FEMMES FORMIDABLES

Red Sonja began as the Robert E. Howard one-shot character " Red Sonya of Rogatino, " who was re-worked into an ongoing heroin...

This "lady Zorro" enjoyed only one syndicated season of 22 episodes in 2000. Nice stuntwork and a good performance by Tessie ...

I've already covered the other three femme-adventurers from the British AVENGERS franchise, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel, and Tara King. Th...

Way back when I wrote this essay on the 1966 Batgirl, I said that her identity as the wheelchair-bound "Oracle" deserved a se...

At a time when DC had yet to give birth to Batwoman or Supergirl, Timely Comics introduced a female cousin for their popular male hero, ...

As noted here, the original Conan Doyle LOST WORLD practically sports a sign "no girls allowed." But starting with the 1925...

Mexican superhero wrestlers caught fire in the 1950s, particularly with the famed "El Santo," but the first "luchadoras...

Boy sidekicks were all over the comics-world in the Golden Age, but young girl partners were rarer than hen's teeth-- except for one...

Andre Norton's 1963 WITCH WORLD provides a female's take on the John Carter trope, wherein Earthman lands on a medieval-style wo...

The date should be enough to tell readers (if any) that I'm not talking about Sue Storm. The character is called "Invisible Gir...

The first Hawkgirl presents something of a mixed bag. Although she has a prominent role in the origin of the Golden Age Hawkman, analyze...

Ginger McAllister (Cheri Caffaro) was slightly ahead of the spate of seventies "tough girls" like 1973's COFFY and 1974...

The 2010 Canadian cartoon METAJETS proved an enjoyable cross between superheres and aviation aces. In the distant future, numerous terro...

Aside from noting that Deidre Hall played Electra Woman... See previous essay.

There's no origin for the campy duo "Electra Woman and Dyna Girl," who are no more than distaff versions of the campy ...

One of the last artistically strong gasps of the jungle-girl subgenre in comics appeared as a backup in Magazine Enterprise's THUN...

And now, moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, here's the 1968 "La Mujer Murcielago," a.k.a. Batwoman, reviewed here ...

Given the current cinematic success of the film ALITA, I almost made that one my second "A," but decided instead to go with th...

Zatanna first appeared as a guest-star in HAWKMAN #4 (1964), created by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson as a feminine take on the Golden...

After co-starring in the 1981 wrestling-comedy ALL THE MARBLES, Laurene Landon enjoyed "solo starring" status in two 1980s adv...