What in your assessment is the essence of Mary Marvel? What differentiates her from Billy, or other young Superheroines?

I have long, complicated thoughts about this. But my feeling was that Mary Marvel felt more like an actual GIRL than most superheroines until just recently. She wanted friends, she wanted to be popular, she wanted to do good things, she wanted her family situation to be nice and safe. I always felt like the writers actually made an effort to write a young girl with Mary, not a sexpot, a giggling annoyance, or a tomboy cliche. All of those things are fine, but feel a lot more male than female.

I liked her because she felt like a girl.

Even her powers reflected the things many girls most want at her age. I felt a lot of sympathy for her, and she was also tremendously popular in her original era, so she had her own star power, and I dearly love that.

Even to this DAY, I can’t think of that many GIRL heroines who act like girls I know. There are a few, but many of them ultimately get sexualized or become killers, it’s just tiresome after a while.