Geek Post: Women in Comics done right?

Now when it comes to women in comics, alot of writers have taken a step in the right direction. (I'm looking at you Gail Simone, and thanks for it btw) But we never have really gotten a true comic aimed at women, to look at women's issues, from a woman's perspective. You may argue that Wonder Woman has done that, but really Wonder Woman was mostly a man in ladies clothing sometimes. Even though AGAIN, Gail Simone took the reins of the relaunch and tried to accomplish something with it. But I have been reading a comic that even though it does not hit it out of the ball park, it does do something that most other comics cannot.

Yes, I'm talking about Marvel Divas. Now like I said this isn't the best comic to come around in ages. I'm sure there are plenty of independent comic publishers that have released books that deal with these issues better than Marvel Divas.

But this is Marvel, the home of beefed up superheroes like Thor and Captain America, and big boobed wonders like She-Hulk and Emma Frost (who's tits have gotten blown up to ridiculous proportions from the 70s). So for this to be made by them, it might be a step in the right direction.

The writing in Divas is a little childish and there is a feeling the concept was "let's rip off Sex and the City". But I can get around that because I feel like these writers are new and still trying to find there voice. I mean writing a short series about a group of women and trying to sell it to comic book readers, who are mostly straight males, is a hard thing to do. Especially when most other books use women as a place to put boobs. But I have to give props to the writer, Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa. Now I do think that maybe a woman would have done a little better fleshing out and making the characters more unique and not so clique, but that might be sexist of me.

I think that Mr. Aquirre-Sacasa however did do something very notable in his series. He dealt with breast cancer. One of the Divas Angelica Jones, finds out that her mutant powers are causing cancer cells to grow in her breasts. Now I have not read the final issue of this four issue arc, but I really think this past issue (#3) is where the series really shined.

We are seeing and watching Angelica deal with the cancer. Now again this is not classic literature, but I liked how he made Miss Jones human. Now she is not a billboard character for Marvel. The biggest thing about her was that she was on a TV show in the 80s with Spiderman and Iceman. So the writer could do whatever he wanted to her. He deals with the breast cancer issue with dignity and grace. Not making it overly dramatic or making a joke out of it. It's written so that you just see what happens, without judgement.

What I'm really saying is read this series. It's not the best thing since The League of Gentleman, but it's way better than half of the other titles out there. Its worth a read and the 16 dollars for the four issues.