The New Mythology of Superheroines

The stories of most superheroines may not seem to have a strong connection to mythology at first consideration. In their adventures, superheroines battle organized crime, threats to the government, and evil demons; in their off-hours, superheroines are presented in their alter ego-forms as modern women with contemporary concerns and needs, fitting the time period in which they live. Mythology, on the other hand, is usually defined as the ancient stories of the gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman legends and sometimes includes Norse or Egyptian myths. In exploring superheroines, we have found that their stories, like those of superheroes, function as new mythologies in that they both draw upon mythological traditions and structures and introduce a mythological tradition of their own into popular culture.

Superheroines Stories Reinterpret Mythologies

The creators of some superheroines drew upon existing mythological traditions for the ideas of their stories. Dr. William Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, gave her this description at her first publication: "as lovely as Aphrodite ... as wise as Athena ... with the speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules." (Sensation Comics #2, Feb 1942) In the early Wonder Woman especially goddesses and gods appear as characters. For example, Athena and Aphrodite visit Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyte, who was in fact a character from Greek mythology. Queen Hippolyte is the leader of the Amazons, a tribe of women warriors, from whom Hercules must obtain an extraordinary belt as one of his twelve labors. Other mythological characters who appear in Wonder Woman stories include Artemis, Circe, Ares, Zeus, and Hera.

Xena's story is full of mythological references. In the show, as in Greek mythology, the Gods are always interfering with mortals. While Xena is a mortal, she has continual contact with the Gods. There are a number of episodes that incorporate Greek mythology into the plot. For example, in the first season Xena is summoned to the Underworld by a ghost of a past lover to help defeat the madman, Atyminius, who has stolen the Hades' Helmut of Invisibility. In another episode that same season, Xena is summoned by Helen of Troy to help end the bitter ten-year-long war between the Greeks and Trojans. Most of the time Xena fights on behalf of the Gods but in Season 5, Xena and Hercules fight Zeus. In the episode "God Fearing Child" (1/2000) Xena is pregnant with a child that will suppossedly upset the Olympian order. When Zeus and Hera find out, Hercules (Zeus' son) is forced to fight his father to protect Xena and her unborn child.

Superheroines are perhaps fashioned more on mythology than their creators consciously acknowledge. Gods and goddesses of old can be viewed as the personification of positive, as well as negative, human traits. As such, gods, goddesses demigods, and monsters function as the ultimate examples of strength, power, speed, and goodness or evil. It is against this cultural backdrop that superheroes and superheroines were created. The unusual transformation stories of superheroines and superheroes as well as their positions as the strongest, fastest, and best echo the characteristics of mythological heroines and heroes.

Superheroines Live in Their Own Mythological Structures

Generally the stories of superheroines take place in an alternative universe, a place that bears a strong resemblance to our reality, but that differs most importantly in that the existence of the superheroine is treated as a normal, everyday event, at least by some members of the population. In their alter ego forms, superheroines function as contributing members of society; hiding behind their human forms and names allows them to "pass" in society and also to observe the escalation of situations or problems for which their superheroine form and action would be required. For the most part, their alter egos have what appear to be regular jobs and lives: Wonder Woman is a nurse, the Bionic Woman and the X-men women are teachers or students as are Buffy and Super Girl. Xena is an exception in this area, as she is always a warrior, but her world while fully recognizable, is very different from our own. Even Supervillianesses have professions; Poison Ivy is a botanist while Catwoman in various incarnations is a professional thief, a socialite or a prostitute. Mystique, in her alter ego form of Raven Darkholme, is portrayed as a senator’s wife or a government agent. The obvious difference between our own reality and that inhabited by a superheroine is that in the superheroine's reality good and evil are clearly manifested and differentiated, and her alliances with the forces of good is a life-style determining relationship. The human population of the superheroine reality is a mirror image of our own, again, with the exception that those humans call on and depend upon the superheroine's commitment and skills to protect and save them from the forces of evil whenever necessary.

Part of what makes a superheroine story successful and interesting is the internal logic of the mythological world in which she lives. In CatWoman's world, there is a seemingly endless supply of world-famous jewels for her to plot to steal. Buffy's town of Sunnydale is conveniently located on the HellMouth, which explains the constant flow of demons for her to battle with and defeat. Unique to the mythology of Buffy's world is the tidy result which follows upon stabbing a vampire or other demon with a stake: they evaporate in a puff of dust, leaving no messy body to dispose of. In the Bionic Woman's mythology, the constant threat of foreign spy activity keeps Jaime busy.

In the mythological worlds of superheroines, evil is never banished completely or defeated permanently. The criminal put behind bars escapes or otherwise manages to return to continue the struggle of good versus evil.

Superheroines Function as Mythological Characters

Characters of superheroines like characters of myths in that their personalities are a sort of ‘cluster’ of personality traits, narrative and experiences. Mythological characters in some ways stand outside of their own narratives since the events of their lives do not necessarily happen linearly or build upon each other. Unlike the character in a novel who changes over time, a mythological character may be defeated in one story but rise again in another instance.

This is a useful characteristic for superheroines and superheroes since they can be flexibly reinvented when the character is determined to require updating or redefined as necessary in different media. This in part accounts for why individual superheroine and superhero characters can appear in multiple media with a variety of storylines, some of which even contradict each other. Wonder Woman of 1986, for example, was given a character overhaul: a new origin story, a new job (boutique owner) and a new mission. Yet she retained the essence of her character, her name and her attributes, enough to be clearly recognizable to her readers and fans. However, when that storyline did not prove to be as popular as other Wonder Woman stories, the line could be easily abandoned, and Wonder Woman just as easily restored to her previous storyline. We also noted the flexibility of a character like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who appears simultaneously in the television series and the comic book of the same name. The storyline of the comic book varies from that of the television show; characters who have moved on in the television series continue in the comic book.