Wonder woman, black widow and the Scarlet Witch fight for fangirls

Emily Pritchardis always looking high and low for Black Widow merchandise. For more than a year, she has struggled to find the first female superhero in Marvel’s “Avengers” movies on vitamin bottles or Popsicle boxes or sets of action figures.

“I found a backpack one time with everyone on it but Black Widow and that just infuriated me,” said the 29-year-old Dalton, Ga., copywriter. Last year she launched a tumblr site titled “Where is Black Widow?” chronicling examples of products featuring Thor,Captain America, and Hawkeye…but not the superheroine played byScarlett Johansson.

With Black Widow, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and the Scarlet Witch, Disney-owned Marvel Entertainment and Warner Bros.-owned DC Entertainment are solving that quest and tapping into the growing world of fangirls. After decades of producingcomics largely by and for men, these companies are making more female-led stories, putting out more female character merchandise and expanding on TV and in film.

“We take a measured approach and launch merchandise as consumers start to show demand,” says Paul Gitter, a senior vice president at Disney’s consumer products business. “Marvel has been based predominantly on a male demographic. But as female characters are coming front and center, we’ve been focused more on how to monetize them.”

In March, 18 of the 100 best-selling comic books featured women in title roles, according to the data website Comichron. “Black Widow” was highest, at No. 15, followed by a female version of Thor andHarley Quinn,the Batman villainess. That compares to 10 female-led titles among the top 100 in March of 2014 and eight in March 2011. About 40% of the opening weekend audiences forblockbuster comic-tie-in filmssuch as “Deadpool,” “Batman v Superman” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” are female, according to studio exit polls.

“When I came here we had one female-led title and it got canceled,” said Sana Amanat, an editor at Marvel who joined the company in 2009. Now, as of April, Marvel publishes 18 female-led titles.

On the big screen next summer, Warner will release “Wonder Woman,” the first superheroine film since the 2005 flop “Elektra.” Women such as Black Widow,Elizabeth Olson’s Scarlet Witch, andJennifer Lawrence’s Raven have played key supporting roles in team films like “X-Men.” But 36 superhero movies starring men will have been released in the time period between “Elektra” and “Wonder Woman.” Marvel is scheduled to premiere its first female-led movie, “Captain Marvel,” in 2019.

On TV, Warner now produces “Supergirl,” in its first season onCBS,and Marvel has “Agent Carter” on ABC and “Jessica Jones” onNetflix.

The changes are helping to inspire a more active fangirl culture. At the recentWonderCon pop culture convention in Los Angeles,Brittany Bautista,a 19-year-old college student, dressed as Harley Quinn. She was one of hundreds of women and girls elaborately made up as their favorite characters in the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Some dressed as Wonder Woman and Batgirl while others did their own takes on muscle-bound men like Captain America. “Girl characters used to suck,” Ms. Bautista says. “Having female characters is really important because you want to see other girls kicking ass.”

To sell to these passionate female fans, Marvel this year is expanding the number of its products featuring Black Widow, who plays a prominent role in “Captain America: Civil War,” which opens May 7.

The company is launching action figures, leather jackets, and young adult novels, hoping to expand on revenue gains tied to the character, which already doubled between 2013 and 2015. After playing a prominent role in several Marvel movies, Ms. Johansson’s character is now seen as an A-lister along with Iron Man and Thor, said Mr. Gitter.

The Scarlet Witch, a Marvel super-heroine who first appeared on screen in last year’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” on the other hand, is getting more new product tie-ins. They are still in a development phase. Women popular in the print comics but not yet seen on the big screen, such as the recently created Spider-Gwen, get fewer products, and they are geared more toward the convention-going crowd.

“When I started, all you could find at conventions were men’s clothes and maybe a couple of baby-doll T-shirts,” saysAshley Eckstein,head of fangirl clothing company, HerUniverse. Ms. Eckstein says she has spent years proving her credentials so that she could amass pop culture licenses for clothing aimed at women, which she calls a radically underserved demographic. In March, HerUniverse launched Marvel’s first line of activewear for women, which is sold atKohl’s.

Fangirls often prefer a more subtle look than the T-shirts with logos front and center worn by men, she says. In the HerUniverse Marvel line there is a sports bra with an Iron Man pattern along the trim, a tank top with a netted back inspired by Black Widow’s costume, and leggings that say “be a hero” along with a small Avengers-style logo.

“If I’m going to dress as Black Widow, I want to wear something inspired by her, not wear a picture of her,” said Ms. Eckstein. Showing off her own leather jacket inspired by Gwendoline Christie’s character Captain Phasma from the latest “Star Wars” film, she says, “I can wear this anywhere. You can only wear a logo T-shirt certain places.”

DC in February launched a new line of toys, supported by online videos and a TV special, called “Super Hero Girls,” which puts versions of the company’s characters such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Supergirl in a high-school setting.

“This program is analogous to what ‘Superfriends’ was to all of us growing up,” said DC Entertainment PresidentDiane Nelson,referring to the animated superhero TV show that ran between 1973 and 1986 and featured Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.

Part of the difficulty in creating female comic heroes is getting the right tone when it comes to attire, body-type and style, says Ms. Nelson. Many in the past have been voluptuous or scantily clad secondary figures. With the Super Hero Girls line, DC aims to get away from sexualized characters, but without overcompensating by making them “girlie,” Ms. Nelson says.

The DC Super Hero Girls Catwoman, for example, doesn’t have the heels or curves she has often been known for in comics. But DC also “avoided the temptation,” says Ms. Nelson, to color her bright purple, rather than the more character-appropriate black.

(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)