Introduction
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Image description: A humanoid, masculine figure with an enlarged, bald head, and eyes with no pupils or irises "looks" out at the viewer. He's all but expressionless and wears a blue cloak.
Welcome a refugee from Universe #191647, where history has taken a decidedly different turn than Universe #616. It asks a simple question: What if more characters were female? Not everyone on the planet, just most of the familiar characters. What would a world be like where Thora Friggasdóttir joined the Avengers to stand alongside Toni Stark, Iron Woman, and Stephanie Rogers, Captain America, being led by Nichole Fury? What would a world be like where Penny Parker, Spider-Woman had to dodge citizens riled up by J. Joan Jameson, to keep up with Edith Brock, Venom and chase down Katie Cassidy, Carnage? What would a world be like where the single most destructive person on Earth when they got angry was Beth Banner?
For some it would be an apocalyptic battle.
Recently, most of the oddities of reality began happening only to women, and no one knew why. Men being affected and gaining abilities wasn't unheard of, but it was rare, and no one could exactly remember the last time it happened. A culture already on the brink of another civil war only teetered all the further over the edge. Men--and some women--were afraid that women would "rule", would "dominate". They didn't have a good response when asked if that would really be so bad, considering what the men did with everything. It was almost merely academic, however.
In the United States of America, Toni Stark spends much of her wealth on projects that help people, more than funding her role as Iron Woman, and occasionally appears at this Congressional hearing and that Supreme Court case. She made her opinions known through the body of law that governed her country. Professor Xaviera--known commonly as Professor Zavi--was trying to get people to understand the rising numbers of mutation weren't anything to worry about or fear, but some of her "students'" abilities only made some people more scared and uncertain. Ever since being a guinea pig in World War II, Stephanie Rogers has done her best to be the leader, the icon, that she was supposed to be as Captain America, but being seen as a female leader had always been difficult. With rising tensions it was becoming impossible. Beth Banner is the world's foremost expert on gamma radiation, but she'd been finding it more and more difficult to get grant funding, regardless of how promising her research was.
That isn't true across the world, of course. Cultures that were already matriarchal didn't really have a problem, politically speaking, and some cultures chose to embrace their women and work with them. The world is as complex a place as ever, with as many varied reactions to anything as ever.
At the end of the day, having "abilities" is no less a double-edged sword than ever.
