As with the companion volume of this series, Heroines of Film and Television, this suffers from a seriously skimpy introduction - it's the biggest failing of both books, I think. That said, I enjoyed this one a little more than the last. I think it's more focused: the bulk of the criticism here is directed at comic books, and while there's some directed at other literary forms, the comic essays are the main draw, and the most interesting. I wonder, honestly, if the comics focus should have merited its own volume. There's certainly enough material, and if the essays here can be a little repetitive, in that they often cover the same ground and the same characters, then an expanded volume might - perhaps counterintuitively - have opened up space for a more international take on the depiction of women in comics, instead of sticking rather heavily to the American-created superheroines as it does. Even so, the most interesting essay here, for me, is by Itir Erhart and Hande Eslen-Ziya, on the DC Comics character Janissary; the authors offer a fascinating discussion of how the debate around headscarves can be applied to a Turkish Muslim superheroine.