Liberated lady Tessa Thompson made a ballsy move while filming ‘Thor: Ragnarok’. Thompson, who plays new addition Valkyrie in the upcoming blockbuster marched right up to Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige and basically demanded her own movie. But she wants to share.
At a press conference for ‘Ragnarok’, Thompson and Feige recalled their conversation:
“Recently I marched up with a couple of other women who work in Marvel and [asked Kevin] ‘How about a movie with some female superheroes? Like all of them.’”
Feige added:
“It was a pretty amazing moment to be somewhere and have your shoulder be tapped and turn around find every female hero we have is standing there going, ‘How about it?’ And I said ‘yes.’”
Whaaaaaat?! Just like that?!
Let’s cool our jets. It sounds like this was just a conversation, but it sounds pretty good right? Thompson didn’t say who her companions were, but presumably they included some of the following: Scarlett Johansson, whose Black Widow has appeared in more films than many of her male counterparts, Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Evangeline Lilly (Hope Van Dyne, although she becomes The Wasp in next year’s ‘Ant-Man and The Wasp’) and possibly Karen Gillan (Nebula) and even Brie Larsen, whose ‘Captain Marvel’ will be the first solo female to get her own Marvel film in 2019. Other possibilities could include Hayley Atwell (Agent Peggy Carter), Emily VanCamp (Sharon Carter a.k.a. Agent 13), Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill) and even Gwyneth Paltrow, whose character Pepper Potts has a super identity called Rescue in the comics.
Any configuration of the above would be a force to be reckoned with.
Thompson went on to explain, “There’s a precedent for it in the comics with the Lady Liberators.” To which Feige responded, “Deep cut! Lady Liberators!” The same could arguably be said about ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and look how that turned out.
The Lady Liberators were a one-off alliance of The Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Black Widow and the ‘Inhumans” Medusa. The female heroes were brought together– and riled up– by Valkyrie. Except in this story, Valkyrie turned out to be the Avengers’ foe the Enchantress in disguise. In 2008, the She-Hulk assembled a newer version, which also included the likes of the real Valkyrie, Invisible Woman, Storm, Thundra, Spider-Woman, Tigra, and Hellcat.
Marvel has had other female teams over the years– the “Marvel Divas”, an all-female version of the X-Men, the Fearless Defenders (which also included Valkyrie) and most recently A-Force, which combined characters from various teams, including Dazzler from the X-Men and Nico Minoru of the Runaways.
Of course, Marvel Studios doesn’t have access to a huge chunk of those characters. The rights to some are held by other studios like 20th Century Fox, while others belong to Marvel TV, a separate entity. Then again, couldn’t this film be used to introduce a few new characters that Marvel Studios does have the rights to but haven’t yet used?
Anything is possible, but we already know that ‘Avengers 4’ which is now filming, is the end of Marvel Phase 3. Expect huge changes following that. But it’s highly unlikely that Marvel will scrap everything and start over, when characters like Captain Marvel and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) are just getting their starts. And of course, Spider-Man (Tom Holland) has just joined the party. They may recast Tony Stark, etc. or replace them, as they have in the comics, but don’t expect a complete do-over.
So perhaps there is hope for the Lady Liberators (or some other all-female collective) in the Cinematic Universe. What do you think? Would you like to see an all-female Marvel team on the big screen? Which characters should be in it?
In the meantime, Thompson’s Valkyrie makes her debut in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ which hits theaters November 3rd, 2017.
Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Collider
