Things in the comic superhero world are changing. Ms. Marvel has been promoted to Captain Marvel. Thor is now a female. And Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are each getting their own movie. “These are three really huge steps for feminism and big hurdles that shouldn’t have been a big deal. Entertainment in general made it such a big deal because it flies in the face of what is normal,” says Bedrock City Comics employee and lifelong comics reader Taryn M. Gray. She’ll tackle these issues and more when she leads a pop culture talk,
“From Wonder Woman to Ms. Thor: Feminism in Comic Books.” Gray, who reviews comics and writes about Doctor Who for dorkshelf.com, uses Wonder Woman as a touchstone, examining how her character and society’s expectations of women have changed over the years.
We’re sure she’ll also discuss “women in refrigerators,” the all-too-common practice of having female characters killed, raped or de-powered or otherwise having their lives ruined in order to fuel a male character’s story line. (The term was coined by Batgirl and Wonder Woman comic book writer Gail Simone and references a 1994 Green Lantern story in which a male character comes home to find his girlfriend literally dismembered and stuffed in a refrigerator.)
3 p.m. University of Houston — Clear Lake, 2700 Bay Area Boulevard. For information, call 281‑283‑2578. Free.
Tue., March 3, 3 p.m., 2015