Growing up, my dad kept a secret stash of vintage DC comic books in a drawer at his office, hidden under a lifetime supply of National Geographic magazines.

Presumably, they were for the kids who came into the doctor’s office with their parents, but I’m pretty sure my sister and I were the only ones that ever broke them out of their secret place.

Every time I went to work with my dad, I’d hide away in his office playing on the various machines chiropractors utilize, dropping pop tart crumbs into his cabinet of patient files, and dipping into the comic drawer. I remember few as vividly as I remember Wonder Woman.

There were several issues, all in an origin series outlining the story of the Amazons and their society, leading up to the introduction of Wonder Woman herself—Diana Prince.

Now I don’t remember everything, but I remember reading about the land of Themyscira where a species of warrior goddesses lived without any men. Wonder Woman is princess of the Amazons, and was gifted with super strength and flight, as well as a vast knowledge of hand-to-hand combat. She also uses indestructible bracelets, a sword, shield, and the Lasso of Truth, which compels its captors to tell the truth.

Roughly 15 years later, all of my knowledge and appreciation for Wonder Woman was all but eliminated by the power of the media and it’s focus on male super heroes. Gone were the days of my Amazonian hero warship, only to be replaced by the admiration of the spandex (and leather?) clad super hunks featured on television and movie screens everywhere.

Outside of the Batman Series (Saga?), the superhero movie genre is pretty much dominated by Marvel Comics*, and Disney who owns them. And outside of two attempts in the past 30 years or so -- the little spoken of Catwoman movie starring Halle Berry, the Elektra movie with Jennifer Garner (both of which were favorites of my sister and I growing up) and a Supergirl movie in 1984-- none of the superhero movies released by DC or Marvel have featured a female lead. **

DC, while trailing Marvel big time on the big screen manages to dominate tv screens with The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl and tons of animated series and movies. That being said, DC is making a box office comeback in 2016 with the release of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and the impending release of Suicide Squad.

    Batman vs. Superman was by no means a critical success, but it served one key purpose: reintroducing Wonder Woman. In roughly 20 minutes of screen time, Wonder Woman, who is played by actress Gal Gadot, stole the show and pretty much made the movie.

After years of women in superhero movies being reduced to love interests or having their character arcs be limited to sexist and frankly disappointing uselessness (cough—Joss Wedon with Black Widow—cough), its refreshing to have a female character kick just as much ass as their male counter parts and be portrayed as a figure outside of their relationships with the men in the movie.

When it was announced that there would be a stand-alone movie for Wonder Woman (with Chris Pine as her love interest! Captain Kirk himself being relegated to handsome boyfriend of the HBIC fills my little feminist heart with so much joy.) I nearly lost my mind. Finally young women will get to see a strong, independent woman saving the world from bad guys without needing help from the boys (though she excepts their help anyway because Wonder Woman is nothing if not diplomatic).

I actually flipped out when the trailer was released at ComicCon this past week. The amount of effort going into the movie, going into making sure that little girls get the best role model they possibly can, is inspiring. The powerful imagery in the trailer alone set my nerdy little heart all aflutter (Seriously, the scene with her climbing out of the World War One style trench in slow motion made my heart skip a beat). There were actual tears in my eyes, not because it’s a particularly heart warming film, but because now there’s a superhero that I want to be when I grow up.

* So many Superman movies have been made, but even Man of Steel doesn't measure up to Christopher Nolan's Batman Saga.

** V for Vendetta was released in 2006 by a subset of DC Films and was published as a graphic novel by DC, but as it is not of the "Superhero" variety, I left it out.