What Are Powers For? Deconstructing the Superhero in Strong Female Protagonist

In a world saturated with superhero movies and predictable narratives, Strong Female Protagonist emerges as a work that challenges the conventions of the genre and invites us to rethink what it really means to have power in contemporary society. This story doesn’t settle for showing defeated villains and saved cities; it goes much further, questioning the very foundations of heroism.

From Superhero Costume to College Textbooks: Alison Green’s Journey

Today, Brennan Lee Mulligan is widely recognized as a comedian and role-playing game master. His presence on the YouTube channel College Humor and the streaming service Dropout has made him a popular figure, especially for his role as game master in Dimension 20, one of the most successful role-playing game improvisation shows, primarily Dungeons & Dragons.

However, in 2016, his career at College Humor was just beginning. He was simply a recognizable face in the recurring role of the “CEO who progressively loses composure” of various fictional companies. At that time, his greatest recognition probably came from a small, though significant, superhero webcomic that published new pages twice a week: Strong Female Protagonist.

This comic constitutes a gem both in the history of webcomics and in the narrative evolution of the superhero genre. The plot centers on Alison Green, a 21-year-old college student with an extraordinary past as Mega Girl, literally the strongest teenager on the planet. As Mega Girl, Alison could perform impressive jumps, possessed superhuman strength, and a resistance to damage that made her practically invulnerable—capabilities that placed her on par with the most powerful superheroes in contemporary fiction.

During her time as Mega Girl, Alison was part of a superhero team clearly inspired by the Justice League, which acted in coordination with established power structures to defend values traditionally associated with the United States: justice, freedom, and security. Everything seemed to work perfectly in this classic genre scheme, until Alison began to deeply question the true usefulness and real impact of the work they were doing. This critical reflection led her to make a radical decision: to completely abandon the superhero life.

In an act almost unprecedented in traditional superhero narratives, Alison renounced the secret of her identity, publicly revealing that Mega Girl was actually Alison Green, and set out to live a relatively normal existence. The fascinating detail is that she never abandoned her fundamental desire to improve the world; she simply understood that perhaps the path of fists and superhuman powers wasn’t the answer. Are you passionate about creating characters with deep stories like Alison? Discover tools to bring your own protagonists to life here.

This is how, as she begins her adult college life, Alison seeks exactly the same thing that motivated her to abandon her superhero identity: finding a place where her actions have a genuine and meaningful impact on society, beyond the spectacle of confrontations with supervillains and battles through the city streets.

The Creative Collaboration That Challenged Genre Stereotypes

The brains behind Strong Female Protagonist are the aforementioned Brennan Lee Mulligan writing the scripts and the talented artist Molly Ostertag doing the drawings. Their collaboration began this project in 2012, opting for a black and white aesthetic that provided both a sober tone and a distinctive visual identity.

As the comic gained popularity among readers, the creative duo managed to conduct two successful crowdfunding campaigns through Kickstarter. These funds allowed them to make the leap from digital to print format, publishing two compilation volumes that consolidated the physical presence of the work in the publishing market.

The narrative structure of Strong Female Protagonist is conceived as an extensive graphic novel, divided into chapters of approximately 100 pages each. This organization implies that each chapter represents approximately one year of publication on the web, creating a slow but steady rhythm that allows for in-depth development of both the characters and the complex themes it addresses.

Mulligan and Ostertag’s approach clearly reflects their personal interests and social visions, raising fundamental questions about civil responsibility in the face of power inequalities, individual responsibility regarding the use of one’s own power, and the various possible interpretations of the concept of “social justice” in an increasingly intricate global context.

Through this prism, the work undertakes a deep and meticulous deconstruction of what it really means to be cataloged as a villain or as a hero, and of the complexities inherent in the desire to transform the world. This exploration materializes through the perspective of a progressive 21-year-old American woman, a social profile that constitutes practically a contemporary archetype, especially considering that the 2010s witnessed a genuine explosion of feminism in the United States, with special force on university campuses and movements like Me Too.

The creative relationship between Mulligan and Ostertag achieves a perfect balance between script and art, where the visual style complements the philosophical reflections and moral dilemmas posed by the story. The intelligent dialogues and expressive illustrations work in harmony to create moments of genuine emotion, humor, and psychological depth. Do you dream of mastering sequential art like Ostertag? Explore resources to improve your visual storytelling here.

Superheroes in the Age of Social Awareness: A Reflection of Our Time

Strong Female Protagonist stands out for its relevance to the social, political, and economic context in which it was published, achieving a connection with contemporary reality that few works in the superhero genre manage. However, this ability to reflect on and question society has historically been one of the great potential strengths of the genre, although it hasn’t always been utilized.

When reviewing the history of superhero comics, we find that some of the most successful and enduring characters have been those who managed to be politically relevant in their time: Spider-Man watching his friends being recruited to fight in Vietnam; Black Panther resisting Western colonizing advance; Susan Storm deciding to change her name from “Invisible Girl” to “Invisible Woman” as an affirmation of her evolution toward a more independent role in a changing world; or even Superman himself in his origins, pursuing corrupt bankers and industrialists during the Great Depression.

What makes Strong Female Protagonist truly fascinating is its courage to pose uncomfortable questions: What would happen if a set of powers as extraordinary as Superman’s fell upon a person who is not morally superior to the rest of humanity, but as complex, contradictory, and imperfect as any of us? What if that person also went through the emotional and psychological turbulence typical of adolescence? What if that person were, moreover, a woman in a society where standards and expectations are applied differentially according to gender?

These questions not only challenge the narrative conventions of the superhero genre but also invite us to reflect on our own conceptions of power, responsibility, and justice. At a historical moment where power imbalances (economic, political, social) are at the center of public debate, Strong Female Protagonist uses genre conventions to explore these issues from unexpected and revealing angles.

The work doesn’t offer simplistic or moralistic answers to these complex questions. Instead, it immerses us in Alison’s ethical and existential dilemmas, accompanying her in her search for purpose and meaningful impact beyond the superficial solutions offered by her former superhero identity. This reflective and nuanced approach is what distinguishes Strong Female Protagonist as a work that transcends the usual limitations of the genre to become a genuinely relevant social commentary.

The comic takes advantage of the narrative possibilities of the medium to examine how extraordinary powers would affect not only society in general but also the individual psychology and interpersonal relationships of those who possess them. From Alison’s perspective, we see how the possession of superhuman abilities not only implies the ability to face physical threats but also the burden of overwhelming responsibility and the isolation that comes with being fundamentally different from the rest of humanity.

Feminism, Power, and Expectations: The Additional Burden of Being a Woman and a Superheroine

Depending on the perspective from which it is analyzed, it could be argued that women have historically been relegated in the superhero universe or, alternatively, that they have been an integral part of it since its earliest days. The truth is that the undisputed reference figure among superheroines continues to be, almost a century after her creation, Wonder Woman. This character has maintained her iconic status despite the fact that the world of superheroes—first from magazine stands and currently from Hollywood superproductions—has presented us with female characters as memorable and distinctive as Storm, Black Widow, or Supergirl.

Wonder Woman continues to be, by a wide margin, the most recognizable superheroine to the general public, those people outside the specific world of comics whom we might casually encounter on the street. This context is fundamental to understanding the position of Alison Green, formerly known as Mega Girl, who inserts herself into an extensive but frequently interrupted tradition of female representation in the superhero genre.

What makes Alison’s case particularly interesting is how her experience as a woman directly influences the public perception of her actions and decisions. Strong Female Protagonist acutely shows how Alison faces a social environment that is not prepared to accept that a woman can manifest outbursts of anger or make mistakes; a context where no one seems willing to forgive her even half of the behaviors that we would normalize or even celebrate in male characters like Wolverine or Deadpool.

This double standard constitutes one of the most interesting elements of the work, as it exposes how gender expectations permeate even our most exaggerated fantasies of power and heroism. Alison must not only deal with the weight of her extraordinary capabilities and the moral complexities they entail but also with the disproportionate expectations that society imposes on her as a woman.

The merit of Strong Female Protagonist lies precisely in not limiting this observation to a simple passing comment but in making it an integral part of the character’s experience and, by extension, of the reading experience. The work invites us to reflect not only on what happens to Alison as we follow her story but also on our own reactions as readers: do we judge her actions with the same criteria we would apply to a male superhero? Do we expect from her a moral perfection that we don’t demand from other characters?

This meta-narrative dimension is amplified for those who followed the original publication of the comic in its web format. The readers’ comments under each installment offer a fascinating record of how the relationship between the audience and the story evolved, the debates that arose around the moral dilemmas posed, and the interactions between the readers themselves. This paratextual space became a reflection of the same themes that the work addressed: power, responsibility, justice, and the complex social tensions that emerge when these concepts intertwine with issues of gender and identity. Want to develop authentic and multidimensional female characters in your own creations? Find inspiration and practical techniques here.

Beyond Manichaeism: The Deconstruction of the Villain Concept

One of the most revolutionary aspects of Strong Female Protagonist is its sophisticated and nuanced approach to the figure of the villain. Unlike traditional superhero narratives, where antagonists usually represent absolute evil or, at best, a distorted version of good, this work presents a much more complex spectrum of motivations, ideologies, and moral perspectives.

As Alison deepens her questioning about the real effectiveness of her former role as Mega Girl, she also begins to reevaluate her conceptions about who her “enemies” really were. Many of the former villains she faced turn out to have understandable and even noble motives, although their methods were questionable. Some seek to address structural social problems that the conventional “superheroes and authorities” system simply isn’t designed to solve: economic inequality, systemic injustice, institutional corruption.

This deconstruction of the traditional Manichaeism of the genre allows the work to explore how the labels of “hero” and “villain” frequently depend more on who controls the dominant narrative than on an objective evaluation of actions and their consequences. Alison discovers that some of her former adversaries were motivated by ideals as noble as her own but chose different methods when faced with the inherent limitations of the status quo.

A particularly fascinating case is that of Cleaver, a former “supervillain” with the ability to decompose and reorganize organic matter. While in the past Alison saw her as a terrorist threat, her perspective changes radically upon discovering that Cleaver has been using her powers to secretly cure terminal illnesses. This revelation poses an uncomfortable question: who is really more heroic? The superheroine who combats visible symptoms of evil while keeping power structures intact, or the “villain” who operates outside the system to address fundamental problems?

This type of moral complexity not only enriches the narrative but also reflects contemporary debates about activism, social change, and the limits of action within established institutional frameworks. The work invites us to consider that even the best intentions can be insufficient or counterproductive when operating exclusively within systems designed to maintain certain power imbalances.

Through these encounters and revelations, Alison—and by extension, the readers—begins to develop a more nuanced understanding of justice, social change, and ethical responsibility. It’s no longer simply about defeating the “bad guy” and saving the day, but about recognizing the inherent complexity of social problems and the diversity of legitimate approaches to addressing them.

This deconstruction of the villain concept is particularly relevant in our current sociopolitical context, where polarization and demonization of the ideological adversary are increasingly common phenomena. Strong Female Protagonist reminds us of the importance of considering the motivations and perspectives of those we perceive as antagonists, not to justify harmful actions, but to more deeply understand the roots of social conflicts.

The Value of Self-Exploration in a World of Extraordinary Powers

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Strong Female Protagonist is its focus on Alison’s internal journey, privileging her personal development and search for meaning above the spectacular battles and physical confrontations that traditionally define the superhero genre. While the work doesn’t lack impressive action scenes that take advantage of the protagonist’s extraordinary capabilities, these are always subordinated to the psychological, ethical, and philosophical evolution of the character.

This shift in narrative priorities reflects a broader trend in contemporary culture: the growing recognition that true heroism doesn’t lie in the demonstration of power, but in the difficult work of self-exploration, critical self-evaluation, and moral growth. In a world where the most urgent problems—inequality, climate crisis, social polarization—cannot be solved simply with brute force or extraordinary powers, Strong Female Protagonist suggests that perhaps the most heroic ability is the willingness to question our own certainties and privileges.

Alison’s university education plays a fundamental role in this process. Unlike most superheroes, who seem to operate with a set of moral values already established and rarely questioned, Alison actively immerses herself in disciplines such as philosophy, ethics, and political theory, which provide her with new frameworks to interpret her past and reconsider her place in the world. Her classes are not simply a backdrop for her “real” life as an ex-superheroine, but an essential component of her evolution as a person and as a potential agent of change.

This emphasis on education as a tool for personal and social transformation constitutes one of the most powerful and distinctive messages of the work. In a genre that has traditionally glorified immediate and direct action over patient reflection and gradual learning, Strong Female Protagonist dares to suggest that perhaps books, discussions, and critical thinking are as important for social change as superpowered fists.

The work also explores with great sensitivity the emotional and psychological scars that superhero life has left on Alison. Her physical invulnerability painfully contrasts with her emotional vulnerability, and the years dedicated to combating threats in adolescence have profoundly affected her ability to form normal bonds and develop a sense of identity separate from her powers.

Through meaningful relationships with university classmates, former superhero comrades, and even ex-adversaries, Alison gradually reconstructs her understanding of who she is and what meaningful contributions she can make to the world. These interactions, narrated with remarkable empathy and authenticity, make Strong Female Protagonist not only an intelligent deconstruction of the superhero genre but also a moving tale of self-discovery and maturation. Interested in creating scenes with the same emotional depth as Mulligan and Ostertag? Enhance your narrative skills with our specialized resources.

Cultural Impact and the Evolution of the Webcomic

Strong Female Protagonist not only stood out for its narrative and thematic content but also for the way it navigated the transitions from digital to print format, demonstrating the viability of hybrid publishing models in the digital age. Starting as a free webcomic and evolving towards printed volumes collectively funded through Kickstarter, the work illustrates the new economic and creative possibilities for comic artists in the 21st century.

The biweekly publication format generated a community of loyal readers who not only passively consumed the content but actively participated in discussions about the themes raised in each installment. This continuous interaction between creators and audience represents a more participatory model of cultural consumption than the traditional publishing model of superhero comics, where communication between authors and readers tends to be more mediated and distanced.

Likewise, Strong Female Protagonist significantly contributed to the diversification of the superhero genre, not only by presenting a complex female protagonist but also by including positive and multidimensional representations of characters with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, races, and physical abilities. This diversity is not presented as a simple exercise in superficial inclusion but as an organic reflection of the contemporary world and its multiple perspectives.

The cultural impact of the work extends beyond the specific realm of comics, influencing broader conversations about power, privilege, and social responsibility. By questioning the foundations of traditional heroism and proposing alternative models of social change, Strong Female Protagonist has contributed to the public debate on how we conceptualize the common good and the various ways to positively contribute to society.

The subsequent career of its creators also attests to the cultural relevance of the work. Brennan Lee Mulligan has continued to explore themes of power, responsibility, and moral complexity in his work as a game master of Dimension 20, while Molly Ostertag has developed a successful career as an author of graphic novels for young adults that address themes of identity and self-discovery. Both have carried the critical and humanist spirit of Strong Female Protagonist to new media and audiences, amplifying its cultural impact.

Essential Reading to Understand the Evolution of the Superhero Genre

If you’re interested in exploring the deeper and more reflective dimensions of the superhero genre, Strong Female Protagonist is a must-read. This work not only meticulously dismantles the conventions of the genre but reconstructs them in novel ways that reflect the complexities of the contemporary world and our own internal struggles to find meaningful purpose.

As readers, we are invited to accompany Alison Green on her journey of self-discovery and ethical reconsideration, a journey that inevitably leads us to question our own conceptions of heroism, justice, and social responsibility. Beyond the protagonist’s extraordinary physical capabilities, it is her emotional vulnerability and honest search for meaning that makes her story resonate so deeply.

The recommendation to read Strong Female Protagonist is not only for the enjoyment of following Alison’s adventures and reflections but also for the opportunity to observe and analyze our own reactions as readers. If you choose to read the original online version, don’t forget to explore the comments below each installment, where you can immerse yourself in the fascinating evolution of the relationship between readers and the story, the debates provoked by the dilemmas posed, and the interactions between members of the reading community. Ready to create stories with the same impact on your readers? Take the next step in your artistic development here.

This community dimension adds an additional layer of richness to the experience, transforming what could be a solitary act of reading into a collective conversation about themes that resonate beyond the pages of the comic. In a historical moment characterized by polarization and excessive simplification of complex debates, Strong Female Protagonist reminds us of the value of reflective dialogue, empathy towards diverse perspectives, and the courage to question even our most deeply held convictions.

Ultimately, what makes this work truly special is its refusal to offer easy answers or simplistic consolations. Like Alison, we are invited to inhabit uncertainty, to recognize the complexity of contemporary social problems, and to accept that perhaps true heroism doesn’t consist of solving all problems with a definitive blow, but in the continuous commitment to difficult questions and the willingness to constantly evolve in our understanding of good and justice.