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Top 5 Wednesday: Independent Ladies

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme from Goodreads and this week the topic is: favorite leading ladies who aren’t distracted from getting shit done by their love interest.

Princess Leia from Star Wars

Princess Leia was getting shit done before a certain flyboy and scoundrel came into her life! She was a member of the Imperial Senate and a member of the Rebel Alliance when she was just a teenager and later became a General of the resistance. Her romance and later marriage to Han Solo were fit in between her amazing adventures.

Wonder Woman from the Kingdom Come storyline

When a new generation of heroes was failing and an impending apocalyptic event looms, Wonder Woman comes out of retirement to retrieve Superman who was in seclusion to save the world. The two of them, plus Batman, put everything right again and only after that does a romance between Diana and Clark develop. Loved the epilogue of this story!

Tyleet from the ElfQuest saga

Tyleet is a favorite character of mine from the ElfQuest series who is kind, patient and steady. As a second generation of the Wolfrider clan, she was single for hundreds of years before she unexpectedly “recognized” (when two elves are drawn together to create a child) an older elf, Scouter. Despite her subsequent pregnancy Tyleet remained true to herself and in helping neighboring tribes of humans. Scouter learned to help her instead of stopping her from assisting those he had previously viewed as the enemy.

Officer Dana Cypress from the Revival series

Inexplicably, twenty three people come back to life in rural small town Wisconsin. Their new existence sets the town on edge, with media scrutiny, a government quarantine and religious fanatics taking over the region. Officer Dana Cypress, a single mother and daughter of the sheriff, is asked to head the unit looking into this phenomenon. A problem arises when she discovers her younger sister is one of the “revivers”. She meets a scientist who is there to study the undead, and he becomes a love interest, but it is completely secondary to her solving the mystery.

Faith Herbert aka Zephyr of the Harbinger Renegades

Faith is a kick ass heroine! Not your typical scantily clad model type superhero chick, she transcends that stereotype and it becomes a non-issue. In this series, Faith has taken a break from the Renegades to discover herself. She still fights crime, but works as a journalist as her alter-ego. A new romance with another hero Archer is hinted at but her friendships remain a priority. She is a worthy adversary of any super villain, with promising future story lines.  You go girl!

I love how all these women are examples of how a woman can remain true to themselves while in the midst of a relationship. Women should be partners with the men they love and not subvert who they are.  These five examples of independent ladies are fantastic role models!

-Nancy

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Faith: Hollywood & Vine

Faith is a kick ass heroine! Not your typical scantily clad model type superhero chick, she transcends that stereotype and it becomes a non-issue.

Faith Herbert aka Zephyr has actually been around in comics as part of the Harbinger Renegades through Valiant Comics since 1992. I was unaware of this series, as I have read almost nothing from Valiant. But a year ago, Faith was given her own stand alone series, and I took notice. Faith is a psiot,  a sub-species of humans that have evolved psychic/mind-based powers, and she also can fly as she is light as a feather. As such, I love the front cover, that juxtaposes the imagery of a large person being able to sit on phone wires, to showcase one of her powers.

This first volume tries to catch you up a bit on Faith and why she left the Harbinger team. It seems as if a romantic break up with one of the members and the fallout from an especially difficult mission has her wanting to spread her wings. She takes on a secret identity of Summer Smith to safeguard her Zephyr persona, and goes to work at a gossip magazine as a journalist. Sporting a red wig, she tries to balance being a working woman with deadlines and bills with making new friends, and just possibly starting a new romance.

She is more than willing to remain a super hero, and takes on a ring of dog nappers, along with aliens bent on world domination. All of this is done with a practicality, showing Faith as a real woman with issues and fantasy crushes. In fact, I love when she fantasies, for the art shifts to show the difference between her reality and her fantasy. Artist Francis Portela draws Faith in her real world, while Marguerite Sauvage takes over for the fantasy segments. I love this, for it shows while Faith may be fantasizing, and the art changes to a pastel hue with a more cutesy rendition of her, Faith doesn’t alter her appearance drastically (aka- her weight) even in her dreams. She is who she is, and is proud of her look. In fact, the artists make sure she is drawn wearing trendy clothes, no trying to camouflage who she is. I love that!

This is a solid start to a new series, and I’m glad that Valiant choose Faith to showcase. She is a worthy adversary of any super villain, with promising future story lines. She is positive role model to girls, on top of all that. You go girl!

-Nancy

Houser, Jody & Francis Portela & Marguerite Sauvage. Faith: Hollywood & Vine. 2016.

 

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