Where Are The Female Super-Villains?!?
So Jake asked me just recently, "Does Spider-Man have any female villains?" And when I answered, "Well, there's the female Doctor Octopus and Man-Killer," he retorted, "I mean, any GOOD ones?" The answer was, well, NO. This led to a further realization that there just are not very many decent female supervillains out there. What's up with that?
In addition, if you stretch it further to say, "Decent female supervillains who are not just female versions of male supervillains," then it gets even SMALLER!
I mean, seriously, what's the deal?! I get that female characters are more sparse in comics PERIOD, but there are still a sizable amount of female heroes...just not villains. Creepy.
In fact, it is almost as if the writers are so desperate for a good female character PERIOD that when a good female villain DOES show up, she gets turned into a hero (or at least "not so evil"). Catwoman, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Mystique, Destiny, Rogue, Emma Frost, Diamondback, Black Cat, Moonstone and Harley Quinn are all notable female villains who ended up becoming, if not HEROES, then at least not all that BAD.
Let's see how many I can name (under the criteria of decent and not female versions of originally male villains):
Poison Ivy
Cheshire
Shiva (sorta, but even SHE is leaning towards "not so evil")
Vapor (What? I liked the U-Foes!)
Circe
Cheetah
Selene (the Black Queen)
Morgan Le Fey
Lilith (even there, it is just "The daughter of Dracula")
Viper/Madame Hydra
Typhoid Mary (sorta)
Lady Deathstrike
Cassandra Nova
Star Sapphire
Queen Bee
Fatality
Emerald Empress
Phobia
Silver Banshee
Am I missing any (and that bitch Maddie Pryor doesn't count)?
That is some slim pickins!
In addition, if you stretch it further to say, "Decent female supervillains who are not just female versions of male supervillains," then it gets even SMALLER!
I mean, seriously, what's the deal?! I get that female characters are more sparse in comics PERIOD, but there are still a sizable amount of female heroes...just not villains. Creepy.
In fact, it is almost as if the writers are so desperate for a good female character PERIOD that when a good female villain DOES show up, she gets turned into a hero (or at least "not so evil"). Catwoman, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Mystique, Destiny, Rogue, Emma Frost, Diamondback, Black Cat, Moonstone and Harley Quinn are all notable female villains who ended up becoming, if not HEROES, then at least not all that BAD.
Let's see how many I can name (under the criteria of decent and not female versions of originally male villains):
Poison Ivy
Cheshire
Shiva (sorta, but even SHE is leaning towards "not so evil")
Vapor (What? I liked the U-Foes!)
Circe
Cheetah
Selene (the Black Queen)
Morgan Le Fey
Lilith (even there, it is just "The daughter of Dracula")
Viper/Madame Hydra
Typhoid Mary (sorta)
Lady Deathstrike
Cassandra Nova
Star Sapphire
Queen Bee
Fatality
Emerald Empress
Phobia
Silver Banshee
Am I missing any (and that bitch Maddie Pryor doesn't count)?
That is some slim pickins!
posted by Brian Cronin at 1/02/2006 05:50:00 AM
46 Comments:
Not suprising IMO.
Way back when most villains were created, men beating women was still a big no-no and it so happens that superheroes traditionally settle their disputes with fists. For that matter, it's still a tricky thing.
Next came women in refrigerators, which I imagine made many creators shy of creating a female character that gets her ass handed to her on a regular basis by overwhelmingly male heroes.
Third, I think identification and customer demographics which play a role in the continuing dominance of white male superheroes have an effect on the villains as well. Some villains are "cool" so the average adolescent might want to identify, whereas the uncool ones can more easily be identified by with the reader's enemies, who for teenage boys probably happen to be mostly male.
Using the adolescent uncertainty/fear about sexuality as a basis for an enemy an adolescent male might recognise/relate to has been done, but from the persepctive of the grown-up and at least slightly conscious writer runs into the problem of stereotyping women as sluts and whores. Or rather, get's uncomfortably close to such portrayals.
Spider-Man also has:
* Commanda (from Untold Tales of Spider-Man, a bit like Toy Box from Top 10, only without the whimsy; similar to the Jurgens Spider-Foe Armada, who named and loved, Biblically, all his floaty module weapon-things)
* Titania (Mrs. Absorbing Man, used to be shit-scared of She-Hulk)
* Princess Python (hahaha, no, really!)
* Shriek (Harley Quinn to Carnage's Joker, and about half as deep)
* White Rabbit (oh my God! Paris Hilton as Playboy Bunny/Lewis Carroll-themed bank robber!)
* Delilah! AH-HAHA! Delilah! Oh, my. Superstrong, spoke in cutesy lovefont, worked for Rose II, appeared in the fantastic Steve Skroce run.
* Stunner! Teledildonics in a swimsuit! Doc Ock's (wanna) cyber-girlfriend!
You'll notice that not a single one of them would be out of place in a Frank Cho Swimsuit Special.
And, rules be damned, leave us not forget Scorpia. Fuck you, Livejournal-Girl! This is a REAL Scorpion! Of course, remembering her leads us, inexorably, to Quicksand. I may now have to call a policeman.
(hrm. Does Calypso count? Yeah...)
//\Oo/\\
There's also Madame Rouge from the old Doom Patrol series, but even then she was a brainwashed into becoming evil in the first place.
I figure that the reason that bad girls in comics have so little staying power is basically the same reason that we all lusted after cheerleaders so badly back in school.
Think about it, us men are visual creatures and how something looks can really affect our judgement about it, especially women.
“How can she be completely evil? I mean come on look at those eyes, that ass, those tits!!!!
How can anyone who looks that good be bad?”
But of course as any of us who actually ever talked to the cheerleaders quickly found out, pretty people can be evil personified.
And in the case of female comic villains, the writers, artists and fans act the same way as they do with the cheerleaders.
“Oh sure she sleeps with the Joker, but see how she bounces around in that leotard? She can’t possibly be really evil?”
Maybe it’s genetic, but a nice looking girl, even a fictional nice looking girl, clouds our judgement.
Which is why in the end of things there are no evil women in comics.
Unless of course Dave Sim is writing, then all of them, including your mom, are evil personified.
- rick
Scratch Viper from your list.
As Madame Hydra she started as a female version of another villain - Baron Strucker. Okay, she looks betetr, but that's not the point, or? Wasn't she even scarred like he was?
MatthewCraig, just a quick correction. Titania wasn't shit-scared of She-Hulk. In fact, she nearly beat She-Hulk to death in their first bout and was really cocky about it. She was actually shit-scared of Spider-Man who gave her a supreme, humiliating self-esteem destroying beatdown.
A few more, after a little bit of thinking: Saturn Queen, Glorith, Earth-2 Huntress (the one that was married to Sportsmaster), Golden Glider, Killer Frost, Darkseid's Female Furies (Lashina, et al), and Granny Goodness.
The original Thorn (as in Rose and the...) was a pretty good villain, but (a) she's dead, and (b) they've recycled the concept into a semi-hero character.
Is the Captain Britain villain Sat-Yr-9 still kicking around?
She was a pretty good mastermind/femme fatale, who due to her facist background seemed pretty iredeemable. I'd heard Claremont had started using her again, but it's been a while since I read X-Men.
Sat-yr-9 was an alternate universe version of Saturnine (duh). The original was a villain as far as Captain Britain was concerned, though she was really looking at the bigger picture, and if that meant destroying a world or two, so be it.
Sat-Yr-9 was kinda the full on version complete with nazi fetish gear. In fact now I think about it, Alan Moore (who created both) may have recycled her as the evil nazi fetish queen in Tom Strong. Sorry, I can't put a name to her right now but I'm away from home this week.
Come to think of it, I suspect Alan Moore has a better record for female villains than most.
Someone beat me to the Female Furies. Personally, I thought Gorgeous Gilly (one of the many characters who survived the Emperor Joker universe) was fun. There's Body Doubles, who pop up once in awhile to do...something or other. La Encantadora was a decent villainess until she got too confusing that no one knew what to do with her. Gamemnae (from "Obsidian Age") was a damn good villain. And there's Magenta, the nutso-crazy Flash villain. Supergirl had Queen Mab at one point, and the Biblical Lilith.
I think the problem with strong female villains is the same as the problem with charismatic male villains: when they become really popular, companies turn them into violent antiheroes (see Venom: Lethal Protector). This depletes the pot, so to speak.
Talia anyone!?!? She is not just "Ras al Ghul" with tits....
Talia al Ghul was the first one I thought of, though I didn't put her on my list since she was created to be Ra's's daughter. I figured that made her a "female version of a male supervillain".
How about Lilandra's sister, what is her name, Deathstrike? Or Starfire's sister Komand'r (aka Blackfire)?
Wonder Woman fought Medusa not that long ago + Silver Swan.
And Veronica whatsherfacer is also from the same comic.
baba yaga in hellboy, and fables
star sapphire seems to pop up now and then.
rose and thorn
"Spider-Man also has:"
Haha...it is so sad, Matt, that I actually DID think of all those women characters, but Jake came back with the "decent" criterion before I could rattle them off!
You left off Joystick, though!!
"There's also Madame Rouge from the old Doom Patrol series, but even then she was a brainwashed into becoming evil in the first place."
Crap, I actually thought of Madame Rouge, but forgot to write her down!
Nah, she definitely counts, Rick, and I sadly do not doubt if your take on the reasoning of the creators is not eerily accurate.
" Scratch Viper from your list.
As Madame Hydra she started as a female version of another villain - Baron Strucker. "
Crap, I got the order wrong! I thought she was Viper FIRST! Then yes, you are abso-toot-ley correct, she should be off the list.
"MatthewCraig, just a quick correction. Titania wasn't shit-scared of She-Hulk. In fact, she nearly beat She-Hulk to death in their first bout and was really cocky about it. She was actually shit-scared of Spider-Man who gave her a supreme, humiliating self-esteem destroying beatdown. "
T, I think Titania has gone through different psychoses, and actually WAS afraid of She-Hulk at one point in time.
"A few more, after a little bit of thinking: Saturn Queen, Glorith, Earth-2 Huntress (the one that was married to Sportsmaster), Golden Glider, Killer Frost, Darkseid's Female Furies (Lashina, et al), and Granny Goodness. "
The Female Furies are so obvious that I feel like a moron for not thinking of them.
Killer Frost is decent, as is Saturn Queen and Glorith.
Huntress, I'm torn on.
And Golden Glider is LAME!!!
Talia and Deathbird I knocked off because both of them have been tamed over the years.
Although both of them ARE currently in the "bad" category, so I guess we could add them.
"I'm pretty sure the Queen of Fables from the Waid run of JLA was created specifically to address this very lack. Dunno if she'll be back, but I think that was the impetus for that story."
Hey, Greg, you should really try out Gail Simone and John Byrne's Action Comics run.
It is some good old-fashioned fun.
In addition, the current storyline pits Superman against (you guessed it) the Queen of Fables!!
Hm . . .
Dark Phoenix.
The tall, exquisite baddy from--ahem--Elfquest.
Lapis Lazuli in Alan Moore's Greyshirt
Oh! And! Hello!
Scarlet Witch!
the best female villains were the Spirit's
"
Isn't she with Knockout now, though? (Post-Villains United.)"
No, that is Scandal Savage, daughter of Vandal Savage, who is dating Knockout.
The Evil Nazi Fetish queen in Tom Strong is Ingrid Weiss. She gets the crap beaten out of her by Dhalua in a gender-reversed take on the "hero and villain fight over the girl" climax.
Verification word xmicx--it's Chex mix for mutants!
Scratch Viper from your list.
As Madame Hydra she started as a female version of another villain - Baron Strucker. Okay, she looks betetr, but that's not the point, or? Wasn't she even scarred like he was?
I have so got to disagree with Axel here.
Madame Hydra, at least as she was created by Steranko, might have been scarred and evil, but other then that she really had very little in common with the Baron.
She wasn’t a Nazi, she wasn’t bombastic, and she where Strucker was brutal, Madame Hydra was calm and subtle, like a sharp scalpel through the throat. And of course where the Baron was proud of his scars, the Madame was disgusted by her defects.
One thing that people tend to forget about this great, but horribly misused character was that Madame Hydra was the first really truly evil female character to come out of Marvel.
Oh sure there was Princess Python over in the Circus of Crime, and the Enchantress over in Thor, but one was corny and the other a Goddess, but Madame Hydra was pure 1960’s, James Bond mean.
Which made her a perfect foil for Nick Fury, who was at his Bond best as well.
How she became a Captain America villain instead I can only blame on the fact that Jim had left SHIELD a few months before.
Anyway Madame Hydra didn’t want to capture Cap or use him to further her evil plans.
Hell no.
She just sent a big squad of Hydra boys in and did her level best to just shoot him.
Now that’s not screwing around, good, old fashioned evil.
What’s so surprising is just how rarely the character has been used over the years. One would think that in this modern era where we are living in such constant fear of terrorists and terrorism that she would be ripe for a comeback.
Personally I could see her being a great edition to the “Ultimates” universe. She’d be an ideal villain for their hard core Cap.
- rick
No one's mentioned Jinx & Shimmer from Teen Titans (and Phobia; was Phobia female? I can't remember), or Emerald Empress from Legion. Are they too minor league?
Emerald Empress was on the original list, she's no minor leaguer.
How about Madame Masque?
Oops! There she is. Phobia too. Word.
How about Miss Misery from Sleeper, or was she too "good?"
I liked Magpie. She was John Byrne's attempt to do a Batman villain of the classic style, mad as a fridge and having some weird schtick. She was right at home in Arkham. But I don't think anyone else used her much, and I have a notion that she eventually got killed off.
Madam Hydra first appeared in Steranko's brief Captain America run. And she was AWESOME. Seriously. That was the first Captain America story I ever read -- that arc -- and boy, did she leave an impression. That whole story did.
So imagine my pain years later when I discovered she was now "Viper" and getting it on with Wolverine. Blergh.
Was Cheshire mentioned? I mean, she nuked a country. That ain't no small thing.
I've been thinking about this shtick of villainous women going good, but still retaining traits that marked them as "bad" to keep them the interesting characters fans loved in the first place. In some ways, this is an emancipating process for the characters, as they get to be more fully realized. While Selina Kyle spent most of her title as a naughty girl (stealing, but with such a wink, we cheered her on, and then she'd give into attacks of conscience now and then), Brubaker took her contradicting continuity and forged her into a really fascinating three-dimensional character. Black Widow seems to benefit from this type of character exploration too.
It would be nice to have some more credible female villains that weren't just eye candy and genuinely threatening running around though. Out of recent books, if Phobia and Cheshire are all we can come up with, there is room for more. Also, I'd love a moritorium on Batman villainesses falling for him. It's kind of ridiculous at this point.
-- Anun
Hey Brad.
Honestly I think from the sound of it, that I'm glad I missed Madame Hydras more recent appearances.
I do remember that when she first became Viper back in the mid 1970’s, I might add, by killing the original one, she did come across as good and vicious in several Steve Engelhart issues of Captain America, but other then those few issues I can’t really say that I’ve noticed her since then.
I do know however that she did first appear in Caps book and never did make an appearance in the SHIELD book..
Thinking of that same era of Captain America, anyone remember the name of the funky black girl baddie who used to turn men into werewolves?
I remember that Alan Weiss drew some of her appearances, but I’ll be dammed if I can remember her name.
- rick
I just remembered that I did a write-up last year on female Flash villains. There aren't very many. Just going by the villains I'd profiled, only 8 out of 72 solo villains were women. On the other hand, they made a slightly better showing in the Rogues proper at 3 of 19.
Legion of Super Heroes had quite a few (some already mentioned)
- Emerald Empress
- Saturn Queen
- Silver Slasher
- Charma
- The Sinaid O' Connor wannabe from V4 (can't remember her name) who was chillin with the Dominators.
- Speaking of V4, can we kindof sortof count the Roxxas Horror Picture Show?
- Sklarian Raiders
- Brainiac 4
- Glorith
- Spider Girl (pre-boot)
- Lady Memory (how could you forget!?!?!)
Fury the Goblin queen and there ase a bunch of others in Spider Girl, femaliezed versions of spideys arch villians.
http://www.savespidergirl.com/index.html
cruella deville??
What about The Baroness?
Fascinating subject. Sorry I'm getting into the fray so late.
I don't know if there's a rights issue with DC 'appropriating' a character from the old Batman TV show [although there is a King Tut coming out soon], but I think the comics should resurrect The Siren from the old series. She was a beautiful woman [shocker, right?] played by Joan Collins and she hypnotized men with her voice. She was kind of ahead of her time for 1967 as far as being a mutant or meta-human, if you will, and I think she would work very well in the comics.
There are basically three reasons why you see few truly classic female supervillains (most of your list I'd call B-stingers at best):
1) In the real world, most criminals are men. And most female criminals aren't careerists,or their crimes are "victimless" -- check kiting, prostitution, etc. The career criminal is male like 99%+ of the time.
So naturally, there are many many examples of real world male criminals to base characters off of, and few real world female criminal archtypes.
2) With the vast majority of criminal archtypes, the most direct solution to the problem they present is to punch them really hard a lot. If they are particularly vile bastard, this is almost necessary to soothe the reader's need for comeuppance, but even if they're merely incompetent -- Shocker, I'm looking at you -- a beating is at least funny.
Beating the crap out of a woman, even a really vile women, doesn't sit well with the mostly male audience of comic readers. Beating the crap out of a woman for merely being incompetent is TOTALLY not cool. People would genuinely ask what was wrong with the writer.
As a consequence of this, the primary means of defeating female supervillains ends up being redemption.
3) The only people who really, really care enough about the paucity of female supervillains are feminists. Feminists don't like that lack of female villains, because anytime there isn't gender parity, feminists seem to believe that something is amiss (except in the case of the real lack of parity between male and female criminals).
Comic writers -- media types in general -- seem to desire to bend over backwards to make feminists happy (an impossible task, you can't please disciples of critical theory), but feminists want so much more than just female supervillains. They also don't want depictions of pointless violence against women, or hateful caricatures of women.
So they want female supervillains who don't exist merely to get the shit kicked out of them, who aren't vicious caricatures of real woman.
And since most male supervillains are vicious caricatures of real men who exist only to get the shit kicked out this creates a situation in which this disparity will probably never be overcome.
But all that said, you forgot one of the best female supervillains of all time: NIGHTSHADE
A genius who grew up in the ghetto, she realized at an early age that science or crime was the only way out of the ghetto for her, so she combined both: posing as the moll of R.U. Rossum -- a robot pimp she controlled -- she set about building an army of robotic goons to take over the NYC criminal underworld.
She is, of course, a HEROES FOR HIRE villain. How could she not be?
^ to the guy up there who says female criminals are generally only those committing "victimless crimes"; what about all the female murderers out there dude? I'd hardly say those crimes were victimless! Women are more likely to kill children than men are, and in fact if you look at a list of child murders in the last decade, the majority of killers have been female, usually women killing their own kids.
I think I have to agree with whoever said that the reason there is a serious lack of female bad-guys is because they are usually hot. Men who read comics generally want the women in there to look at, to lust after etc, not to see the shit beaten out of her (not unless they have some hidden desire to beat women). It's hard to have a female villain when there are male heroes, because most men have it ingrained in their heads that you DO NOT hit women. Which generally means female villains go up against female heroes, who are usually just female versions of male heroes or are physically weaker than male heroes purely because of gender stereotyping, and therefore the villains they are against are generally weaker. Also, you can have female superheroes against male villains, because if a villain hits a women, thats okay, because he's meant to be a bad guy. Am I making sense? Basically, you are usually gonna end up with about a 75%/25% split of male to female superheroes.
Also, when there is a decent female villain, she generally becomes popular BECAUSE she's a decent villain, and as a result the writers don't want to get rid of her because they may not get another decent female character for a while, so they turn her good to keep her in the comics.
BECI -- I didn't say there were no female murderers. There are. But they don't translate into supervillains very well.
A serial killer makes a good supervillain, as does a hit man, as does a violent revolutionary, as does a professional bank robber. These are all male dominated crimes.
Women who murder generally do so as a result of abuse, which makes them sympathetic. Bad villain material. Or they kill their children, due to some sort of mental distress.
While baby-killing women have inspired many a monster -- the Lamia for example -- it doesn't translate well into super-villain territory.
Spook mentioned the Baroness. She was a G.I. Joe villain...and I barely remember her getting any real screen or page time.
Batman comics had the best female villains. Poison Ivy, Cat woman, Harley Quinn...and I guess that's it. But they were great villains! Poison Ivy was an eco-friendly feminist who had a very hush hush relationship with Harley Quinn when the Joker was throwing one of his tantrums. They had the Harley and Ivy comic book series that only lasted three issues...Still...they were great villains.
Comic books changed with history and most of the original ones came out in a time where, like some of you have said, it was not ok to hit girls. That was very relevant to the comic book industry. Women weren't tough enough for comics and if they were, like Wonder Woman, they were fighting only for justice. When Feminism came around I'm a little surprised it didn't usher in more bad girls in the books...but hey, we'll take baby steps.
This is a really interesting topic. I really don't know anything about comics...other than the basics (Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc.) And I only know thje basic female villans - Poison Ivy, Catwoman....yeah that's it. Ha. But I really enjoyed hearing what you all thought about this topic...And I do think that there should be more female supervillans. We need someone to represent us evil chicks. ;D
And by the way...to the person who said cheerleaders are awful and whatnot - you so wrong, being an ex-cheerleader, I realize that some of us can be obnoxious. But a LOT of us are really down to earth and you shouldn't judge a whole group of people based on one or two girls. =)
Female characters are the less in comics, they are started as just the damsel in distress or support, then they where female counterparts of the male characters. And that is not just fair.
You forget to mention Harley Quinn, I know she sometimes needed help from The Joker, but in the great majority of the cases she could resolve her problem by herself. She is without doubts one of the greatest female super-villains.
There is also Belladonna from Spider-Man and Karisma from Fantastic Four and Llyra (shapeshifter) from Namor and Glazier from Hulk and this story arc:
http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/femizons.htm
has a whole army of female super-villains.
Omg it so beautiful dog:))
he is very nice
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