BOSTON- DC Comics has responded to a girl’s call for more female superheroes by immortalizing her as a costume-clad comic book character.

DC released artwork on Thursday of Rowan Hansen, 11, styled as a superhero in response to a letter she sent the comics publisher asking for better representation of women in comics.
Hansen’s original letter asked the company why it puts so much emphasis on male heroes like Superman and Batman while its fewer female characters received less attention in movies, comics, toys and television.

Hansen took issue in particular with DC’s handling of Wonder Woman, arguably the most iconic female superhero in the company’s comic line.

“There are Superman and Batman movies but not a Wonder Woman one,” Hansen said in her letter to DC. “You have a Flash TV show but not a Wonder Woman one. Marvel Comics made a movie about a talking tree and a raccoon (‘Guardians of the Galaxy’) awesome, but you haven’t made a movie with Wonder Woman.”

The fifth-grader says she was prompted to write her letter when she received a set of Justice League toys for her birthday. The toys came with a catalogue for other Justice League toys, and Hansen says she was surprised that only two of the 12 toys were women.

“Also the background for the girl figures was all pink and purple,” she wrote in her letter.
She concluded by calling for DC to pay more attention to characters like Hawkgirl and Catwoman.
“I love your comics, but I would love them a whole lot more if there were more girls,” she said.

Hansen’s letter went viral in January after a friend of her father’s wrote a blog post and spread it on Twitter.

DC responded to Hansen’s letter on Jan. 30 with a series of tweets, including one informing her that there is a Wonder Woman movie and a Supergirl television show in the works, along with “more exciting girl power announcements soon.”

The 11-year-old Hansen comes from a family of scholars. Her parents are both English professors at the University of Illinois, and her uncle is a professor of film and media studies at Baylor University.

Hansen told the Today show in the U.S. that she is excited to see herself as a comic book hero, but she still wants to see DC pay more attention to female superheroes.

And she’s not alone. The push has been on at DC and Marvel Comics in recent years to open up their superhero lines to broader audiences, including women and people of different cultural backgrounds. Marvel is at the forefront in comics at this point, with an all-female ‘Avengers’ title on the horizon and female and visible minority characters taking over the titles of Thor, Spider-Man and Captain America right now.

But DC appears poised to beat Marvel to the punch with the first big-budget, female-led superhero movie. ‘Wonder Woman’ is set for a June 23, 2017 release. Marvel’s female-led ‘Captain Marvel’ film is due out over a year later, on Nov. 2, 2018.

“There are Superman and Batman movies, but not a Wonder Woman one,” she writes. “You have a Flash TV show but not a Wonder Woman one. Marvel Comics made a movie about a talking tree and raccoon awesome, but you haven’t made a Wonder Woman movie.”

“Please do something about this, girls read comics too and they care,” she pleads.

Source:

Rowan Hansen female superheroes
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/34355/20150220/young-girl-writes-to-dc-in-support-of-more-girl-superheroes-so-dc-turned-her-into-one.htm

Rowan Hansen female superheroes: DC draws girl as superhero after call for more women in comics
http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2015/0220/DC-turns-female-fan-into-superheroine-but-there-is-still-more-work-to-do