Emilia Clarke's debut comic book MOM features a single mother whose superpowers stem from her menstrual cycle

“The mayhem begins with Maya, under-the-weather scientist by day, over-the-top superhero by night, and badass single mom 24/7. Deadpool action and Fleabag comedy collide when Maya activates her freakish superpowers to take on a secret sect of human traffickers,” reads the description of MOM: Mother of Madness, an upcoming comic book series developed by Game of Thrones’ “Mother of Dragons” Emilia Clarke. After having experienced the largely male-dominated comic books world, courtesy her stint on HBO’s multi-award winning and popular series Game of Thrones, Clarke wanted to create a comic book verse through her own perspective, reports Variety. She recruited a creative team comprising only women and developed a character that is touted to be one of the “most-progressive female heroes” in recent times. Written by Clarke and Marguerite Bennett (who’s previously worked on Bombshells, Josie and the Pussycats) and illustrated by Leila Leiz (whose previous works include titles such as Horde, Alters 2) the three-issue miniseries MOM: Mother of Madness revolves around a single mom named Maya whose life goes for a toss after she discovers her superpowers. However, the catch is: her superpowers are clocked to her menstrual cycle. “The bloating, the hair growth, the mood swings, the [acne], all of it. We hate that when it happens, speaking for myself and everyone I’ve ever met who has had a period. What if we turned that around and made the period something that we can feel as this unique, crazy, superhuman thing that happens in our body? When Maya is scared, she goes invisible, when she’s angry, she has superhuman strength. She can swing like Spider-Man from her armpit hair,” Clarke says in an interview with Variety. Clarke says it is high time we normalised menstruation in our daily discourse and with MOM she and her team has just tried to do that. At the same time, the GOT actor added that while the usual depiction of single moms in the media revolves around “struggle, sadness and efforts to rebalance her life with a male partner,” Maya has more to her life than just being a pitiful entity. MOM: Mother of Madness is all set to hit the stands on 21 July.