10 Comic Book Characters You Wish You Could Be

4. Tank Girl

In the 1980s, the United Kingdom’s right-wing Conservative government had enacted legislation that prohibited the promotion of homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice. They’d also made war on the working class and unions, the prime minister famously declaring that there was ‘no such thing as society’.

Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin’s grotty punk anti-hero Tank Girl debuted in the UK’s Deadline magazine in 1988, and took British pop culture by storm. A human swear word in shorts and bra top, chainsmoking and driving a tank through life’s problems with a middle finger up at the world, Tank Girl became the poster child for the counter culture’s opposition to the new laws and the institutionalised homophobia of the time, and to the political environment in general.

Today, Tank Girl is, as she was then, an LGBTQIA icon: however, she’s also become a role model and hero to a whole generations of feminine, feminist and alternative/indie women and girls the world over, queer or otherwise. There’s even been a Tank Girl movie, a pleasingly anarchic affair starring Lori Petty back in 1995, released long before the current comic book boom.

One of the first cosplay darlings at comics conventions, her look has been half-inched by multi-platinum rock stars and her attitude has become a definitive benchmark for female empowerment and vitality. And just so you know, Tank Girl might be the living embodiment of ‘girl power’, but she’d headbutt you for calling it that. And she’d happily kill and eat the Spice Girls.