Buffy The Vampire Slayer

4. Wonder Woman

Crafted from lifeless clay and given life by the Olympian gods, Princess Diana of Themyscara is the ultimate female super-hero. Posessing incredible strength and super-speed, the only hero in all of DC Comics —and indeed, comics period, if the unofficial comparisons of power-levels by fans are to be believed— equal to her might is Superman himself. That’s a fitting match, as Wonder Woman made her debut in 1941 as a feminine counterpart to the Man of Steel.

Women existed in comics before Wonder Woman, of course, but none were ever quite so powerful or proactive. Whereas Superman famously flunked his physical and never served a day of military service, Wonder Woman often led American troops into the fiercest of Nazi opposition. While deflecting machine gun fire with her magic bracelets and smashing tanks with her bare hands, she was doing more than serving as a feminist role model for young girls — with boys making up more than 90 percent of comics’ readership, she was serving as a feminist role model for them. Because of the war effort, women nationwide had taken on construction, factory and other work that had previously been the domain of men. Wonder Woman was a subtle —and overwhelmingly successful— way of teaching men to view women as capable equals.

Over the years, Wonder Woman has undergone many changes. The 1970s saw her lose her powers and adopt a look and attitude reminiscent of Emma Peel. The George Perez re-launch in the 1980s emphasized the mythology of the character and her Amazon heritage. For most people, the star-spangled Lynda Carter television series in the late ’70s remains a fond memory, one that is finding new life as well as fans with the recent release of the series on DVD. Through it all, she’s always had her trusty invisible plane and unbreakable golden lasso of truth at her side, ready at a moment’s notice to right wrongs and defend the defenseless, as well as fight for equality and rights for women everywhere. Truth be told, it doesn’t take a magic lasso to know that it’s a battle that’s still a long way from being over. But as long as Wonder Woman remains on the front lines, progress is assured. [Jayme]

3. Dr. Dana Scully from The X-Files

Smart, logical, pretty, red headed (which is above and beyond the call of pretty... at least if you listen to the Internet geeks), with a domineering personality and tolerance of geeks (both Mulder and the Lone Gunmen), Dana Katherine Scully was destined to become a sci-fi heroine. In a subculture largely devoid of female characters of deep personality, brains and looks (usually 2 out of 3 is the best you can hope for), Dana Scully is the odd exception. Written as the straight-(wo)man counterpoint to Agent Fox Mulder’s flaky and slightly manic character, Scully was the grounding force of the pair, always bringing Mulder’s claims of UFOs, aliens and tabloid monsters back within the realms of reality, or at least believable possibility.

Oh, she can also kick-ass! It’s almost a mandatory trait to be included on this list. Okay, she might not be a true ass-kicker, but she is quite capable of perforating the occasional violent perp, alien or monster, and her capable use of a firearm on a regular basis is just one more feather in her hat. Now if only she would turn into a pizza at midnight.... (sigh)

My juvenile fantasizing aside, Dana Scully spent nine seasons of chasing things that go bump in the night. This lady has survived it all, from alien abduction, cancer, a child, the murder of her sister, to Mulder’s lame jokes and grating mania. Not only has she survived it, physically, but her character even managed to survive the slow change from skeptic to believer over the course of The X-files’ run.

For surviving The X-files and looking good along the way, Dana Scully is definitely a heroine of sci-fi. [Todd Shearer]

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Who knew that a spoiled, superficial California teen had it in her to save the world? Buffy Summers just wanted to be a normal girl. But she soon found out that the world was a very different place than she thought it was, and that she herself was destined to be more than she had ever imagined. It was never easy to be a secret warrior for good, but time and time again, Buffy put aside her own wants and needs and dreams and did what she had to do to keep the world safe. She had to face her own fears and defeat her own low expectations for herself in order to do the job she was called to do. It wasn’t always easy, and it wasn’t always entirely successful, but when the chips were down, Buffy was there with a smart-ass remark and a determination to do the right thing, no matter what the personal cost. [Peggy]

1. Ellen Ripley from the Alien Movies

Submitted for your approval (though you may well not approve), Exhibit A in the case to settle the age-old dispute of whether Ridley Scott’s movie is better than James Cameron’s: Were it not for Cameron’s Aliens, Ripley would not be headlining our list of The Top 75 Heroines of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. My guess, she wouldn’t even make the top ten. Not even close.

Not that Ripley was a slouch in the first movie. She was knowledgeable, a stickler about regulations, didn’t take crap from her shipmates. Braver than the others, and much quicker on the uptake. But there wasn’t enough spark there to guarantee her a place in the pantheon of enduring heroines. It’s often been noted that Ripley was initially written as a male character, and it’s true that there is an easy sense of sexual equality that comes from changing the character’s sex without significantly changing his/her status, character, or screen time. But I’d be willing to bet that the initial drafts of Alien didn’t call for the male Ripley to, in preparation for hypersleep, strip down to his man-panties and show off a succulent sliver of ass-cleavage.

It’s really in Aliens that Ripley comes alive (note that James Cameron — teamed with producer Gale Ann Hurde — has a hand in the development of two of our top ten heroines). It’s in Aliens that Ripley is allowed to be a woman, and a complex human being.

Grok this: Sigourney Weaver was nominated for a best-actress Oscar. For Aliens. A sci-fi movie. An action sci-fi movie at that. And she should have won.

In Aliens, Ripley deals with the devastating aftermath of what happened in Alien in an unglamorous and unforced way that’s rare even in Oscar-bait movies, let alone genre movies. She cries. Blubbers even. She sweats. She has nightmares. She suffers debilitating post-traumatic depression. Oh, and then she kicks some ass.

At the debriefing, she snaps at one of The Company’s sinister bean-counters “Did I.Q.s just drop sharply while I was away?” She screams at Paul Reiser’s Burke: “I’m gonna make sure they nail you right to the wall. You’re not gonna sleaze your way out of this one. Right to the wall!” When the alien queen has Newt on her plate, Ripley yells, “Get away from her, you bitch!”

In a less deft screenplay, in the hands of a less talented actress, these lines would taste like re-warmed action hero speak. But each one is grimy, bitter, drenched in Ripley’s unique mix of anxiety, rage, and tattered determination.

It’s Ripley’s grief and fear and compassion that ground the movie, give it its context and gravitas. When the colonial marines are being slaughtered, she screams at Gorman to “do something!” Because he won’t, she does, though it means charging into the very belly of her own nightmares. And when Ripley has her Rambo moment in the elevator on the way to face the alien queen, Sigourney Weaver accomplishes something breathtaking: making you believe that Ripley is bad-ass, and, at the very same time, scared out of her mind.

Ellen Ripley is the essence of a heroine: a very human creature whose humanity drives her to accomplish the superhuman.

The third Alien movie was universally reviled, not because it unceremoniously and clumsily chucked out most of the surviving characters from Aliens (though it did), and not because it was populated by interchangeable unsympathetic characters (it was), but because it committed a blasphemy far worse than any cardinal movie sin: it killed off Ellen Ripley, the greatest silver-screen heroine of all time.

That’s right, you heard me. Not just the greatest heroine of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, but the greatest silver-screen heroine OF ALL TIME. [Jason]

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