Wonder Woman & Gamora Getting Their Own Digital Comic Series

It’s no secret that the world of comic books and superheroes is extremely male-dominated. But with the increasing number of women attending Comic Con events around the world, it’s time the industry stepped things up a notch.

There has been a lot of discussion on when Marvel Studios will finally release a superhero moving featuring a female lead. Since they issued a statement claiming “timing” being an issue, Sony Studios decided to capitalize on their procrastination and announce they will release a female superhero movie in 2017, and have bought the rights to Spiderwoman, Silver Sable and others.

With the success of movies like ‘Divergent’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ movie franchises showing how ridiculously popular a female-driven action fantasy flick can be, what’s the hold-up Hollywood? Well there’s good news coming, keep reading!

While we wait with baited breath for the highly-desired Black Widow movie which NEEDS to happen, we will turn elsewhere to other mediums and celebrate the small victories which we hope will eventually all pile up to one big win for gender equality in entertainment.

At New York Comic Con, DC Comics announced they will be released a Wonder Woman Digital Series.

“On the heels of the SENSATION COMICS FEATURING WONDER WOMAN launch will be WONDER WOMAN ’77, a new series based on the popular 1970s television show starring Lynda Carter. The series will be written by Marc Andreyko with several covers drawn by Nicola Scott. Additional artists for the project will be named in the coming weeks. WONDER WOMAN ’77 will debut digitally in December with six consecutive weekly chapters. These will be collected in two print issues to be released early in 2015. The series will then resume in the spring and appear periodically throughout the year.”

Just in time for Christmas, and we’re excited to see a female artist was picked, hopefully in a bid to prevent blunders like the recent release of Marvel’s Spiderwoman images which blatantly sexualized the character for no reason.

New Yorker magazine recently wrote about the origins of Wonder Woman, which might take you by surprise, but also reiterate why her presence in pop culture is important for feminism as much as it is entertainment.

Wonder Woman, famously played by Lynda Carter in the 1970s series and will be played by Gal Gadot in the forthcoming ‘Batman vs Superman’ movie, was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston who was inspired by feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a birth control advocate.

A press release explained, “Wonder Woman’ was conceived by Dr. Marston to set up a standard among children and young people of strong, free, courageous womanhood; to combat the idea that women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievement in athletics, occupations and professions monopolized by men” because “the only hope for civilization is the greater freedom, development and equality of women in all fields of human activity.” Marston put it this way: “Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world.”

If that wasn’t enough to satiate your desire, Warner Brothers studios made an announcement at New York Comic Con and revealed their superhero movie line-up all the way up until 2020. Guess who is coming to the big screen in 2017? You guessed it, a solo Wonder Woman movie starring Gal Gadot, which they plan on being a spin-off of the ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ movie. Looks like 2017 will be a benchmark year for female superheroes, and here’s hoping more will follow!

And it’s not just Wonder Woman who will soon be ruling the digital comic book work, as she will be joined by another female superhero: Gamora from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.

In another announcement made at New York Comic Con, Marvel said they will release a digital version of a Gamora comic series in spring 2015, and here’s the cool thing, it will be written by Nicole Perlman, the same woman who made headlines for being the first credited writer on a Marvel film for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.

It will be the first time Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana in the recent feature film) has gotten a title all to herself, as she has only previously been seen as an ensemble cast member in other comics.

It may only be a small step in the vast world of DC and Marvel comics, but to many female and male fans, it is a giant leap toward gender diversity in the superhero world, one which we hope will have a ripple effect in other areas of entertainment.