My father sold comic books in our family grocery store in the early ’50s and ’60s. Devious child and avid reader that I was, I would carefully slice open the plastic wrapping of the newest Superman or Wonder Women comic book and read it. Carefully taping the plastic wrapper, I’d return the comic book to the rack. Neither my dad nor our customers caught on. Even though I was young, it bothered me that there weren’t many female superheroes. We only had, as far as the comic books that my father ordered, Wonder Woman. Things have changed, and author Sam Langsdale’s new book is all about gender, sexuality and race in Marvel Comics.
Searching For Feminist Superheroes
As much as I loved comic books as a child, my taste for reading went from Archie, Wonder Woman, and Superman straight to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings…leaving superheroes in the dust until the Marvel films came out. Have comic books changed that much since I was a child? Are we now seeing female superheroes in a new light?
Sam Langsdale is an independent scholar and the co-editor of Monstrous Women in Comics. Her work focuses on the cultural politics around representation of gender, sexuality, and race in visual culture and especially on comics. In her book, Searching For Feminist Superheroes from University of Texas Press, Langsdale speaks on the changes that Spider-Woman goes through from the character first appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Archie Goodwin and Marie Severin in 1977, Spider-Woman has the longest and most problematic history from a feminist point of view. Then in 2015, things change with writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Javier Rodriquez became the creative team behind Jessica’s new solo series where Spider-Woman becomes a mother. Can a woman continue to be a crime fighting superhero while breastfeeding an infant? Sam Langsdale talks about this in her book.
I found this subject very interesting, especially now with our conservative party here in the states trying to strip all rights from women.
Another Marvel superhero that that Langsdale speaks on is America Chavez, created in 2011 by writer Joe Casey and artist Nick Dragotta. America was created as a queer, alien, Latina character, to diversify genre norms for their multicultural fanbase. In 2017, writer Gabby Rivera and artist Joe Quinones have America heading off to Sotomayor University and breaking from the mold of standard superhero stuff. Feminist philosopher, Gloria Anzaldua calls America Chavez, “the new mestiza.” Anzaldua explains that America exists in the borderlands of culture and is able to resist and challenge binaries of gender, ethnicity, nationality, time and space. America embodies and occupies the cultures from at least two worlds.
Again, I need to remind everyone that I haven’t read comic books for many years, and yet reading Langsdale book, I see where comics are not only a mirror of events going on now in the real world but are also a blueprint on how we should be inclusive.
Langsdale goes on in her book to discuss The Unstoppable Wasp, a young girl raised from birth in the captivity of the Red Room who learns that her father was Ant-Man (Hank Pym). Nadia then forms a super-genius girl group called G.I.R.L. which included people of race and disabilities. The series was written by Jeremy Whitley with art by Elsa Charretier. In May of 2020 Disney Books published a young adult novel about the character written by Sam Maggs.
Conclusion
Sam Langsdale goes on to write about Ironheart, Riri Williams, who first made her appearance in 2010. Ironheart, a Black teenage superhero, was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato. Riri’s team of creators were overwhelmingly white men until a successful fan-led campaign on Twitter and Change. Org petition led to poet and scholar Eve Ewing being hired by Marvel to write a solo Ironheart series in 2018.
Sam Langsdale knows her stuff, and she proves it is this book. As I mentioned several times in this review, I stopped reading comic books years ago, but when my eldest grandson was having behavioral issues in school because he hated reading book assignments, this granny introduced him to comic books. My grandson became a ravenous reader thanks to Marvel comic books.
I really enjoyed reading Sam Langsdale’s Searching For Feminist Superheroes, and I would highly recommend it to everyone who wants to read about an all inclusive world…be it in comic books…and hopefully, one day in real life when the first American Black Woman President takes charge of these United States.
Searching for Feminist Superheroes is available now.