Kelly Sue DeConnick Is the Coolest Woman in Comics

Carol Danvers isn’t the first Captain Marvel. She isn’t even the first woman to take on the mantle. She is, however, the Captain Marvel who is getting her own movie in 2018. It’s incredibly rare for an established hero to be overtaken in the popular imagination by a successor, but Kelly Sue’s 2012 character reinvention caught on quickly and moved Carol into the top tier of Marvel heroes. She’s even got her own fan club: the very active, very vocal Carol Corps, a loose organization that’s shown that women can be every bit as passionate about comics as the guys (not that you have to be a girl to join in). It’s no wonder: Carol’s got powers that put her on par with the toughest of her Avengers teammates, and her solo book is a unique blend of spacefaring action and offbeat humor. As a U.S. Air Force pilot, Carol brings a bit of Chuck Yeager and a bit of The Right Stuff to avenging evil. It has to be said: given a stellar line-up of powerful ladies in Marvel’s superhero firmament, it’s disappointing that it won’t be until their 20th (!) movie that we’ll see a female character’s name in the title, but Carol Danvers seems like a natural choice to make the jump—thanks largely to Kelly Sue’s stellar work on the character. Vol. 3, Alis Volat Propriis is out now.
Pretty Deadly

Kelly Sue has made her mark on mainstream superheroes, but she’s doing some of her most interesting work in other styles. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to pick any single genre in which to slot Image Comics’ Pretty Deadly. It’s kind of a hard-boiled western, augmented with fairy tale with elements of horror, mystery, and adventure. The story is, at the outset, one of dusty frontier towns, gunslingers, brothels, and redemption. But it’s a legend told by a dead rabbit to a butterfly, in which Death is a literal presence, and Death’s daughter is a main character. It’s a bit like a Sergio Leone fever dream, told in a fast-paced, lyrical style. It’s unlike any of Kelly Sue’s other books, and not like anything else out there. The collected Vol. 1 is out now, and the monthly series picks up again soon.

Bitch Planet

Last, but not least by any means, is Bitch Planet, also from Image Comics. It’s loud. It’s angry. It’s one of the most exciting things on the stands right now. In the very near future, women who don’t play by the rules are exiled to the Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, a space prison also known as…you guessed it: “Bitch Planet.” All sorts of women wind up there, from murderers to mouthy housewives, and they’re all doing what they can to survive. The book presents women’s prison exploitation tropes by way of dystopian science fiction, throwing it all into a blender to create a frothy drink with a flavor that’s completely unique. It’s funny, violent, and unashamedly feminist—each monthly issue even includes a guest essay, another way in which the book makes no apologies. And it’s not just a nutso genre mash-up: Kelly Sue’s best trick in Bitch Planet is  creating a cast of rich and diverse characters (in personality and body type) capable of, occasionally, breaking your heart.
What do you say, comics fans? Is KSD the best writer out there? The coolest? Or both?