AMAZON ART #14

Hilariously daffy "paranoia" cover, which looks like a "battle of the sexes" conflict. Unfortunately, the girls aren't the real heroines-- and to add insult to injury, they're not even real girls!

AMAZON ART #13

I never got round to doing much on Hillman's Valkyrie-- later revived by Eclipse Comics-- so here's her defining moment, where she has a "meet violent" encounter with the original Airboy.

AMAZON ART #12

A quick look at a couple of the more dynamic covers of 1960s WONDER WOMAN. They're far from classic, but a vast improvement over the "goofy problem" covers that dominated the 1950s title.

BTW, on a longago BEAT column Heidi complained about WW showing butt in the first one. I suppose it would have been OK if one of the scuba guys had been nice enough to come up behind her and block such a horribly objectivizing image.

AMAZON ART #11

Never got around to doing an entry on POWER GIRL, but this comparatively recent cover might well be her best "femme formidable" image ever...

AMAZON ART #10

This 1969 cover to JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #75 is a deliberate misrepresentation of the events inside, where Black Canary accidentally knocks down all the Justice Leaguers with her newly developed "sonic scream," rather than going out of her way to trounce them all.

Nice close-up on the fishnets, though.

AMAZON ART #9

As long as my last post touched on female characters who regularly abused male ones for the sake of laughs, I ought to cite one of the most prevalent "anime amazons," Sakura of NARUTO, who is given to slugging the title character.

To be sure, there is some degree of "equal time," as when Sakura has a one-on-one with her foremost female rival Ino;

The series also gives a certain amount of attention to an equally violent "mature woman," name of Tsunade, who belongs to a character-type one rarely sees in American or European comics.

AMAZON ART #8

Since today I also did a piece about the manga GIRLS BRAVO on my critique-blog THE ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVE, I might as well show a few scenes here in which the series' resident "tough girl" kicks some ass.

AMAZON ART #7

The short-lived 1970s backup series ROSE AND THE THORN-- featuring a schizophrenic superheroine-- never went on to great fame, and even later attempts to reboot the character came to little. However, in its time it did benefit from strong art, often by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano.

AMAZON ART #6

I had to post this cover from BLACK CAT #9 because it references one of the interior features of the comic itself: lessons in which the titular heroine demonstrated various martial-arts moves for the delectation of the readers-- and to the irate condemnation of Frederic Wertham.

AMAZON ART #5

On television Supergirl has been enjoying something of a comeback, but I have to say that she doesn't have the best record regarding comic-book covers.

That said, here's one of the better ones to involve conflict between the "Maid of Steel" and her paternalistic cousin:

AMAZON ART #4

GCD tentatively identifies this cover-- one of the more suspenseful images to spring out of the multitudinous "jungle girl" comics-genre-- as the work of classic-EC artist Jack Kamen.

Tiger Girl's adventures weren't up to the thrills of the original j-girl Sheena, but she did have one attribute that was probably unique: she had a mixed racial heritage, being half-Indian, half-Caucasian. Yo be sure, the only scene in which Tiger Girl's Indian father is seen depicts him with white skin, so it's a bit of a "give with one hand, take away with the other" situation. But at least this whip-wielding amazon wasn't an exact duplicate of every other female vine-swinger out there.

AMAZON ART #3

A page of nice Robin Ator interior art, from the short-lived 1980s B&W comic, which I covered in greater detail here.

AMAZON ART #2

Four issues of this Wildstorm "one-shot" were published in 2000, and to my knowledge the characters never appeared again. Lobdell's script is routine but artist Flores deserves credit for his gleefully absurd cheesecake-designs, particularly (left) a lady warrior whose armor leaves her belly cutely exposed, and (right) a futuristic nun wearing a slit-skirt.

AMAZON ART #1

The cover to JUMBO COMICS #9 (1939), the first of the series to be totally focused upon Sheena, who remains the first "superstar-amazon" in the medium of comic books.

COVERS THUS FAR COVERED

The blog's original concept focused principally on comic-book covers (or interior art)  featuring the Amazon Archetype, and since I don't plan to write much text from now on, I decided to list the most significant art I've reprinted thus far-- always in keeping with "fair use"-- in which said archetype appears.

My personal aesthetic standouts seen thus far:

BIRDS OF PREY.

MARY MARVEL. 

SUPERGIRL (VERSION II)

BATGIRL (VERSION III)

BAT-GIRL (VERSION I)

BATWOMAN (VERSION I

CATWOMAN

THE FEMALE LEGIONNAIRES

STAR SAPPHIRE (VERSION II)

MS. MARVEL (VERSION I)

MRRA

CAVE GIRL

KYRA

RED SONJA

BLACK CAT (VERSION II)

BATGIRL (VERSION III)

BATGIRL (VERSION II)

VAMPIRELLA

ELEKTRA

THE WOLF GAL

MERA, ELASTI-GIRL, AND MME. MARIE

POISON IVY

CHANGE OF PACE

Given that I haven't updated this blog since October, it would be a fair assumption that other concerns have usurped the attention I used to devote to this blog-- particularly the "mythcomics" feature I've been regularly updating on a weekly basis since last year on THE ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVE. Though I still like the concept of FEMMES FORMIDABLES as outlined at the beginning of 2012, I don't have time to devote to it any more, particularly when (a) I don't get any sense that it's reaching any readership, and (b) I've probably covered most of the fictional characters I liked best, anyway.

I hate to let FF go completely defunct, though, so to whatever extent I keep my hand in, it'll probably go back mostly to the original, low-maintenance concept of the blog, which focused upon displaying prominent images of the "amazon archetype" in comics. This  won't do a thing to staunch all the crocodile tears of the people who look at comics' rich. Amazon-filled history and can see nothing but pin-up art. It also won't be any more popular than any other incarnation of the blog.. Eventually, I'm sure FF will pass away, but I'll attempt a few more transfusions before giving up the ghost.