda Waller is unmovable. You can’t get around her, you can’t get through her, and she will make your life living hell if you try. She’s Batman without the privilege of the Wayne fortune and ample time to study tiger-wrestling in the Himalayas or whatever. She took personal tragedy and used her grief to become one of the most badass people in the world, and she did it wearing an 80s power suit. (Speaking of Batman, by the way, the first time they met, she backed him down by pointing out that she could very, very easily figure out his secret identity. PWNED.)
This isn’t to say that Waller doesn’t have morals, because she does. She’s a patriot, and believes first and foremost in furthering America’s interests, even if that means snarking at Reagan about his lack of social programs, abusing her position in a UN-affiliated program to push an American agenda, or, um, shooting mobsters and terrorists in the head. She’s not a nice person, or even really a good person, but she always does what she believes she has to.
And it must be said: she’s African-American, and she’s plus-sized. (Or at least, she was.) Her physical appearance is a hugely important part of her character. She’s an extremely important, influential government figure, and she got there while being black, plus-sized, and female. And from the projects. And old enough to have five (five!) adult children. All of those characteristics are impediments to political power, which means that one look at Waller tells you how hard she had to work to get where she is. Plus, God knows we could use more women of size and color in comics.
I’m glad Amanda Waller made it into the DCnU, but by changing her weight, DC has also drastically changed who she is, and removed something unique and remarkable from their universe. Amanda Waller never used to have to compromise to hold power in the DCU. She shouldn’t have to now.

Notable Appearances:
Legends
Suicide Squad v1 #1-67
Checkmate v1 #1, 8, 16-19
Suicide Squad v2 #1-12
52 #24, 33, 34, 45
Salvation Run
Suicide Squad v3 #1-8
Checkmate v2 #1-20
Secret Six v3 #17-18, 26-28, 36

Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963)
Created By: Bob Haney, Arnold Drake, and Bruno Premiani
Biography:
Rita Farr was already an Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer and famous actress when she was exposed to strange volcanic gases on a film shoot in Africa. Suddenly she found herself with the ability to grow tremendously tall or shrink to microscopic heights. Shunned by the world as a ‘freak,’ she was recruited by Dr. Niles Caulder, a.k.a. ‘the Chief,’ for his Doom Patrol, a team of superheroes whose powers rendered them outcasts.
As Elasti-Girl, Rita thrived on the Doom Patrol. Even once she got her powers under control and was approached to return to the movies, she refused to leave her new ‘family’ or give up helping others. She even wound up marrying one of the team’s allies, Mento (Steve Dayton), and adopting another, Beast Boy (Gar Logan). However, thanks to the machinations of the evil Madame Rouge, the entire team (minus Steve and Gar) was seemingly killed in an explosion when they sacrificed themselves to save a small fishing village.
Gradually it was revealed that some members had survived and others had been resurrected, but Rita did not return until Infinite Crisis and its aftermath. The Chief, it seemed, had regrown her from a bit of her skull that he had salvaged in the explosion (and can I just say: ew?), but this new Rita was docile and unwilling to question the Chief’s authority, even when he was being creepy and amoral. It wasn’t until Steve confronted the Chief that Rita, too, was able to break free from the Chief’s control and announce that she would be called Elasti-Woman from now on, thank you very much.
So What’s So Great About Her?

Sometimes when talking about a female character, you have to make allowances for how she was depicted in the Silver Age. Though Sue Storm and Lois Lane are awesome now, they’re often relegated to the damsel-in-distress role in comics from the 60s.
Not so with Rita. One of the reasons her early adventures are a delight to read is because she’s always been right there in the thick of things. Her power is a much more corporeal one than women usually got in the Silver Age; instead of invisibility or telekinesis, she spends her time slugging it out with giant robots and catching rockets, or shrinking herself down to defuse bombs from the inside. She’s determined to share the danger with her male teammates, and saves them as often as they save her. Plus, she’s smart, and gets to share the zany banter. Pretty groovy, daddy-o!
Furthermore, she’s a woman who knows her own mind. When the fairly douchey Steve Dayton starts courting her, she’s not impressed by his money, brilliance, or goofy helmet, but (eventually) by his good heart. She marries him against the wishes of her teammates, but refuses to give up superheroing when Steve asks her to, because she can’t see someone in trouble and not help. She’s the only one who sees that Gar is a troubled kid in the clutches of a murderous, thieving guardian, and insists that Steve uses his resources to help. She’s surrounded by loudmouthed, domineering men, but is determined to go her own way and do what she believes is right, no matter what. Even her death is awesome: a heroic sacrifice shared with her ‘family,’ and not a fridging.
Sadly, it’s only since her resurrection in the twenty-first century, for crying out loud! that she’s been portrayed as being under the thumb of, alternately, Steve and the Chief. Come on, guys. A weakwilled, subservient woman manipulated by her sketchy father figure and whackadoodle husband? Rita was too good for that hackneyed kind of depiction even in 1963. Hopefully when the Doom Patrol returns in the DCnU, Rita will be present, and as kickass as she was in the Silver Age.

Notable Appearances:
The title of the Doom Patrol’s starring vehicle, My Greatest Adventure, was changed to Doom Patrol with issue #86. The original run has been collected in both Showcase and Archive editions.
My Greatest Adventure #80-85
Doom Patrol v1 #86-121
Doom Patrol v4 #1-18
Doom Patrol v5 #1-22

Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: Impulse #28 (August 1997)
Created By: Tom Peyer and Craig Rousseau
Biography:

Cissie’s mother Bonnie was Miss Arrowette, an extremely minor Silver Age character
who popped up in a handful of appearances to tag along after Green Arrow and Speedy
and try to get them to let her join the team. When that failed, she took journalist/fanboy
Bernell ‘Bowstring’ Jones on as her ‘sidekick’ until her carpal tunnel syndrome forced her to retire from archery. Bowstring died a few years later, leaving Bonnie with a young daughter to mold into the repository of all her failed hopes and dreams…I mean, raise.
Bonnie became the ultimate stage mother, training Cissie to be the new Arrowette,
endangering and verbally abusing her. Eventually Cissie was taken away by Child Welfare Services and placed in the Elias School for Girls. She continued fighting crime and became a member of Young Justice. However, when her state-appointed therapist and close confidante was murdered, Cissie flew into a rage and nearly killed the murderers before being stopped by Superboy. Realizing she couldn’t trust herself as a vigilante, Cissie quit being Arrowette.
She didn’t retire from archery, however, and wound up winning the gold in the 2000 ‘Summer Games’ (read: Olympics) and becoming a minor celebrity. She also volunteered as medical aid during the Imperiex war alongside her former YJ teammates. Since the end of Young Justice, Cissie’s appearances have been few and far between, but she’s shown up a couple of times, usually helping out her best friend Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl II). In the most recent of these, the Wonder Girl miniseries, Cissie donned the Arrowette costume again, but it remains to be seen whether she’s back in the game for good.
So What’s So Great About Her?

As is probably clear by now, I loves me some plucky teen girls, and I loves me some archers. Cissie fits the bill both ways.
But I also love Cissie for what’s going to sound like a weird reason. I love that she doesn’t really get along with other girls. I know that sounds odd, especially since I love strong depictions of friendship between girls, but hear me out:
Cissie and Cassie (Wonder Girl II) hated each other in the early issues of Young Justice, not least because Cissie was good at flirting with the boys on the team and Cassie wasn’t. And Cissie and Anita had a fairly fractious relationship when Anita ‘replaced’ Cissie on the team. And the sad truth is that that’s how a lot of women view each other: as competition.
The great thing about Cissie’s story, though, is that she gets past that. She becomes close friends with both Cassie and Anita, not to mention their other teammate Secret and her roommate Traya. She’s not unaffected by the intense social pressure to view other women as the enemy (probably in large part thanks to her mother, who raised her to view all of life as a competition), but she has the maturity necessary to move past that and make deep and abiding friendships. And that’s a wonderful thing to see.
She also has the maturity to give up the superhero lifestyle when she realizes it’s not right for her. How many other superheroes have pulled a Spider-Man No More and stuck with it? (Heck, Ted Kord ‘retired’ four times before his death!)
Also, one time she told off the Justice League. And she has really pretty hair. And having been a tween in the 90s, that Britney-Spears-circa-1998 costume really charms me.
Basically, Cissie is fantastic. And even though it seems like she and Young Justice have been retconned out of the DCnU, pick up some back issues. You won’t regret it.
Notable Appearances:
Cissie was a regular cast member of Young Justice from issues #4-17 and appeared frequently afterwards, most notably in:
Young Justice #23-24 (the Summer Games)
Young Justice #33-34 (Cissie guest stars on Wendy in the Werewolf Stalker)
Young Justice #35-37 (the Imperiex War)
Other appearances include:
Impulse #28, 41, and 59
Teen Titans v3 #7
Teen Titans and Outsiders Secret Files 2005
Wonder Girl #2-4

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Journey into Mystery #102 (1964)
Created By: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
Biography
Sif was born in Asgard, a land of immortality and adventure. While her brother Heimdall became the keeper of Bifrost, the rainbow bridge linking Asgard to Earth, Sif distinguished herself as an incredible warrior, even by Asgardian standards; in fact, she was the best female warrior in the whole land. Also notable was her status as the lover of Odin’s son, Thor. In other words, life was pretty awesome.
Once Thor was banished from Asgard, though, things got more complicated. While her feelings for him never wavered (in fact, she only seemed to become attracted to men who wielded his hammer, Mjolnir, such as Eric Masterson and Beta Ray Bill), Thor became intrigued with a number of women. Sif was especially befuddled by his romance with Jane Foster, a mortal woman, but even still, she did everything she could to save Jane on several occasions, even merging life forces for a brief time.
Upon Odin’s death, Thor took the Asgardian throne and decided it would be a major time saver if he settled Asgard on Earth, so he could mortals out of harm’s way. In doing so, he reshaped the world as he saw fit and became a tyrant. Despite her love for him, Sif protested his reign and ended up exiled. Later, she encouraged Thor’s son Magni to revolt against his father, and eventually Thor realized he was being a douche and turned back time.
Unfortunately, this was just in time for Ragnarok, aka the end of the Norse world. Sif fought bravely with the other warriors, even continuing to battle after losing an arm, but she fell with the rest of the Asgardians. But luckily, being gods, they were resurrected before too long. Not so luckily, Loki ended up possessing Sif’s body at first, while she was stuck inhabiting an elderly terminal cancer patient. Once she was back in her true form, she was more than ready to get back to kicking ass.
So What’s So Great About Her?

It’s probably not surprising that I was recently reintroduced to Sif via the Thor movie. As a strong supporting character, she was portrayed as an incredible warrior, trusted friend, loyal subject, and all-around gorgeous person. Pretty much as awesome as canon Sif, except more so. Because, you know, there’s less fixation on how much she loves Thor but he doesn’t want her anymore. Ugh.
But you know, it’s interesting how wildly comic book movies can differ in terms of how their female characters are portrayed. Thor was kind of wonderful in that the filmmakers were able to take the major women—Sif and Jane Foster—and extract the very best from their characters and build on that. So instead of Sif mooning over Thor all the time, we get a few moments where she looks a little wistfully at him, then she moves on to battling frost giants with the best of them. Then we have movies like Green Lantern and how Carol Ferris was treated and…well. The less said about that, the better.
Like a lot of comics women, particularly women imagined by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Sif’s stayed mired in her original characterization for far too long. Yeah, okay, she loves Thor. We get it. But with any luck, the movie will end up influencing what we see in the comics. Will it hold? Who knows. I mean, it’s not like the X-Men are wearing their post-movie trilogy leather costumes anymore.
Notable Appearances

Journey into Mystery #102
Thor (vol. 1) #136-150; 154-157; 163-164; 176-177; 201-221; 231; 236; 249; 274-276; 313; 334-335; 349-359; 442; 450-455
Thor (vol. 2) #41-75; 79-85
Thor: Son of Asgard #1-12
Thor (vol. 3) #1-5; 8
Thor #601-603
Sif #1

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man #196 (1979)
Created By: Marv Wolfman & Al Milgrom
Biography

One of the times Aunt May was presumed dead/dying/just taking a really long nap, Peter Parker found a sympathetic ear in Debra Whitman. A secretary at Empire State University, where Peter was a student, she had recently separated from her husband and was up for some hot sad sack lovin’. However, being Spider-Man meant that sometimes Peter had to unexpectedly cancel dates or just not show up altogether, so they never got truly serious.
At the time, Debra was seeing a therapist due to some issues she was having, one of which was her tendency to idealize people. This was what kept her from divorcing her husband, whom she still saw as a good guy despite the fact he’d been physically abusive. It also led to her having hallucinations that Peter was — gasp — Spider-Man, because apparently this was the only way her brain could justify him being a douche. Luckily, her completely awesome therapist decided to break any implicit promise of confidentiality and tell Peter this. (Please note that the previous sentence should be read with a totally sarcastic tone in your mental voiceover.) So Peter put on his Spider-suit, told Debra that she was right and, faced with how absurd the idea actually was, she was shocked into realizing that Peter couldn’t possibly be Spider-Man. She decided to start fresh, divorce her husband and move away, leaving Peter behind.
Years later, when Peter revealed to the world that he really was Spider-Man, Debra reemerged at the co-writer of a tell-all book about how he’d ruined her life. Peter was, understandably, rather butthurt about this, and to be honest, Debra wasn’t crazy about it either. It turned out that the editors of the book (who just so happened to be Daily Bugle staff members) had pressured her into portraying Peter as being worse than he actually was, and since she needed the money to take care of her sick mother, she went along with it. This information ended up being leaked to the Daily Globe, the Bugle‘s arch-rival.
So What’s So Great About Her?

Forgive me, I’m going to open with an anecdote from Friends. In one episode, as Phoebe regales the group with her happy memories of watching Old Yeller as a little girl, they quickly realize that Phoebe’s mom had been turning off the movie before it reached its ultra-depressing climax. Phoebe’s horrified by the real ending, along with the sad endings to a lot of other movies she’s just finding out were edited for her consumption.
That’s kind of how I feel about Debra Whitman. My introduction to her was the incredibly rad mid-1990s Spider-Man: The Animated Series. You know, the one where Peter always ran around in really tight jeans and sounded suspiciously like Greg Brady. But anyway, on that show, Debra was one of Peter’s college classmates. She had a hot-nerd thing going on, with huge glasses and a tall blonde pony and cheekbones for days. She was also sharp, a brilliant student, and kind of bitchy in a wonderful way that made me want to be exactly like her. Eventually, she also started dating Flash Thompson, the resident Big Dumb Boy of the Spidey mythos and, well, I don’t exactly hide my love for Big Dumb Boy and Uptight Girl pairings.
So imagine my dismay when, years later, I found out that the Debra of my childhood was gussied up for the show. Instead of a snide, borderline genius college student, she had insecurities about her intelligence, and rather than just being banter buddies with Pete, they were rather underwhelming steadies. Moreover, a lot of the time Debra’s portrayed as being rather hysterical, and it’s sometimes played off for laughs.
But for all I prefer my caustic animated Debra, there’s still a lot to like about her four-color counterpart. For all she had to be ‘shocked’ into it, she did leave an abusive marriage, which takes an incredible amount of strength and courage, especially at a time when resources for women were even more limited than they are now. I also admire that she realizes she needs therapy and is actively seeking treatment.
And of course, the biggie—yes, Debra is among the first to realize that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, even if it’s a result of her hallucinations. Of course she, along with several others who’d seen Peter being unmasked, immediately realized the ludicrousness of Peter being a superhero and shrugged it off, but the fact that she was able to figure it out at all, in any state, is a testament to her level of intelligence. Plus, she’s the co-writer of a bestseller. Even if a lot of that bestseller was lies. Um.
So, Debra Whitman, you may not be my Debra Whitman, but hey, you’ve got potential. Maybe when Spider-Man sold his marriage to the devil, things somehow worked out so you got a university scholarship and are now discovering your untold aptitude for science and sarcasm.
Notable Appearances

Amazing Spider-Man #196
Spectacular Spider-Man #36; 42-43
Amazing Spider-Man #207
Spectacular Spider-Man #47-48
Amazing Spider-Man #209
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #14
Spectacular Spider-Man #50-51
Amazing Spider-Man #211-213; 215-218; 221
Spectacular Spider-Man #60-62
Amazing Spider-Man #228
Spectacular Spider-Man #67-70; 72; 74
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14-16

Publisher: Marvel Comics
First Appearance: Fantastic Four (vol. 3) #15 (as Valeria von Doom); #50 (as Valeria Richards)
Created By: Chris Claremont & Salvador Larroca
Biography
For a very little girl, Valeria has gone through some major drama. In fact, when she first showed up, it was a grown adult randomly materializing in the Baxter Building and announcing herself to be the daughter of Invisible Woman and Doctor Doom, the FF’s arch foe. Needless to say, this was incredibly weird, even for a superhero team, especially since Sue was already happily married to Reed. It all made a little more sense when Reed ended up trapped in the Doom armor and pretended to be him, even marrying Sue in this guise. (Though it leads one to wonder—how the hell would Valeria have been conceived while he was trapped?)
Maybe things would have been tied together more neatly if the creative team on the book hadn’t changed then, freeing Reed and changing Valeria’s backstory. It turned out now that she was the fetus that Sue had miscarried years ago, when Franklin was still a toddler. Franklin’s incredible reality-changing powers saved her, and she was raised by Sue and Doom in an alternate reality, where they actually were married.
Eventually, someone realized this was stupidly complicated, and Valeria was regressed to fetus-hood and took up residence in Sue’s tummy. Her subsequent birth was fraught with complications, though, and since Reed was off saving the world, Doom had to deliver her. (He is Doctor Doom, after all.) He also took the opportunity to cast a spell on her and make her his familiar, which was eventually set to rights.
Since her rebirth, Valeria’s mostly been a normal little girl. Except her parents are world-famous superheroes, and she and her brother were nearly taken from them by Child Protective Services for their own safety. Oh, and she has superhuman intellect and is already almost as brilliant as her father. But other than that, she’s normal.
So What’s So Great About Her?

Personally, I’m not much of a fan of the whole ‘adult kid from the future or alternate universe shows up to fight crime with hero parents’ plot, which is unfortunate because it’s, like, one of Marvel’s very favorite things to do. (Besides Valeria 1.0, please see also: Cable, X-Man, Phoenix/Marvel Girl, Franklin Richards…etc. etc.) So I was totally pleased to see Valeria take on a new direction, what with getting born again and all.
And, in general, I like seeing children in comics. Not necessarily fighting as adult-sanctioned sidekicks — in fact, that’s another thing I dislike — but as supporting characters, definitely. Interestingly, when actual prepubescent children show up in comics, they’re girls at least as often as boys. This is my totally unscientific observation, but think Luna Maximoff, Danielle Cage, Lian Harper, Layla Miller, Traya Red Tornado (that’s her real name, right?), Molly Hayes. Why? I think it’s because little girls seem more delicate and vulnerable, especially when contrasted with the ginormous steel-jawed superdudes who are often their daddies.
One thing I love about Valeria Richards is that she’s not cast in that role. Instead, someone came up with an awesome idea and, rather than contrast her with her father, made them similar. They both have incredibly huge, amazing brains. Not only that, but Valeria will probably grow up to be even smarter than her father. And everyone’s okay with that! Reed and Sue are proud of her! Franklin isn’t particularly jealous of her smarts! (It probably helps that he can create entire universes with his brain, but whatevs.) She’s a little girl who’s brilliant and could probably get herself out of most supervillain-related jams if she really needed to.
The Fantastic Four are the First Family of comics, and for a reason — they squabble, tease, and fiercely love each other. But you can’t be a quintessential family without kids. (No offense to my fellow child-free peeps out there…I just mean in an iconic sense.) When you read Valeria Richards, you’re reading a kid who’s essential to the group dynamic without ever having to throw a punch. Her parents couldn’t be prouder.
Notable Appearances

Fantastic Four #267
Fantastic Four vol.3 #15; 22; 50; 54; 67-70
Fantastic Four #500; 558
Mighty Avengers #24
Secret Invasion Fantastic Four #1-3
X-Factor #200-202
FF #1-5

Shado’s father was a Yakuza operative who traveled to America to set up Yakuza operations there. However, he was placed in an internment camp during Word War II, where several of the soldiers came to suspect him of having a hidden agenda. After the war, they tracked him down, killed his wife, and made him give up the location of the money. He committed seppuku, and the burden of his disgrace fell upon his infant daughter, Shado, who was trained by the Yakuza as the perfect archer and perfect assassin.
As an adult, Shado tracked down the soldiers who had tortured her father and started picking them off. When Green Arrow tried to stop her because, you know, murder she basically kicked his butt. However, she also helped him kill the men who were torturing his lover Black Canary, saving both of their lives in the process.
Back in Japan, Shado was instructed to cut off her thumb as penance for allowing Ollie to kill one of her targets. Instead, she fled to America. When Ollie tracked her down, she shot him in the chest, but then nursed him back to health. While he was still delirious and recuperating, she raped him and conceived a son, Robert. She forbade Ollie to take a role in Robert’s life, but enlisted Ollie’s help when Robert was kidnapped.
Years later, Shado resurfaced at an archery tournament, where she totally made out with Connor Hawke, Ollie’s other son. Groooooss. Then she had Connor shot as part of a convoluted plan to save her own son. (This is about the point where I along with everyone else stopped reading Green Arrow.)
So What’s So Great About Her?

Let’s face it: Shado’s a problematic character on a number of levels. She’s so unsubtly a stereotypical Dragon Lady that she actually has a giant dragon tattoo. (And all of her plot lines are titled things like ‘Song of the Dragon’ and ‘The Black Dragon Saga.’ And most of her cover appearances have her posed looking over her left shoulder, so as to better show off the dragon tattoo. And also: dragons.) Even beyond the Dragon Lady aspect, she has a lot of the trademarks of Asian comic book stereotypes: Speaking in wise and faux-zen tones of the tao of archery and being the bow or whatever. An obsession with honor. A backstory that involves both the Yakuza and a noble sensei. Come on already, Grell.
In recent years she’s been the victim of bad writing, what with the semi-incestuous makeouts and the out-of-character Machiavellian schemes and the hey hey. And at the end of the day, she is an admitted rapist, even if recent writers like to misinterpret that as sexy, sexy cheating on Dinah (note to writers: it’s not).
And yet when written well, Shado is a compelling character. In her first storyline, we meet a woman who has lived her whole life as a tool for someone else’s vengeance and who makes her first choice for herself when she decides to let Ollie’s vengeance take precedence, knowing full well that she will be penalized for that choice. She’s doing what she believes is a kindness, though deliberately taking a life sets Ollie on a path of self-destruction that eventually ends in his death. It’s a complicated, deeply flawed choice from a complicated, deeply flawed woman.
In a later appearance, she shoots Ollie in the chest. She claims she mistook him for an attacker and that it’s only luck that he wasn’t killed; Ollie maintains that she is too good of an archer you know, the greatest archer in the world to have missed. Either way, she cares for him until he’s well again, and they spend a lovely few weeks in her idyllic garden paradise, swimming naked and talking about archery with Ollie completely unaware that she raped him while he was delirious. (Her justification is that, knowing that Ollie will always love Dinah and that Dinah can’t have children, she wants to have something of Ollie that Dinah can’t have. With the magical powers of comic book ladies, she manages to conceive from one-time intercourse out of sheer willpower, I guess.) So: she shoots him, she heals him, she rapes him, she staycations with him. Again: complicated.
Shado’s hardly a role model. She’s committed violent crimes against both friends and enemies, and if her son is at risk, it’s a fair bet she’ll commit them again. (She’s a very devoted mother! Have I mentioned? Complicated.) But in her heyday Shado was a nuanced and interesting character who always added to any story in which she played a part, and will hopefully add her own particular brand of ambiguous morality to Green Arrow storylines to come.
Notable Appearances:
Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters
Green Arrow v2 #9-12, 21-24, 35-38, 63-66, 75, 101, 115-117
Green Arrow Annual #2
Shado: Song of the Dragon #1-4
Connor Hawke: Dragon’s Blood #1-6
Green Arrow/Black Canary #11-12

When Karolina and her friends discovered that their parents were actually evil, murdering criminals, she was probably the one who had the toughest time coming to terms with it. For one, the gentle, infinitely kind girl had a hard time believing the worst of anyone, especially her movie star parents. And second, well. Discovering that your movie-star-slash-murdering-criminal parents were also banished Majesdanian aliens, and thus so was she, was kind of hard to take.
She did accept it, though, and ran off with the other kids. Despite some lingering depression and inability to fully control her solar-based powers, she was loyal to the team and joined in on the crime-fighting attempts. But things went from bad to worse when she tried to kiss one of her female friends, Nico, and was rejected.
Soon after, a Skrull named Xavin showed up and declared that she was Karolina’s fiancée. (Skrulls don’t possess male/female gender identities, but Xavin usually defaults to a woman in human form, so for the sake of this post, I’m going to use feminine pronouns.) Their parents had arranged the marriage long ago to broker peace between their warring worlds. Her spirit broken, Karolina agreed to leave Earth to marry Xavin, despite protests from the other Runaways.
On Majesdane, Karolina learned how to fully control her abilities. But before the wedding could take place, war broke again, and Xavin and Karolina ended up back on Earth. During their time together, they’d developed genuine feelings for each other, so Xavin stuck around and joined the team. Despite her loyalty to Xavin, Karolina harbored an attraction to Nico, and her confusion over Xavin’s gender led to friction.
When Majesdanians arrived on Earth arrest Karolina for her part in the recent war with the Skrulls, shape-shifting Xavin knocked her out and took her place. When Karolina awoke, Xavin was already on her way to Majesdane; Karolina was devastated.
Mostly recently, S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) tried to deport Karolina, along with other aliens on Earth. They didn’t quite manage it, and she helped save the world from truly evil aliens instead.
So What’s So Great About Her?

It’s no big secret that superhero comics are largely constructed to fit a straight man’s fantasy. As such, the women are stacked, gorgeous, scantily clad, and ready to be the nearest male hero’s arm candy. On the rare occasion that they would really rather be on the arm of another lady, it’s usually staged so it appeals to the male gaze first. The romance and women themselves come in a distant second.
With Karolina, this isn’t the case at all. Her coming out process was very quiet and drawn-out, something she was dealing with while also coming to terms with her parents’ true nature. Accepting her sexuality took a backseat, understandably so, and Karolina is such a quiet character that it’s unsurprising that she mostly kept it to herself.
Speaking of which, I have to admit that I love quiet heroes. Obviously, forceful, outgoing personalities are a lot more common among superheroes—not only are alphas more likely to jump into the fray, they’re easier to write. Karolina’s quiet bravery is very nuanced and artfully constructed. Honestly, she’s also often a breath of fresh air amongst the rest of the sarcastic, loudmouth Runaways.
But anyway, Karolina’s coming out and subsequent relationship is personality-driven and comes across as very real, an admirable feat for a glowing alien dating a shapeshifter from a genderless culture. Their relationship is as intense as any first serious relationship and fraught with bickering and promises of undying devotion. The course of their love doesn’t run smoothly—Karolina’s feelings for Nico don’t go away immediately, and she’s not actually comfortable with Xavin not having a concrete, recognizable gender of choice—because hey, what relationship is perfect? Especially a teenage relationship.
Another way the creative teams make it clear they’re keeping the characters’ ages in mind—there are no sexy makeouts or anything close to sex scenes. What we do get are plenty of affectionate moments and implications of a sexual relationship. The fact that I’m actually impressed a comic isn’t sexually exploiting a teenage lesbian is really depressing, but hey, that’s the state of comics right now.
Karolina’s so introverted, so inclined to put others first, that it’s hard to say a lot about her personality. She’s sweet, strikingly pretty, and has a strong social conscious, but sometimes she gets lost in the crowd of extroverts. As pleased as I am to see a realistic, sympathetic portrait of a lesbian hero in comics, the fact that this has been her primary personality trait for the last few years is really unfair to her character. As much as I’ve missed Xavin, I’m excited to see what her absence brings out in Karolina.
Notable Appearances

Runaways (vol. 1) #1-18
Runaways (vol. 2) #1-30
X-Men/Runaways
Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways #1-4
Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1-3
Runaways (vol. 3) 1-14
S.W.O.R.D. #1-5

Publisher: Fox Features Syndicate, then Holyoke Publishing, then Fox again, then finally Charlton Comics
First Appearance: Blue Beetle v1 #4 (Fall 1940)
Created By: ‘Charles Nicholas’ (Originally a penname for Charles Wojtowski, original Blue Beetle artist, this became a catchall credit for all Blue Beetle comics no matter who worked on them.)
Biography:

Throughout the 1940s, young Dan Garret kept the streets safe by day as a rookie patrolman and by night as the Blue Beetle, possessed of powers so mysterious even the writers weren’t totally sure what they were! In both guises he was dogged by ‘demon girl reporter’ Joan Mason, the star reporter of the Bulletin, Daily Blade, New York Chronicle, or Daily Planet, depending on who was writing that particular issue. Though she considered the Blue Beetle ‘a romantic caveman,’ Joan had no particular interest in Dan except as a source of inside tips, but she often found herself entangled in his zany, mobster-and-foreign-spy-battling adventures nonetheless.
In the postwar years, as the popularity of superheroes faded, Blue Beetle stories underwent a shift from jovial costumed adventures to darker, tawdrier stories featuring sexy tied-up ladies on the covers. (Yes, comic books have always been super classy.) As Blue Beetle gradually was reduced to narrating true crime stories in his own book, Joan’s star rose. Her hair was changed from damsel-in-distress blonde to take-no-prisoners brunette, and she began starring in her own backup stories across the Fox list, fighting murderous strippers and engaging in hilarious newspaper-related japes. Sometimes Dan would show up briefly, or his lovably oafish partner Mike Mannigan, but Blue Beetle was persona non grata in these all-Joan, all the time stories.
So What’s So Great About Her?

As you’ve probably surmised from the bio above, the quality of Fox Features’ comics was…variable, as was the artistic integrity. This was, after all, the company that was sued for plagiarizing Superman with their very first issue. And the idea of a feisty girl reporter who occasionally worked for the Daily Planet, was infatuated with a superhero and had no interest in his boring old civilian identity, and whose nose for news often got her into wacky scrapes came from a very clear source.
But two things keep her from being a total Lois clone. One is that she did get those solo stories, while Superman managed to hang onto the limelight throughout the entire Golden Age. (Lois did, of course, get a long-running solo series, but not until the Silver Age.)
The other is that Lois continued past the Golden Age, into the silly, domestic stories of the Silver Age, the clumsy steps towards feminism in the Bronze Age, and the completely rockin’ character she is now. Lois is a well-rounded, complicated character with a back catalogue that stands as a history of women in comics and in pop culture, to a large degree. Joan, fading as she did when Charlton ditched Dan Garret’s police background, remains very purely what Lois was at her inception: a fearless, brassy dame who carries a pen and a gun and is far more dangerous with the former. She’s a fast-talking, wise-cracking time capsule of a bygone era an era, it’s worth noting, when female reporters were few and far between. And she’s usually far more human and entertaining than stilted, awkward Dan.
Joan Mason is inarguably a one-note character, and certainly a product of her time but even after over half a century out of print, she’s a joy to read.

Notable Appearances:
Fox/Holyoke:
All Great Comics
All-Top Comics #8-12
Blue Beetle v1 #4,9, 13,31-41,47-48,56-60
Book of All-Comics #1
Everybody’s Comics #1
Mystery Men Comics #15
Phantom Lady #13
Zago, Jungle Prince #1
Zoot Comics #7
Charlton:
Blue Beetle v2 #118, 120, 121, 140
Space Adventures #13-14