Geek Girls Network has written up a Top 10 list of their favorite women in comics, which you can check out here — here’s a couple of highlights, such as her #2 pick, Death from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman:
Created by Neil Gaiman and Mike Dringenberg for DC comic book series Sandman, Death is a life-like personification of death, in the somewhat unlikely guise of an attractive young gothic looking girl.
Her first solo titles Death: The High Cost of Living (1993), and Death: The Time of Your Life (1996) were among the first to be released under the new Vertigo branding, which became a great platform for brillianly quirky, mature titles.
The fact that she is a pale yet charming young girl, rather than some unreal and frightening grim reaper figure, has gained her a lot of fans and she has been named the fifteenth greatest comic book character by Empire Magazine.
A strong, unusual female character achieving such a high status from comic book fans is inspirational for all comic book geeks, as it encourages everyone to continue creating such unique personalities.
But of course, all these lists are subjective, as author MariBiscuits notes. A few of these examples — such as Judge Anderson and Silk Spectre II — didn’t make my top list, and characters such as Maggie from Love and Rockets, Batgirl (Cassandra Cain), Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, the Black Widow, or Terry from Zot! were sadly left out, and I know having Tank Girl as #1 is going to cause some debate. But still, it’s definitely a strong showing. Who are your favorite women in comics?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:30 am
It’s very telling that Wonder Woman doesn’t make the list. Even Gail Simone hasn’t really done much with her, it seems.
My list would have Barbara Gordon (in both her careers), Catwoman, maybe Kitty Pryde, Renee Montoya, Snow White from Fables.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:54 am
What does it say for the state of today’s comics that a list like this features characters like Tulip, Death and Silk Spectre–who haven’t been published for ten or more years–so prominently and that characters like Wonder Woman, DC’s highly-touted new Question and Marvel’s Spider-Girl or She-Hulk (who have had regular monthly titles pretty consistenly for years now) don’t rate a mention?