Cover to Marvel Her-Oes #1
It’s been a good month for female superheroes, first with the announcement of the Birds of Prey relaunch by DC and now with Marvel announcing a new comic featuring teen superheroines.
There’s one problem with the new Marvel project. The name.
Her-Oes.
First, the large “O” has an unfortunate implication all on it’s own and I don’t mean “Othello.” The second is take phonetic pronunciation of the two capital letters.
H.O.s.
Not exactly evoking what I’d want to associate with a fun, teen-centered comic. And we won’t even talk about why there needs to be an appallingly bad pun on “her.” I think the all-girl cover might just clue the reader in that there are female-types inside.
When I first heard about this project the grapevine, I thought it was an Onion story. No one could seriously come up not only with an ungainly name but a one that invoked unfortunate sexual imagery.
Wrong.
It sounds like a wonderful project. Featured in a New Jersey high school setting will be teen versions of the Wasp, She-Hulk, Namora (an Atlantean, passed off as an exchange student from Greece), and Ms. Marvel, among others. It’s written by Grace Randolph, who has credits at Marvel, DC and Boom Studios. In an interview, Randolph talks about how while she hopes the project will naturally appeal to girls and women that it’s also going to be a superhero comic, which means lots of action as well.
It would definitely be something my kids would read. If the eldest could stop snerking about the “O.”
Please, Marvel, just ditch the original name and replace it. It doesn’t have to be snazzy. It just has to not be appallingly awful. Even “Girl Power!” would be better.
