The best thing about Avengers: Age of Ultron? The girls

WHAT’S the best thing about the second Avengers movie? The women. And lucky for us, we’re about to see a whole lot more of them.

“IN A world, where the forces of evil rally against mankind, only one man will stand against them … “ blah blah blah, we’ve heard it all before.

Yes, we know “he’s the hero Gotham deserves” and uh-huh, we’re clear on that fact that “only he can save this city”. But the exciting thing about the renaissance of superhero movies is that after a decade of Dark Knights and Marvel blockbusters being headlined by dudes named Chris, the world is finally going to start getting the superheroes she deserves. Or shall we say, superheroines?

The international box-office is currently being pommeled by the release of the second Avengers movie Age Of Ultron this week which — like the first instalment — is shaping up to be one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron is already raking in a fortune at the box office.

And amid the flash of Thor’s hammer and Captain America’s shield, Marvel and its parent company, Disney, have announced some truly exciting news: Their first solo superheroine movie, Captain Marvel, is set to be written by two women, Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve.

Comic book character Captain Marvel (aka Carol Danvers) will front Marvel's first solo female superhero film in 2018.

For those of you playing at home, Perlman is the woman who single-handedly wrote everyone’s favourite movie of 2014, Guardians Of The Galaxy. She was asked to turn Guardians of the Galaxy, a dead and obscure property from Marvel’s comic book vault, into something cinematic, and she nailed it. The importance of having two women writing Captain Marvel isn’t tokenistic - it’s common sense.

For over a decade, Hollywood executives have been arguing against giving the go-ahead to female superhero movies based on the theory that they don’t work because, you know, they tried that once with Catwoman and Elektra, which were both flops. But look at the facts: it took six people to write Elektra, which in and of itself is baffling, and all six of them were men.

And is it really a surprise Catwoman was atrocious? There was one woman working with five male writers. And the man chosen to direct it? The second unit director on Alien: Resurrection, a man whose name is literally Pitof. That movie was destined to be as successful as the Hindenburg.

The reality is if we’re going to make successful superhero movies with women in front of the camera, then women need to be behind the camera too. And it seems Hollywood is finally starting to recognise that.

Having two women write the multi-million dollar blockbuster just makes sense, as there won’t be uncharacteristic pouting or forced romances slotted in there because that’s the only model male executives thought could work. After the first Avengers film, Scarlett Johansson was grilled in a press conference about why her character Black Widow didn’t have a love interest. Her response was: “There’s no time for romance. We’ve got shit to avenge.”

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow.

She was right and because of that, Black Widow has emerged as the Wolverine of Marvel’s cinematic universe - the fan favourite. She has become the one audiences demanded to see more of and who appears across several of the films as the red-headed thread that ties everything neatly together.

It’s logical then that there has been such a push for Black Widow to get her own solo franchise, something that Johansson herself has said she discussed “in depth” with the team at Marvel.

And the inclusion and portrayal of a character like Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is just as important.

Scarlet Witch (played by Elizabeth Olsen) proves herself as a formidable character.

Sure, that’s only two females in a sausage-fest of superpowered men, but depictions matter: there will now be Black Widow and Scarlet Witch figures for little girls to go out and buy in the same way little boys have been able to own 20 different Captain America toys.

Add to that Marvel’s upcoming Netflix television series A.K.A. Jessica Jones — following on from their hugely successful debut Daredevil — and we’ll have an entire 13 hours of superheroine goodness from a female executive producer and writer in Melissa Rosenberg.

And Marvel isn’t the only one who has deemed this important with their rivals, DC Comics, understanding the significance of getting a heroine on the big screen ASAP. Its Wonder Woman film will hit a full year before Captain Marvelarrives, and with a female director at the helm as well.

Wonder Woman is set to make a comeback on the big screen.

DC and Warner Bros, in a somewhat controversial move, declared that they only wanted a woman to direct Wonder Woman and set out making it so. That woman will now be Patty Jenkins, a director who was originally tapped to direct Thor 2: The Dark World for Marvel.

Iit seems Hollywood is finally beginning to understand what audiences have been trying to tell them as flicks like The Hunger Games, Frozen, Lucy and Divergent have becomemassive hits - representation matters.

Women make up over 55 per cent of the audience that pays to see superhero movies on the big screen. Women also make up 46 per cent of comic-book readers, with those figures growing every day. It seems almost overdue that now, in 2015, we’re going to finally start seeing “a world where only one woman can save the day”.

Originally published as The best thing about Avengers: Age of Ultron? The girls