Oh, I guess we haven’t explained that when we’re talking about Captain Marvel, we’re talking about Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel. She used to go by Ms. Marvel and wear a more cheesecakey costume, but at some point Marvel Comics realized that they could rebrand her and sell more comics. She and the new Ms. Marvel (whose costume* is* based on a bathing suit, but a very modest one) are sort of Marvel’s flagship female heroes right now, and not just in the “Marvel” names.
If you’re willing to dive into the back issue bins, Peter David’s run on Supergirl was good. Nothing to do with Superman’s cousin BTW, this era’s Supergirl had different origins.
He also wrote Young Justice, which was a really good team book. It’s not all girls (and shouldn’t have to be) but there were as many girls on the team as boys once it got rolling, if you need that sort of thing for some reason. Every character in the book has their part to play, and if anything the guys occasionally don’t get as fleshed out because at the time they had their own solo books. There was a cartoon called Young Justice, but it wasn’t really based on this book at all, it was based on the (not that great) Teen Titans book that they put out after this got canceled, but since there was another cartoon called Teen Titans, I guess they didn’t want to confuse people or some other stupid reason.
Or Terrible Lizard from Oni Press which is a shockingly similar premise that’s been going on for around a year now.
I feel embarrassed for not mentioning Catwoman, who’s had various series off & on over the decades. I used to pick those up occasionally, too!
The most recent run is some kind of noir organized crime story, but you could argue that the Balent and Cooke eras were more superhero-like.
There was another Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, back in the eighties. Her power was she could turn herself into energy. Checking Wikipedia, I see she’s still around but she calls herself Spectrum now.
My daughter and I both loved Spider-Girl. The real one. Before there were all sorts of different Spidey-Characters.
The daughter of Peter and Mary Jane.
Who discovers she has powers in high school, but has to keep it from her (crippled) father: "With great power comes a week of time outs in your room, young lady!"
We also liked Mai, The Psychic Girl, Peter David’s* Supergirl* and *Impulse *(yeah, he’s a boy but he’s hilarious–a young Flash with a corresponding attention span).
Missed the edit to add another vote for Squirrel Girl. I’ve been buying armloads of Squirrel Girls to give all my friends.
But how about some books with guy heroes or teams that girls would like? Why are we assuming girls only want to read about other girls?
(Did girls all ignore the Harry Potter books just because it had a male protagonist?)*
*That’s precisely the kind of question we don’t need everyone to answer. Especially you dudes from The Pit. I see you, with your fingers on the mouse, thinking “This’ll be great, we’ve got two hundred Pitizens ready to post No. Ha!” It was rhetorical. Sheesh.
That’s a good question, actually.
Well, I’d say it matters in comic books more than in other media because I don’t want to hand a girl the kind of art a lot of comic books have that creators and fans take totally for granted. Not that you don’t get that in titles about female heroes (I’m looking at you, Spiderwoman) but you sure don’t in Ms. Marvel. So that’s a consideration you don’t get in non-graphic fiction.
She is way too young for Adam Warren’s Empowered, then.
KarlGrenze may be on to something with Nausicaa, but as a Miyazaki fan, I’m biased.
Because she specifically asked for female superhero comics, and the market is bristling with the other types.
I love Girl Genius
The Foglios’ creation is… well, genius, but good luck getting the books for less than $20 apiece!
You didn’t see me recommending the Rat Queens either, even though that’s another great series with strong female protagonists.
“Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld” had a young girl as its main character, as I recall, though she looked older in Gemworld.
There’s also JetCat and Bandette. I can’t swear either one is still in print, but Bandette was a digital release, so here’s hoping!
Has Mary Marvel ever been collected as a TPB? Specifically the 40s stuff by Otto Binder.
Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking have both been adapted to comic books, but not recently.
So many good suggestions! Yeah, I was going to suggest Rat Queens too - but then I realized she’s WAY too young for that lol.
The only one I haven’t seen that I’d suggest isLumberjanes. It’s very inclusive (two of the girls have a crush on each other, and one of the others is trans. They also are multicultural.) and fun! It’s about a bunch of Girl Scouts (called Lumberjane Scouts in the Comic) at Scout Camp fighting strange creatures and experiencing supernatural phenomena. It has received a lot of awards and I’d recommend it to any lady new to comics.