Just announced this month, DC Comics, Warner Bros., Mattel, and other partners will launch an entire new line of products for girls and tweens featuring DC Comics Super Heroes as girls: Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Katana, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Bumble Bee and Batgirl—depicted as multi-ethnic teenagers.
We’ll meet them and learn their stories, how each one of them came to have superpowers in her childhood and teen years. It seems that girls are taking over the DC Comics Universe of Super Heroes. At least they are finding they belong. Is this, “Bye, bye Barbie and hello Batgirl?” Or will we discover that Super Girls have the same impossibly tiny waists and other inhuman proportions squeezed into skimpy costumes?
Even so, it’s a good sign that merchandisers think that girls will identify with such strong, powerful iconic characters. But maybe girls are ready to take on the world beyond playtime and comics.
The Woman Wonder Tales in this project are not comic book stories, but based on real life challenges that girls, teens, and young women face. It will be interesting to see if Super Girls will face “super charged” challenges from an opposing cast of arch villains and fight against crime. Real life is not so black and white.