It's Sex & the City does the Marvel Universe.

I wish I could claim ownership of that comparison because it is truly apt for Marvel Divas, but the parallels are so obvious that everyone who has read the book has said the same thing. Marvel based their pitch upon that very idea. Even writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa acknowledges that sad truth in the text when he offers up a series of wigs to one character dubbed the Carrie, the Miranda, the Charlotte and the Samantha.

The book takes four Marvel B-listers -- Felicia "Black Cat" Hardy, Angelica "Firestar" Jones, Patsy "Hellcat" Walker and Monica "Photon/Captain Marvel" Rambeau -- and throws them together with little reason beyond that they're all drawn hot and, therefore, fanboys will sit and read a book that shows them in skintight costumes, gaping robes and post-coital sheets.

There is no Marvel villain at work here. This yarn is about talking, about feelings, about talking about feelings. It's about bonding with your girlfriends and dissing your boyfriends. Oh yes, and it's about cancer, too, because Marvel apparently thinks tossing a major, real-world disease at a character no one cares about will give them cred as a "sensitive" publisher. Isn't she brave, we're meant to think, when our cancer victim chooses to buzz-cut her hair once the chemo treatments begin instead of hiding her condition beneath a glamorous wig?

But it's hard to take it too seriously, especially when treatment is handled by the likes of Stephen Strange and Hank Pym, both superheroes who are decidedly not oncologists. Medical options aren't vital to the story here; it's more about sorcery, infernal magic and the notorious Monkey's Paw.

Oh, and while the contents are supposed to be all about empowerment and the like, the cover is all about breasts, impossibly skinny waists and improbably muscular thighs. I am woman, hear me meow.