Interesting Questions to Ask When You’re Genderswapping Characters

There’s nothing wrong with grabbing a male character, making him a woman, changing her costume enough to fit over her chest, adding an ‘–a’ to her name, and sitting back to watch her go. But I always find myself asking tricky questions when I try. And some of them are intriguing, so I decided to share. Really, who doesn’t want to look up all the costumes Quicksilver ever had, find out the year they debuted, and then think up versions that fit the time period and what a comic book artist would put on a Romani woman? (The answer is probably, “Very few people, gecko”, but the question of whether she would wear full skirts despite the wind resistance is an interesting one – Pietro always seemed much more traditional than Wanda.)

1. Dick Grayson and Babs Gordon have names very rooted in the eras they were created. They sound odd now, because 1940 and 1967 were a long time ago. Are you going to name your characters with modern names, say Dixie and Braedon, names that were popular when they were born, in this case 25 and 30 years ago, like Rachael and Bradley, or names that were popular at the time the characters were created, maybe Dolores (Dolly) and Robert (Bobby)? Franklin Richards was named after his grandfather, do you want to call his female counterpart Mary, after her grandma, or Fran? (Also of note - was the name popular IN THE COUNTRY THEY WERE BORN IN? And - Does the name sound like something a 20 year old in 1970 would think sounded foreign? )
2. How do you find a good codename? Wonder Man is pretty easy, but Batboy sounds kind of silly. Would Black Canary become Black Condor, or stay the same? What do you call Koni Kal-El, if Supergirl is already taken by her “cousin” Kara? Do you want to choose a word that sounds more masculine/feminine, or choose something completely different?
3. How is their past and personality affected? Was Emmanuel Frost’s arrival a God-send for a beleaguered Selena Shaw, and how did his reign as her puppet White King affect his personality? Is Becky Drake much more well adjusted, because what was seen as weakness in a male is considered cute and attractive in a female? How has being the family heir changed Benjamin Braddock’s choices and relationship with his sister, Brianna Braddock? Did he become Captain Britain and was he comfortable leaving the country and his estate to join the X-Men? Are you going to ignore all of this, because Lynn acting exactly the same as Logan is hilarious, and who cares if she wouldn’t have been allowed to join the military and get experimented on?
4. Jean Grey wore a mini skirt for half of the 70s. Many of the first superheroes had costumes based on circus costumes of the time. Early superheroines were often much shorter but weren’t as thin, as the modern versions. The 70s and 80s were full of hippies, disco, and Glam Rock and it was reflected in the costumes from the era (Discowing). The 90’s were full of pouches and spikes. Are you going to emulate the era your story/picture is set in? Does 1st Generation Susan Summers rock a poodle skirt (probably as it’s going out of fashion)?  What kind of martial arts costume does Ben Braddock wear to properly combine exploitation and badassery? Are you willing to give anyone a mullet?
5. The X-Men and Fantastic Four each had ONE female character, and she had powers that kept her out of the thick of combat. They had no non-white characters. Sexism and racism might still be bad today, but it was worse in the 40s. Are you going to ignore the issues of your story period – Ren Richards is the only female on the Fantastic Four, a famous and respected researcher, and nobody bats an eye? Are you going to tackle them head on with a mostly female team that’s ethnically diverse – Susan Summers, Osei Monroe, Lynn (Wolverine), Becky Drake, Luca Bishop, and Cicero Reyes form the X-Men and fight discrimination in all it’s forms? Are you going to work with them – The X-Men are originally John Grey, Lorrence Dane, Domino, and Willem and Phaedra Lehnsherr(Maximoff), because Susan Summers, Becky Drake, Whitney Worthington, and Heather McCoy were never considered?
6. How are babies they canonically didn’t know about going to be addressed? Was Danielle al Ghul genetically engineered? Are Willem and Phaedra Lehnsherr still willing to turn on their mother and join the Avengers? Did Ray Harper try to hide her pregnancy like she tried to hide her drug addiction? Is Charlotte Xavier distracted from the X-Men by trying to raise her schizophrenic daughter, or does Daya Haller simply not exist?
7. Are they interested in the same type of people? Would Susan Summers and John Grey be interested in each other? Controlling personalities are much more accepted in males than in females. If only some characters are genderswapped, are they still interested in their canonical love, or is another character now more attractive? Maybe Kala Jor-El/Carol Kent and Bruce Wayne are perfect for each other.  Are age differences now a problem? Kory Pryde being 10 years younger than Pat Wisdom is even more shocking than the other way around.
8. Are supporting characters going to be genderswapped as well? Is Talos al Ghul his mother’s greatest pride? Are Jacinta Reyes best friends named Brendan and Paca, or Brenda and Paco? Did Charlotte Xavier and Moira MacTaggert become best friends, supporting each other through disastrous relationship after disastrous relationship, instead of having to rebuild from their own disastrous relationship?

Did you know that Dotty Grayson’s Robin costume probably would have been similar to Dick’s? Male and female acrobats seem to have dressed similarly. Also, isn’t Dolly or Dotty or Dot a fun name for her to have? I’d never have thought of them, and Jess Todd wouldn’t have been able to mock her for being oh so posable/crazy/whatever she’d think up for Dot, if I hadn’t looked up nicknames from the 1940’s.