This book doesn’t offer much on the surface. Its called Marvel Divas, which is a terrible name, even more terribly justified by Joe Quesada recently. The cover is done by one the world’s foremost cheesecake merchants, J Scott Campbell and all the characters are what could easily be described as niche.

However I was very much looking forward to this book. Not because of the cheese cake cover or the ridiculous name but because I was up for reading some genuinely interesting and strong female characters that weren’t all about 100% action. Unfortunately I was disappointed.

The characters seem just like normal men in women’s bodies. They seem to crack wise pretty much all the time and divide their time between being horn dogs and embittered about their love lives and other more famous superheroes. I’m not saying that I think women can’t or shouldn’t be funny or overtly sexual but do all of them have to be like that? I have a lot of female friends and while I don’t know how they act when I am not around, they are not even remotely like that when I am. I might be selling women short and being inadvertently sexist but in the end I just felt like I was sitting in on a bitching session with a bunch of bitter, disaffected women.

For my personal tastes, in life and in comic books, I have no interest in that kind of story. In the book’s defence the art is very good and suits the quieter social nature of this book well. It is certainly more suitable than DC’s attempt at a similar book in Gotham City Sirens. Where DC succeed however is that their characters are more interestingly portrayed and it includes some superheroing. I’m not saying every book by Marvel and DC has to feature superheroing but if it doesnt it has to pretty damn good to make up for it.

I understand why and agree with some people who have described this as Sex and the City for comics and it seems like it should be. The primary differences between this and the tv show are that the characters have a lot more time for development from episode to episode and thus are more interesting Carrie Bradshaw et al are much different from each other, again making them more interesting and most importantly watching tv is free. I might be more inclined to read this and give it a chance to grow the characters beyond, who they find hot, how they don’t like being near their more famous/better peers and how the men they are with are weird/jerks if it were not so expensive. I feel like maybe I am being a little harsh on this book but $3.99 is a lot to listen to people bitch about how their lives aren’t satisfying. I can get that for free at home.