About damned time.

DC Women Kicking Ass:

At C2E2 today DC announced Cassandra Cain will be featured in the mini-series Gates of Gotham, appearing in the first issue. This is apparently the project that prevented her from appearing in the Birds of Prey.

Still sounds like a side character, but appearing in another book is an improvement at least. They'd better have a payoff for all the ignoring her.

If you want a character back, there's really only one way to do it...

They've got a petition up on Tumblr, and I would sign but it's married to Facebook and I don't like to give profile rights to anything I suggest you sign now that it's not Facebook, but that you also send in a letter.

I don't really believe that a petition has an effect. Fan petitions are the bare minimum effort for fans online, and everyone knows it. I think the only thing that has effect when you DON'T have the option to vote with your dollars (such in the case where there character is not appearing regularly and the few places she does appear aren't advertised--and any loss of revenue to the current Batgirl probably wouldn't be attributed to the change without massive feedback to that effect) is the mail.

To this end, DC has given us an opportunity by opening the letter columns:

To submit a letter go to:

www.dcletterspage.com

Letters may be sent by regular mail to this address:
Letters to the Editor
DC Comics
1700 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

Please include your full name, and address, for confirmation purposes. Letters should be no longer than 500 words and should not include attachments.
Letters may be edited for length or clarity and may be published in any medium. Letters become the property of DC Comics.

Unpublished letters will not be returned or acknowledged. Published letters may identify the writer by first name, hometown, state or country.

Imagine how strong a message it would be if next month's columns were filled with requests to see Cass Cain?

Now I don't have the time, energy or money to organize a planned letter campaign like Girl-wonder.org did, but until we find someone who does the best thing to do is to flood them with Cass Cain letters. Come on, take a few minutes and write out why you like Cass Cain and would read a book starring her again. Send an email, send a postcard, send a short note, send a long note. Then read the lettercolumns next month... and answer back if the answer isn't "You will see her here."

Now, I wasn't going to mention it because I figured I implied we'd want to send publishable letters in, but there is a certain decorum needed. I understand not wanting to but we should keep it positive, y'know?

As annoying as it is, it's also worth noting that Gail Simone recently said that tone is important when sending letters about Cass.

I know we have every right to be snarky and rude at this point, but she said sending a bunch of "FUCK YOU. BRING BACK CASS!" messages is only going to make editors think that they'll get screamed at no matter what, and make it less likely for her to ever come out of limbo.

So stick with what you like about her and, more importantly, that you would pay to see her back.

Especially write in if you're not reading Batgirl, and let them know you're not really feeling this other book but you'd try one with Cass Cain.

Cain

So Kalinara and I have this thing. There will be a position that I plant myself in, something that I say there is no way in Hell that I will ever accept this, and she starts to see it as a creativity challenge to get me to budge. In this case, it was my last post.

And once again, Kalinara wins by coming up with an idea that I would read the living shit out of:

Picture it: Green Arrow's in like China. Or Brazil. Some place cool like that and gets into a fight. And then suddenly, the old woman in the corner throws off her hat and it's Cassandra Cain! She'd be there for her own reasons of course, and Green Arrow could decide to help or not. But either way, awesome fight scenes commence!

She could be DC's answer to Daughters of the Dragon. She wouldn't even need a codename. She could just be "Cain." It's snappy. And could totally be used for Kung-Fu/Kung-Fu the Legend Continues type homages.

Cass Cain as your wandering martial artist do-gooder, a mix of Jonah Hex and Richard Dragon. I would fucking love that. Hell, I think it's infinitely better suited to getting her on TV than the Batgirl gig. An A-Team (with wacky supporting cast!) or Kung Fu: The Legend Continues style setup where the drifting hero rolls into town, finds the trouble, beats the crap out of it and then moves on.

Thing is, in order for it to work, DC would have to fucking commit to taking her BEYOND the Batbooks. They'd have to launch it out of a guest shot in something like Green Arrow, let it go at least a year before she hits Gotham again (but they totally need flashbacks to Oracle's tutelage as well as her relationships with Bruce and her parents) have her guest star in high profile books like Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, and make her prominent in your crossovers. Make her a DC UNIVERSE character, not just a Batcharacter.

And after she's built herself a brand, a supporting cast and has an identity that's not dependent on being a Bat, that's not a supprtimg cast member, that's got ties beyond Gotham... Then you can have her buddy-cop team up with Steph-Batgirl because she won't have her place in the DCU dependent on the musical identities played by the Batfamily anymore.

I certainly don't trust DC to do this right at this point, but if they are married to Steph-Batgirl then Cass would have a better chance this way than as the back-up Batgirl. If they tried this angle, I'd read it. And if they put some effort into it and really tried to build in what they have rather than just letting her pop up as an ex-Batgirl now and then... I'd cheer it.

But she can't be Lady Shiva. That's her mom's name. Richard Dragon, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing all use their own names. Cassandra Cain is full of mystery and symbolism, it's perfect for this sort of character, and in this case a play off of Kathy Kane becomes a reference to Kwai Chang Caine.

The Trouble With Two Batgirls

Okay, as I have gone off very emotionally on this on Twitter, Tumblr, and--in the meanest thing I've ever sent to someone personally--over email, I may as well bring the rational point that just barely got brushed onto for my blog.

The big problem of a dual Batgirl setup is John Stewart Syndrome.

Notice how, when Hal came back they promised they had BIG PLANS for each of the Lanterns... And Kyle and Guy got a mini, and Hal and John would get the JLA. And Kyle and Guy got great interaction in the mini.. And he got one storyline, then Hal was the lantern for the last storyline of JLA... which was rebooted as Justice League with Hal?

And then, Kyle got a maziseries and Guy led the Corpsbook and Hal led the corebook but John pretty much disappeared?

Then after the Sinestro corps War where Kyle and Guy shared the spotlight with Soranik, and Hal got the corebook, and John got his paperwork again?

This is not because John Stewart is a bad character. On the contrary, he's a fucking great character. He has been strong since his first appearance, and distinctive as a thinker/activist from Hal and Guy and now Kyle.

But John, despite having been given the mainstream paly with the cartoon most recently (and Hal is now getting the movie), is almost never used. Even now in GLC he's basically a bondage king while Kyle and Soranik lead the mainplot. He is constantly, despite the promises and attempts to the contrary, downplayed for other Lanterns.

This is what would most likely happen in the event of two Batgirls. Endless frustration as Cass is pushed to the side for Steph. I can be an optimist, and a pessimist, but here I am being a realist. It's cynical, and it's a wrong in itself that should be fought but this is the most realistic result of a campaign for two Batgirls rather than a campaign for the return of Cass to Batgirl.

So yeah, gonna resist this suggestion, guys. It's a lovely thought and I'm sure you have the best at heart, but it is not a good option.

From Bond Girl to Bond Villain

Anyone who's paid too much attention to me might have realized that I adore when the children of supervillains become heroes. These characters, whether the sorts who were raised right and later found out the truth (the Maximoffs twins) or those who suffered from a dysfunctional, twisted upbringing (Cass Cain) have a particularly compelling story to them. These characters become heroes when they discovered a reservoir of moral strength that allowed them to make the most difficult decision any person in the world can make and break from their upbringing, their loved ones, and even at times their entire cultural makeup in order to make the right decision. These themes of discovering moral clarity, overcoming the fear of loneliness, and aspiration to be a better person can be repeated in some many different ways for the same character and still represent step-by-step self-improvement and true heroics. The character can be constantly moving forward without being stuck in a cycle. And while every subsequent attempt to make the right decision is just a little easier than that first break (allowing for the occasional slip-up, which lets them go through a moral crisis and find that internal strength again) they continually better themselves, their families and the planet with every step forward. These character exemplify the idea that it doesn't matter what your forebearers did, your life and your destiny is your own. They are paragons of independence, defying both nature and nurture to demonstrate that someone can calibrate their own moral compass and still have it point in the right direction. The children of supervillains can become the truest kind of heroes, agents of virtue and change and hope arising from the darkest of background and defending those ideals against the most ingrained personal interest--belonging to their own family. They have an incredibly inspirational concept.

There's another story pattern that can be incredibly compelling in this same vein, that of Reforming the Evil Love Interest. This one is compelling because not only does it have a person turn their back on their entire world, but they do it for the sake of a single other person. A lot of people love this story, and adore characters trapped in this story cycle because it ties the inspirational aspect of leaving everything you know and love for an ideal with romance because the ideal is love for another person. I find this pretty compelling too... when it's a single story and not a cycle that continually repeats itself. This brings me, of course, to a character think I should love but I very decidedly do not, Talia al Ghul.

As I said before, a lot of people like the Reforming the Evil Love Interest narrative because it's a compelling narrative, and they don't mind reading it over and over and over again. It carries with it the same courage and strength required to be a child of a supervillain who turns on their evil parent, and in many cases--such as with Talia--the two concepts are married and the inspiration to turn their back on their entire world comes from meeting one good person.

Except that Talia doesn't really DO that until what... five or six years ago? And she was created in the 70s? Her typical behavior pattern was that she'd act against her father to save Batman, but afterwards she'd return to the old man. Repeat over and over and over again. He's her father, he loved her, she loved him, and on some level she felt that his actions were to be excused. In fact, for loyalty to her father, she would commit any number of murders, thefts and even betrayals (short of directly causing his death) of her "beloved" Batman. As I've said, I really enjoy when a supervillain's kid turns on them, and it requires a tremendous amount of moral fortitude to do so, and proves to be the ultimate act of independence. But Talia never really turned on her father for the principle of it, she only occasionally got in his or his allies' way to prevent them from getting rid of Bruce. For it to be a true test of courage and strength, it pretty much has to be a one time thing. You go against your parent knowing you can't go back, you can't waiver between two people all the time. You are on your own from that point on, and what you just did is worth being on your own. You don't just save the life of the guy you wanna fuck and then go back to live comfortably with Daddy, performing atrocities in his name when they don't affect someone you personally care about. That doesn't make you a hero, or even an antihero. It just means you're a villain with the hots for the hero.

I don't like Talia. A long time ago (after a while of kind of liking her figuring eventually they'd lay this story cycle to rest) I realized she just wasn't a really admirable person. After I learned that, every time I saw her I knew exactly what the story was going to be and I simply didn't like the al Ghul family league of assassins/eco-terrorism/melodramatic love drama elements enough to sit through the same theme of potential reformation from what was actually a rather self-interested motive (she wanted Bruce, but didn't seem to give a shit about anyone else's life) followed by choosing the safe route of home and family to the unexplored and potentially difficult life of morality that I prefer my heroes adhere to. After so many times watching this, I really grew to hate the character on sight. Eventually she went against him, but not in a way that changed my assessment of her personality. It's telling that it wasn't until after her father tried to match her with a guy she didn't want that she got sick of his shit and tried to be a good guy for a while. Kudos for being her own woman there, but it's not really the heroic selflessness of a principled stand against the head of an organization that destroys lives every day--especially after you've spent years witnessing firsthand the misery he creates but kept bypassing the opportunity to tell him to fuck off and become a real hero. It's more the heroic selfishness of leaving a situation that's simply not good for you personally, having stayed in a situation that hurt other people until things went from comfortable to frightening. I think she's a very selfish person, in matters of love and ethics, and that's not a good thing for a hero or even an antihero.

And yes, I know there are those of you who say that every character can be redeemed, and every character has potential and with Talia... you're absolutely right.

Something happened in the last decade to this character. They killed off her father. The put her in charge of the family business. They introduced her son, and detailed the horrific lengths she went to to continue the family line with the man she'd personally chosen.

They broke the cycle.

They made her an official full villain.

I fucking love it, especially when Grant Morrison writes her because he doesn't mince the melodrama. He doesn't bother with the "I love you, but alas we are on other sides of the law" narrative that bores me to tears. This is a woman from a twisted family with a very twisted sense of what constitutes a family. She considers Batman her husband, and so will act to keep him alive and safe, but she is not a good guy at all. She will protect and nurture her son, and when he leaves her (as she NEVER left her father) she attempts to manipulate him back by threatening to disown and replace him. ("Why can't you just love me for me?" "It's not me" and it wasn't her father either. She's withholding her approval until he proves his loyalty just as he probably did to her and created the behavior pattern where she constantly returns to his side at the end of the story.) She will, in all likelihood, make him very miserable for the next few years trying to get him to return to her side of the family.

And so many people say they despise Morrison's version of the character, that she's not even a character but I don't see that at all. She's not one-dimensional, she's just as complex especially when it comes to her interpersonal relationships--she's just free of all the bullshit that makes me hate her. He's completely broken the cycle on this character, and she's gone from Bond Girl to full-fledged Bond Villain. I'm actually happy for her, it's quite a promotion.

As for the real thorn in fandom's side, Batman's statement that he was drugged when Damien was conceived? In a genre where 95% of female characters but just maybe 2% of male characters have been sexually harassed, threatened or assaulted... the biggest macho fanboy fantasy character in history has a sexual assault in his backstory and it hasn't hurt his standing in the slightest. It's still the male hero way, like Starman and Green Arrow, without the same lurid graphic depiction of sexualized violence that accompanies flashbacks of female characters. I think the imbalance there makes this far less offensive to me than if we'd had Oracle drop this memory. Don't get me wrong, Batman's wistful reaction is beyond fucked up and one of the things that Morrison annoyed me with, but I don't feel Talia is the character who suffers from this. She's a Bad Guy, after all, and I've never found her someone to sympathize with. I understand it really pisses off those of you who feel she should be a sympathetic hero, but I don't feel this character works as a hero or even a protagonist. Her heroism works on whether one person (or two, now that Damian's around) is in direct danger or not. If he is, she'll be a good guy, if not she's just her father's daughter. I do love her as a cold, corrupt villainess, though. Like I said, she strikes me as a very selfish person and that's a good thing for a villain.

My feelings on Talia are particularly worrisome for two reasons, though:

1) She is a character type I can only think of seeing in women. She's the chief henchwoman who falls for the hero character type, most often associated with spy thrillers like James Bond. It's a bit hard to untangle such a judgment from innate feelings about gender, and I'm having trouble thinking of a male character who boils down to the same concept for the "gender swap test" of prejudiced attitudes.

2) She is one of very few Middle Eastern women in comics, and the family politics and her position as a good guy or a bad guy are tied up with how the Western World views Arabic women. (Man, it does not help that her father was a terrorist but he's not religiously motivated at least.) It may be better that she stayed to run the family business and didn't just leave being an accessory to her father to try and become an accessory to Batman, or it may simply be another example of the Dragon Lady of the East archetype, particularly with her villainy so wrapped up in her family. I'm not really sure on this part. Though please don't try to defend the character based on cultural pressure to stay loyal to her father and family, because cultural pressure is something that makes a moral decision to value life more difficult, and therefore makes choosing to save lives so heroic.

Anyway, here's the rundown:

Talia al Ghul
Also Known As: The Cause of Shirtless Batman Fighting
First Encountered (By Me): Batman: the Animated Series
Franchise: Batman
Core Concept: Evil Love Interest
Writer Responsible For My Distaste: Every writer that has ever tried to pass her off as "not really a villain, but a tragic woman torn between loyalties"
Character I Want To Read That She's Attached To: Batman (and I don't really like to see her Dad pop up either when I'm reading Batman)

Best Character Trait: Brave
Worst Character Trait: Selfish

Similar Characters That I Like: Like I said, I adore the children of supervillains who break away from their parents Cassandra Cain in particular showed a moral strength and an empathy for the rest of mankind that's unheard of in her life up to that point when she ran away from her father after her first kill. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are recurring favorites of mine because of their constant struggle against their father--especially in the face of prejudice from the rest of the world. Damian Wayne is stuck-up little jerk, but he chose his father's more difficult path over the easy villainy of his mother and grandfather. But the thing is, these characters took the high road as soon as the exit presented itself, they didn't continue along Bad Guy Highway past exit after exit until they could actually SEE the dead end. These are characters marked early on to be heroes, and their family ties make them more compelling as a result.

Catwoman may be my favorite example of the "Reform the Evil Love Interest" thing, but it may be because she's not particularly evil or even selfish. She just doesn't feel confined to society's rules, whereas Talia's lawbreaking comes from conforming to her family.
I do recall another similarity, though, back in Devin Grayson's Catwoman run. Selina is approached during the story by a teenaged boy and an adult man. She spends much of the story thinking about family, and ends up arranging for both the man and the boy to be sent to prison (I forget which one she framed, or if it was both) and declaring that she wants a family, but on her terms. The issue ends with her peeking in on her new family in their prison cell. It was dark and humorous (and there was something in both the man and the boy's behavior that makes you side with Selina, but I forget exactly what it was), and it does remind me of Talia's possessiveness of both Bruce and Damian. She wants the family on her terms, so she's basically decided that Bruce is her husband.

Could I ever like Talia? Not as a good guy. She's aces as a psychopath, though.

Letter to the Editor

Bob Harras
c/o DC Comics
1700 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
Forwarding Service Requested

Dear Mr. Harras,

I recently read an interview with the former publisher of DC Comics that said he felt that women were not interested in superheroes. This sounded strange to me, as I have been reading Justice League, Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman comics since I was 14, and your competitor's X-men comics since I was 12. During his tenure there were a number of complaints by female fans that seemed to be either ignored or answered in a way that seemed strange (Supergirl is brought back but aimed for male readers, Batman supporting character Stephanie Brown is returned after female fans complain only to replace another popular female character as Batgirl) and a number of opportunities to position franchises as female-friendly were missed (Wonder Woman has no kid-friendly book for younger female readers, Green Lantern's female characters are overwhelmingly sexualized and left dead longer than male counterparts) and both problems may be traced back to that idea that marketing to women won't produce worthwhile results.

I am writing to you to say that I hope this philosophy has been discontinued at DC. There are many female readers spending their money right now, and many more who would if they didn't feel unwelcome at the table. Television and book properties that involve superpowered characters have had massive female audiences (For example: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, the various X-men cartoons and movies, Xena: Warrior Princess, Dr. Who, Supernatural, Fringe, Smallville, Stargate, Harry Potter, or Heroes...)

I've heard it argued that women will not appreciate tightly woven multi-decade continuity or complex fantastical plots, but a mere hour viewing General Hospital should dispel that argument. The genre-loving book and television female audience are only kept from comic books by the industry's reluctance to seek them out.

Please consider that both halves of the population are potential customers and do not act to further alienate the women who do read the books as the previous management has.

Thank you,
Lisa Fortuner

I dashed this off tonight after reading DC Women Kicking Ass and Ladies Making Comics quote Paul Levitz:

I’m not sure that young women are as interested in reading about superheroes. The fundamental dynamic of the superhero story has historically been more appealing to boys than to girls.

Levitz isn't the Publisher anymore, but I still felt a need to send a message to DC so I wrote to the EIC. I'm going to send it out with my winter cards tomorrow. I strongly believe that physical letters are the way to go, because too often e-mails are considered to be spam and just more noise from the Internet. Girl-wonder.org ran an extremely successful campaign based on physical letters, postcards, and directly asking the panels at conventions about Spoiler. My own physical letters to DC have always been answered, even if it was with a form. They are concrete items with substance, and can't be ignored like a cyberspace communication. I advise anyone interested in saying something about this to go with a letter with a real stamp rather than an email.

Strangely, though, the hardest thing to do was find the physical address. DC's website only offers e-mail contact. I know that there's been an reorg over there, and that people are being relocated and old addresses may not be good. The 1700 Broadway address is in the fine print at the bottom of the DC Nation column in my most recent DC book, so I'm going with that. I'm actually a little suspicious about how hard this was to find.

ETA: Addendum

Warning: This post contains snobbery, social ranking and unrepentant judgment.

I was going to post a pretty cover, but I ended up getting into a fight in the comments of Kalinara's blog instead. I was a real asshat too (especially at the end there), but that's not what I'm going to discuss here.

Instead, I'm going to be even more of an asshat. I want to pick on this little paragraph of this little comment:

Oh, and I deleted the other post because I had a much better argument to make. You might want to follow example once your a Cass fan.

Let's repeat that last part.

You might want to follow example once your a Cass fan.

Again, so it sinks in.

You might want to follow example once your a Cass fan.

Now, dreadful grammar/spelling (on both our parts) aside, this made me cackle with derision. The statement implies that being a fan of Cassandra-Batgirl carries a higher standard than not being a fan of Cassandra-Batgirl. This of course goes against everything I've learned in all my years of superhero fandom.

Cass-fans are a minor subclass of Batfans. Now what I'm about to explain in no way says that Batfans are the losers of superhero fandom or anything like that. I know Batfans with wonderful taste. But being a Batfan is so common that it is practically a pre-requisite to being a superhero fan at all. Within the Batfan class are subclasses of Robinfans, Babsfans, Cassfans, CommisionerGordonfans, SilverAgeBatfans, GoldenAgeBatfans, MillerBatfans, Catfans, Jokerfans, Villainfans, Alfredfans but all are part of the general Gotham experience. All are members of the Batfamily and all fall under the umbrella of Batfans.

I always pictured superhero fandom as a pyramid. At the base are your wide-appeal franchises like Batman and X-Men. Nearly everyone enters the fandom through one of those classes. (There's a Marvel side and a DC side) Some people remain at the base and divide into little subclasses and have little sub-class wars, while others move on to other wide-appeal (but not quite so large) franchises such as Superman and Spiderman, up to the lesser known but still popular franchises like Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League, Avengers, Captain America, Hulk. Lesser known solo characters like Daredevil, Thor, Firestorm are a step above that. As they move up, they still remain Batfans and keep their cherished memories of brooding lonely RotDK Bruce or a car battery being thrown at a villain, but they expand to be fans of other settings as well.

Above the current character followers you have writer-followers, and art followers, and historians. Those fans of comics that were published before they first started reading comics, Bronze and Silver Age fans who had Modern Age childhoods are a bit higher than those fans who insist that everything be as they first started reading, but both are lower on the hierarchy than the people who go out of their way to track down the Golden Age stories that started it all. A cut above the current writer/artist followers are the ones who follow classic creators like Gil Kane, and Carmen Infantino and Gardner Fox, and at the very top of the pyramid you find your Kirby fans.

Because a fan of Jack Kirby obviously has impeccable taste.

While there's no reason to roll your eyes because someone is a fan of Batman or one of his many spinoffs, there's no reason to be impressed. Everyone has been to Gotham in one way or another. I'm probably going to laugh when someone tells me about the exacting social standards of CassandraCain-fandom. I'm probably also very likely to make fun of them. But when someone who owns Hunger Dogs and has read all of the necessary Adventures of Jimmy Olsen issues talks about what's necessary to be a Kirby fan, that's another situation entirely.


(What? Its not like I'm the only one to ever put cliche dialogue to a Kirby panel. Besides, I needed something for Jake's meme.)

Batgirl

I think Marionette sums up the situation best:

But somewhere up at DC, whoever was responsible for this villainisation got overruled and Teen Titans #43 gives us an explanation that allows Cass to return to the good guys' team. It's a bad explanation, which doesn't begin to cover the changes that were made to her in Robin, and it's all about abuse and mind control, but I see a lot of fans happy to accept it because it gives them Cass back.

This in turn has prompted a reaction to happy feminist fans of Batgirl that can be summed up as "Oh, so it's okay to have a story of abuse towards women when it suits you, is it?" To which the answer is "No, but this bad thing fixed something that was worse. We do not cheer the bad fix, we cheer that the worse thing is gone."

Technically speaking, Cain's occupying a refrigerator either way -- tossed off her own book and grabbed for Robin's storyline. But the TT#43 storyline gives the option to thaw which is a relief more than anything.

Teen Titans Creative Team Change

Geoff Johns is leaving to make room for Adam Beechen.

I dropped Teen Titans a long time ago because I didn't like Johns' Wonder Girl, and even though Beechen is the DC Hit Man for Batgirl I thought I might give it a shot. Because Marz was the DC Hit Man for Hal Jordan, and I still ended up liking some of his non-editorially driven stuff. Emerald Knights and Final Night were my first Hal Jordan stories.

Favorite Women of DC Comics Part I: The DCU At Large

Some of what you've heard is true.
I have no love for Jade, Donna Troy, or Cassie Sandsmark.
I did cheer at the news of Spoiler's death.
My hatred of Jeph Loeb's Supergirl has only just slightly started to ebb.

But I do love the Women of DC Comics. So, when Spencer Carnage (Of Course, Yeah! on the sidebar) accused me of being a "double agent" or worse, Devin Grayson, I felt a need to respond.

So I present to you a Written World First:

A Positive Post About Female Characters!

Below are just some of my Favorite Women of DC Comics (along with the titles that introduced me to them):

Death (The Sandman)
-- Yes, everyone loves Death. But she loves everyone back, so its okay. Man, she was totally unexpected. A perky, pale Poppins fan. A genuinely nice person with a kind word for everyone she meets, no matter who they are. Precisely the person you want to meet on the last day of your life.

Ice (Justice League International)
-- All of the best of classic femininity in one sweet little package. Ice was everything idealized in sweet, demur, quiet modest ladies of a bygone era, but with a core of quiet strength that came out when she was needed as a protector. She dressed up to fight evil, but wore a tee-shirt over her spandex costume. She liked sweet little puppies and plush animals and thought that if she looked deep enough into Guy Gardner she'd find the ideal man underneath. I'm sure people think I should hate her, but I loved her. I want her back. I want her dating Guy again. I wouldn't object to her marrying him and settling down to cook and raise the kids, because I know if a supervillain showed up at the door he'd better be well-prepared, or at least have an electric blanket in his getaway car.

Power Girl (JSA)
-- Any feminist brazen enough to walk around with a hole in her shirt...

Hope O'Dare (Starman)
-- Next to Shade, my favorite character from this series. She's a legacy cop, standard tomboy complete with older brothers, but has a definitely refined feminine side. I know that doesn't sound like much, but you have to read the series to understand her appeal beyond that. I couldn't do her justice.

Madame Xanadu
-- I like Tarot cards. She's got this mysterious fortune-teller thing going on. She's just plain cool.

"Surprise Girl" (Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight)
-- If you read this series, you know who I mean. If you haven't read this series, read it. I love King Arthur legends. This is a young lady from a King Arthur tale who is noble, uncomplaining, and heroic. She is a quiet, simple, plodding person who moves steadily towards her goals. In a very short time, she impressed me as one the strongest teenaged girl characters at DC right now. I'd like to see her interact with Wonder Woman.

Batgirl, Cassandra Cain (Batgirl)
-- I must admit, she's contrived. But she's also highly compelling. Same appeal as the above Seven Soldiers character, but without the purity. Cassandra's past is tainted by her own actions an regret, while the above girl is pure nobility.. I sincerely hope Cassandra makes it through the One Year Gap. I've got my fingers crossed she'll be in Birds of Prey.

Crazy Jane (Doom Patrol)
-- She sprang fully formed from the twisted mind of Grant Morrison, a thousand fun female characters in one! Multiple personalities, each with a different superpower. What a concept. I was surprised Driver B actually turned out to be a female personality, I'd always pictured an older male when she took over.

Black Canary (JSA, JLA, Birds of Prey)
-- Despite her poor taste in men, or perhaps, because of it; Dinah has long been a down-to-earth relatable woman. She's the sort of person you admire even when she screws up.

Oracle, Barbara Gordon (Birds of Prey)
-- Easily the most intelligent and valuable person in the DC Universe, without ever leaving her chair.

Lady Blackhawk, Zinda Blake (Birds of Prey)
-- She calls Oracle "Skipper," throws perky salutes, and wears a cute mini-skirt uniform, but she still kicks more ass before 6 AM than most women in the DCU do all day. And there aren't nearly enough lady pilots.
I think she should hook up with Hal Jordan. Not just because of the job, but because she's a fun-loving person and he could stand to cut loose for a night.

Hawkgirl, Kendra Saunders (JSA)
-- I've just liked her since her first appearance. I don't know why. She's drowning in melodrama, but I don't really mind it. I loved that her grandpa had to talk her into doing the hero thing. I love that she freaked when she found out how she got reincarnated. I love that she didn't want to date Carter at first and ran straight into Sand's arms. I absolutely adored her being on the JLA in Obsidian Age. "Harpy."

Stargirl/Star-Spangled Kid II, Courtney Whitmore (Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.)
-- She started out the way a teenager would have. Stealing her stepdad's stuff and sneaking out. She had major attitude problems at the beginning, but I've been able to watch her grow out of them to become the emotional anchor of the JSA. Her own series was light and funny, and she carries a little bit of that with her no matter how mature she is.


Alanna Strange (JLA, Starman, Adam Strange, Rann-Thanagar War)
-- She's from a world where the men were so wussy they had to kidnap a Terran to protect them. She went straight for the one real man on the planet, even if he had to be away half the time. Every time I've seen her, her life (as the hero's wife) is threatened somehow; but she is always threatening right back. She is the first to grab a blaster in a crisis, and the first to rally the rest of Rann to fight alongside her. I have never seen an Alanna Strange appearance where I wished she hadn't been there.

Supergirl, Linda Danvers (Supergirl)
-- An impressively complex character with a sense of humor who's merits are well-documented across the Internet. She's another tough act to follow.

Big Barda (JLA, Mister Miracle)
-- She's tough. She's strong. She's gorgeous. She's perfect for any gender role-reversal joke. She loves her husband and still kicks ass. She's Big. She's Barda. How can you not love Big Barda?