The Renaissance of movie and TV tie-in action figures arrived in 2013 with Funko’s classic Kenner-style ReAction figure line. Other companies focus on single licensed figures and getting the likenesses spot-on, but Funko’s diversification of lines meant everyone could find something that fit their personal niche at an affordable price point. A true throwback series, one of the overlooked features of the line is the incredible variety of no-names-taken, classic kick-ass heroines represented.
In fact you can find here the top of the world’s best, in-your-face, take-no-prisoners, genre heroines. Buy them for yourself, for your friends, or get your favorite as a totem to inspire you each day from your desktop. And where the early sculpts in Funko’s line admittedly looked nothing like the actresses that made the roles famous, the new lines have only improved. And nobody has better packaging designs than the ReAction line.
Who would you add to the Funko roster of heroines? Compare your list to our more than 85 suggestions for future kick-ass women action figures below.
First, check out this Baker’s Dozen of our favorites in the current Funko pantheon:
The biggest news so far released by Warner Bros. about the next DC Comics universe TV experiment was that former Superman Dean Cain (Lois and Clark) and former Supergirl Helen Slater (Supergirl) would have guest roles on the series Supergirl, a Smallville-esque series likely to arrive in 2016. Laura Benanti (Royal Pains, Life on Mars (U.S.) was revealed to play Kara’s Kryptonian mother, Alura Zor-El, leading Supergirl from afar as Jor-El did for Kal-El in the various Superman incarnations. And Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl, the series lead, will be played by Melissa Benoist (Whiplash, Glee).
Other roles cast include Calista Flockhart as Kara’s boss, media mogul Cat Grant. Kara’s love interest will be Jimmy Olsen, played by Mehcad Brooks (Necessary Roughness, Dollhouse), Chyler Leigh (Grey’s Anatomy) has been cast as Kara’s foster sister Alex, and David Harewood (Robin Hood, Doctor Who, Homeland) will play Department of Extra-Normal Operations chief Hank Henshaw.
We now have our first views of the new Supergirl supersuit Benoist will don as the latest superheroine in the DC Universe. The designer is Academy Award winning costumer Colleen Atwell, who also created the CW designs for Arrow and The Flash. The suit is similar to many past comic book versions:
The slate of the women’s side of the DC pantheon is finally making some headway. We’ve had a look at Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman from Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice and Katie Cassidy’s Black Canary from Arrow:
When Arrow’s pilot was previewed at San Diego Comic-Con back in 2012 we had our first indication that the series would be a big hit. The pilot remains one of the best first episodes for any TV series, and on its new Blu-ray release viewers get to see what an incredible looking show this really is. This Tuesday, September 17, 2013, Arrow will be released on both DVD and in an awesome Blu-ray combo pack that you won’t want to miss, and today’s your last day to pick it up at its discounted pre-order price. Thanks to Warner Bros. borg.com got an advance preview of the Blu-ray combo pack, and if you missed any of the 23 episodes aired this year, or you haven’t seen the series at all, now is the time to catch the best live action DC Comics effort since 1990’s The Flash. Check out the “Arrow” tag to the lower right of the borg.com home page for past coverage of our favorite new hit.
Optimum Quality. The nine-disc Blu-ray combo pack includes two complete sets of the episodes and features: the DVD on five discs and the Blu-ray on four discs. (One to keep and one to loan to friends?) It also includes a code for Ultraviolet viewing access. The picture and sound quality are perfect, and watching the episodes straight through you realize the series was designed in a very seamless way compared with so many shows that have repeated scenes at every commercial break. Not so here. The navigation menus are the best we’ve seen so far–easy to navigate–and they include a full menu for all the discs on each disc so if you have the wrong disc inserted you’ll always know which one you want.
All 23 Brilliant Episodes. The series started off with a complex pilot, and that was a movie-quality effort to begin with. Subsequent episodes never seemed to let up. Our favorite was the three episode arc featuring Helena Bertinelli’s Huntress, played by Jessica De Gouw, one of the top character retellings in this new Green Arrow universe. We were surprised how much we didn’t mind Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Marc Guggenheim taking liberties with the 70-year history of the Green Arrow canon. The set includes great episodes featuring characters unexplored before, including the very modern and realistic tech guru Felicity Smoak, played perfectly by Emily Bett Rickards, and the entirely new character, Oliver’s confidant John Diggle, played by David Ramsey.
Up until this week 13 confirmed DC Comics characters had been announced for the CW Network’s new TV series, Arrow, premiering October 10, 2012: Oliver Queen/Green Arrow (Stephen Amell), his girlfriend Dinah Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy), colleague in crime fighting The Huntress (Jessica De Gouw), the villain Deathstroke (not yet released), Speedy (formerly an alias of multiple characters but now Oliver’s sister Thea, played now by Willa Holland and referred to in the pilot episode by this nickname), the DCU villain Deadshot (Michael Rowe), Green Arrow Year One’s China White (Kelly Hu), Merlyn now Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), Queen Industries CEO Walter Steele (Colin Salmon), Judd Winick and Phil Hester’s Constantine Drakon (Darren Shahlavi)–a former nemesis of Oliver’s son Connor in more recent GA stories, Firestorm series character Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), and Mike Grell’s creation Moira Queen, Oliver’s mother (Susanna Thompson).
First up, John Barrowman, who you may know as the suave Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who and Torchwood, has signed on to play a yet-to-be-revealed character in the opening season of CW Network’s Fall TV series Arrow, centered on the classic DC Comics character, Green Arrow. We previewed the pilot episode here last month, and it looks to be a great series, full of action and energy, with ample nods to Green Arrow’s established canon.
It seems impossible, but wouldn’t he make a perfect Hal Jordan, aka Green Lantern?
I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
The show’s creators have only released that Barrowman will play a “well-dressed man” (huh?) “as mysterious as he is wealthy” and that he is an “acquaintance of the Queen family and a prominent figure in Starling City.”
And now the CW announced that they are adding another familiar DC Comics character to the series in a multiple-episode story arc: Enter: Helena Bertinelli, The Huntress. Part of the classic DC series and trio Birds of Prey (along with Barbara Gordon/Oracle and Dinah Lance/Black Canary), which had its own short-lived TV series, Australian actress Jessica De Gouw will play Helena Bertinelli, a “potential love interest for Oliver Queen; a fellow vigilante, set on destroying her father’s organized crime empire. But Helena’s blind pursuit of revenge will put her on a collision course with the Arrow.” Perhaps Barrowman will play her father?
Jessica De Gouw to be the new Huntress
Adding the Huntress opens the possibility of including Batman at some point, because of their long connection, but I’m also not getting my hopes up about that. Because of the Birds of Prey connection, the Huntress is a natural fit for fleshing out Dinah Laurel Lance’s storyline, allowing her to operate separately from Oliver Queen if the writers want to go in that direction. And how about making her look like Cat Skaggs’s drawing of Huntress in her classic costume shown above?
So we now have Green Arrow, Black Canary (who the creators seemed to indicate would get her fish-net clad supersuit in the first season in their Comic-Con panel interview), the villain and now the Huntress. CW’s Smallville had its own established set of DC characters, so what better place to experiment with a Justice League story than this new series? If I was writing it, I know I would try to free up as many JLA characters as possible to share a vision of the JLA long overdue, and finally respond to the pleas of DC Comics fans around the world wanting something to match Joss Whedon’s hit 2012 movie, The Avengers. Unlike Smallville, the pilot revealed that this new series will be a superhero show, not just another CW soap opera. Moreover, we have established genre character actors in key roles lending some credibility to the series with former Star Trek Voyager Borg Queen Susanna Thompson as Moira Queen and The Dresden File’s Paul Blackthorne as Detective Quentin Lance.
Arrow premieres on the CW Network Wednesday, October 10, 2012.
James Robinson was able to do with his first issue in Wave 2 of DC Comics’s New 52 what the other DC Justice League creators didn’t do in the initial launch–he created an exciting and interesting play on the DC universe. And with Paul Levitz they have re-ignited the superhero books when it seemed like the titles across the board were wavering a bit.
Robinson’s Earth 2 takes DC back to its origins up through the 1980s when characters traversed parallel universes before there were all the myriad multiverses in the DCU with series in the 2000s, such as that found in the weekly series titled 52. Levitz switched up the classic DC title known for Batman and Superman team-ups–World’s Finest, flipping the apostrophe to account for the parallel worlds into the new Worlds’ Finest.
You can’t read one title without the other. Issue #1 of Worlds’ Finest nudges Earth 2 only a bit because of its focus on a new Huntress and Power Girl, so far missing their own titles in the New 52. But are they really who they appear to be? Back to that in a bit.
I love parallel universe stories, ever since reading the battle between the Earth 1 and Earth 2 superheroes in the pages of Justice League of America as a kid. These two issues brought back all the fun of those earlier stories.
The first book of the parallel DCU is Issue #1 of Earth 2, and you’ve just got to envy Robinson and artist Nicola Scott with what they were allowed to do here–show the death scenes of not one but all of DC’s big three, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Scott even folded in her own versions of the supersuits, which are cooler than the earlier New 52 outfits. But these characters only die on Earth 2 (not our Earth 1) in a battle called the Apokolips War (really, why do they always have to spell it so strangely?) by the leader of some “parademons” under a leader called Steppenwolf (usually with such a unique name you’d have an explanation for it, but neither the band, the novel or the wolf appear to apply here). Regardless, Steppenwolf kills Wonder Woman first, but not before she has an encounter with the God Mercury, followed by the explosive death of Superman. Batman sacrifices himself to blow everything to kingdom come, but not before a sign-off with daughter Helena, presumably his daughter with Catwoman, who is fighting the parademons as Robin, Batman’s sidekick. Supergirl, here Karen Starr from DC’s 1970s, and Helena are part of the explosion and their ongoing story continues in Worlds’ Finest Issue #1.
But Earth 2 continues as we meet the Earth 2‘s Green Lantern (although he doesn’t have that title yet) Alan Scott. And the issue ends as the God Mercury shows up to meet 21-year-old self-described screw-up Jay Garrick. The name for a classic Flash in the DCU, no doubt we can see where Issue #2 will go with this character. The how of showing Justice Society leaders Green Lantern and Flash getting together is well worth looking forward to.
Kudos to DC Comics for putting James Robinson on this title–his Justice League-Cry for Justice, although criticized by some, is one of the best reads from DC in years of limited “Crisis” series featuring the JLA. Robinson can handle the intertwining story elements of something as complex as merging two Earths.
In Worlds’ Finest Issue #1, writer Paul Levitz and artist George Perez pick up the Earth 2 story by following the adventures of Robin and Supergirl as they decide to change their personas on Earth 1 into Huntress and Powergirl. The big question is: What happened to Kara Zor-L, Supergirl of Earth 1 and Helena Bertinelli, Huntress of Earth 1? We know Supergirl is in her own Earth 1 series and Huntress recently finished up a trip to Italy in her own limited series. Will we get to see a Supergirl vs Power Girl battle as we’ve seen in the past? And Worlds’ Finest starts with the mention of Earth 1 Helena Bertinelli’s death. But how?
Worlds’ Finest has great banter and chemistry between Karen and Helena, like we saw in the Gail Simone/Nicola Scott era of Birds of Prey. Here this Worlds’ Finest issue is what I’d hoped for with the New 52 reboot of Birds of Prey. You could easily see Batgirl of the New 52 joining up with these two superheroines at some point. Helena fills the shoes as the Batman clone Huntress very well here–Huntress is at her best when she is written as Batman with a different hairdo and all the detective skill. Karen’s Power Girl is outgoing and fun. not the typical spacey, serious and ethereal Supergirl. But fans of her revealing Power Girl suit note that that outfit is long gone, replaced with a more updated supersuit.
I was pleasantly surprised with these first two issues of the New 52 second wave. The re-hashed origin story that caused me to stop buying Justice League after the first few issues was disappointing, so it is nice to have a similar topic approached in such a refreshing and fun way. Anxiously awaiting the second issues next month!
Following up on the recent scuttlebutt on a possible Bionic Man movie down the road from the Weinsteins and Bryan Singer, Dynamite Comics has announced it is creating a Bionic Man spin-off series featuring Jaime Sommers, Bionic Woman. Writer Paul Tobin has an entirely new take on the Bionic Woman, first appearing in the original Six Million Dollar Man series in the early 1970s. Interviewed by WestfieldComics.com, Tobin characterizes the story as follows:
“At heart it’s a mystery tale, where Jaime needs to uncover a group of DECIDEDLY illegal organ transplant doctors, ones who have begun to look at Jaime, and other “bionics” as THE best organ donors, whether these “donors” like it or not. Along the way, there are quite a few explosions, some new friends, some betrayals, a man with amazing hunting skills and no morals at all, a pretty French girl, a boat that sinks, some afternoon tea, a romantic hopeful, exactly 12,456 bullets (barring script revisions) and a partridge in a pear tree. Said partridge may or may not explode. Have I mentioned the explosions?”
Sounds like it will have some good humor. Dynamite Comics is marketing the series with the following blurb:
“Paris is the city of love? Not anymore… not since Jaime Sommers, the Bionic Woman, came to town hot on the trail of the Mission, a collection of insanely high-priced surgeons who’ve been murdering OSI’s bionic prototypes in order to provide new life for billionaire patients. But while the Bionic Woman is hunting the Mission, their #1 hunter is after her! Can Jaime pick up the pieces of her past while protecting her life in the present, or will the city of love turn its back, and its bullets, on the Bionic Woman? Acclaimed writer Paul Tobin brings you a tale of baguettes, bullets, and bionic badass!”
So it sure doesn’t feel like an origin story. But maybe Tobin and Dynamite are only summarizing the series itself as opposed to the first issue. Still, Tobin has said there will be only a slight appearance by Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, despite the header on the book “From the pages of Kevin Smith’s Bionic Man.” I still can’t help but scrunch my eyebrows a bit over the emphasis on the Bionic Man being a Smith story vs. the original Martin Caidin story. Strangely enough one cover released has the reference to Kevin Smith, the other nearly identical cover doesn’t. But no matter, one more bionic book just gives us more to look forward to on the comics rack and if Smith’s name has some marketing power then great.
We can also look forward to the new series’ Brazilian artist Leno Carvalho, who will be penciling the Bionic Woman. Carvalho is a more recent entrant into the comic book art world. Covers will be created by Paul Renaud.
And here is what finally makes sense about Jaime Sommers. Her name. Yes, “jaime” means “I love” in French, pronounced “zhem”, but as names go, Jaime is a centuries old Spanish boy’s name pronounced “hi-may.” But like the street name Madison was turned into thousands of girls’ names in the 1980s because of Daryl Hannah in the movie Splash, there are as many 30 and 40-something girls out there from the 1970s named Jaime, not Jamie, and they pronounce it the same way: “jay-me”. So by making Jaime a character in Paris, it finally all makes sense, right? But how do we pronounce it? I bet I know how readers in France will pronounce it. Too bad they didn’t spell Sommers as Summers and we could have had a crossover family tale with our old pal Buffy Summers.
Anyway… Europe as a venue for modern superheroines is a good idea. The Huntress limited series from DC Comics used Italy to good effect, and hopefully Hobin will do the same for the Bionic Woman in the streets of Paris.
Bionic Woman, published by Dynamite Comics, is expected to be published in March 2012.
Earlier this year, and even from time to time over the past several years, commenters have criticized the comics publishing industry for its lack of female creators. As with the lack of women creators in a lot of industries, the criticisms have credence. You have to look very hard at comic conventions to find a female comic artist from a major publisher, for example. But more and more female writers seem to be coming to the fore every month. In the meantime, what is flourishing in DC Comics’ New 52 are female superhero characters. In the past few weeks we reviewed here both the first issues of the new Wonder Woman series and the past two months of the Batgirl title. Wonder Woman’s story is brilliantly drawn in the realm of the Greek gods and goddesses, as she is on her path to becoming a key leader of the Justice League. Batgirl’s story bridges a lot of territory–she is a superhero with a rich past in the DCU: as daughter to Batman’s main partner in fighting crime, Commissioner Gordon, as former crime fighter in a wheelchair and member of the Birds of Prey, under the guise Oracle, she also covers the younger side of hero work and the trials of being at the beginning of a heroine’s career.
But Wonder Woman and Batgirl just scratch the surface of the arsenal of women crimefighters across the DCU. In stark contrast to Batgirl, but equally as interesting and engaging, is the darker, tough and gritty world of Batwoman. There is no hiding Batwoman’s role in the DCU–she is Kate Kane, a lesbian who was kicked out of the military because of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” When we met her again in Issue #1 of the re-launched title she was trying to mentor sidekick, Bette aka Flamebird, but in Issue #2 Batman warns Kate that she is endangering Bette and she as kicks her out of the sidekick business in Issue #3. Writers W. Haden Blackman and J.H. Williams III walk a fine line between a caricature of a modern gay single person, in the realm of Tom Hanks’ character in Philadelphia. She uses poor judgment, frequenting gay bars and going home with whomever she ends up with and going on binges. Did she, or the writers, learn anything from the 1980s? Are they setting her up for another AIDS story? Hopefully not, as that was done with Mia aka Speedy in the Green Arrow series.
In every aspect of her life Kate is dangerous and cocky–she is dating Detective Maggie Sawyer, the very woman on the police squad who is trying to uncover who the vigilante in the black and red suit really is. On the one hand Kate herself is not a role model, yet Blackman and Williams have written her as a tough woman fighting the good fight every day like everybody, only in the depths of Gotham, her place is getting down and dirty. To balance out the series, we find Kate’s true enemy is the federal agent, Cameron Chase, and we learn in Issue #3 she is partnering with the creepy skull-headed villain behind the dark doings of Gotham. The best part of Batwoman? Despite her own inner doubts and less experience at the hero business, Batwoman stands on equal footing with Batman in their secret meetings–we see a mutual respect there.
On the other side of the globe in Italy is Helena Bertinelli, the heroine of the Huntress title. Like Barbara Gordon, Huntress spent some time gaining her crime-fighting sea-legs in the Birds of Prey. In Issue #2 of the current Huntress limited series, Huntress has tracked down a trafficker of girls in the sex slave industry. Huntress is a character who simply has a job to do. Unlike Batgirl and Batwoman, we see no emotional obstacles with Helena. She knows her job and gets the job done. As her own flavor of dark knight detective, she is a true sleuth in the ongoing whodunnit of each issue. And like all the superheroes in the DCU, she has her alter ego life. Bertinelli would fit in fine with the characters of the BBC’s Zen series, tasteful and stylish, she seems to have adopted Italy as her home turf. It is refreshing to see a character establish herself in a non-English speaking locale, and the word balloons even feign a translation via dialogue in carets. A clever comics story device. Unlike Batgirl or Batwoman, Huntress’s targeted villains are rooted in the real world, and in Issue #2 she is honing in on capturing the man behind the trafficking operation, as she liberates all the victims. A woman saving women.
In an even darker realm we encounter Zatanna, magician of backward incantations, in Issues #2 and #3 of Justice League Dark. The Enchantress has unleashed an evil that even the Justice League itself cannot stop, and she must use a spell to save herself. Only John Constantine understands the magic enough to use her own language to free her from her protective state. And tarot card reading Xanadu appears to be working alongside the ultimate villain of this series–the Enchantress, on a quest to capture June Moone, who has been seeking the aid of Deadman. Deadman is complex yet entirely weak, he slips in and out of other people’s bodies, himself a ghostly spirit. Deadman is driving his girlfriend, Dawn Granger, the character Dove from the Hawk and Dove duo, nearly mad with his switching from body to body. Dove drives off in anger as Deadman tries to protect June Moone from the Enchantress, but we get the vibe she can pull away from the witch’s curse when she will need to. We hope to see more of Zatanna and Dove in future issues, but as new characters are added, like Mindwipe in Issue #3, Justice League Dark is bordering on a soap opera-sized cast that may be too much for a monthly title.
Not only do these titles stand out as key stories focusing on strong female characters, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Batwoman, Huntress, and Justice League Dark, with both good writing and art, continue to stand at the top of all of the 52 main titles of the New 52.
One book that was released this month to no real fanfare was a new DC Comics title that is not part of the new 52 renumbered series, Huntress, written by Paul Levitz with art by Marcus To.
Huntress, whose alias is Helena Bertinelli (no relation to Valerie, we expect), is returning to Italy from Gotham City to do a little investigative clean-up work in great Dark Knight Detective style. In sweeping a warehouse district she happens on another shady business, human trafficking of little girls, and so she adds this to her list of odd jobs. “Wonder how many corpses I’ll leave behind on this trip?” she asks herself.
This is a nice single story issue, with a beautiful drawn style for Huntress both in and out of costume. Ideally Birds of Prey would still feature Huntress as part of the team, but the younger look of the new Birds must not have had room for this great character. A better team-up would have a more classic Black Canary with Huntress and maybe even Zatanna, but with no more Oracle aka Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl, I guess that is not in the cards. Anyway, there’s some tight writing here and of all the actual New 52 titles that were more fluff and action, this book packs some great action scenes and Huntress gets ample opportunity to develop her determined and almost bitter attitude and kick a little butt on the side.
Unfortunately Huntress is slated as a six-issue mini-series only. DC Comics would be wise instead to kick some of the new DC titles that have fizzled to the curb and insert the Levitz/To duo as a regular title.
