Gender, Feminism, and Heroism in Joss Whedon and John ...

none of the three constructions of feminism exemplified by these characters is perfect. In
the narrative, not only does each character face problems that inhibit her personal
feminism, but those problems arise in large part because of the feminist choices each has
made.
This premise raises several questions about the text and its place within
scholarship concerning female and feminist heroism. What, exactly, defines the different
feminist perspectives constructed in Emma, Kitty, and Danger, and how do those
perspectives interact with the constructions of gender and heroism in each character? In
what specific ways do their personal feminism both liberate and inhibit the characters,
and what is the significance of presenting each of these feminisms as useful but
imperfect? How is any specific form of feminism privileged over other forms of political
activism and/or ideology for women in the series, and what is the significance of such
privileging? Finally, with all of these questions in mind, what can the Astonishing X-Men
series contribute to the current understanding of female heroes and superheroes in media?
To be completely clear, I am asking these questions in relation to the text at hand
only. I am not, for example, considering the decades of Uncanny X-Men that preceded
Astonishing X-Men or the continuation of the Astonishing X-Men title after Whedon and
Cassaday stopped producing it, even though I do not deny that these texts affect and are
affected by each other. The exceedingly lengthy serial nature of comic book series
makes it somewhat difficult to establish boundaries around an object of analysis because
multiple time periods and producers inevitably inform each character. It is possible to
study characters over their entire fictional lifetime, which can be useful in understanding
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