Meiran's Midnight Madness

Last one before I go to bed is a three for one sale: a selection of the ladies of Crossgen comics.

Crossgen was a comics publisher that sadly went bankrupt a few years back. There’s rumblings that Marvel is bringing back some of their titles, but I’m not at all surprised that they are starting with the titles that feature male main characters. They’re also apparently bringing back Mystic, but changing it significantly so we’ll see.

You see, one of the things Crossgen did best was the most kick ass heroines that were gracing comic book pages at the time.  They also employed a lot more women than most comic publishers to this day.

Featured here are:

Arwyn from Sojourn, a royal archer whose family is murdered in the beginning of the book, so she takes up her bow and arrow and tries to murder the man responsible. She fails the first time and is sent on an epic quest to find the only weapon that can kill him.  She has no special powers, though she does have basically an epic bow of awesome +10.  She’s just that damn good at what she does. *I’ll also point out that Arwyn usually was much more clothed than this. I just somehow only have this one cover image saved on this hard drive.

Sephie from Meridian, a teenager who is randomly gifted with the ability to heal and restore. When her father is murdered, she has to take off from the only home she’s ever known to become a pirate and a resistance fighter and regain control of her homeland from her corrupt uncle who has been given the power to destroy. I do knock a couple points off of Meridian for featuring a slightly stupid bit of love story.

Capricia from Crux, caretaker of the human race and one of the few survivors of Atlantis.  She is a master of the discipline of empathy, and chose to stay behind when most of her race transitioned to another type of existence.  When a malfunction kept the Atlanteans from waking until after the Earth has been abandoned, she has to defend the rest of the sleeping Atlaneans AND try to discover what happened in the intervening years.

Awesome women in comics are awesome. I’d love a few more of them. I also mourn the loss of an entirely new universe that really could have become something amazing and new while Marvel and DC continue to be rebooted and retconned so they can get anything done because their histories are so convoluted.  I love Marvel and DC, don’t get me wrong. But a whole new shared universe to play in? One where women were actually an equal power to the men and carried as many titles as male oriented stories? I guess it’s no wonder it didn’t last.

Edited to add: I just read that the re-imagining of Sigil is actually featuring a female protagonist instead of the guy from the original comic. This interests me greatly, will look into this book now.