[David C. Matthews]

I found some very interesting links at the SuperWomenMania forums concerning a superheroine from the Phillipines named Darna. Apparently, superheroines are very popular on TV over there (the lucky so-and-so's!!), and Darna is sort of the "Wonder Woman" of the Phillipines.

That website linked to above is a wealth of information about the character – she was created in 1950* by Mars Ravelo, and among the artists who drew her adventures was the legendary Nestor Redondo. She's been the star of numerous Tv series and movies… I had no idea there was a character that popular there, let alone a superheroine!

No, she's not portrayed as muscular (can't have everything), but what I have seen is fascinating! (I absolutely love the costume!) I'd love to see some enterprising DVD distributor take a chance and license English-translated versions of some of the movies or TV shows (like the brand new one that just started this past April!) for the American market… if Chinese martial-arts movies can gain a cult following here, why not Phillipine superheroines?

(I even found Tom Burgos illustrations of Darna and one of her nemeses in this gallery!)

*Ravelo actually created the character in 1947, and named her "Varga" ..but in a story that's all too familiar to American creative types (it even happened to Walt Disney!), Ravelo had a dispute with his editor and left the publisher, only to find that Varga was owned by the publisher. So he took the character (apparently making very few changes) and relaunched her in 1950 as Darna.

[mercblue22]

Hey, that was me who posted all those great links about Darna! 😀 Wow, thanks DM for posting a comment about it here to give awareness of Darna to those who might not know her. -I didn't do so because she's not buffed like everyone might want her to be, but she sure is mighty- I love the series so far, I own the first 50 episodes of Darna tv and I think the gorgeous Angel Locsin is doing Darna justice! My episodes were recorded by a friend from the Phillipines and they are in taglog -the native tongue of he Phillipines, which has the best of 3 worlds in it, Spanish, English and Japanese-

For those who don't know about the country, its a feministic society that is held together by the females of the land. They control what airs on tv, radio, media, etc, thus is why you have a lot of superheroine/female shows running the airwaves. -kind of like a modern day amazonian country- Darna does super feats of strength too as in the series, she busts through trains to get bad guys, flies, has superspeed and looks GOOD in doing it. 🙂 If anyone is a fan of superheroines, I highly recommend this series. -there is little fmg, sorry guys- I'm a huge superheroine/alter-egos fan anyways, so life without FMG, I can manage. 🙂

Thanks again DaveM for posting a comment here.

Fonzie

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