Man of Steel: Are superheroes the new gods? And like other religions, the world of superhero movies is a boys' club. If girls want to play, they have to content themselves with their screen equivalents being peripheral handmaidens or decorative grails, whose primary purpose is to be Mary to the superhero's Jesus (like Superman's Martha Kent or Spider-Man's Aunt May), or be kidnapped or otherwise imperilled (like Lois Lane or Gwen Stacy or Batman's Rachel Dawes) so the hero can demonstrate his powers by saving her. Admittedly he sometimes gets there too late (I'm diligently avoiding spoilers here) but this only emphasises her role as a disposable device whose chief function is to enable him to screw his courage to the sticking place. Of course, women get around this the way they've got around it from birth, though they're not always conscious of it - by mentally switching genders so they can empathise with Peter Parker rather than be stuck in Mary Jane's shoes. But it doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun to have a feisty female avatar every once in a while. It's true one of The Fantastic Four is Susan Storm, Invisible Woman, and that the X-Men movies feature female mutants as well as male ones, but they're part of the ensemble rather than heroines in their own right; at least one of them (Mystique) has a special ability that involves being naked, while in X-Men: First Class, set in 1962, Moira MacTaggert and Emma Frost apparently have the ability to foresee future fashion since they're wearing anachronistic micro-miniskirts. That's another feature of comic-book superheroines - while their male counterparts get to cover up (albeit in form-hugging unitards), the women are obliged to thrust out overdeveloped breasts and bottoms in skimpy costumes to placate the fanboy base, vociferous and internet-active apostles who shout down anyone who dares question their gospel and the way women are represented in it. And yes, Black Widow wears a leather suit to kick ass in Avengers Assemble, but even its writer-director, Joss Whedon, is aware his film comes up short on the oestrogen front. As he told The Daily Beast, "My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, 'My favourite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill' and I thought, Yeah, of course they were." Whedon, creator of prime TV superheroine Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was hired in 2005 to work on a Wonder Woman film, but quit after a couple of years because of "script differences" with the studio, which clearly knows best when it comes to feisty, funny, superheroines with interesting story arcs. Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in Avengers Assemble Latest names to be bandied around with regard to the long-gestating Wonder Woman project are Nicolas Winding Refn and Mad Men's Christina Hendricks (who appeared in the Danish-born director's Drive). Meanwhile, Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios executive and producer of Avengers Assemble, recently discussed with ew.com the possibility of a Marvel movie focused on a female character: "It's just a matter of finding the right storyline, the right filmmaker, the right time." Hey, Mr Feige! The right time is now! The success of The Hunger Games proves there's a market for action films headed by strong female characters, and there's a generation of young female audiences gagging for anything that suggests their lives aren't restricted to shopping for clothes and making goo-goo eyes at boys. Studios protest that superheroines don't make money, pointing to flops like Catwoman or Aeon Flux while conveniently ignoring the self-evident fact that movies with male leads can be flops as well. What they also conveniently forget is that the litany of superheroine flops, from Supergirl to Elektra, were written by men. Maybe it's time for them to hand the writing reins over to a Wonder Woman. Man of Steel is in cinemas now