With the end of summer drawing near, it’s now time to begin the season’s autopsy on the Beat. If you’re totally burned out on discussing or reading anything to do with summer blockbusters, you may want to skip the next few columns - though I’d be terribly hurt if you did.

This week, I want to discuss the girls of summer geekdom. At the beginning of the season, I complained about the lack of superheroines in film, a trend that not even the summer flicks seem to be reversing. (Unless it’s a Top Cow property - it looks as though we will get Witchblade and Magdalena before we ever see Wonder Woman or Black Widow.) Nevertheless, women weren’t a complete nonentity in the franchises this year — some were quite interesting, some were merely bland, and a few were complete failures. I think it’s important that we recognize the good and the bad, and with that, let’s tally up the scorecard and hand out the prizes.