Woman Crush Wednesday: Double Up!
Happy Wednesday nerds! This week, I feel like doubling up so today we get a double helping of awesomeness so be ready for a long read. One is a lover of Daredevil and the other is one of the smartest PoC in the Marvel Universe, so lets get into it!
Echo-Maya Lopez
On Monday I was scrolling through my twitter TL and came across this character profile on @theblerdgurl ‘s profile. I had never heard of her character before but I have seen one of the alias she had before. So I looked her up and found that she is a very interesting character.
Maya Lopez is Native American and was born deaf. Her father was a gangster (also Native American) and was secretly an enforcer for Kingpin. One day he was murdered under the Kingpin’s orders. He reached out to Maya, leaving a bloody hand print on her face. She was taken in by Fisk, who was impressed with her talents and had sent her to the best schools money could buy. As a result, she became very talented in many artistic fields.
Of course Kingpin decided to use her in one of his plots to kill Daredevil. Kingpin arranged for her to meet him since he knew Daredevil would be lonely after the recent death of Karen Page (sorry if I spoiled a comic storyline). He convinced her that it was Daredevil that killed her father and she turns out to be more than a match for Daredevil. After discovering that Matt Murdock and Daredevil was one in the same, Matt explained himself and she turned against Kingpin. Maya went on to be a valuable ally to the Avengers and New Avengers (which she joined). I wanted to highlight a Native heroine because there is an extreme lack of Native American heroes (at least in mainstream comics, Marvel, DC, etc). And it helps that she is a total badass at the same time!
Lunella Lafayette- Moongirl
I am hoping that by now most of you know who she is but the second WCW is Lunella Lafayette, better known as Moongirl. I admit, I haven’t read too much of her comic “Moongirl and Devil Dinosaur” but I have heard great things about it. Lunella is a brilliant young girl that lives on the Lower East side of Manhattan. Her nickname was Moongirl at her grade school because of her superior intellect and tendency to daydream and invent strange gadgets. Like a true nerd, she was interested in things that were strange and fantastic, which led to her interest in the Kree. She was obsessed and ended up building a device to detect Kree technology, which she used to find an Omni-Wave Projector hidden beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in the Financial District. “Elsewhere, long ago in Earth-78411, a New Folk named Thorn-Teeth was also revealed to be in possession of an Omni-Wave Projector they called the Nightstone. When one of Lunella’s teachers, Coach Hrbek, accidentally activated Lunella’s device, it opened a portal across space and time from Dinosaur World to Earth-616, allowing the Killer-Folk to cross over into present day New York City. Devil Dinosaur followed, looking to avenge the apparent death of his longtime companion Moon-Boy at the hands of Thorn-Teeth’s tribe”. (marvel.wikia) This is essentially how Lunella was paired up with Devil Dinosaur. Lunella’s story is extremely interesting, and I didn’t even get to the part where she is also an Inhuman (which is even more awesome). I wanted to make sure I highlighted this bright spot in Marvel comics because representation matters. Sure little girls can look up to other women superheroes but why not have them look up to those that LOOK like them and relate to them? Lunella is not even in high school and she is one of the smartest people in the entire Marvel Universe (that’s including Reed Richards AND Black Panther).
I hope you have a chance to read up on Moongirl and Devil Dinosaur as well as Echo (not sure if she has her own series though). Be sure to be on the lookout for gaming and streaming posts. I will continue to try my best to provide as much content as I can. Suggestions? Leave them in the comments! Until next time, Nerd Out!
