Thus far, 2019 has been a strong year for female and non-binary creators at Marvel Comics. And the streak goes back further than that, too. Marvel came out of the summer with some solid gains and by November they were pretty near the level they remain at today. That’s six months of decent representation now. Are there still WAY more dudes? Of course. It’s superhero comics. Change is slow. But this kind of consistency is rare, and encouraging to see. Let’s take a look at who’s doing what at Marvel this April:
- Alti Firmansyah: The Unstoppable Wasp #6 (interior art)
- Amanda Conner: Captain Marvel #4 (cover), War of the Realms #1 (variant cover)
- Amy Reeder: Ironheart #5 (cover)
- Ashley Witter: Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #1 (cover), X-23 #11 (cover)
- Audrey Mok: Marvel Rising #2 (cover)
- Carmen Carnero: Captain Marvel #4 (interior art)
- Erica Henderson: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #43 (cover)
- Eve L. Ewing: Ironheart #5 (writer), Marvel Team-Up #1 (writer)
- Gail Simone: Hotshots #2 (writer)
- Jen Bartel: Star Wars: Age of Rebellion Special #1 (variant cover)
- Jen Soska: Black Widow #4 (co-writer)
- Jody Houser: Star Wars: Tie Fighter #1 (writer)
- Kamome Shirahama: Hotshots #2 (variant cover)
- Kate Niemczyk: Age of Conan: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast #2 (interior art)
- Kelly Thompson: Captain Marvel #4 (writer), Mr. and Mrs. X #10 (writer), West Coast Avengers #10 (writer)
- Kirbi Fagan: Shuri #7 (cover)
- Leah Williams: Age of X-Man: X-Tremists #3 (writer)
- Mariko Tamaki: X-23 #11 (writer)
- Michelle Delecki: Age of X-Man: The Amazing Nightcrawler #3 (cover)
- Natacha Bustos: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #42 (cover)
- Nilah Magruder: Marvel Rising #2 (writer)
- Rachel Dodson: Star Wars: Age of Rebellion – Grand Moff Tarkin #1 (cover), Star Wars: Age of Rebellion – Princess Leia #1 (cover)
- Rainbow Rowell: Runaways #20 (writer)
- Rebekah Isaacs: Age of Conan: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast #2 (variant cover)
- Sana Takeda: Age of Conan: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast #2 (cover), War of the Realms #1 (variant cover)
- Savanna Ganucheau: Marvel Rising #2 (varaint cover)
- Seanan McGuire: Age of X-Man: The Amazing Nightcrawler #3 (writer), Spider-Gwen: Ghost-Spider #7 (writer)
- Stacey Lee: The Unstoppable Wasp #6 (cover)
- Sylvia Soska: Black Widow #4 (co-writer)
- Tini Howard: Age of Conan: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast #2 (writer), Thanos #1 (writer)
- Vita Ayala: Age of X-Man: Prisoner X #2 (writer), Shuri #7 (writer)
- Yasmime Putri: Avengers: No Road Home #8 (cover), Avengers: No Road Home #9 (cover), Avengers: No Road Home #10 (cover), Star Wars: Vader – Dark Visions #2 (variant cover), Uncanny X-Men #16 (variant cover)
That is a lot of names to spell correctly and books to italicize! All together there are 32 different female and non-binary creators set to work on 31 different books this April, the same number of creators as in March across four more titles. I’m not used to seeing steady numbers from Marvel in any form, much less at a relatively high level. This year has been solid for the publisher so far.
Also, we’re introducing a new element to these posts, where we look at the number of titles being released. DC’s trimmed back their line noticeably, and so an apples to apples comparison doesn’t really work so well anymore. This April, Marvel has 79 new books on their schedule, which means there are female and/or non-binary creators working on 39% of their titles. We’ll use that as a baseline for comparisons moving forward.
In terms of new names, April looks to be pretty quiet. For as far back as I’ve been keeping track, we’ve not seen Rebekah Isaacs at Marvel before. She’s got a variant cover on the new Age of Conan: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast spinoff. Savanna Ganucheau looks to be new as well, with another variant, this time on Marvel Rising. The rest of the list are regulars, I think.
It’s also a low key month for new female-led titles at the publisher, which is unfortunate because there certainly are a lot of new books. War of the Realms is kicking off, with all sorts of tie-in mini-series and the like. Few have any female or non-binary creators in the mix, and while there are a handful of female characters in a couple of the team books, it all looks a bit dude forward. I miss Lady Thor. Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is going to tie into the event, so there’s that, I suppose. And Ms. Marvel is starring alongside Spider-Man in a new Marvel Team-Up.
Overall, the numbers are steady at Marvel and female and non-binary creator representation is holding relatively strong. There remains, as always, a lot of room to grow, but this has been a decent streak for Marvel. I’m curious to see if they can keep it up or even hit higher levels in the months to come.
TIM HANLEY 