The Future Of Heroes Is Female

It took long enough, but with Captain Marvel flying into theatres, women are finally getting their fair chance to save the world.

- Eric Ducker

When director Rachel Talalay went to San Diego Comic-Con in 1995 to promote her film Tank Girl, based on a British comic about a superpower-less woman who, well, drives a tank, the fest was a fraction of the spectacle it is today. Back then, the event was a more honest celebration of comic books, with far less coopting by studios looking to push their movies and TV shows. That’s mostly because movies and TV shows based on comic books were rare. According to Talalay, who now directs for television on shows including The Flash and Supergirl, another crucial difference between Comic-Con of the 1990s and Comic-Con today was how few women filed inside the convention center. “When I took Tank Girl there, I brought in this female audience who had nothing,” Talalay says. “The only women in Comic-Con were the booth babes.”

Tank Girl ultimately flopped. Talalay blames executives who, she says, pushed her out of the editing process and turned the film into something nonsensical. Two decades later, much has changed in the comics-based entertainment ecosystem, as exemplified by the March release of Captain Marvel — the first film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to have a female lead. Set in the 1990s, it follows Carol Danvers, an Air Force pilot with special powers who gets embroiled in an intergalactic war. Heading into its release, the film has unprecedented momentum and appeal. Avengers: Infinity War ended with a wallop, and it’s clear Danvers and her alter ego will play a substantial role in cleaning up Thanos’s cosmic trauma in the fourth Avengers installment, scheduled for May. Captain Marvel also has the opportunity to prolong the hot streak.