Our Favorite Bad Ass Chicks of Pop Culture

Although folks like Quentin Tarantino and Joss Whedon have always pushed strong independent influential female characters on fans through their films and television series, they haven’t unfortunately been as widely accepted in pop culture as most of us would want.  But the last few years saw a major turning of the tides with many hit shows featuring strong female characters like “Nikita.” Not to mention what with Scarlett Johannsen kicking ass as Black Widow in “Iron Man 2” and “The Avengers,” Zoe Saldana dominating in “The Losers” and “Colombiana,” or Rick Jacobson garnering a cult following with three ass kicking sexy lesbians in 2010’s “Bitch Slap.”

There’s also Noomi Rapace winning the hearts of film buffs everywhere as Goth hacker Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish critically acclaimed murder mysteries “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Disney’s “Tron Legacy” putting the gorgeous Olivia Wilde center stage as the enigmatic game heroine Quarra, and Zack Snyder giving us a super team of tough warrior women in his 2011 fantasy epic “Sucker Punch,” we thought we’d pay tribute to the bad ass chicks of pop culture that we loved and couldn’t get enough of. For those among you expecting the obvious, you will not be getting the typical list as we took about as much precaution to pick the more unusual characters we relish in reading and watching, those women who could kick your ass up and down the street and look good doing it.

After heavy consideration and much switching and deletion, here are warrior women you’d want in your corner during a when the chips are down.

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Robots Killed My Grandma! Our Ten Favorite Robots of Pop Culture

Robots are at an all time high in popularity across the world. Not since the eighties has there been such a surge of robotic characters in pop culture, what with the smashing success of Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies, the battling bots in “Real Steel,” the upcoming “Battleship,” and the enigmatic David in Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated “Prometheus,” robots are as richly tapped in modern pop culture as ever before. In celebration of the newest trend of robots in modern cinema and media, we compiled ten of our favorite robots of pop culture, ranging from film, TV, comics, and literature. Grease up your rivets, and dive in.

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Wizard Magazine: A Bittersweet Goodbye

“These envious wanna-be writers provide coverage for executives who don’t read much. And get this, they’re proud of not reading. One TV guy I met, full of hyperactive disdain, he sniped at me, “I don’t read comic books. I read scripts.” You’re lost pal. They don’t read comic books, they read Wizard Magazine! Or at least the publishers think they do. Either way the result is the same. For all the disgust you’ll hear about Wizard and its shoddy practices when you talk to publishers and marketing folks—and I have yet to hear a single good word from anybody about this thing that ought to come on a roll—for all of that, the publishers kow-tow.

Even though this tree killer here regularly cheapens and poisons our field. Aesthetically and ethically, they grovel. Even though this monthly vulgarity reinforces all the prejudice people hold about comics they cry to all the world that we’re as cheap and stupid and trashy as they think we are, we sponsor this assault. We pay for the @#%$ privilege. But really, when will we finally get around to flushing this thing, this load of crap, once and for all.” – Frank Miller on Wizard Magazine

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The All New Wonder Woman #601

Do you remember a time where comic books were just about being comic books?

You went in to a news stand, picked up some comic books, read them and awaited the next issue with your favorite characters fighting their arch nemesis? Well now with the death of the printed word looming, comic books are no longer about entertaining us. They have to serve much more of a purpose and as such most of the comic books you’ll read that are out now are custom made to be movies, are just blueprints to be movies, tailored to fit a movie adaptation, and are being drastically altered to fit the needs of a parent company anxious to turn the star of the comics in to a film heroine.

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Superman/Batman Annual #4

As a big fan of the “Batman Beyond” series from the late nineties, I have to say that this fourth annual for the “Superman/Batman” comic series was a breath of fresh air and a wonderful re-visiting in to the old series with a more mature approach added. If you didn’t see the show you will have no idea what some of the references here are, but I caught on quickly.

I loved the fluid continuation from Terry McGinnis’ throwdown with Superman after being controlled by Starro, which has now turned him in to the only hero left. Superman has decided to quit fighting crime after his possession under Starro which has allowed Lex Luthor to conquer Metropolis once and for all.

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