Here's to the Ladies Who Launch: Ten great TV superheroines

Project Runway designer Chris March likes his super-ladies, too!

Like many gay boys growing up, I was fascinated by tv shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and Batman, but was even more intrigued with their distaff counterparts. Okay, maybe "intrigued" isn't the right word, more like "fanatical". Put a woman with big hair and day-glo spandex in front of me, and i was enthralled. Even today, when I go to movies like the X-Men series, I'm much more interested in seeing Storm fry someone than seeing Wolverine slice & dice (unless he's partially clothed while doing it). I've decided to put my lifetime of experience to good use, and I hereby present (in no particular order) my Top Ten Live Action TV Superheroines!.

10. Isis

"Oh zephyr winds which blow on high, lift me now so i can fly". Isis is not as well known as her 70's sisters, Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman, but she probably has a bigger cult following. Joanna Cameron played the Egyptian Goddess on Saturday mornings for two seasons starting in 1975, often paired with Shazam!, thus giving sexually confused boys their weekly helpings of cheesecake and beefcake. Her superpowers were always a bit ill defined, and they usually involved her having to recite Nipsey Russell style rhymes. In this scene, she stops an M. Emmett Walsh wannabe with...glowing balls of light?

9. Batgirl

"Where do you come from, where do you go, what is your scene, baby, we just gotta know" When Yvonne Craig joined the cast of Batman in the third season, it was supposed to provide a boost to the novelty show's sagging ratings. It didn't happen, which is inexplicable considering how much more cool Batgirl was than the dumb and dorky dynamic duo. She had the cooler costume, the cooler ride, the cooler moves (a Vegas fan kick!), and instead of changing costumes in a dark and musty cave, she pressed a button to reveal her own personal bondage room! And dig this theme song, cool cats!

You can see the rest of these costumed divas after the break!

8. Wonder Woman

When that big screen Wonder Woman is finally made, the actress playing her is going to have big shoes, not to mention a big bustier to fill. Lynda Carter will always be the one and only Amazon princess to many people, and her complete sincerity in the role is going to be hard to duplicate. For fans of the series like me, there is one question that has caused endless debate and impassioned discourse...Which was better, WWII Wonder Woman, or Disco Wonder Woman? Both have their strong points. The WWII era had Hogan's Heroes style Nazis, Gargantua the brainwashed gorilla, and Debra Winger as Wonder Girl. Watch those pigtails fly!

Disco-era Wonder Woman had aliens, the Bermuda Triangle, Rover the robot, Rick Springfield, the "blue wetsuit" costume, and the single greatest scene in the run of the series, the "skateboard scene".

As identified as Lynda is with the role, she wasn't the first actress in the 70's to play the iconic heroine. That honor goes to Cathy Lee Crosby, who played Wonder Woman in a bizarre tv movie two years before the series started. As you can see from this clip, she had a much different look. That's Incredible!

7. Electrawoman and Dynagirl

For one glorious season in 1976, Sid & Marty Krofft answered the prayers of kids who believed that the 60's Batman series just wasn't gay enough. This would be Deidre Hall's finest hour until that nasty Succubus possessed her in Salem years later. Speaking of soap opera stars, Jane Elliot guest starred as "Princess Cleopatra", and then went on to create the all time greatest soap villainess, Tracy Quartermaine. In this clip, you get to see the mid 70's Krofft production values in all their glory, plus an appearance from Sid Haig, in a performance that rivals his work as "Capt. Spaulding" in The Devil's Rejects for sheer awesomeness. He plays "The Genie", and our heroines are after him for kidnapping "Professor Nobokov". ELECTRA-FREUDIAN!

In 2001, a pilot for a new version of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl was shot, starring Markie Post. In this travesty, Electra Woman was a drunken trailer park floozy whose husband had run off with the original Dyna Girl. You can watch the first part here, but be prepared to see a classic sullied.

6. The Bionic Woman

There were many reasons why the "re-imagining" of Bionic Woman failed (bad casting, bad writing, Isaiah Washington), but I think what doomed it most of all is that it just wasn't...fun. It was a depressing, dark experience that had no life or spirit, unlike the original. Lindsay Wagner won an Emmy for her portrayal of Jamie Sommers, and it was well deserved (no matter what anyone says).It couldn't have been easy having to act alongside Bigfoot, or Max the bionic dog, or your own evil double, not to mention the infamous Fembots! (and I never trusted that Callahan, by the way).

5. Darna

I don't expect many people to have heard of this Filipino show, but it should be required viewing for every fan of camp, kick ass babes, or televised insanity. It also is educational, as it teaches two very valuable lessons, which you can see in this clip: 1. Picking up a Chiclet from the ground and eating it will grant you superpowers. 2. The strength of a superheroine's powers is directly proportional to her cup size.

4. Black Scorpion

One of my favorite made for cable movies of the 90's, Roger Corman's Black Scorpion spawned an inferior sequel, and an atrocious series spinoff. The original worked splendidly, though, thanks to the combination of gorgeous, statuesque Joan Severance, and a tongue in cheek attitude. Throw in some soft core titillation and Garrett Morris as her streetwise sidekick, and you have one of the great guilty pleasures of the decade. As you can see in this clip, this is one lady who wields a mean stiletto!

3. The Greatest American Heroine

Three years after the demise of The Greatest American Hero, NBC ordered a pilot for a new version, with a female lead. Mary Ellen Stuart played "Holly Hathaway", and the original cast returned to pass the torch (and the alien costume). The series never got beyond the pilot stage, but as you can see from this clip, in a touching tribute to the first version of the show, Mary Ellen decided to keep William Katt's hairdo. (I wonder if she also "liked his poem"). *my undying love to whoever gets that reference.

2. Miss America

Before the Power Rangers, there was Battle Fever J. This late 70's japanese show featured a heroine named Miss America who could throw knives and dance. I'm including her because, frankly, she's always scared the hell out of me.

1. Velvet

As a child growing up in the greatest decade of all time, one of biggest thrills I had was seeing the words AN AARON SPELLING PRODUCTION on the tv. When things in real life were tough to take, I always had the comfort food of a Spelling show. After his iconic Charlie's Angels ended in the early 80's, he tried to duplicate that success, with VELVET. It was a 1984 tv movie pilot that tragically, never went to series. I still can't understand why, it had possibly the greatest premise of all time...Aerobis instructors by day, government spies by night. I would have loved to have been at the pitch meeting..well, we got four sexy broads who work in an aerobics studio, so we have a built-in jiggle factor...It's like Flashdance with guns!. Velvet starred Leah Ayres, a pre Dawson's Creek Mary Margaret Humes, Sheree Wilson, and Shari Belafonte at her most 80's.

After a grueling day of wearing matching leg warmers and headbands, the ladies would flip a switch, and the walls of the aerobics studio would flip around revealing rows of computers with blinking lights, and spy boss Mrs. Vance (Polly Bergen) would hand them their assignment. I honestly don't remember anything about the case they worked on, except it involved lots of spandex and chases.

The absolute best part was the opening credits and theme song, which has to rank among the all time best. It was a typical 80's synth-pop tune, except that the whole song was one long hilarious double-entendre..In the darkness of the night, you're touching velvet...reach out for velvet!

Any of these your favorites, or do you prefer other iconic shows like Xena and Buffy, or something obscure?