Stereotypes in Comics

Hey, I'm in year 12 and we have an assignment on stereotypes in the media. I've chosen my specific area to be comic books, I've thought of a few male characters I could analyse, such as Wolverine and Tony Stark. However, I'm still thinking of female characters to analyse and perhaps some points of interest to raise. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well, you've got characters like Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Elektra, Storm and Jean Grey, off the top of my head. Then you've got supporting characters like Lois Lane and Supergirl.

Here's a list of the best-selling comics and graphic novels for February 2003:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi? id=2066

The books with female lead characters in the top 300 comics are (in descending order, and leaving out team books unless all the leads are female):

Batgirl Elektra Alias Wonder Woman Witchblade Tomb Raider Supergirl Birds of Prey Lady Death Fables Ghost in the Shell Catwoman Fathom Soujourn Spider-Girl Chimera Harley Quinn Danger Girl Lady Constantine Buffy the Vampire Slayer Mystic Strangers in Paradise Meridian Athena Inc. Sandscape Eden's Trail Vampi Zero Girl Powerpuff Girls Grrl Scouts Queen and Country Banzai Girl Shi Battle Angel Alita Cardcaptor Sakura Courtney Crumrin Dogwitch Betty and Veronica Sabrina Jungle Fantasy Promethea My Monkey's Name is Jennifer

Is that any help? I'd say there's milage in a fair few of these.

What sort of stereotypes are you looking at, is it purely gender based, or does it cover sociological and/or racial traits too?

SWEET CHRISTMAS!!!

Just a side note. You might want to check out the Vertigo book, Y: THE LAST MAN. It kinda turns the gender issue on its ear and explores it via a sci-fi slant. There are no unproportionately large breasts in this title either. In fact some of the female characters are deliberately breast deficient.