superhero/superheroine
these denizens of popular comic book/strip genres might seem to be equals, but as long as "heroine" is defined as "a female hero," she is a subset and thus the lesser of the two. In most comics, the female superhero was a sidekick to the superhero or had "Girl" in her name (Trina Robbins, in Wilma Mankiller et al., The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History). Call all such characters "superheroes." See also hero/heroine.
