Oh come on, Marvel not publishing Spider-Man comics would be “unimaginable”, Marvel not publishing series that inevitably lose money is entirely imaginable. It’s not like the company has some long history of publishing female-led series they’re turning their back on here — they have never really had a successful solo female character lead, so there’s nothing at all shocking here.

With as many Avengers books as there are right now, why can’t we just have an all women Avengers team?

Meanwhile, DC has Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Batwoman, Batgirl, and had Gotham City Sirens and Power Girl to boot. It would be nice if Marvel could come up with some equivalents.

Marvel really made a solid push for female characters and creators over the last couple years (at least). X-23 getting cancelled isn’t a reflection on them in any sense other than them not being able to keep titles to sustain sales if they aren’t top tier, like Avengers, X-Men, Cap, Iron Man, Spidey and so on.

I’ve heard a lot of terrific things about the X-23 title, so it’s sad. One of those situations where I couldn’t have gotten myself interested in the character (Wolverine I already don’t enjoy much. Spin-offs of him are even less enticing), but the creators were taking risks and doing some fun stuff. Doesn’t normally give you high sales, but the readers already on board tend to love it.

I do see Storm as Marvel’s closest to Wonder Woman, save for the fact that she’s always been based in a team, and never done a solo book. Also, since she’s one of (what’s the number now?) many, many mutants, it’s harder to give her her own mythos.

But yeah. Sad, but not Marvel’s fault. Some of DC’s female-lead books aren’t ones I can say I’m happy with being on shelves (while others are terrific). I’m sure they’ll get something new in the mix soon, either way.

I didn’t even know there was such a title as X-23. She must have been hiding out in the Marvel ghetto. Maybe they should have had her join the Avengers. That might have helped. Because all the male Marvel writers are such experts at portraying females in comics. I say fuck Marvel.

Robert, X-23 is written by Majorie Liu. Not a man. Not sure on the price, but I agree, any standard-sized comic over $2.99 is normally on my must-not buy list.

Thing is, some of the most beloved books out there are still crap for sales. I think there’s a feeling that DC and Marvel have put out more and more titles to fill shelves over the years than simply because they believe the books are good or have a reason to exist. So when a title is actually really well-done, original, or has some hidden potential, it’s nearly impossible to get enough people to take a chance on it if it doesn’t have an X/Avengers/Justice League moniker in the title.

I don’t know if there ever was any real demand for an X-23 solo book, but Marvel at least at the stones to try it. Now, that kinda’ sounds stupid, because the way they flood the market, they seem to be willing to try ANYTHING. But this was a female lead book with a female writer (one of several Marvel has had lately). It may’ve been lost in the shuffle, or it may not have been good, I don’t know. But give ‘em credit for trying.

Or look at it the other way – Dynamite and Top Cow have lots of titles featuring female leads but…

She isn’t as popular or stands out like Storm or She-Hulk but I feel Valkyrie is closer to a Marvel version of Wonder Woman based on the whole mythology aspect. I absolutely love the Valkyrie character and I have been waiting for her to get her own solo book for years.

Oh well, c’est la vie.

Jesus, there are only like 8 solo characters at Marvel that can hold down a solo series for more than a couple years at a time (Spidey, Hulk, Wolverine, Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Punisher and Daredevil). The rest of the line is made up of team books (which usually have a number of women, second-tier characters that can support a solo book for a while but not indefinitely (Surfur, She-Hulk, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, etc) and books that will get insta-canceled (Hawkeye’s recent ongoing, Herc’s recent ongoing, etc). While it’s a shame that Marvel doesn’t have a female character that can support her own solo book indefinitely, it’s not BECAUSE female characters don’t sell. It’s because fanboys only reliably support a few concepts/characters in comics.

@Zach

re: “it’s not BECAUSE female characters don’t sell.”

No, not entirely, but that’s a big part of it because they historically don’t.

re: “It’s because fanboys only reliably support a few concepts/characters in comics.”

Or to put it another way, it’s because fangirls don’t support these kind of books in big numbers when Marvel does put them out. Or rather, they don’t have the “numbers” to support something enough to be a big seller. The new Wonder Woman book sells because the majority of fanBOYS like it. Not because women are so gaga over it they’ve turned out in huge numbers to “make” it a big seller. So for someone to say that a book with a female lead doesn’t sell because they traditionally don’t speak to fanBOYS is simply an inane statement. The truth of the matter is that the only reason books with a female lead character sells as good as it does is precisely because it has fanBOY support. If women were the only audience for comic books, there would be no comic book industry, period.

John, you gotta be kidding. Wonder Woman always sells like crap, except when you have A-list talent on the book, like when Heinberg/Dodson had a run, or now when Azzarello and Chiang are doing it as part of a line-wide initiative. Otherwise, it sells what, around 30k a month? If gender is big part of the lack of female-lead books, how do you explain the failures of COUNTLESS other books that have male leads? More than ever, we’re in an industry where only a handful of characters are successful, not because they have amazing creative teams (though that helps) or amazing stories (definitely not the case, look at anything Jeph Loeb has published), but because fans have an allegiance to them.

@ S Earl Marvel heard you and canceled Ghost Rider.

Wow the Marvel defense force really came out in full uniform for this one huh?

Make excuses all you want, but the fact that Marvel is publishing ZERO titles with a non-white (Outside of USM which isnt even in continuity), non-male, and non-straight lead is utterly pathetic. Could you imagine the kind of backlash DC would be getting this is the case? It’s ridiculous and really speaks to the inherent bias in comics journalism when it comes to Marvel vs DC.