NEWS: Holy Moly, Wonder Woman Movie! (And Marvel News Too)

This week it is very good to be a woman who likes comic books. Or comic book movies. Or novels based on comic books. Basically, it's really good to be a woman this week. Why?

First, the BIG one. DC has officially announced a stand-alone Wonder Woman movie for 2017. For real. Officially. Starring Gal Gadot. 

Excuse me, I am having trouble breathing. What is air?

This comes as big news, of course, because DC's been waffling about whether or not to even bother trying to do a Wonder Woman movie for years now, and this announcement is totally out of the blue and just... Way, way more than I ever expected. There will be a Wonder Woman movie in my lifetime. Hrrrrrgh.

Also they announced a Jason Momoa lead Aquaman movie, and that's pretty cool too. I think he might be the first non-white person to get his own standalone superhero franchise. So that is super rad. Good on you, DC. For once I am happy with you. It feels weird, but it's true.

At New York Comicon this weekend, Marvel announced that it was adding a whole slew of new female-led titles to its comics roster. After the amazing success of Edge of the Spiderverse #2, which featured "Spider-Gwen", an alternate reality where Gwen Stacy was bitten by a radioactive spider and became a superhero who also happened to play the drums in an all girl punk band, Marvel has decided to use that comic as the start of a whole new series. Starting in January, we're going to get a full monthly comic devoted to Spider-Gwen. Even better? She will still be the drummer of The MaryJanes, and still be best friends with MJ. Yessss.

Marvel also announced that alongside their already running solo comics for Peter Quill and Rocket, after the blockbuster success of Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora is getting her own solo comic. Yay! It's reportedly going to get more in depth with her motivations in getting revenge on her "father" Thanos, will delve into her relationships with the other children of Thanos, and will feature lots of good old space adventuring assassin fun.

Black Widow might not be getting a movie yet, but she is getting her own young adult novel, following in the footsteps of She-Hulk and Rogue. I'll admit that I haven't yet read either of those novels (but I have the She-Hulk one on hold at my local library). Still, the book will be written by Margaret Stohl, who wrote the bestselling Beautiful Creatures series. So I'm pretty excited.

And yeah, the list keeps going. Peggy Carter isn't just getting her own show this winter with Agent Carter, she's also getting a solo comic: Original S.I.N. Well, I suppose it's technically not a solo comic, since she'll be sharing it with Howard Stark (the Dominic Cooper version), but still. Peggy and Howard fighting Nazis and all that cool stuff. It's meant to be a leadup to the actual premiere of Agent Carter, but I bet if we really try we can get it to be an ongoing. I mean, come on. We're ladies with a lot of purchasing power here. It's going to be written by Kathryn Immonen, who might not sound familiar, but should. She's the woman who wrote the spectacular Agent Carter one-shot that got this whole Peggy Carter ball rolling. All hail!

Finally, Marvel is putting out another new female-lead comic: Silk. This one will also be set in the Spiderverse, and will follow Cindy Moon, a woman bitten by the same radioactive spider that transformed Peter Parker. I don't know much more than that, but the art looks rad, and we can always use another WOC in our superhero world.

Basically the gist I'm getting is that Marvel and DC have finally both wised up to how much of their audience really is made up of women. We're here, and we have money. At last they have noticed us! This boon of new Marvel titles comes on the heels of the success of Ms. Marvel, the creation of female Thor and Sam Wilson taking over Captain America, as well as Spiderwoman getting her own title.

For DC, though, it's even more out of the blue. Granted, DC did just revamp its Batgirl comic, but aside from that there really hasn't been much to indicate that it's moving in a more progressive direction. Still waters run deep? I mean, historically DC has been much further behind on the diversity bandwagon, but it's nice to see them at least trying to catch up.

So, the basic gist? Wonder Woman movie. Black Widow novel. So. Many. Lady. Comics.

It's a beautiful day.