This isn't really all that surprising. The original Wonder Woman comic was very popular in the '40s, and the Wonder Woman TV series had success for a few years in the '70s, but it's been a good long time since female superheroes had any kind of widespread success. American superhero comics are, in fact, notorious for their clannish male nerd hermeticism. The scene in Heroes' third season where Hayden Panettierre is scoped out by a comic-shop-full of creepy guys is a stereotype, but it's built on the depressing truth that American mainstream comics are written overwhelmingly for men. Demographic data on comic readers is hard to come by, but several sources suggest that women make up only about 10 percent of superhero comic book readers at best.

The logical conclusion, then, seems to be that women don't especially like superhero comics. Nerdy nothing gains great power and saves the day—that's a story that appeals to guys far more than to girls. Guys want heroism and beating people up; girls want romance and being swept off their feet. Or so you might conclude if you'd never read Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon—which is about to be re-released in a new English translation later this month—was the '90s Japanese manga/anime that kickstarted the U.S. manga boom and ensured that that boom would be as much about female consumers as about male ones. Moreover, if you don't count Edward Cullen, Sailor Moon was probably the most successful new superhero of the last 30 years. A typical 14-year-old girl who likes sleeping late and playing video games, Bunny (whose name in a new translation is Usagi), like many a superhero before her, one day discovers she has great magical powers. Donning a distinctive costume, she races off to save the world from various bad guys, discovering inner strength she never knew she had and ... saving the day!

Again, Sailor Moon was wildly popular with girls, becoming Tokyopop's best selling series and even ranking number 1 in sales for all graphic novels sold in the United States in May 1999. It's not hard to see why it was so successful. Creator Naoko Takeuchi works the superhero tropes hard, but she mixes them with other, more traditionally girl-oriented fare. For instance, Takeuchi throws in a dark, mysterious stranger (the dashing Tuxedo Mask) for a dollop of angsty teen romance. She gives Sailor Moon a plethora of Sailor Scout friends—Sailor Mercury, the smart girl; Sailor Mars, the spiritual girl, and so forth—who seem to have stepped out of the clubby sorority-sister Nancy-Drew girl genre fiction of the '50s. She adds not one, not two, but three adorable talking cats. And, perhaps most importantly, Naoko mixes in fantasy with her superheroics. There are magic gems, dark forces, and the inevitable-but-still-genius revelation that Sailor Moon is not just a superhero—she is a princess.