A BANK FOR THE MAMMARIES, PART 2

Moving right along...

Starting with CBR's list of "75 most memorable moments in DC history," I find that it's a decent enough selection, but only six of these "points in time" focus on signficant aspects of the company's portrayal of female characters. They are:

(1) The rape of Sue Dibny. The actual story is pretty worthless, but it does provide a strong marker of the superhero genre's movement away from "juvenile pulp" and toward "adult pulp."

(2) Princess Diana's contest in ALL-STAR #8, in which she defeats her Amazon sisters for the privilege of becoming Wonder Woman.

(3) Terra's revelation as a villain in NEW TEEN TITANS #34. This issue also flirts with the "adult pulp" mode a bit in its implication of a relationship between the teen turncoat and the adult Deathstroke.

(4) Wonder Woman kills Maxwell Lord. Only a fair story, but Lord had become a strong supporting character in the DCU and the act sparked quite a bit of interesting debate in the fan community about "Heroes Who Kill." Unlike your bloody comic book elitists, I don't necessarily find such discussions ridiculous, even if they do usually generate more heat than light.

(5) Supergirl's heroic death fighting the Anti-Monitor in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. Of course one might consider this more a "travesty" than a "triumph" since this character's erasure paves the way for the John Byrne version of Supergirl.

(6) The Joker shoots Batgirl. Many fans have come to find "The Killing Joke" rather overrated, and Alan Moore's expressed similar sentiments himself. And if the character had simply been magically healed up as with so many comic-book injuries, I'd probably not bother to list this incident. But it does lead into the transformation of the somewhat timeworn character of the Barbara Gordon Batgirl into Oracle, and even though it's not the sort of transformation Alan Moore would have wrought, he deserves credit for being a linchpin in that development.

Next: Stuff from DCwomenkickingass.