Marvel needs to step up their game too, though

Came across this story today about an 11 year old girl asking DC Comics just where the heck their female leads were all hiding:

When 11-year-old Rowan noticed a lack of women superheroes in DC Comics’s movies, TV shows, and merchandise, she decided do something about it. The girl wrote a letter to the company explaining that she’s a longtime fan, but she’s upset by how few women she sees.

via 11-year-old girl pens letter to DC Comics asking for more female superheroes.

Black Widow (left) as she appears in The Aveng...

Awesome – but DC isn’t alone, although they get lambasted more often. I know our own 11 year old daughter has a similar request of Marvel comics. Her favorite hero has actually been in a few movies, has another movie coming out this summer, and yet never gets a title mention except as the female team member. I am of course referring to Black Widow (what – it’s wrong that my 11 year old idolizes a butt kicking super spy with no super powers of her own and yet who manages to stand up against every cinematic monster they can throw at Captain America?). To be fair, the most recent Captain America movie, Winter Soldier, was practically a love letter to Black Widow. She was the focus of almost half the movie (to our kid’s gleeful delight), and yet didn’t get billing at all.

I realize Marvel’s better successes are in team movies (Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four…wait…these are all successes so far?), but we’ve had a movie line for Thor, and for Iron Man, even some one-offs for the Hulk (SMASHing good!), but what about Black Widow and that other arrow guy?

I admit, we haven’t started watching Agent Carter yet, so maybe I’m crying foul for no good cause. Maybe Agent Carter is the cure to this. To be fair, shows like Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have to be prescreened before letting younger kids watch them, since they all feel the need to have at least one extreme “adult” situation at some point. Like others, I just want some super-hero comic entertainment I can share with my kids.

I’m also a fuddy duddy, it seems.