Let me give a quick rundown of how I see the history of females in comics. In the golden age they were damsels in distress, in the silver age they were mostly damsels in distress, and in the modern age they are sometimes taken seriously but still have to wear almost no clothing. One of my unexpectedly favourite characters in the past five years has been Carol Ferris. I have known about her almost as long as I have been reading comics but it was not until recently that I actually took her seriously (under the Johns run on Green Lantern.) My problem with her was that she was pretty ineffective as a girlfriend, being completely lovestruck by bad boy Hal Jordan, and then this only became worse as she became her own evil twin, the Star Sapphire, whose main motivation was love fueled super-jealousy. What Johns did was to make her into a hero that could control her loving impulses and use them for good. I was disappointed initially when in the new 52 she was relegated back to background girlfriend, but when she joined the New Guardians I saw hope for her once again. In the newest story arc (Wrath of the First Lantern) characters are being given the power to "make things right" in their lives. Previously Kyle made things right by bringing Alex back to life, but in what was a surprise for me in New Guardians #18, she was shown make things right in her life, and it didn't have as much to do with Jordan as it did with who she was. He was still there, but in her mind she was a wing commander of fighter pilots in the Middle East and Jordan was just one of her pilots (though she did feel attracted to him.) I thought it was a nice moment, it actually reminded me of the earlier silver age comics (and specifically Mystery in Space) where conquering the impossible was seen as a reality for everyone. It was nice therefore to see this come from the deepest desires of this character (I know that there are female fighter pilots, but it is still pretty rare) to be something truly exceptional as a person, even when they had a superheroic past.

i was just talking about carol too

@avenging_x_bolt: In what way?

@razzatazz: that she was one old-hearted bi*&h in the 80's. Star Sapphire, i mean.

@avenging_x_bolt: There was another Star Sapphire back then though too

@razzatazz: yeah, Debbie Darnell. she was pretty cold too. but Carol was definitely the worse one from what i've put together. killing Katma Tui, torturing Hal for n entire year, tricking him into giving up his ring, teaming up with Guy Gardner and Hector Hammond to kill him etc