March recognizes Women’s History Month. As a woman-run podcast about the MCU, we figured out what better way to celebrate such an important month than to take a brief dive into the women of Marvel comics. So let’s get right into it, shall we?

The first female superhero in Marvel comics was none other than Invisible Girl, aka Susan Storm, in 1961. As the 1970s came roaring in, so then did more female superheroes, although not always in positive ways. While their numbers were increasing, Marvel struggled with writing storylines for these early characters, such as Ms. Marvel (who is Carol in these early renditions), that weren’t grossly miscalculated and wrong. Luckily, in the case of Ms. Marvel and the horrific rape storyline, a writer later came in and changed how the situation was handled in the comics.

After this debacle, the mid-70s into the 80s began to see a change in how female heroines were written. They were becoming more powerful and assertive, taking on bigger roles in storylines and leadership roles. Most of this change can be seen in many well-known X-Men female characters like Storm and Jean Grey. Additionally, the changes in how the characters were written can be owed to Chris Claremont, who also was the writer to fix the Ms. Marvel story mentioned above.

As we move into the more modern age of comics, female superheroes continued to struggle with hyper-sexualized depictions of themselves along with the idea of being seen as sex objects. Heroes such as Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, and She-Hulk, among many others, have been drawn many times in revealing clothing or in sexual poses. As time continues to the present day, this has gotten better in some regards, although many female characters are still drawn as overly sexual.

While we aren’t discussing the history of women in the MCU today, I want to note that we have seen a similar battle take place in the on-screen adaptations. Starting with Black Widow, who has been one of the poster characters for the male gaze, we have seen that the beginning of the MCU did handle female characters in some ways very similar to the comics. There have been significant changes since 2008, especially since the debut of films like Captain Marvel and Black Panther, both of which had strong female characters written as powerful, independent individuals. As this theme continued into Phase 4 and hopefully Phase 5 and 6, the MCU, like the comics, is trying to move its’ female heroines into a new light.