On top of Her-Oes (ugh, terrible name) and Girl Comics, Marvel is now releasing a project called Heralds, which pits its top female hero talent against an agent of Galactus—you know, the world-eater with a funny hat.

Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool has a good write-up of the project and its industry implications:

…Have there ever been so many Marvel Comics starring female characters? Or so many women writing and drawing them? Some may argue about certain dubious aspects of some of the books, but we’re a long way from tentacles and special shaving here. The overall intent and the results are nothing short of spectacular.

It was only a three years ago that Gail Simone was despairing of what she saw as a boy’s club at Marvel, a female-creator-unfriendly place with content to match. But in just the last few months Marvel appear to have revolutionised much of their content away from that stereotype.

I’m really psyched to see these kinds of developments (YEAH MORE WOMEN HEROES!!!!), but to be honest, it also has me a little nervous. Marvel’s Models, Inc. miniseries was an atrocious bit of nonrepresentational fluff. A sort of Sex and the City meets Josie and the Pussycats sort of this, but with bigger boobs and stilted scripting. It included a comic cameo of TIM GUNN WEARING IRON MANS SUIT. AUGH. While it’s great to see an industry shifting to speak to more diverse voices, I hope that the actual content improves as well.