MARCH TO WOMANHOOD

 I was revving up to do a mythcomics post this week when I realized, "Shit! March is Woman's History Month; I have to devote all my mythcomics posts to Female Characters in Comics."

I jest, of course. Only on occasion have I been moved to do something similar in Black History Month, and even then, I frequently posted anything relevant to racial myths of any kind. I would never follow the pack just because that's what agenda-driven politicians seek to do. But for whatever reason I simply didn't think of doing anything like that for WHM. However, not to do it at least once in a while, as the spirit moves me, would run counter to my advocacy of pluralism.

Since I haven't yet decided which two I will examine in March, I throw open the gates to any reader who may care to suggest a possible source of Feminine Myth in Comics. 

I have of course devoted dozens of posts to such myths over the years, and in all likelihood various versions of Wonder Woman have received the most attention, so I'd like not to focus on her this time out.

The 2001-2014 manga-series CLAYMORE is a fair candidate. I've sampled the feature here and there, and as it happens I reviewed the collected anime disc on the NUM blog without finishing the manga. Since the manga went on for many years, I'm going to guess that the collected anime may have condensed the manga's main arcs into one overarcing narrative, much as did the single-season anime show CHRONO CRUSADE. I found that the original manga for that show did not prove concrescent, since it didn't manage to keep its master thread coherent, and I'm kind of anticipating the same for the CLAYMORE manga.

VAMPIRELLA is another possibility. My impression is that the original Warren series is just okay formula, and most of the Harris follow-ups are not any more ambitious. But as I said in my February review of an early Vampi story, there's a lot of good potential in the concept, not least because Vampirella was one of the earliest "bad girls" to get her own featured series. There have been several reboots of the character over the years, so there's at least the possibility of some good myths.

I've also sampled bits and pieces of HARLEY QUINN features, but so far, nothing that has proved mythic, despite the immense popularity of the character. I read BATMAN: THEIR DARK DESIGNS, wherein Harley meets the new Joker-henchwoman PUNCHLINE, who seems to be garnering her own following, but DESIGNS was not quite complex enough to fit my myth-list, though my jury's still out on this "anti-Harley-Quinn."