The Wonder Woman Golden Age Reread

[Jim Kelly]

I can't be too hard on Marston and Peter, as Ebony White is one of my favourite comic book characters and yet he's clearly a product of the same racist depiction of African-Americans. But he has a real developed character, so you can look past the dumb visual. And this visual was everywhere in popular entertainment at the time. Even the Race Papers--African-American newspapers published by African-Americans for African-Americans--had the same stereotype in their comics section. So there must have been a shared belief that this was okay with everyone and not offensive. It's just hard to believe that people with some brains couldn't see the problem with this depiction. However, anyone who tried to show a better depiction would have to get it past editors and producers that would likely veto that, because they wanted to give the audience what was expected.

As far as the bondage and discipline goes, there's nothing wrong with it in my mind. It's a philosophy that makes some sense and I don't think there was anything Marston or his wives should have been ashamed of. They were simply expressing their love in a creative fashion. And in today's culture, we should be more accepting of these alternative situations. The thing is Marston has been outed--yet there were hundreds of writers and artists in the 1940s comics doing similar b&d (and even more recently in comics)--but they don't have the excuse of a philosophy, it's there because it appeals to them and their fans. If we were to censor comics for being kinky, we would have no super-heroes left.

[kjn]

As far as the bondage and discipline goes, there's nothing wrong with it in my mind. It's a philosophy that makes some sense and I don't think there was anything Marston or his wives should have been ashamed of. They were simply expressing their love in a creative fashion. And in today's culture, we should be more accepting of these alternative situations. The thing is Marston has been outed--yet there were hundreds of writers and artists in the 1940s comics doing similar b&d (and even more recently in comics)--but they don't have the excuse of a philosophy, it's there because it appeals to them and their fans. If we were to censor comics for being kinky, we would have no super-heroes left.

Agreed. I think these Wonder Woman adventures so far has shown a rather healthy, fun, and light-hearted approach to bondage. For someone not into bondage, or not aware of Marston as a person, I think the subtext could pass by harmlessly, but the subtext is still clearly there.

[kjn]

”The Return of Diana Prince” from Sensation Comics #9 calls back to the events in ”Wonder Woman Comes to America” in Sensation Comics #1. Feel free to post your own thoughts and theories on this story! Next Saturday, 30 March, we will go on to Wonder Woman #1 and ”The Origin of Wonder Woman”.

The opening text for this story has an interesting twist: ”Wonder Woman gives up her birthright of security to help the man she loves to fight for America!” That is, here Wonder Woman’s motivation for leaving Paradise Island is clearly tied to Steve as a person, not any feeling for adventure or a drive to help humanity. That is a shift from the usual motivation given in earlier issues.

The story opens with some real old-fashioned paternalism and machismo, as Dan White and Steve Trevor argue about and over Diana, neither of them listening to her, and eventually leading to a fistfight. Dan certainly leads in this male stupidity contest in this story, obsessing about his invention, refusing that his wife goes looking for work, and chaining up Diana at their home, though Steve also suffers from it as well.

Dan’s wife is Diana Prince (now White) from ”Wonder Woman Comes to America” back in Sensation Comics #1, and just as Wonder Woman, Diana White is familiar with all professions fit for women of the 40s: she is a certified nurse and a good secretary. So she takes over Wonder Woman’s job as Darnell’s secretary, while Wonder Woman tries to help out the White family. Of course, none of the men involved notice the switch.

Dan and Diana White’s baby says ”google” in their crib. Wonder if the Google founders were aware of that?

It takes Diana ten seconds to break a common padlock. Surely she’s nerfed in this comic! The delay is enough for Diana White to be kidnapped before Diana can intervene, and she finds a demand to Dan White to give over the plans for the disintegrator shell. As Wonder Woman grabs Dan and runs with him to Steve, Dan asks if Diana is a female gorilla.

We get various action events, not terribly well plotted or coherent, though it is amusing to see the attempt to put Diana into an electric furnace, or the poor testing procedures for the disintegrator shells.

Diana’s invisible plane isn’t made of wood or metal. Guess it’s all plastic then. In the end, the female Agent X is exposed as the Japanese colonel Togo Ku. Apparently Japanese people like to crossdress and talk about losing face, since princess Maru did it as well back in SC #2. We’ll see if those pieces of stereotyping continue in the future.

The issue ends with Diana saying she is envious of Diana White’s life as a mother and a wife. Now please excuse me over bad flashbacks to various Heinlein books…

Characters introduced: Togo Ku, Dan White

Concepts introduced: Disintegrator shells, Diana swearing (”darn padlock”), gorilla reference

Expressions: ”google”, ”by the great hammer of Hercules”

And now a retrospective.

With the first issue of ”Wonder Woman” coming next week, I thought it would be interesting to do some overall comments on the ten stories of the run so far.

First is of course the shadow of the Second World War, and it is coupled with a fear of agents and infiltrators. Every story but one include foreign states running spy rings or trying to sabotage America, and the last one still includes immoral foreigners. In a way, the Wonder Woman stories show the fear of foreign infiltrators that was later fully evolved into the Red Scare during the McCarthy era. Viewed in that light, it shows that the McCarthy era was an extreme period, but still reflecting longer-term patterns of thought. But to continue with the shadow metaphor, it is interesting how even with the USA now an active participant in the war, this isn’t reflected in the stories told.

Second is that all of Diana’s enemies have been mundanes (for lack of a better word). Paula von Gunther can be viewed as a mad scientist, but she is also a hugely capable organiser and spy. None of the enemies have shown any form of supernatural or superhuman capability, or been a physical match for Diana in any way or form. I have no idea how typical that was for the early superhero comics.

Third is that Diana gets captured or tied up a lot, but also her reaction to it. In several stories she has allowed herself to be captured in order to better expose the villains, and she clearly thinks being tied up and breaking loose is fun. More than once she has openly commented to her captors on how well they managed to bind her.

Fourth is that I checked all the stories for both the Bechdel test and the Reverse Bechdel test. Happily enough, every story so far passed both tests, which probably is rather extraordinary for a comic published in the 1940s. It was notable even in 2012.

[kjn]

Not much activity here, and I really doubt I manage to pick up everything in my writeups. Anyone else still following along?

Note that this is a great time to jump in, as we get to Wonder Woman #1 on Saturday!

[The I.A.D.C.]

I'm still here! Just got behind that last couple of weeks and I didn't really have much to offer in addition to what you and Jim had already said. I really like how he puts these issues into the historical context of when they were first written and published. Are we reading all the stories in WW #1 or just the first one? Sometimes the GA WW issues had one long story broken into three or four chapters.

[Captain Craig]

I read your summaries as I'm behind on my books. I have all the WW Golden Age so I'm enjoying the Cliff Notes version you give for now.
Not wasted time or effort imo on your part.

[kjn]

Thanks guys! For WW #1, we're taking one story a week per the schedule in the first post, so once you see the elephant you can stop

[kjn]

We are finally at Wonder Woman #1, and it is time for ”Who Is Wonder Woman?” and ”The Origin of Wonder Woman”. Feel free to post your own thoughts and theories on this story! Next Saturday, 6 April, we will continue with ”Wonder Woman Goes to the Circus” from the same issue.

The ”Who Is Wonder Woman” page gives capsule descriptions of Aphrodite, Hercules, Athena, and Mercury, the four mythological characters that Diana’s abilities were compared with. Based on my own mythological knowledge, I quibble a bit with the way especially Athena is described (Athena is a god of both war and peace), but overall it’s reasonable.

The adventure proper starts with the usual caption, and I note how Marston have the say the Amazons ”worshipped ardently the immortal Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty”. Way to slip implications past the censors? Not that I think the comics of the 40s were heavily censored…

The opening moves around in time. I mentioned before that I don't consider Marston a natural storyteller, and the frequent use of flashbacks and other time jumps is the main reason. We get Steve Trevor’s crash, then he is discussed by his superiors, and in the third frame Diana appears at a hospital with Steve. Diana drops a parchment that is given to Dr Hellas (note: Hellas is the Greek name for Greece) who deciphers it and we go back to ancient time and the history of the Amazons.

We see Aphrodite creates the Amazons, how Hippolyte is tricked out of her girdle by Heracles, and the Amazons taken captive. The expression ”Hola” is first uttered here, but by the Greek soldiers as they capture Amazonia. It thus seems like a poor expression for the Amazons to make their own. They free themselves with the help of Aphrodite, reclaim the girdle, and sail off to Paradise Island with Aphrodite’s guidance.

Then we get a time jump, and Athena teaches Hippolyte how to mould human forms, and Aphrodite gives life to and names Diana. We see her growing up, receive the bracelets of submission, and rescue Steve from the sea together with Mala. Steve dies from his injuries, but is brought back to life thanks to the Purple Healing Ray that Diana just finished.

Hippolyte is then instructed to hold the contest to select a champion to go to Man’s World by Aphrodite, Diana wins it, receives her costume and the Magic Lasso, and she captures the Japanese spy that Steve was tracking. At least the spy doesn’t say anything stereotypical about ”face” when trapped by the Magic Lasso. It ends with Steve promoted to major and under the care of Diana the nurse.

The contest contains the most problematic aspect of this comic. So far, every Amazon we have seen have been tall, slender, young, and white. This is changed here. Diana fights an unnamed rather butch Amazon on the kangas, and that depiction is fine. Then we have poor Fatsis who wrestles with Mala. Apart from the name, Mala calls her a ”two-ton grease heap”. While this can be taken as evidence for body-shaming among the Amazons, I take it more as evidence of Marston’s personal attitudes and prejudices, especially given that he gave the Amazon the name Fatsis.

So in broad strokes this origin story is similar to the one in All-Star Comics #8, but there are some significant changes, omissions, and additions.

Aphrodite gets a larger role here. Ares is introduced as the instigating antagonist against her and the Amazons. Heracles also gets a much more prominent role. On the other hand, Athena gets much less of a spotlight, only teaching Hippolyte how to form clay, and playing no other part. It is also Aphrodite who gives Diana her name here, instead of her first receiving it as she is about to leave the island. I also note that the doctor’s name is given as Althea: no weird name taboos this time around.

We get some descriptions of Diana’s childhood and coming of age. She is also shown as an inventor, as she either invents or perfects the purple healing ray.

The contest is more elaborate here, involving dueling with sword on kangas, wrestling, a lasso contest, and of course bullets and bracelets. Diana also receives the Magic Lasso at once. Diana and Steve also have a short adventure right after leaving Paradise Island, capturing a Japanese spy.

What is primarily missing here is the use of the Magic Sphere, both explanation and the way it showed Steve Trevor's story, and we also miss the meeting between Diana White and Diana, though that first happened in SC #1.

Characters introduced: Ares, Dr Hellas, Althea, Fatsis

Concepts introduced: Purple healing ray, Diana as inventor

Expressions: ”Hola”, ”Little tulip” (to Diana), ”jumping Jehosophat”

[AmiMizuno]

It could be due to Wonder Woman Newspaper. It's the same when we see Etta Candy. Diana makes a note about meeting Etta but if the reader only read the comics we won't know what she was talking about

[kjn]

It could be due to Wonder Woman Newspaper. It's the same when we see Etta Candy. Diana makes a note about meeting Etta but if the reader only read the comics we won't know what she was talking about

As far as I know, the newspaper strip didn't debut until May 1943. I don't know why Marston and the editors decided to remove Diana White from WW #1, or the story how Etta Candy and Diana met, and I doubt even the DC archives would be able to shed light on that.

[AmiMizuno]

It could be the fact to simplify her origin or the fact Diana just committed fraud. I’m always wondered more out of joke now would Diana White be handled into days story. More of a callback character. Nothing serious.

[The I.A.D.C.]

I got behind a couple of weeks just busy with work and family stuff. A couple of things I noticed in Sensation #9 was that Diana White's husband chains WW (thinking she is his wife) to the stove to keep her from going out! I'd like to see if any writers/artists have the balls to try that stunt in today's "Me Too" environment! Going back through these stories (and even in the Superman and Batman issues of the time as well) you see a lot of especially racial stereotypes being portrayed in ways that looking back on it in 2019 can be somewhat shocking and unsettling. Also, when the plane explodes later in the story Steve utters Perry White's famous catchphrase, "Great Caesar's Ghost!" I thought that was kind of funny. Diana also says that her invisible plane isn't made out of metal so the gas can't harm it. Does Marston ever say exactly what the plane is made out of?

The origin story from WW #1 was interesting when you compare it with the one that appeared in All-Star #8. In All-Star the story started out being about Steve Trevor and then once he crashes on Paradise Island the narrative switches to Diana. This time, Steve drops into the ocean in a small panel on page 1 and then we're on to the history of the Amazons. I compared this story to the one that George Perez tells in his first WW issue and it's fairly consistent... just switch out "Themyscria" for "Amazonia." One big difference in the original here is that Hercules and Hippolyte have a consensual encounter. From Perez onward, it's said that Hercules raped her. I guess you couldn't portray or even suggest rape in a comic book in 1941 ("Think of the children!" as Aunt Harriet would say.) Here, Hercules definitely uses their encounter to get Hippolyta to lower her guard and then betray her which is also consistent with the other tellings. Perez's Amazons worship the entire pantheon of Greeks gods, but Marston establishes Aphrodite as their patron goddess. Athena only shows up in one panel, but it's Aphrodite who creates the Amazons in the first place as a response to Ares' (Mars) taunts of men ruling the world. One of the things I appreciate about Marston's writing is that while the gods play a role in Diana's story, they aren't front and center in every single arc. In fact, Mars (Ares) will use his minions (Duke of Deception, etc) to attack WW rather than doing it himself. The gods are there, but they're in the background for the most part. That's something I wish more modern WW writers would take note of.

This time the lasso comes as part of Diana's costume after she has won the contest. And apparently she already had her invisible plane, because before the contest, she asks Hippolyta to let her take Trevor back in it. If she couldn't leave Paradise Island (and I will ALWAYS prefer "Paradise Island" over "Themyscria") why did she have an invisible plane? Hmmm....?

[kjn]

If you do a Joker/Harley story, then I can easily see the Joker chaining Harley somewhere. But it's trickier to see Diana accepting it in today's time, but I think it helps that the comic doesn't present it as healthy or normal (though it would need some stronger signalling if written today).

Cool reference there to Perry White! I missed that entirely.

My guess is that the plane is made of plastic, but it's just a guess. It might be a reference to the feminum (or equivalent) that was later introduced.

And yes, I agree that the gods should probably be less interventionist in general. Though I'm afraid that whatever writer comes after Wilson might draw the wrong conclusions on how Wonder Woman should be written, just as many writers did after Pérez.

[AmiMizuno]

The Amazons has made the invisible planes. A lot of it is explained with the fact they have the magic sphere.

[kjn]

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday, I was busy with other stuff and didn't have time to do a writeup or read the adventure!

I've read "Wonder Woman Goes to the Circus" now, and I hope you'll get a writeup soon!