Happy Woman's Day 2024

After starting this blog last year I have been somewhat infrequent but consistent enough to keep it alive weekly or monthly. Thanks to everyone who has supported it and lets rejoice in some action ladies, I am going to suggest other blogs and sites about action women that I have found.

Girlswithguns.org

This site is a very good compendium of action heroines, offering reviews of movies, tv shows, books and even some historical reviews. They are very consistent and their work is always enjoyable. 

Action Woman Fan

A somewhat recent but forgotten site, offering a countdown of the top 101 action villainesses! That's a lot of work! The uploader also has videos on each entry. Lots of great info there about lady villains. 

The Female Villains Wiki

Do you know any female baddies? Its probably in here. A whole database of evil women of all kinds with great info and pictures. Not a bad deal. 

I hope you guys enjoy these sites. Now, I am gonna leave you with some obligatory entries in the action lady subgenre, the top movies, at least according to me:

Here’s also some artwork featuring action ladies:

This first one features my own characters, Claudia and Monica, special agents who kick ass. 

My girl done by Alberto V

Gold Digger by Fred Perry

by PringusMcDingus

by Shabazik

by PaleoartStudios

by JunioMaia100

by nic011

by MetaDoodles

by UZOMISTUDIO

All of the artworks compiled belong to their respective owners. I do not claim ownhership of them

Fury of the Femizons: Savage Tales #1 - Review

One of the most influential and popular tropes in superhero comic books is the concept of the amazon world, a female civilization that opposes mankind and features strong women as their inhabitants and rulers. DC has Themyscira while Marvel has the subject of today’s post: Femizonia, a world where females rule with an iron fist.

Included within the pages of Savage Tales #1 we find the story titled Fury of the Femizons, written and created by Stan Lee, who was inspired by the women's liberation movement in the early seventies. It surely captivated readers who were living the feminist fight around the time. Femizonia became so influential it would eventually come up again and again in Marvel comics throughout the years, spawning the homonymous group of female villains and even Thundra herself. 

The story begins with an introduction to the female-lead world. In this first scene, a woman warrior is seen engaging in mortal combat with a fellow gladiatrix, the fierce Lyra executes her opponent, instigated by the surrounding females. Right out of the gate, Femizonia is established as a ruthless and merciless world where women have become cold and savage warriors with a lust for blood. Not a bad start, since it's already completely subverting the traditional ideas of femininity and womanhood that were predominant in the culture at the time but it kind of turns into a very villainizing portrayal of a female civilization.

Another stereotype unfolds as growing contempt dooms over the females at the top, particularly Lyra, who has antagonizing interactions with a fellow Femizon, Syrani. There's always betrayal and secret treason in these stories about women in power. 

Soon enough, Lyra begins to have strange doubts about her world and her place in it. A sense of discontent clouds her mind, she feels as if there's something wrong or missing in her life. Next thing she knows, a male slave revolts and tells her he has discovered secret tapes guarding humanity's occult past. 

At this point it is very obvious what the background here is, we are dealing with an alternate 23rd century where war drove humans to the downfall of the world of men and to the birth of the world of women. The male slave argues that women have been just as evil as men since they left most male children to die and kept a few as slaves. 

Both fall in love and as their relationship progresses Lyra begins to trust him and decides to join his cause and help the remaining men to have a better life. You know how this is gonna go, Lyra's intuition about something being wrong refers to an imbalance between the sexes in their world and she becomes fulfilled by her lover and new sense of justice. 

The man takes Lyra to meet his fellow rebels but it's a trick by Syrani who promptly calls Lyra a traitor and a battle between the defector Femizon and her fellow warriors begins. At the climax, Syrani takes Lyra and her man to the Queen and tests her alliance to Femizonia by telling her that if she isn't a traitor then she should kill the male slave and end the accusations. 

Of course, in this moment of truth the man insults Lyra and sacrifices himself to save the life of her beloved Femizon. The story ends with Lyra proving her loyalty to womankind and the Queen but lamenting the death of her man and her unfulfilled dreams of living in peace. 

Overall, it's a well structured and dramatically effective tragedy of the best kind, well illustrated and creative, tapping on topical subjects in a timeless story of an emotional search for love and justice. But perhaps a it's a little too antagonizing towards it's female characters, just kind of feels like a reactionary criticism towards radical feminism (the last line being particularly egregious), maybe Stan Lee wasn't going for that and was instead advocating for less misandry and more legitimate equality, which isn't a bad thing but it doesn't feel right to depict an all female world in such an extreme fashion. In contrast, the Amazons from DC were always portrayed positively and with affection, as we have seen in my previous reviews of the Wonder Woman comics, maybe that's why those became more popular with audiences over the years while the Femizons were mostly forgotten. Either way, the concept stuck around and branched off into several other storylines.

It's a quick and swift read that feels mandatory for comic book fans and those who like superheroines. High caliber fantasy with great designs for the female warriors and interesting lore.

Wonder Woman (1942): The original run (Part 5)

Here we meet one of the most popular villains when it comes to Wonder Woman, besides Cheetah, the misogynistic Dr. Psycho, a small enemy of all women.

We begin with Mars, the recurring villain, searching for a way to stop female equality on earth. He doesn't want women helping men at war, because it makes them stronger enemies. He asks Deception to hatch a scheme against them.

Deception soon finds the earthling named Doctor Psycho, a man of small stature and with a big head who was cheated on and hurt by his ex-lover, he was jailed and began to hate humanity, especially women. 

Wonder Woman goes to Dr. Psycho's new magic show. The villain does a lot of tricks, one of them involves bringing George Washington back from the grave, only to order men to leave women out of any responsibility because of their supposed incompetence and weakness. He predicts a devastating accident will occur soon because of a woman.

Diana is obviously mad about this, so she decides to investigate. However, the predicted accident actually happens, Trevor suspects that the evil doctor is behind this and goes to interrogate him but he is captured. Eventually, Wonder Woman also falls into the hands of the sinister Dr. Psycho, who tries to separate the soul from Wonder Woman's body.

The girls are tricked into looking incompetent in humiliating ways

Dr.Psycho trying to make Diana's body expel her soul.

Her friends go out to help her but they are then distracted by the villain. Wonder Woman frees herself and finds Dr. Psycho's wife, who is a medium (and was kidnapped), used by the villain for his nefarious plans.

Psycho is attacked by the girls and taken to prison.

Apparently, women intimidate the villain and weaken his mental powers.

Wonder Woman helping the medium

Dr. Psycho about to get beaten by the college girls.

Deception was jailed by Mars because he failed to execute his plan. He sends him to the Women’s Prison but he will soon learn that it was a huge mistake.   

Once in prison, Deception manipulates the women of mars to have a revolt, he helps them escape and creates a prison break with the females of mars.

The revolution is noticeable from earth and Diana is sent along with Paula to investigate, they ride a Sky Kanga ( a flying space kangaroo) in order to travel there. 

Once they get to Mars, the girls are captured by the army of Martian women. They chain Wonder Woman (whose great weakness is to be tied up by a man) and make her prisoner. Soon, the women rebel once more and attack Mars and his forces.

Wonder Woman and the women fight against the Martian army. Diana engages in hand-to-hand combat with Mars, and demonstrates her female power by knocking him out in one swift blow. The girls go back to their planet as the Martian women are free.

In the last Chapter, Dr. Psycho wants to escape his captivity, he wants to confess but he is gonna need his medium for it, so he makes the police officers look for his secretary in order to talk to her, they agreed because they think he will confess that way but he really just wants her in order to channel his powers and use his supernatural abilities. 

After that, Dr. Psycho is found dead while writing his confession. 

Wonder Woman investigates the villain's death. But some crazy guy who calls himself "Good Night" warns Trevor about his upcoming murder. He doesn't listen and thinks of him as some random lunatic, pero the guy actually comes back in order to kill him, the crazy man becomes ectoplasm and goes away. 

With this information, Wonder Woman goes to Psycho's grave in order to confirm his death. He attacks her while possessing another body and knocks her out. 

Etta and Trevor find the medium and free her from her mental prison, nullifying Psycho's powers, who is then catched by Wonder Woman. 

Likable issue, with lots of new lore, themes of sexism and a good new villain.