According to modern usage, the term is "superheroines". And as we all know, proper use of a living language is determined by how people use it.

But I'm old-fashioned. So old-fashioned, I even think "media" is a plural noun, despite the fact that modern usage says it's so singular, I've become practically a crank for saying otherwise. Besides, in the case of "superheroine", I think modern usage, defying a general trend for the language to grow less sexist with time, is more so than the phrase I used as a headline.

I'll explain why with an example from my own experience. Years ago, I was a member of a committee putting together a science fiction convention. Another committee member suggested we invite someone to be that year's "female guest of honor", which the convention hadn't had before. There was a "pro guest of honor" and a "fan guest of honor", and this new one would give special recognition to the many women producing great science fiction.

I see it as the opposite. It's like telling the woman invited that she isn't good enough to be the guest of honor, but she can have a consolation prize. (Besides, creating multiple categories and having a "guest of honor" in each one cheapens the honor. Have lots of guests, even "special guests", but there can only be one real "guest of honor". I'll grudgingly admit it's legit to divide the honor into the natural categories of producers and consumers, i.e., "pro" and "fan", but — this is starting to turn into a completely separate polemic, isn't it? Let's get back to the point.)

(My suggestion of settling the matter by inviting a deserving woman to be the guest of honor was accepted, by the way.)

Just as having a female guest of honor as a separate category is demeaning to women, so having a separate word for a female hero makes it sound like women aren't quite "real" heroes.

But like I said, I'm old-fashioned. The word "heroine" properly, to an old-fashioned guy, refers not to a female hero, but to the female lead in a story with a male hero. In comic book terms, Lois Lane is a heroine, but Supergirl is a hero.

And it's a shame in another way that the word is associated only with female characters. Functionally, Steve Trevor started as the heroine of Wonder Woman. We need a word for that function, and "heroine" would be a perfectly good one, if it hadn't been diverted into that other use.

So that's why, unless someone who is not me used the word on my message board, you won't find the word "heroine" anywhere on this site, except in this blog entry. No ghettoizing here. A female hero is a hero, and that's that.

What brought this on is, I was doing a little research in The Great Women Superheroes, by Trina Robbins, our foremost researcher and writer on the female aspects of comics history, and she uses the word "superheroine" over and over. (That's an example, tho far from the first, of the usage that's made it correct.) I wanted to confirm that I'd written up all the female superheroes who started in August, 1941.

Like some others who have written about comics, I've been struck by how many superhero women debuted that month. Six or seven, in fact, depending on whether you call The Black Widow a hero. She either was, because she punished evildoers, or wasn't, because she worked directly for Satan.

I like to make flag-themed entries for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Usually that means flag-wearing superheroes, but last year's July 4 entry was Red, White & Blue. I don't call them "patriotic heroes", as many people do, because that would imply Phantom Lady and Wildfire (both of whom started in August, 1941, by the way) weren't patriotic. Superheroes don't get patriotic by wrapping themselves in the flag any more than politicians do. I may get tired of the schtick eventually. If so, it'll probably happen before I run out.

This year's flag wearers were Miss Victory and Miss America. Since I'd already done Nelvana, The Black Cat etc., I figured that completed the set. So I checked Robbins.

Wouldn't ya know! Pat Patriot, whom I knew about but was kind of hazy on the start date of, makes it seven or eight instead of just six or seven.

No, make that seven to nine — Hawkgirl, who first appeared as such in the Aug-Sept issue of All Star Comics, may not count because she was a mere sidekick, or may not count because that was only partly an August issue. The point is arguable. Anyway, I covered her in the Hawkman article.

I'll probably take care of Pat, another flag wearer, next year. Meanwhile, I'm more amazed than ever at how many superhero women chose that exact date to get their starts in comic books.

— DDM