The Slow Evolution of Female Characters in Comic Book Movies and TV Shows

When it comes to comic book properties, there’s long been common traits to what the heroes look like. There’s been a tendency to have most of the characters be Caucasian males. Little by little, we’d start to see some female characters along with characters from different ethnic backgrounds. Some of these characters grew in power and popularity but it seemed many believed that the majority of comic readers and fans were simply white dudes. These days, it’s clear that isn’t the case. Comic book movies and TV shows have never been more popular but most of the characters being adapted are still males.

2008 marked a turning point for comic book media. WithIron Man, we saw a new focus on bringing the characters to life and remaining true to the original source. The problem is, these movies tended to focus on the guys. AfterIron Man, we had The Incredible Hulk, Punisher War Zone, Iron Man 2, Thor, and so forth. Some of these movies did feature female characters but they were either the damsel in distress or given secondary roles and forced to spend most of their time on the sidelines.

Even though these movies focused on the guys, we did see Black Widow, Lady Sif, and Peggy Carter fight to show how easily they could fight side by side with the guys. Unfortunately the progress being made still was held back. We saw Gamora, the deadliest woman in the universe, needed Peter Quill to bail her out when they were taken to the Kyln Prison in Guardians of the Galaxy. This might not be a problem for some male viewers but imagine the frustration for the female audience.

Things are slowly changing in the movies. Guardians of the Galaxy featured five main characters and only one was female. The Avengers featured six main characters and only one female (eight characters if you include Fury and Maria Hill with one more female). Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced another female character with the addition of Scarlet Witch. In many ways, Ant-Man also has an ensemble cast. We have five good guys and only one female. Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne again showed a female character could be one of the toughest characters on the screen. And she didn’t even have any superpowers or a fancy power-suit.

[Slight spoiler for the mid-credits of Ant-Man.]

When Hope discovers what could be next for her, she says, “It’s about damn time.” Whether you agree or not, it is about damn time. As the father of a daughter, I want her to see and be able to relate to more and more strong female characters. When I attended an Ant-Man press conference on the Disney lot, Lilly said the following:

“I think there’s a lot of excitement in the focus groups you’ve seen already with the female audiences about this character in general and the fact that Marvel is really really taking female characters very seriously. Looking at their line up, you can see they have good intentions. As a woman who came into a predominately male film, I had a great time working with Peyton [Reed] and the producers on this character because I could see a hunger in them to really really do right by Hope and do right by their female fans and female audience. When I pick a role, one of the things I aspire to is somebody’s parent will come up to me after the film’s come out and say, ‘My daughter idealizes that character. You’re her hero.” And that’s what we aim for. Especially in this brand. We’re in the business of making heroes.”

Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, also stated, “We have plans for her in the future.” We'll have to wait to see what those plans are as well as wait until 2018 for the Captain Marvel movie.

Surprisingly enough, comic book TV shows have actually been making bigger strides in this area. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. features several strong female characters with Agent May, Skye/Daisy, Bobbi Morse, and even Simmons has started venturing out and kicking butt in the field. That means half the cast is male and female (sure Ward straddles the line between good and evil but, come on, he’s pretty evil these days).

The Flash does have Iris West and Caitlin Snow but Caitlin seems stuck at STAR Labs while Cisco has been allowed to go out with Joe. Iris and Caitlin have been important parts of several story lines though. Arrow has been pushing the ladies forward as well with Felicity playing an integral part in Ollie’s fight and now we have Black Canary, Nyssa al Ghul, and Thea Queen joining the fight (with Sara Lance and Hawkgirl over at the upcoming Legends of Tomorrow). We also have a second season of Agent Carter and iZombie as well as the upcoming Supergirl to look forward to.

Superheroes are not just guys. Comic fans are not just guys.

In the words of my daughter, "There needs to be more female characters." I absolutely agree. Why not have something for everyone? More characters and more fans just means the industry can thrive and more movies and TV shows for everyone.

great article

~MiB

I'm all for it if it's not forced, and the quality of the plot is good.

Well Tony you are going to gets some hits on this article.......

I agree with you, in all points. I hope if I can become a comic book writer like I have been dreaming, I can help with that. Seriously.

That too of course.

Don't care either way, when I need a fix of a female character I read American Vampire or any other series that isn't mainstream DC/marvel.

Scarjo is bae

Why is 2008 a turning point? Storm, Jean Grey and Rogue have been in the X-men movies since 2000. Plus lots more women in the X-movies, don't remember them all.

I really am glad that the females are getting the much-needed satisfaction they deserved. From Black Widow to Supergirl, from Storm to Gamora, the women are taking over and I like it! The more, the merrier.

Reminds me of last week's RAW and the Divas Revolution.

Lies... nothing existed before the MCU...

And none of those were great characters. Simply having women doesn't check the box either; it's having them be meaningful and fleshed out characters.

Jean Grey and Rogue were much more fleshed out than a lot of the women mentioned in the article. Rogue was the central character in the first X-Men film and Jean Grey had a good arc going in X2 until that abomination of a sequel we won't mention.

@drellassassin How are Storm and Jean Grey not great characters? One of the X-Movies pretty much revolves around Jean Grey, so I dont really see how she is not "meaningful" lol.

Mystique also pwns Black Widow, in being more powerful, getting more screen time and having a much more interesting personality.

Yup about the last part

~MiB

@snikt_bamf: True, Rogue was the main focus of the first X-men film and Jean & Storm were shown to be incredibly powerful. We also saw Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, shown as strong and not dependent upon Batman and that was in 1992.

Lynda Carter had a Wonder Woman tv show from 1975 to 1979, so clearly it was popular.

Ursa, a villain but a female villain was in the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve in 1978.

In 2003, both Daredevil and League of Extraordinary Gentleman came out, both had strong female heroes.

1995, The first Power Rangers movie.

2004, Blade Trinity and the first Hellboy movie

The list goes on for films that came out before 2008 that had strong female characters, heroes or otherwise and the fact that there were tv shows and movies.

look, don't get me wrong, i love that females can take a more central role in the genre. but all the superhero shows specifically about women tend to nail that point into your head by making every male on the show either incompetent or a jerk

The other thing they need to work on is the merchandising of female characters- Take Age of Ultron for an example. I haven't seen a single piece of merchandise that features Black Widow on it.

Its not even a case of aiming sales at a specific target, why are they limiting the amount of collectables to a smaller number of characters when more stuff = more sales?

It would be nice if female characters didn't fall into the basic tropes and archetypes that make them secondary to male characters, such as constantly playing the damsel in distress.

I remember a few years ago Paul Dini said that Cartoon Network instructed him to make it so that the girls in his cartoon were always "a step behind" the guys. It's sort of true for the movies, the women are never really, truly allowed to be super-powerful the way the men are. I don't blame creatives, I think it's all to do with the studio and that angers me because they hold the real power.

I mean, Joss Whedon wrote Wasp into Avengers and Marvel Studios put the kibosh on it. Joss Whedon was going to have Ms. Marvel show up in the end of Age of Ultron but, again, Marvel put the kibosh on that. They've never shown any real interest in having a female-led film until Wonder Woman was announced (so transparent). I'm also willing to bet that final fight scene in Age of Ultron would've had a hell of a lot more of Wanda and Natasha in it too if Joss were given more freedom. Surely Joss knows that Wanda killed Ultron twice in the comics, I highly doubt he'd not capitalize on that. It's the stupidass studio that didn't even want any of the parts at the barn in the movie.

When you think about the crap the men can pull off versus what we've seen women do, the portrayal is still problematic.

hmmm could have been better worded. I agree to an extent.

So racist. :P

Thats shopped, i know i deal with shopped picture back in the day.

g-man says it very convincingly

The thing is, with female characters on TV, it is hard for producers to show guys hitting women and most of these women thus appear to be undefeatable (I created a word :)) don't know whether they do this now or not, but in some countries, these are big issues

I remember watching Guardians of the Galaxy and thinking ScarJo's Black Widow would easily kick Gamora's butt, which isn't the way it would be in the comics (Gamora would win a close fight between the two of them, IMO).

Regardless, Marvel has done a reasonable job of trying to bring their female characters into the 21st century, at least in recent years. Ironically, if you go back and read some of their comics back during the Comics Code era, their treatment of women would make a sexist blush.

Now if they can just get the X-men to quit whining...

Skye & Widow are the best women in the MCU

Here's an interesting one for comic movies.

Transgender.

Considering that there will be new character, other than Peter Quill's dad (who may have be an unintentional homage to Spiderman: Reign due to him giving his mom cancer), and James Gunn said that "no earthbound Marvel characters" (he also show disdain for Bendis' approach), Quasar and Starhawk would be transgender since they are both male and female (well, they did changed gender at one point).

Also Loki, and Angela's sidekick.

Nice article.

Jimmie Robinson's The Empty (Image Comics) clearly needs to be turned into a movie!

It features 2 very strong female leads - a relentless warrior/hunter and a "geomancer" of sorts. The entire plot and story is about the two women trying to save their worlds and people. It's about so much more but no spoilers here. The story also does a great job combining sci-fi and mystery with social and environmental elements. Everyone should read this comic!

Powerpuff Girls? Billy and Mandy?

tbh, if anything, the main thing I've gotten from Cartoon Network over the years is the idea that boys are dumb and girls are smart

Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne again showed a female character could be one of the toughest characters on the screen.

This was predictable as sh*t, no one who was in anyway genre savvy expected Paul Rudds character to not get beaten, that is one of the most worn out cliches in movie history, either accept the idea that you simply don't want to see a woman get hit which is fine or put them in the action and let them get hit.

They actually give the Black Widow a bit of depth in AofU and feminists went berserk, we aren't going to get women, we are going to get glass baubles

I am all for more female roles in the MCU as long as they are done right and not forced. Also I think so many people are wanting the Wasp because she was an original member of the Avengers. She named the Avengers, and she named the Vision. We have had two Avengers movies, and neither Ant-Man nor Wasp, who are both founding members, have been involved. I want them there. I think they are moving in the right direction to get them there with the team.

Also no mention of Judge Anderson at all in OP

What he said. The MCU single-handedly created badass movie female superheroes.

Gwen Stacy as well. She may not be a superhero but a solid character who stood on her own. Regardless of how i feel about the whole movie, they got that one character really right.

There are two points I disagree with. First of all, the article states that Caitlin's cooped up at S.T.A.R. Labs and Felicity is an integral part of Team Arrow. Cait and Felicity have basically the same role.

Second, I personally feel the term "strong female character" is over used. Sure, we've got badass male characters, but we've also got awkward ones and ones who serve mostly as comic relief. Does a female character have to be strong to matter?

At this stage I honestly just see it as marketing spiel.

Black Widow is doing nothing in MCU now that wasn't done by Mrs Peel in the 1960s

Marvels female characters are so much better than the CW DC shows though

Yay women!

Good article.

How so? I don't remember any female Marvel TV character who's as interesting as Felicity. Most of them are cliche (badass soldier, quirky scientist, delinquent)

@stellar421: Have you seen Iris in the Flash I like her but good grief they made her so aggravating, and I heard Felicity was terrible in Arrow season 3

The point of their sparring was to get Paul Rudd's character to take the heist more seriously, so of course he's not going to win.

And Black Widow's so called depth in AoU was terrible. All they did was sterilize her and then have her get captured by the bad guy. It's pretty easy to see why that would ruffle some feathers.

I'll be honest, on some level it's like the writers want us to dislike Iris. As for Felicity, most of season 3 she was going "what the hell are you doing?"

So no mention of Michonne, Maggie or Carol from Walking Dead?

@the_greatest_username:

The point of their sparring was to get Paul Rudd's character to take the heist more seriously, so of course he's not going to win.

My point was never about why he was sparring, it was in reply to the idea that the woman was tougher than the man, as if that was something new, it was also to point out the fact that they want women to dish out punishment but they are uncomfortable with them receiving it.

And Black Widow's so called depth in AoU was terrible. All they did was sterilize her and then have her get captured by the bad guy. It's pretty easy to see why that would ruffle some feathers

See all you did here was boil it down to points to make it seem so matter of fact.

You can do that with anything- All they did was have Simbas dad die, Scar admitted the crime and Simba ran away.

But you know there is more to the scene than that, there is proper human dialogue and expressed emotions.

Black Widow happened to be the one to get captured because

A: it sets up the scene involving her and the Hulk

B. we are naturally more protective of women than men so it elicits a greater emotional response, nothing will change that, you may as well tell someone to find a salad tastier than a burger.

True

~MiB

@amazingwebhead: Or worse, they ruin the female character for the sake of a romantic story. The trailer for the new Supergirl show looks terrible, they're taking a powerful character and turning her into a cliche and it looks like she'll be tripping over herself to get with the new confident black Jimmy Olsen who is no longer there for comic effect like he originally was with Superman