Actress Emilia Clarke created a comic book superhero whose superpowers come from menstruation and said that the character will swing from her armpit hair like Spider-Man.
Clarke told Variety that she was inspired to enter the comic book industry after seeing the gender disparity among comic book creators and readers.
“Something did not sit right with me in that exchange, and all these signs were telling me to go make my own,” said Clarke.
She assembled a team of female comic book creators and produced the “M.O.M.” comic book with the superhero character Maya, a single mom.
“She’s a single mum that’s got to get s**t done. This was born from the idea that single mothers are superheroes. You need superhuman strength to do that. When you get into your 30s and your friends start having kids, you’re like, ‘Oh my god. I was not aware of what it took. Holy s**t,” explains Clarke.
Also her superhero powers are manifestations of the side effects from menstruation.
“The bloating, the hair growth, the mood swings, the [acne], all of it,” Clarke explains. “We hate that when it happens, speaking for myself and everyone I’ve ever met who has had a period. What if we turned that around and made the period something that we can feel as this unique, crazy, superhuman thing that happens in our body? When Maya is scared, she goes invisible, when she’s angry, she has superhuman strength. She can swing like Spider-Man from her armpit hair.”
She added that the comic aims to normalize menstruation so that it has far less of a social stigma.
Clarke is most famous for her starring role in the HBO epic fantasy mini-series “Game of Thrones.”
Her comic book, “M.O.M.: Mother of Madness,” is scheduled to be released by Image Comics on July 21.
Here’s Clarke talking about Game of Thrones:
Emilia Clarke on “Games of Thrones”
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