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Entertainment September 7, 2017
The future is comic women.
Photos by @/daredvlI and @/The_Batwoman via TwitterDC Films have made a huge splash in 2017 after the DC movies from 2016, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad,” got mixed reviews.
But now, DC’s future looks bright with “Wonder Woman” breaking records with critics and gross sales. On top of that, there’s also the anticipated “Justice League” movie that’s less than two months away from release.
Even animated DC movies have made their own splash in the superhero world. “Teen Titans: The Judas Contract” made 2.4 million in sales domestically and “Justice League Dark” raked in 2.7 million domestically. This comic franchise is on a roll. And one thing they will always have over their competition, Marvel: their girl power.
For example, Wonder Woman just dethroned Marvel’s Spider-Man to be crowned the highest grossing superhero origin movie in the United States. She didn’t need any qualifiers like “highest grossing female superhero movie.” This female-led superhero movie achieved this honor and left her male competitors in the dust, Emma Watson MTV Awards style. And the diversity DC provides in this movie is a huge reason for this.
Need proof? Read on.
As a relatively diverse comic franchise, DC has a wide selection of female characters in their arsenal. In the current DCEU universe, they have Wonder Woman, Mera and Lois Lance as heroes. And as for their the antiheroes, they have Amanda Waller, Katana and Harley Quinn. Moreover, the latter anti-hero, Harley, will star in one of her own DC movies coming soon. David Ayer will still allegedly direct and write the predominantly female led movie, Gotham City Sirens. Moreover, the DC film will also feature Poison Ivy and Catwoman as Harley’s fellow “femme fatales,” stirring up trouble.
So, why not strike while the iron is hot and promote more amazing female characters?
For years, we have had male superhero movie after male superhero movie. However, now that we’ve seen the overwhelmingly positive reaction to diversity amongst young girls, empowered women and box office numbers, it wouldn’t hurt to include more powerful women in upcoming DC films.
Our article about Marvel and DC heroines also features a couple of women on this list. However, this list will contain in-depth information about each character’s background, powers and what they would add to the DCEU.
Black Canary‘s recent 70th anniversary shows just how much comic fans love her. She has two canon adaptations, Dinah Drake Lance, the first Black Canary, and Dinah Laurel Lance, Dinah Drake’s daughter.
However, Dinah Laurel Lance contains most of the recent development and is therefore more successful in the DC world. She’s trained with Ras Al Ghul, Wildcat and Lady Shiva. For a while during her comic and animated runs from various writers, she even replaced Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as head of the Justice League.
Depending on the adaptation, her powers and skills include:
Black Canary would be perfect for the upcoming Justice League, Wonder Woman and Batman DC films. As explained before, she has always been a part of the Justice League and she has even ran the league in Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman’s place.
Additionally, she adds a different facet to Wonder Woman and her brand of feminism. In a comic run by Gail Simone, she puts the two together and they make the funniest and most rewarding pair as sparring partners and friends. Additionally, Wonder Woman is the feminine type of feminist who chooses to adhere to certain gender norms. Whereas, Black Canary acts more like the tomboy type of feminist that takes more from traditional masculine gender norms.
This adds to the wonderful dynamic in their friendship. And lastly, she’d fit right in Batman’s world because she is similar to him in many ways. She likes to stalk in the darkness, she goes undercover a lot to investigate, she’s a supreme martial artist, a tactician and they both learned from Ras Al Ghul. Black Canary is also canonically best friends with Batgirl. So, she could fit in his world in that way as well.
Zatanna acts as both an entertainment magician and an actual sorceress that has legit super powers. Stemming from a line of other mages in her family, she knows how to master her powers at a young age and continues to grow with time and practice. She learns from ancient spell books in lost tombs or magic that exists in other worlds. She found her way into the crosshairs of the superhero market as she investigated the disappearance of her dad.
Depending on the adaptation, her powers and skills include:
Zatanna would be perfect for the upcoming Justice League and Batman DC films. In more adaptations than not, Zatanna acts as a Justice League member and fights alongside Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. In current DC movies, heroes have superpowers, but are not magical beings. It would create an interesting dynamic to see the League up against sorcerers that could face them head-on with magic.
In addition to Justice League, she could join Batman’s stories as a magical friend he calls on in his times of need. There are many adaptations of these two together and even one story that makes them childhood friends (although it was retconned later). Similar to Batman, Zatanna doesn’t like the fantastic much. A lot of her stories revolve around common stories like murder and theft.
Katherine Kane comes from a very wealthy family. However, just like Batman, she uses her money and resources to fight crime, rather than spending them on endless vacations.
As a lesbian, she’s especially important to the DC comics world because she’s one of the very few LGBTQ characters. Her character was originally introduced as a love interest for Batman. Because of this, Batwoman doesn’t have much of a fleshed out background for her character that can be charted across many adaptations.
Over time, however, she has grown immensely. She’s a superhero in her own right and she takes it upon herself to save Gotham every night when Batman leaves the city on personal or League business, which is pretty often.
Depending on the adaptation, her powers and skills include:
Batwoman would be perfect for the upcoming Batman DC films. As you read above, she is very similar to the Dark Knight. However, what we didn’t mention earlier is that she was inspired to become a vigilante because of Batman.
She was kicked out of the United States Military Academy for being a lesbian. And although her father, a colonel, still accepted her for who she was, she had trouble accepting that she couldn’t protect people because of her sexual orientation.
So, one drunken night when Batman saved her from a mugger, she realized she could do that for others. This kind of story would be a great way to introduce some diversity into the Batman cast since DC still vehemently denies that Batman is gay. It could also show a different side of Batman in the movie that doesn’t just strike fear in people.
Dr. Hoshi started as a goal-oriented scientist with a keen interest in astronomy and the effects of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Because of her obsession, she happened to be staring up at the stars as Monitor, a being that connects with all that’s positive in the universe, decided to make another hero on earth. This led to Dr. Light gaining all of her powers and later becoming the superhero that saved the world from Anti-Monitor, a being connected to all that’s negative in the universe.
Depending on the adaptation, her powers and skills include:
Dr. Hoshi would be perfect for the upcoming Justice League DC films. Her story mostly revolves around the crisis of Infinite Earths that includes Brainiac and Darkseid, two very common enemies of the league. Both individuals conquer and/or kill multiple earths, so it wouldn’t be a leap for the narrative of an upcoming movie to follow along the lines of that story.
It would give the Justice League a reason to expand their universe and unite many other Superheroes around the world as Marvel did with “Avengers: Infinity War.” It would be a film much further down the line, but it would be the perfect way to adapt Justice League Unlimited. There are only so many “worldly” villains that can take on the Justice League.
There have been two adaptations of for The Huntress. One is Helena Wayne, the daughter of Batman and Catwoman, and the other is, Helena Bertinelli, the one more commonly used in the DC universe today.
Helena Bertinelli’s Huntress was born into a huge mafia family that caused a lot of her grief. When she was a child, a rival mafia group kidnapped her and raped her to get to her father. To protect her, her father sent to the boarding school, where she dabbled in martial arts and archery. And later she watched her parents get murdered by the power hungry Steven Mandragora.
Depending on the adaptation, her powers include:
Huntress would be perfect for the upcoming Justice League and Batman DC films. Although she isn’t always associated with the Justice League, she has many adaptations where she joins the superhero team and fights crime. Many times, she goes off-script and doesn’t adhere to Superman’s never-kill policy. However, she’s always been a key asset because of her investigative skills.
She’s another character that is very similar to Batman. Her parents’ deaths prompted her to become a vigilante. She, more often than not, believes that villains should die, she’s a great martial artist and she uses weapons and guns in battle. So in a Batman film, she would probably work side by side with the Bats on a tough mission and act as his female counterpart.
What do you think of these characters? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us at @entity_mag.
