Last week, a lot of people were not pleased, to put it incredibly lightly, with the new Catwoman and Red Hood and The Outlaws #1 issues as part of The New 52. In her excellent article over at ComicsAlliance, Laura Hudson outlined exactly what she feels is the frequent disrespect superhero comics have for its female characters and readers. And we don’t disagree. However, here at Comics! The Blog, we’re dedicated to talking about the best in comics, as completely subjectively decided by us, and so an article like Laura’s isn’t exactly in the cards.

Plus, did you see how good that article is? We’re not going to do as well, no sir. Or as good as a seven year-old Starfire fan’s response. Or as David Willis’ Shortpacked comic about it.

Instead, we decided that, as always, our voice was best spent talking about comics we like, ones that have wonderful female characters that we think people can get behind without having to feel like half the population is being somehow disrespected by what’s on the page. Some of the series below are superhero comics. Others are about spies or detectives or vampire murderers. One of them is about a wonderful little girl. Each one is one of our absolute favourites.

These aren’t the only series out there that feature wonderful female characters that are beautifully drawn. We don’t even get to Marvel, let alone exhausting it, DC, the smaller publishers or the wonderful world that is the internet. Just like the response to the articles above has shown that there are people who support a change in the current face of comics, there’s a lot of existing strength to build on. Comics, not even superhero ones, are not all like the ones at the source of the controversy. There’s stuff to love and hold dear to us as we make things better.

This is just the beginning.

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Queen and Country (Oni Press)
by Greg Rucka and various super-talented artists

One of Rucka’s best works, featuring one of his finest creations. In this series, we follow the life of Tara Chase, an operative of the Special Operations Section in Britain as she and her various cohorts deal with external threats and internal politics in order to make the world a better place.

Unlike most spy stories, there’s a slow building tension here. In the place of explosions are small, calculated moves, designed to go unnoticed. You know, like a real spy might do. There’s no gadgets, no flying cars, just good old fashioned talent and know-how - and at the center of it all, Tara Chase. She’s not the stereotypical spy story sex pot. She does not fall in bed with men because they can smile and wink. She’s a fully realized character, one with all the flaws you might find in the make-up of the male lead in a noir detective series, transposed onto a far more capable character. She has highs and lows, she drowns her sorrows, agonizes over victories. She’s amazing, and sadly, an anomaly. But that said, she still exists. There are four volumes of Queen and Country available, as well as three prose novels to be read. We suggest you get on that. (B)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Faith (Dark Horse Comics)
By Joss Whedon and a fantastic rotating cast of writers. Buffy art largely by Georges Jeanty, Angel art by Rebekah Isaacs

At this point, you probably know who Joss Whedon is and what his most famous franchise is because hey, you know what this site is and I have literally no idea how someone could know about this site and not Buffy the Flippin’ Vampire Slayer. You probably even know about the Buffy comics, too, but might still be wondering: are they any good? The answer is yes!

Starting with Season Eight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer took all the wide-open possibility that the TV series’ finale raised – a world full of slayers instead of just one – and ran with it. Buffy runs a worldwide paramilitary organization, but then vampires become cool and all of a sudden she’s running from the army or something. It is pretty exciting! It definitely works with the bigger palette that comics affords than TV, because there is no network telling you that exploding George Clooney is too expensive. Then, the end of the “season” blows things up (both figuratively and, I recall, literally). As Season Nine and the new series Angel and Faith are picking up, the series is dealing with the fallout of Season Eight, with a closer look at some great characters. And dang, how great they are! There is a reason this show enthralled me as a twelve year-old and has never, ever stopped: the incredible characters. The flawed, funny, incredibly human and immeasurably strong characters. I have been following these people for over half my life and I am not going to stop any time soon, they practically defined “strong female characters” for a generation. (J)

Manhunter (DC Comics)
by Marc Andreyko and various artists

Emerging almost out of nowhere, somewhat randomly without a big event or crossover to boost it, was Manhunter. Borrowing it’s title (and character name) from the various other Manhunters withing the DC universe, this one was different. Kate Spencer is a prosecutor in the DC Universe who is sick and tired of seeing these psychos sluffing off murder charges - and so she takes matters into her own hands. Stealing bits and pieces of costuming and weapons from an evidence locker, she becomes the Manhunter, a superhero who picks up where so-called Law and Order drops off.

Through the series, Kate handles herself wonderfully, even in the face of all the trouble coming her way. In addition to her real job as a prosecutor, she’s a mother to her son Ramsey, the product of a marriage that fell apart because… well, Kate works and she carries that work with her all the time. The relationship between Kate and her ex is portrayed as cordial, albeit strained. Clearly, there’s pain that exists there, but the characters are often times bigger than it, only sometimes succumbing to pettiness when the day has ground them down.

And then, of course, Kate is a superhero, who tries to take care of the bad guys. I say tries because as a new superhero, this doesn’t always work out. Sometimes, like all of us, she needs a little help from her friends - who in this case are a former henchman named Dylon, whom provides her with all her tech, and super crime spy Cameron Chase who is in many ways Kate’s confidant in the crazy world of superheroes. The book is brilliant, simultaneously building up a new character while bringing in aspects of the larger DC universe in such a way that doesn’t confuse or alienate readers who might not know or care about it. It’s a fine read that I would suggest to pretty much anyone. There are five volumes of this title, alongside a bit of uncollected work from the back pages of Streets of Gotham - and are well worth seeking out. (B)

Batgirl (Bryan Q. Miller version) (DC Comics)
Written by Bryan Q. Miller, art by some swank-ass dudes

This is a book that I think you could be pretty safe giving to almost anybody who thinks that superheroes are stupid and all the same, primarily because Stephanie Brown spends a lot of her time as Batgirl complaining about how stupid things are. She is also wickedly funny, incredibly smart and despite another life as the costumed hero Spoiler, still so amazed at all the insanity that happens in her life. She likes boys. She also likes punching motherfuckers. You see a lot more of the latter. Heck, in one issue, she and Supergirl have a “sleep-over” that basically turns into them fighting two dozen draculas, which is something you absolutely should read.

Bryan Q. Miller’s work with the character isn’t all draculas and motherfuckers, though. At its core, it’s about the relationship Stephanie has with the people in her life and her fight against the ones who have been telling her for years that she isn’t good enough. It’s about her learning to believe that she deserves the suit and showing other people that she does and if not, fuck them and fuck the grappling hook launcher they rode in on. It’s about her relationships with Barbara Gordon (Oracle) and Babs’ other protégé, Proxy. It’s about growing up into the kind of person who you want to be.

Okay, and it’s about teaching a young sociopath about being a kid using a moon bounce.

Yes, you should buy all of this. (J)

Courtney Crumrin (Oni Press)
by Ted Naifeh

Courtney Crumrin is a girl with a strange life. After her parents move in with her old Uncle Aloysius, she is forced to be a part of a new school - which is fine until, you know, some kids start getting eaten. After a light tussle with some night things, she discovers a fondness for magic and manages to get mixed up in a lot of different, wild adventures. Dangerous ones, where there’s a tangible sense of death skirting the edges of the story. The series is absolutely fantastic and if you’re looking for a book with a good role model, maybe one that plays into a love of Harry Potter, this book will definitely hit the spot. (B)

Birds of Prey (DC Comics)
Previously written by Gail Simone, currently written by Duane Swierczynski, art by various artists

At its most iconic, the series was about Barbara Gordon in her role as Oracle bringing together a team of badass female superheroes to fix the stuff the rest of the capes ‘n’ tights community couldn’t. It was also about the friendship between these fantastic women who would gladly die for one another, who held each other up when they needed it and got drunk and caroused when they’d earned it. With the exception of Barbara Gordon, who I’ve loved since I first saw Yvonne Craig swing across the screen in a beach house on the set of the 1960s Batman TV series, I didn’t really care who any of these characters of Black Canary, Huntress or Zinda Blake were until I read this book. To be honest, I thought of them as Batman’s supporting players. Then I started reading, and I was delighted to find that they were so much more. They were exciting! They were amazing! They were heroes. Now, they loom large in my imagination.

In its newest incarnation, just one issue in, Babs is less involved but Starling drives a car through a church to save a fellow, which is pretty okay by my books! It’s not the same as the old book, but it looks like it will keep the tradition of amazing women doing astonishing things. (J)

Amelia Rules!
by Jimmy Gownley

This one is one of my absolute favourite series. It features a girl named Amelia McBride, who has just moved to a new school after her parents get a divorce. What follows aren’t so much fantastic adventures, but small ones. The kinds that real kids have as they try to navigate a world filled with ideas and problems bigger than their minds can hold. In between bouts of pretending to be superheroes and fighting ninjas, the kids in this book deal with things like love, friendship, cancer, and parents going off to war. It does this without preaching any kind of mindset, but instead looking at the problems from where they stand. Sure, there are reasons for a person to go off to war, but forget all the politics for a little bit, and say its happening. Someone’s father is leaving, and hey, there stands a chance that he might not return. How do kids deal with that? What coping mechanisms can they use?

Everything about the book is fantastic, and what’s more, it starts a tweenage girl. Honestly, of the books that I have in the store, these ones always sell the fastest. Faster than Amulet (which is another series we should talk about one day), faster than Bone, and faster than the heaps of Archie graphic novels we have. They are amazing and delightful and perfect for all ages. (B)

Stumptown (Oni Press)
Written by Greg Rucka, art by Matthew Southworth

Dex Parios is maybe my favourite comic book character I have come across in my whole life that isn’t Spider-Man and Batman, and considering I wasn’t playing with a Dex toy while watching a Dex cartoon when I was six years old, I think that speaks volumes about her. Do you know what else I watched, though? Every single detective or crime show that A&E showed, from Banacek to The Rockford Files, and it’s the tradition of James Garner’s Jim Rockford that Dex follows in the pages of Stumptown.

She’s a PI who scrapes by the skin of her teeth, dragged down by her inability to learn from a Kenny Rogers song. When the owner of the casino offers to wipe out Dex’s debts if she finds the woman’s missing granddaughter, what choice does she have but to accept? Put into this position against her will, Dex nonetheless attacks the case with slyness that belies her ferocity. She takes a lot of punches – hell, the first time we meet her she’s getting shot – but she keeps pushing on, both for what’s right and because if she doesn’t, she won’t be able to take care of her little brother. She’s an incorrigible wiseass who survives in spite of that as much as she does because of it. She’s equally tough as hide and gentle when the situation calls for it. It’s like she stepped right out of the imagination of my youth. She’s the best there is at what she does, which often means getting beaten up. She’s just the best. (J)