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Bombshells: a love letter to DC’s female superheroes

A review of the comic book Bombshells

Bombshells.
DC Comics
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at the Atlantic.

Bombshells would be a Cinderella story if Cinderella wore motorcycle boots and traded in her ball gown for a leather jacket. The book is set in a universe where female superheroes like Batwoman, Mera, and Wonder Woman fight Nazis — these women are all that stand between Hitler and global domination. But they’re more than just a vintage, badass team of superpowered ladies styled as Vargas girls.

The creative duo of Marguerite Bennett and Marguerite Sauvage plays with the idea of living in a world where female superheroes aren’t merely derivatives of the male superheroes who came before them. The comic pokes fun at the idea of how women are presented by men — a meta-commentary on the decades of female comic book superheroes written and drawn by men. It’s a clever wrinkle, executed in a playful, intelligent, and deeply hilarious style.

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