The Switch: 3 Classic Characters That Should Be Gender Swapped

[RossaLincoln]

The Switch: 3 Classic Characters That Should Be Gender Swapped

If Danger Mouse can do it, anyone can. Here are a few classics that would rule if the genders were reversed.

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[Falterfire]

For the first one: Never heard of him, so really no opinion.

For the second one: Huntress probably could be written this way, although as an almost-Bat her story arc normally curves towards the standard superhero Thou Shalt Not Kill mentality. Still, if I had to do a gender-swapped punisher, I'd just push Huntress a bit harder down that path. (Her portrayal on Arrow is most of the way there honestly)

As for the last one, the answer is simple: Bring back the Gail Simone version of Secret Six which featured Catman as a totally awesome character. He's really more a mirror to Batman than Catwoman, but still: There is a Catman, and (At least when Simone writes him) is a badass character that deserves more screen time.

Personally if I had to genderswap somebody, I'd give the Bat-cowl to Cassandra Cain. Don't care what they actually call the character as long as it's completely clear that it is now Cassandra Cain who is The Bat, the head crime-fighter in Gotham city. As long as Dick Grayson continues doing his Nightwing gig and we move to one of the points in continuity where Bruce is dead and/or indisposed, it's not even a hard line of succession to draw.

 

[dragonswarrior]

Catman and Female Punisher are things I would love to see.

Also, I really need to track down this Wonder Woman story sometime, I keep hearing about it and want to see if it's good...

 

[RossaLincoln]

Catman and Female Punisher are things I would love to see.

Also, I really need to track down this Wonder Woman story sometime, I keep hearing about it and want to see if it's good...

This is the comic in question:

http://www.amazon.com/DC-The-New-Frontier-VOL/dp/1401203507 It is quite good, and Darwyn Cook is very awesome, as you no doubt know.

 

[blackaesir]

I have wanted to see a seriously portrayed Catman for a while. Superheroes already wear form fitting outfits a lot of the time. Male "Tom Cats" are thought of as stealthy, aggressive fighters and a menance to other more pampered house cats in the real world. James Bond flirts with anything that moves between the ages of 18 and 40 and has two X chromosomes. Finally, I can think of countless martial arts styles that make use of open hand strikes where cat-like striking claws, which Catwoman is often portrayed as having, would make sense. Hell, in Batman Beyond the future bat suit has these built in. Terry uses them often. Its like the pieces are already there. They just need to be put together.

 

[wetfart]

Wasn't there already a female punisher? Lynn Michaels?

 

[psychopez]

In the new Ladybug anime, isn't there a sidekick/fellow super being called Catman?

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

Wasn't there already a female punisher? Lynn Michaels?

I remember there was this thing where Marvel goes manga and there was a Geisha Punisher.

http://www.robotboombox.com/articles/mangapunisher/400x596xcover.png.pagespeed.ic.XxhOYeNtbP.png

I don't think that's what the writer had in mind when he was talking about a female Punisher.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

There IS a gender-swapped Punisher. Rachel Cole-Alves? From the 2011 series? Seriously man, read a comic book.

Also, are you really listing the Nexus, who really isn't that awesome, instead of Green Lantern (who's kinda getting one anyway with Power Ring)? Hell you could even go nicher if you have to with something like Mandrill who's an awkwardly sexist character by design. Female ape controlling men? That'd be interesting, or at least comedic, even if it's basically what Spider-Woman does.

You could even talk about successful genderswap characters like Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers run is at least as good as Mar-Vell's, adventures in space ftw. Or Mia as Speedy (complete with required Green Arrow 'excessively realistic problem'). Or maybe Catman VS Catwoman as different gender takes on felines.

I dunno, not trying to be a dick but you coulda done better dude :-/

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Wasn't there already a female punisher? Lynn Michaels?

As well as the Mangaverse version and more recently Rachel Cole-Alves. There's... been quite a few female punishers.

 

[RossaLincoln]

Wasn't there already a female punisher? Lynn Michaels?

As well as the Mangaverse version and more recently Rachel Cole-Alves. There's... been quite a few female punishers.

Rachel is a Punisher sidekick/companion. She wasn't *The* Punisher. Same thing for Lynn Michaels. And yeah, the Mangaverse version isn't quite what I'm talking about here.

 

[shirkbot]

I'm not trying to be facetious, I genuinely have never understood why there's any reason to make a character 1 gender or the other. By all means gender swap whatever characters you like, I'm not going to say anything against it, but someone is going to have to explain to me how it changes the overall story. How does a female Punisher differ significantly in course of action from a male Punisher? Motivations may differ, but as far as I can tell the end result will be the same.

 

[softclocks]

We have Catman and we had female Punisher.

Just sayin'

 

[RossaLincoln]

We have Catman and we had female Punisher.

Just sayin'

Catman isn't really anything at all like Catwoman, aside from cat themed outfit. They briefly worked together of course, but he's a total misogynist so she ditched him. Definitely not what I'm talking about here. Also aside from the Mangaverse version, which isn't close to what I'm getting at here, the listed Women Punishers weren't *the* The Punisher, they were his companions/sidekicks.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Wasn't there already a female punisher? Lynn Michaels?

As well as the Mangaverse version and more recently Rachel Cole-Alves. There's... been quite a few female punishers.

Rachel is a Punisher sidekick/companion. She wasn't *The* Punisher. Same thing for Lynn Michaels. And yeah, the Mangaverse version isn't quite what I'm talking about here.

But she's got near enough the same backstory, at least as far as Rachel's goes. Her husband gets gunned down DURING her wedding, she swears vengeance and goes on the same rampage Frank Castle did. The only difference is she has Castle next to her as an example. Her last appearance I can recall is her wearing the skull shirt in another city and is pretty much Punisher in all but name. She could probably do with her own series to cement it, but she's a step-up from Microchip and other companions. The only way to be more Punisher is to do the same story minus Frank Castle.

(Lyn Michaels is a different story, imo, she's very much a 'Lady' Punisher which is reflected in her backstory and attitude. Like how Batgirl and Supergirl aren't genderswaps of Superman or Batman)

 

[Falterfire]

I'm not trying to be facetious, I genuinely have never understood why there's any reason to make a character 1 gender or the other. By all means gender swap whatever characters you like, I'm not going to say anything against it, but someone is going to have to explain to me how it changes the overall story. How does a female Punisher differ significantly in course of action from a male Punisher? Motivations may differ, but as far as I can tell the end result will be the same.

Because characters (especially comic book superheroes) don't exist in a vacuum but rather as a part of a larger world. Changing genders (or race or social class or nationality or any number of other things) in theory allows for stories to be told from more perspectives. Of course, as with any fictional story, how effective that is depends in large part on the author's experiences and knowledge and how skilled they are.

People (And, by extension, well written characters) react to each other based on a number of queues. As much as everybody would like to believe that they treat every single person ever identically with no thought given to anything besides actions we personally witness and words we hear them say, the truth is that most people would speak differently to a young attractive white woman wearing a dress than they would to a old overweight white guy wearing a three piece suit.

Having a character with a similar background but slightly different motivations can allow an author to tackle subjects based on how they believe the difference in both the character and how others would react to the character would change the story.

Of course, this requires a skilled writer. Done poorly, it can either end up as basically a frame-by-frame remake with a different set of paint on the lead or an overbearing or even offensively stereotypical story that hamfistedly tries to cram whatever point the author is trying to make down the reader's throat.

Regardless: Any time you change a character, you allow new stories to be told. Changing gender of a character is definitely a significant enough change that it should push the story down new paths. Even if you believe there are zero differences in any way between how anybody anywhere reacts to a man vs a woman, it may cause an author to approach the work differently and write different stories as a result.

Even if you as a reader have zero interest in gender/race/political politics, you still benefit from the potential for new stories to be written that tread new ground. (Of course, if they just unceremoniously dump your favorite character for the new version, feel free to be irritated)

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

A movie about a female Punisher already exists, but it goes by a different name: Kill Bill. Also, people liked it enough that it even got a better sequel!

Also, a Captain Jack Harkness in Gotham would be absolutely fantastic. I could easily see how it would go: Catman would constantly be flirting with Batwoman/girl (whichever is closer in age) who obviously would reciprocate to some degree. The funnest part of this however, would be when Batman encounters Catman during crimes. Batman is trying his best to fight back on dispense justice, but Catman spends the entire fight dancing around him, insisting that he (Batman) has to help hook up a date. Batman and Cat-whatever have always been frenemies, so this would be a fun situation where they essentially are bro-mancing or bro-fisting, but torn by wanting to protect family from relationships with delinquents (which would inevitably happen, because reasons).

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I am a card carrying feminist on just about every topic. Diversity, gender equality, tolerance, these are the principals I have lived my life by and I have no intention of changing any of that.

But for the love of God, don't change the Punisher. Please. It's bad enough he went on ghost busting adventures a few years back. I like the idea of a female centric Punisher-like character though. Just not Frank.

I'd be all for a PUNISHER INC. kind of book though. Where Frank teaches his trade to other survivors of violence and they go on their own criminal punishment adventures and such. I'd buy that kind of book in a heartbeat so long as they didn't make the female version a pointless cheesecake character. If she had some depth, I'd be there in a second.

 

[2xDouble]

First of all, there already is a Catman in the DC universe. Several of them, in fact, but the most notable is a Batman-like fighter (ex-wrestler, iirc) who currently trains "human-strength" members of the Justice League (such as Black Canary) in hand-to-hand combat and equivalent mixed martial arts to hold their own against super-powered opponents.

A "Catwoman-man" does sound like a neat idea, though it was done to death decades ago: The Scarlet Pimpernel, El Zorro, Robin Hood, every heroic pirate ever, James Bond... you get the idea. The "Dashing Rogue" is a centuries-old trope, and Catwoman is already the gender-swapped version of it. Could it be time to revive the trope (outside of trashy romance novels)? *shrug* eh... sure, why not. Knock yourselves out, ladies.

As far as a female Punisher... yeah, I could see that. I don't care about The Punisher in the slightest, and didn't particularly like Kill Bill (except for the amazing, over-the-top choreography), so I have no strong opinion on it either way. In my estimation, revenge for its own sake only goes so far as a motivation, and after that it's just mental illness. On the other hand, I find myself more invested in The Wolf Among Us than I would have expected, so maybe there's something to that. Who does the "revengeancing" is largely irrelevant, so long as they have the requisite tragedy and can justify continuing week after week after the initial push gets resolved. (I mean, come on... it's not that hard to find and kill someone when you know for a fact who it is and they aren't actively hiding from you.)

And Nexus... holy crap, does that sound stupid; not gender-swapping the character, the premise in general. Then again, the premise of Ghost Rider sounds pretty dumb too, and I kinda like that character... come to think of it, Ghost Rider is also "afflicted with justice" and could just as easily transfer to other people, but would that really change anything? (other than maybe the jacket) unlikely. Flaming skeletons don't really have gender anymore. (Yes, I know there are differences between male and female skeletal anatomy, but hardly dramatic enough in comic-book action context, right? Most people couldn't tell the differences at a glance.)

 

[octafish]

Not Punisher, because Punisher sucks, go for Marvel's real violent anti-hero Moon Knight, or Moon Dame as the case may be. I think there could be some interesting in universe discussion how most serial killers and most superheroes are men.