1963

As we dive into what 1963 looked like for women in comics I’d like to say that Jean Grey obviously warrants her own article so she will not be included in this one, and of course if you are more interested in hearing this content please check out the Lady Comic Book History Podcast.

We get to start off talking about 1963 with Wasp otherwise known as Janet van Dyne she was created by Stan Lee, Ernie Hart, and Jack Kirby and first appeared in Tales to Astonish issue #44 in June of 1963 she is one of the founders of the Avengers. She co starred in Tales to Astonish from issue #44 to #69 (1963-1965) She also starred in her own backup feature in issues #51-58 in 1964. She is one of the longest running members of the Avengers and the second longest running leader of the team coming in behind Captain America. In her original iteration her ability to shrink and fly were granted to her by a biochemical procedure helped by the use of Pym Particles. The original wasps sting was also a miniature air gun. It was Janet and Hank that originally proposed forming a team of superheroes and Janet that gives the team it's name. And of course here comes the sexism, though they made Janet strong in the sense that she is always in the thick of battle despite her being the most underpowered member of the team, they also have her constantly comment on the attractiveness of her male team members in order to make Hank jealous and provoke him to commit to their relationship because being a woman desperate for a relationship is apparently a personality trait according to men who write comic books. They get married after Pym is revealed as Yellowjacket. However come the 80s her representation gets a lot stronger after she becomes leader of the Avengers and makes it a point to increase the number of women on the team recruiting She-Hulk and Monica Rambeau’s Captain Marvel. She has a brief relationship with Tony Stark until she finds out that he is Iron Man she very professionally says that she can’t date a colleague who is also a friend of her husband. After a brief hiatus from leading the team Janet returns to the avengers clashing with some of it's new members particularly Hercules who takes issue with a woman leading. Come the 2000s Janet takes up leading the Avengers again and under her leadership the number of women on the team outnumbers the number of Men for the first time in Avengers history. She appears in the major storylines, Avengers Disassembled, Civil War, Secret Avengers, Beyond and so many others she was also briefly a member of the West Coast Avengers leading them as well. Hank’s daughter Nadia also briefly had the title of the wasp but the most well known Wasp is Janet who we got to see in Ant Man and Wasp the movie.

Next up we have Ayla Ranzz who first appeared in Adventure Comics issue #308 in May of 1963 she is the twin sister of Lightning Lad and the younger sister of Lightning Lord. It's DC can you tell? All three gained their lightening powers after being attacked by creatures called lightening beasts on the lightening world of Korbal. For quite a while she was called Light Lass who gets kind of convoluted as we have come to expect from DC characters firstly Dream Girl used the science of her homeworld to change Alya’s abilities to making objects super lightweight or in other storylines and continuities anti-gravity powers. After nearly dying at the hands of Lightning Lord her original lightning powers were restored. During the Five Year Later storyline Ayla was in a relationship with Shrinking Violet, yes you heard that right same sex relationship from DC I mean applause for the representation and I honestly love the pairing but from a company that hasn’t got a firm grasp on gender representation I don’t really think trying sexuality representation was a great move. I will re-read that storyline so I can update yall on whether or not it was a respectful depiction or not, I don’t have super high hopes but ya know miracles happen. She loses and regains her lightning powers 2 more times and regains her gravity nullifying powers once more cause DC is fun…

3rd at bat, Night Girl this one is super brief because she was largely irrelevant and generally tossed to the side. Night Girl has super strength but only at night or by shadow, her powers are negated by the presence of ultraviolet energy. She was one of the founding members of the Legion of Substitute Superheroes which is the absolute most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And that's about it for NightGirl.

Also in 1963 we have Pepper Potts making her first appearance in Tales of Suspense issue #45 in September of 1963 created by Robert Bernstein, Stan Lee and Don Heck. Of course at her start she is a secretary who is infatuated with Stark because men that write comic books genuinely think that that's a female personality type, when in reality it's a tired sexist trope that needs to die. Anyway she was caught in a love triangle between Stark and Happy Hogan of which she chooses Hogan and marries him in Tales of Suspense issue #91. Pepper had a miscarraige due to the stress of being in possession of a remote that could shut Tony down if necessary from there her story really jumps a lot. Pepper eventually becomes Rescue using the suit Tony created specifically for her. She ends up playing a part as rescue in the Secret Empire storyline being among the superheroes that are part of the Underground where she is part of their resistance against Hydra. Pepper had a Stark tech mag-field generator implanted into her chest, it was not weaponized like Starks but rather non-weaponized electromagnetic technology allowing her to sense electromagnetic fields and manipulate them to levitate her body. She is largely depicted as the girlfriend and the sidekick and that definitely carried over into the film adaptations but we will possibly see more of her in Phase 4 now that Tony is out of the picture. I think they have a beautiful opportunity to really develop her character but we’ll see.

Next up we’ve got Spider Girl, she first appeared in a one shot story in the ongoing What If story which spawned fan interest leading to her getting a 12 issue limited series and the initial sales lead to it being an ongoing series but after the interest peaked sales started to drop. Her series was cancelled after 100 issues and relaunched as the Amazing Spider-Girl in October of 2006, that series was cancelled after 30 issues but due to the companies love for the character she was featured in the Amazing Spider-Man Family, gaining a solo series again as Spectacular Spider-Girl in 2009. The original Spider-Girl is May Parker who inherited many of her abilities from her father Peter Parker and has gotten featured in some of the alternate universe continuities such as Earth X. The spider verse is rich with amazing female characters and I am absolutely going to dedicate an episode to discussing them so there will be more on Spider Girl later.

Back to DC with Mera. Mera’s Silver Age debut was in Aquaman issue #11 in September of 1963 she was the former queen of dimension Aqua, Queen of Atlantis, and wife of Aquaman. She plays a major role in the Brightest Day/Darkest Night storylines (seriously guys one of the best DC storylines) with the new 52 relaunch, she becomes nothing more then the supportive wife who is considered useless by the general public and gets referred to as a mermaid as she follows Aquaman and tries to help him find his place in the world. So ya know unbelievably sexist and unnecessary.

Created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premaini we have Elasti-Girl who first appeared in My Greatest Adventure issue #80 in June of 1963. Rita Farr was an olympic swimmer turned hollywood actress who is exposed to unusual volcanic gases giving her the ability to expand or shrink her body at will from hundreds of feet tall to inches in height after gaining control over her powers she realizes that she can expand one limb at a time. She was a member of the Doom Patrol, this is DC if we haven't figured it out by the names. I would like to point out that once again we have a grown woman who was titled “girl” as a way to subconsciously infantilize women thereby enforcing the idea that even grown women need men to help and save them because they are incapable of not only taking care of themselves but saving anyone, it wasn’t till the most recent Doom Patrol series Rita changed her name to Elasti-woman.

Serci first appeared in Strange Takes issue #109 in June of 1963 due to a retcon to tie in the Eternals to the original Marvel universe. The most relevant continuity of Serci is the enchantress that first appeared in september of 1976 in The Eternals issue #3. Serci has the abilities of Earth’s Eternals though she focused most of her power into transmutational abilities and passed it off as illusion or magic over the centuries. Her psionic ability to rearrange the molecular structure of objects is far more vast than that of any other eternal. She has the ability to alter molecular and atomic structures of all matter including living organisms, she also has superhuman strength, stamina, durability, agility and reflexes. She can only be killed if her atoms are scattered.