“Polly want a chemical-free, sterilized cracker?” - Louise Baltimore, Millennium

By Rhea Dee

I know very little about superhero comics. Very little. I only read a few comics myself, like Buffy Season Eight, The Boys, Angel: After the Fall, and various indie comics penned by indie minds like Daniel Clowes and Adrian Tomine. When it comes to superhero comics, the best I can offer is knowledge on the Dazzler, an aspiring singer with the power of ‘super light show’. Also, she works at a roller-skate disco. (She’s since evolved past roller disco, but in the early 80’s…you know).

I do, however, go see tons of superhero movies. They’re fun movies that let me take a peek into the superhero world without having to shuffle through hundreds of back issues (what can I say? I’m a visual/lazy girl).

Which is why I would like to ask a question to those dedicated superhero comic geeks: are the girlfriends in superhero comics as effing lame as they are in the movies?

Let’s take a look at Mary Jane Watson, who I’m very unimpressed with. (Then again, I dislike Kirsten Dunst a lot. But I have been known to like her when her character is likable.) She’s first portrayed as fickle, and when she made up her mind to choose Peter, he rejects her. Then she gets pissy at Peter for missing her play, acting like a weird obsessive girlfriend when Peter isn’t even her boyfriend (and she’s engaged to someone else). Then she finds out about Peter’s true self, and gets angry when Peter basks in the glory of Spider-Man when he should be supportive of her rejection from her play.

That’s really great, Spider-Man. You had a chance at a cool woman character and you blew it by instead making her super annoying. I’m surprised she didn’t stamp her foot when Peter upstaged her singing act, with the way you were going. (I’m actually really glad he did upstage her though, ‘cause I really did not want to hear Dunst butcher Fever).

And Mary Jane Watson isn’t the only girl given this fickle yet pouty girlfriend attitude. Invisible Girl (from Fantastic 4) and Lois Lane (from Superman Returns…Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane rises above) are a few notable ones. And if you’re not pouty and fickle, you die and possibly get a wonky spin-off sequel (Elektra from Daredevil).

But before all could be lost, there is Pepper Potts, Tony Stark’s (aka Iron Man) assistant. When she first sauntered on screen, I was slightly worried that she would be nothing more than a flustered secretary harboring a secret crush on the playboy Stark. But then came the scene that made Pepper Potts rise above:

Stark’s recent fling is walking around his apartment, looking for him. She instead encounters Pepper, who is holding the woman’s clothes which have been dry-cleaned and pressed. The woman, a reporter, knows Pepper, and sneers at Pepper’s menial tasks that she performs on behalf of Stark.

But instead of flustering about, or standing there with her mouth open while the reporter walks away, Pepper looks at her coolly and says that she indeed still arranges the dry-cleaning.

“I also take out the trash from time to time,” she adds, clearly not phased by the woman’s remarks and laying in one of her own.

I blinked. Did Pepper Potts just totally snark that lady?

And this is apparently a big facet of Pepper’s personality. She never disapproves of Stark’s activities or his apparent lack of care, instead taking it all in stride. I was shocked to discover that when Pepper and Stark talked, they treated each other as equals, despite the fact that Stark was Pepper’s boss.

I started to worry that Pepper would lose some of her cool factor once she started to fall for Stark (which I perceived as inevitable). However, when the two shared an intimate moment (dancing, by the way, very classy) instead of falling into it, Pepper spent most of it fretting about how her dancing with Stark looked to everyone else, and how that made her look like one of his ‘women.’ Stark doesn’t chide her worries or even her advances (she leans forward to kiss him at one point and then seems to snap out of her stupor). It’s fascinating to watch Pepper wrestle with the intimate moment awkwardly, rather than act in a fickle, pouty manner.

She even helps Stark in his heroic cause. She may not be a superhero, but she definitely can keep her cool in threatening situations. No flustering about for this woman.

I suppose I should say at this point that Pepper doesn’t really count as a superhero girlfriend (the romance I at first saw as ‘inevitable’ didn’t actually happen. No passionate kiss with Stark at the end of the film for Pepper). But there was some romantic tension between the two, and I think it was made all the more interesting because Pepper’s character is treated with such respect. (At the end, when Stark brings up the night they danced, Pepper reminds him that while it was nice, he did accidentally forget about her and leave her alone.) Surprising how that makes you actually want to see them get together.

Pepper has opened my eyes to a world of superhero girlfriends that rise above the “empowering” moment of running to your true love in your wedding dress (again with Spider-Man, I know, but good God, what the hell was that?). Superhero movies, please take note. The future of female characters in your genre lies in the mind of Pepper Potts, assistant to Tony Stark.

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Rhea Dee loves being a geek. She also loves female revenge flicks, campy horror, trashy novels and rock ‘n’ roll records. Rhea’s love for rock ‘n’ roll led her to be a regular contributor for the now defunct Now Wave webzine. She’s all about Edgar Wright. Important to know.