The Supergirls by Mike Madrid (Audiobook Review)

Audiobook Reviews from Audiobook-Heaven

Title: The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines
Author: Mike Madrid
Narrator: Colby Elliott
Copyright: 2011, Last Word Audio
Duration: 7 hours, 41 minutes
Genres: non fiction, comic heroes
Filed in: Audiobook Reviews
Review copy provided by Last Word Audio.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Comic book superheroines bend steel, travel across time and space, and wield the awesome forces of nature. These mighty females do everything that male superheroes do. But they have to work their wonders in skirts and high heels. The Supergirls, a cultural history of comic book heroines, asks whether their world of fantasy is that different from our own. Are the stories of Wonder Woman’s search for an identity, Batwoman and Power Girl’s battle for equality, and Manhunter’s juggling of a crime fighting career and motherhood also an alternative saga of modern American women?
©2009 Mike Madrid (P)2011 Last Word Audio

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: The first thing that jumped out at me as I began reading The Supergirls, was that Mike Madrid definitely knows his business. His knowledge of super heroes, male and female alike, is amazingly in-depth and detailed. During his discussions, Madrid mentions some super heroines I am familiar with from my own days of comic collecting, but also quite a few I had never heard of.
From the humble beginnings of Wonder Woman and Sheena in the 1940’s, through the war and post-war eras, from the flower-power 60’s to the sexual revolution of the 70’s, and from the affirmative action of the 80’s to the 90’s and beyond, when the super heroines became little more than pin-ups. Madrid covers it all with a great deal of insight.
Whether your favorite heroine is Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Catwoman, or any of a dozen others, you’ll find out everything you ever wanted to know about their origin and every incarnation thenceforth. In addition, Mike Madrid gives an intuitive comparison to how these comic book ladies influenced, and were influenced by, our ever-changing society. Sometimes they were a driving force, and sometimes they only mirrored what was happening in the world.
Narrator Colby Elliott did a good job once again, as he did on two other audiobooks I’ve heard him narrate. The Supergirls is a work of non-fiction so there weren’t characters to voice, but Madrid frequently uses direct quotes from various issues of comics which allowed Elliott to show off his talent a little bit.
If you are, or used to be, a comic collector, you should check out this audiobook. The Supergirls is a fact-filled romp through more than sixty years of comic book history.

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS:
Batman: The Lazarus Syndrome by Dirk Maggs
Final Crisis by Greg Cox

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If you like this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get “The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines by Mike Madrid (Unabridged Audiobook) from Last Word Audio.

This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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