Neither Marvel nor DC, the two powerhouses that dominate the comics industry, has a great track record at gender diversity. According to 538, female characters account for only about one of four characters on the page, while there is only one woman writer for every ten male writers at DC and Marvel.
So news that Gamora and Wonder Woman will each star in a new series is a big step in the right direction for Marvel and DC both, if only a single step. The Guardians of the Galaxy movie will likely end up this year’s top-earner, so it’s no surprise that its heroine, Gamora (played by Zoe Saldana in the movie), will be spun off into her own story.
Nicole Perlman, the woman who thought up the idea for a Guardians film and co-wrote the script with director James Gunn, will write the comic book. It will be the forty-year-old Gamora character’s first time as the protagonist of her own story. Unfortunately, there’s no word yet on a release date for the first issue.
Back on Planet Earth, Wonder Woman will star in a new adventure based on the 1970s TV show. Titled Wonder Woman ’77, the series will debut via DC Digital this December and will be printed in two compilation issues in early 2015.
And if you haven’t yet read the New Yorker’s longread on the origins of Wonder Woman, a character who was inspired by birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger and originally intended as “psychological propaganda” for feminist progress, you’re missing out on one of the greatest (and weirdest and boldest) episodes from the annals of comic-book history.
