Gender in speculative fiction
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks's minor character Fantomah, an ageless, ancient Egyptian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in 1940 in Fiction Houses "Jungle Comics".
Barbara Gordon
Since her debut in DC Comics publication, and fueled by her adaptation into the "Batman" television series in 1967, Barbara Gordon has been listed among fictional characters that are regarded as cultural icons. Author Brian Cronin, in "Was Superman A Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed" (2009) notes that following her 1967 debut, "Batgirl was soon popular enough to appear regularly over the next two decades and Yvonne Craig certainly made an impression on many viewers with her one season portraying young Ms. Gordon." Similarly, Cronin states that following the publication of "The Killing Joke", Barbara Gordon—in her new persona as Oracle—became "more popular, in fact, than she was when she was Batgirl. She even gained her own title, Birds of Prey, about her and a group of superhero operatives she organizes[.]" The character has been the subject of analysis in academia, regarding the portrayal of women, librarians, and disabled people in mainstream media. Throughout the course of the character's history, Barbara Gordon's intelligence has been one of her defining attributes. According to "BusinessWeek", she is listed as one of the top ten most intelligent fictional superheroes appearing in American comics, and is the only female character to appear on the list. In 2011, Barbara Gordon was ranked 17th in both IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" and "Comics Buyer's Guide's" "100 Sexiest Women in Comics".