If nothing else, Gender Through Comic Books is giving me a lot more to think about when I read comics and look at comic culture. One of the more recent discussions has been about the number of female characters with Girl in their name despite not being young girls. Look at Hawkgirl (who has had to change to Hawkwoman several times), Invisible Girl (who is now Invisible Woman), Batgirl (who became Oracle and then is back to Batgirl), Marvel Girl (who became Phoenix and stayed that way despite losing the Phoenix Force) and a few that don’t even come to mind. Girl is in no way equatable or respectable to “guy” or “man” and while in some cases there are ___ Women already but most of the time despite the female characters being in their 20s, there is no reason for the ___ girl name to stay and they didn’t change until decades later.
But another issue is the one of legacies coming into play. Batgirl, Batwoman, Hawkgirl, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk are all named for preexisting characters who their legacies come off from, but why keep the name? Should they keep the name? This isn’t an issue that is easy to bring up.