Women in Comics: Starfire
Starfire, I could literally, not figuratively, write a book about her, and not even talk about what happened to the character in the Cartoon shows, or in the comics since the original series ended, actually I’m pretty ignorant about what happened to the character since the original series ended, but the original version of the character remains my favorite of all time, with her massive 80’s hair, hourglass figure, big round eyes, and endless optimism, despite years of slavery behind her, she continued to give people the benefit of the doubt, to remain curious as a child, and cheerful. Her people, a race of proud fierce warriors, have no body shaming issues, it’s a clothing optional planet where people give love freely, and everyone wears purple all the time, what could be better?
At the peak of the series initial commercial success in the early 1980’s, the New Teen Titans was not only DC’s best selling book, it was outselling X-men, it was the best selling comic on the American market and an international success as well, and Starfire was the most popular character, one journalist at the time called wrote: “…Nymph, stoic, and warrior, laced into one being, a wild sexuality, gentle innocence, and Samurai toughness, which all combine into one of the most quick-thinking authentically optimistic and well received characters in contemporary literature”.
That really happened. I recently found an old email where I was talking about that with Marv Wolfman the co-creator of the New Teen Titans. I couldn’t remember what magazine it was in, although I’m sure i have it somewhere, I asked him if he remembered, he said he remembered the quote but not the magazine and asked me to let him know when I dug it up, which I can’t recall if I ever did actually. d: Anyway, Koriand'r is awesome! she takes no guff! she knows she’s hot and thinks that’s great and all, but she’d be pretty boring if that’s all she was. She also comes from outer space, where you run into beings from all kinds of planets with different standards of beauty and knows not everyone is everyone else’s cup of tea and therefore that whole concept is only relative and has no inherent value. I’m thrilled that she has always been a positive role model for women and girls, and boys, and men, I really hope DC gets it’s act together, from what I can tell they’re doing much better in a lot of ways in terms of not just catering to older men who want cheesecake all the time, and trying to appeal to younger female readers who want superheroines who can pass the Bechdel test, wear practical clothing for kicking butt in, like the new Batgirl, the world will change for the better, I have optimism, I learned it from Starfire when I was a teenage boy.
Thank you so much @wonkeaux for this beautiful submission.
DC is getting their act together, and making more of the female heroes have practical outfits and better armor. I hope that many writers, working for DC and otherwise will make more inspirational female heroes!
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