"I May Be A Girl, But I Can Still Kick Your Ass"

One thing I really like about the DC Universe is how many women can throw a damn punch.

That probably sounds weird, but I can explain. See I grew up on Sword and Sorcery fantasy. Which can be fun of course, but one thing that always tended to bother me was that if a man and a woman were teamed in those stories, the woman was always the damn magic user.

On cartoon shows, the woman was almost never the fighter. She was the damn token psychic (Cheetara from Thundercats, I'm looking at you, and your damn run really fast just to faint, and your stupid spin around and be psychic thing...it's not like Cheetahs are any more damn psychic than any other cat. Egads, Nara from Exo-Squard...and they never bothered to explain THAT one...). If one character was a magic user, it was 99% of the time the damn woman (curse you Pirates of Dark Water), if the whole group was, the woman always had less aggressive powers like healing or wind/water.

When I started comics, I was more of a Marvel fan. Things were a little better, most of the women kicked ass, power-wise at least. But they still tended to be more mental/magic-like in nature. Storm controls weather like a sorceress in a fantasy novel, Jean's a telekinetic, Sue's forcefields...they get the fun to improvise with, multiple use powers, but not particularly physical ones. And the She-Hulks and Rogues (with Ms. Marvel's power at least) are few and far between.

Anime/manga's a bit better about that. There are at least female characters that are good at fighting, martially inclined, and that sort. Of course, the fact that they still somehow manage to be stick thin, big breasted 16 year old girls tends to be annoying in and of itself.

But DC, I like DC. DC has women that are strong, that look strong (even if that can vary based on the artist.) DC has a Wonder Woman who usually looks like she could throw a damn punch, and isn't some tiny, delicate little girl. She's no magic user, no psychic...she hits things and they go down. Her mother had a sword that could split atoms. And both of her subordinate heroes are physical fighters as well.

DC has a Power Girl who is a physical powerhouse bigger than some of the men on her team. Hell, the JSA's primary physical fighters are Wildcat, Hawkgirl, Hawkman and Power Girl...and that's a dead even ratio.

Lady Shiva is the deadliest assassin, Cassandra Cain is the top martial artist, Selina Kyle is a cat-burgler/vigilante who can keep up with Batman.

In the Birds of Prey, you have an ex-Blackhawk, Gotham's deadliest vigilante, a woman who trained with Shiva and made a damn good showing against Deathstroke, and a wheelchair-using mastermind who is still more than capable of whacking you with a stick if you misbehave.

The little girl who'd spend hours hunting through bookstores to find stories that went against type: female warriors, male mages who weren't ancient Merlin/Gandalf ripoffs (or rarest upon rare, a teamup between a young male mage and a female warrior) would have loved these comics. I just wish it hadn't taken so long to get into them.