You’ll Love the Reason Why This Dad Learned to Sew
A lot of us wanted to be superheroes when we grew up. Heck, most of us would be down with being superheroes as an adult (power of flight = fun, but what about cutting your morning commute in half?!). While comic books themselves are rife with cool women superheroes, sometimes the merchandise associated with them is more male-centric than female fans would want. One dad is setting out to change that in the most adorable way ever.
Tumblr user, Captain Milkshake, shared the story of his six-year-old daughter who got invited to a superhero party (a great party theme really) and had her heart set on a Ms. Marvel costume. For the uninitiated, Ms. Marvel is a seriously cool and important superhero who has had a lot of story lines (in one she even becomes a lady version of Fantastic Four‘s Thing), but her most recent incarnation is as a young Pakistani American teenager trying to balance her life of fighting crime with her Muslim faith. It’s no wonder a little girl would look up to her, especially if she had a dad like Captain Milkshake who read her the comics at bedtime.
A problem arose when CM couldn’t find a costume online. After he said he felt dismayed that the majority of super hero costumes for girls were of the sexy or overly pink variety, he decided to make his own. Fifty bucks later, and after putting his DIY skills to the test (like we did for these cute last-minute costumes), he made an awesome superhero costume for his daughter to rock, cape and all. He used a store bought blue dress for the bulk of the look, along with extra fabric from a pillow and 101 skills to make this too cute costume his daughter clearly enjoys (look at that POWER STARE!).
Still, he decided to write an open letter to Marvel “not as a rant but as a plea to make merch more girl inclusive.” This is a problem that has been rocketing around the Marvel community for a while, but recently came to a head when Mark Ruffalo, Hulk in the new Avengers movies, was upset that there were so few toys of Scarlett Johansson’s character, Black Widow. As the number of girl fans of these movies and comics grows so too does the need for merchandise that is more representative of them. Captain Milkshake, for his part, is confident that his letter and the support it has been getting could “be the start of something good, if even it gets the wheels turning a few degrees.” We certainly hope this happens faster than a speeding bullet!
(Featured Photo + Photos via Captain Milkshake on Tumblr, Marvel)
What super heroine would you want to be? Tell us in the comments!
