Marvel Ladies

For the website, see Marvel Ladies (website).

Fandom
Name(s):	Marvel Ladies Marvel Women MCU Ladies MCU Women Ladies of Marvel Women of Marvel
Abbreviation(s):
Scope/Focus:	Female Characters from anything Marvel Comics and any of their titles, MCU: The Avengers Movieverse, Iron Man Movieverse, Captain America Movieverse, Guardians of the Galaxy, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Captain Marvel (film), Ant-Man and the Wasp Moviverse, Thor Movieverse, Spider-Man: Homecoming X-Men, X-Men Movieverse, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Evolution Spider-Man, Spider-Man Trilogy, The Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, Spider-Woman, Spider-Gwen Runaways Fantastic Four The Avengers (Marvel), Young Avengers Daredevil, Elektra, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Jessica Jones, Check out Marvel Wiki for a complete list of female characters
Date(s):
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Marvel Ladies is a subfandom of Marvel fandoms which focus on the Marvel female characters.

Fandom

Marvel Ladies subfandom of Marvel fandoms have always been quite popular, with the internet age from the late 1990s into the 2000s gave fans set sites to visit and share their fanworks or gather information for their favorite female characters. The various sites include Superwomen, The Women of the X, Marvel Ladies, The X-Women Community, DeviantArt and Tumblr are a few popular websites used for fanworks and as resources for the Marvel Ladies.

Marvelous Marvel Ladies Month was hosted on Tumblr during August 1-31 2013 as an Appreciation Week event. Ladies of the MCU hosted a MCU Ladies Week February 9-15 2015 [1].

Characters

Popular characters include many of the characters that have an animated or live-action counterpart, such as Jean Grey, Sue Storm, Ororo Monroe, Rogue, and Kitty Pryde.

The MCU fandom really influenced the popularity of some characters - Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts, Peggy Carter, and Darcy Lewis all became fandom favorites. With the release of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gained a few new female characters - Skye, Jemma Simmons and Melinda May, which parts of the fandom embraced. Although fairly popular before their first appearance in the universe, Sharon Carter and Bobbi Morse's interest increased. The Agent Carter fandom embraced Peggy already but also made Angie Martinelli and Dottie Underwood quite popular. Gamora, Sif, Jane Foster, Scarlet Witch, and Betty Ross are also quite common in fanworks. Ant-Man's film release brought a boost of interest in The Wasp - both versions: Hope van Dyne and Janet van Dyne, along with Cassie Lang. The characters Jessica Jones and Patsy Walker grew in popularity in fanworks with the release of Jessica Jones TV series in November 2015.

X-Men's fandom has always had a lot of popular female characters - such as Jean Grey, Ororo Monroe, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, and Mystique.

Spider-Man's fandom often brings in Mary Jane Watson, Felicia Hardy, and Gwen Stacy.

Other comic book characters that have yet gotten an animated or live-action counterpart that is still quite popular include Kate Bishop, Carol Danvers, She-Hulk, and Jessica Drew.

Common Tropes and Fanon

• Crossovers between the various individual movieverse fandoms such as MCU/Spider-Man Fantastic Four/X-Men are common since many of the characters work or have worked together in the comics.
  • Crossovers with the DC Ladies or fanworks that have both DC & Marvel ladies present are fairly common.
• Teamfic - teaming up multiple female characters in fanworks
• Friendship - Having multiple characters who may or may not have any screen time together become friends or have an established relationship between them. This is popular in the MCU, where fandom often has Pepper Potts, Maria Hill, and Natasha Romanoff best friends which was later included Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis and Betty Ross.
• Alternate Universes
  • Canon Divergence AUs
  • Genderswap male characters (Example: Antonia Stark)
• Fancasting or re-casting characters

Relationships

Although the Marvel Ladies subfandom often uses the most popular pairings, or even just the canon pairings (thus usually het ships), of the female character(s) in fanworks; femslash has always been active within the fandom although its much less common than slash or het. Femslash pairings such as Mystique/Destiny, Emma Frost/Jean Grey, Jean Grey/Ororo Munroe, Jean Grey/Sue Storm, Rogue/Kitty Pryde, Felicia Hardy/Mary Jane Watson, etc. have had followings for ages, but some of the newer Marvel characters/fandoms have established canon LGBT+ pairings including Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean/Julie Power, America Chavez/Kate Bishop, and Mary Jane Watson/Glory Grant. Some have became quite popular within their particular fandoms. Popular characters such as Felicia Hardy, Jessica Drew, Betsy Braddock, llyana Rasputina, Mary Jane Watson, and Jubilee have been revealed to be bi or lesbian, however it is often in an alternate universe setting within the Marvel comicsverse canon. Many Thor Movieverse fans are anticipating the Valkyrie's storyline in the 4th film due to her "search for a queen" and that the MCU will finally touch base on her being bisexual.

Marvel Ladies Femslash fans have or have had various websites such as Felicitas, X-Men Femslash, MCUFemslash/MCU-Femslash, and Marvelous Femslash to feature femslash fanworks. General websites such as LiveJournal, Archive of Our Own, Fanfiction.net, DeviantArt and Tumblr have been used as well.

Fanworks

Fics

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

MCU

• The Pit Stop by fartherfaster, “Avengers Assemble!” shouts Betty, with gusto. aka a theoretical AoU post-credits scene involving Jane, Darcy, and Betty.

Arts

• Marvel Ladies gifset
• Science Sisters Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Jemma Simmons, and Gwen Stacy are working on interstellar travel. They need a bit of help from Betty Ross.
• Marvel Girls by davidgozu, Jean and Ororo from XMM, Sue from F4 (film) and Elektra from the Elektra film

Comics:

• Women of Marvel in Color by ComfortLove
• Bad girls - Color by mikeljanin, Elektra, Black Widow, Black Cat, and Emma Frost

MCU:

• b o s s
• MCU Ladies Week: Day #6 - AU EVERYONE IS A LADY + THE AVENGERS
• "There’s gods. And the rest of us. What are we?”
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (AU-ish) - Missing scene
• MCU Ladies by Vylla Art

Vids

MCU/XMM/F4/Amazing Spider-Man

• This is What Makes us Girls
• run the world (girls)

MCU/XMM/F4/Elektra/Amazing Spider-Man

• No Fear

MCU/XMM/F4

• D A N G E R O U S
• Supergirl

MCU/XMM

• Salute
• C I R C U S

Animated Series

• The Women of Marvel
• Telephone

MCU

• I Don't Back Down
• bury me
• Salute
• One Woman Army
• Not Afraid
• One Woman Army
• Warrior
• One Woman Army
• Worth It
• warrior

X-Men

• If You Wanna Be My Lover
• They Have it Comming
• Women of X-Men Days of Future Past: Girl on Fire

Fanmix

• SHE’S A REBEL

Recs

• MCU that includes women in the main plot by phoenixyfriend

Zines

• Women of Marvel

Archives and Communites

• Felicitas, femslash archive

Livejournal

• The X-Women Community
• X-Men Femslash

Fannish Links

Tumblr

• Tumblr tags: Marvel Ladies, Marvel Women, Women of Marvel, Ladies of Marvel, Marvel Femslash
• Women of Marvel
• Marvel Ladies
• Marvel Women
• Ladies of the MCU
• Women of MCU (includes the other Marvel films: The Amazing Spider-Man and XMM)
• The Ladies of Marvel
• MCU Lady Appreciation
• Netflix Marvel Ladies
• AOS Ladies
• Fuck Yeah Shield Ladies
• MCU Femslash/MCU-Femslash
• Marvel Femslash Events
• Marvelous Femslash
• Marvel Femslash Bingo Blog

Websites

• The Women of the X
• The Women of X-Men Evolution
• Marvel Ladies

Resources

• List of Female Marvel Characters at Marvel Database
• List of Female Marvel Characters at Marvel official site
• Superwomen

References

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