Wonder Woman Unbound Page 28

  Supergirl was finally adopted … Action Comics #279 (August 1961).

  “You must be taught a lesson …” Action Comics #258 (November 1959).

  FN “Now that she’s superior to me …” Action Comics #282 (November 1961).

  Star Sapphire

  “Mr. Jordan, puh-lease! From now on …” Showcase #22 (September/October 1959).

  “Night and day … day and night …” Green Lantern #1 (July/August 1960).

  the two sporadically went out on the town … Green Lantern #6 (May/June 1961).

  “Carol Ferris, in the absence of her father …” Green Lantern #7 (July/August 1961).

  “the young and pretty ‘boss’ …” Green Lantern #18 (January 1963).

  “from a world tremendously in advance …” Green Lantern #16 (October 1962).

  “As our future queen you must be made …” Ibid.

  “She doesn’t seem to realize that men …” Ibid.

  “She acts as if a man could be …” Ibid.

  “I feel so weak … so helpless …” Ibid.

  Using her impressive powers … Green Lantern #26 (January 1964).

  6. Conforming to the Code

  Fredric Wertham and the Seduction of the Innocent

  “Superman (with the big S on his uniform …” Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent, 34.

  “they live in sumptuous quarters …” Ibid., 190.

  “the lesbian counterpart of Batman …” Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent, 192.

  “the homosexual connotation …” Ibid., 192.

  FN Recent research by Carol Tilley shows … Carol L. Tilley, “Seducing the Innocent: Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics,” Information & Culture 47, no. 4 (2012): 383–413.

  “extremely sadistic hatred of all males …” Ibid., 193.

  “for boys, Wonder Woman is a frightening image” … Ibid., 193.

  “Her followers are the ‘Holliday …” Ibid., 193.

  “even when Wonder Woman adopts …” Ibid., 234.

  “They do not work. They are not homemakers …” Ibid., 234.

  “Wonder Woman is not the natural daughter …” Ibid., 234.

  “if it were possible to translate a cardboard figure …” Ibid., 235.

  Suffering Sappho!! Was Wonder Woman a Lesbian?

  “that nearly half of the female love relationships …” Marston, Emotions, 338.

  “in several cases, well-adapted love …” Ibid., 338.

  “the pick of the women who the average man …” Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume II: Sexual Inversion (New York: Random House, 1942, orig. publ. 1897), 222.

  male homosexuality was a purely dominant … Marston, Emotions, 252–253.

  “with regard to the possibly deleterious …” Ibid., 339.

  FN “the excessive amount of passion response …” Ibid., 339.

  “girls and women who indulge in this …” Ibid., 338.

  “with the invaluable aid of my collaborators” … Ibid., 338.

  one of the most, if not the most, detailed … Ibid., 299–313.

  “excited pleasantness of captivation …” Ibid., 300.

  “about three-fourths of the girls …” Ibid., 311.

  “it seems undoubtedly to be the fact …” Ibid., 313.

  “Bona Dea is a woman’s goddess exclusively …” Marston, Private Life of Julius Caesar, 114.

  “very young girls, some of them still …” Ibid., 123.

  “Cassandra felt the hands of several women …” Ibid., 124.

  Etta swinging a piece of candy … Sensation Comics #3 (March 1942).

  paddled by a hooded girl … Sensation Comics #4 (April 1942).

  bound, blindfolded, and left in the middle … Wonder Woman #12 (Spring 1945).

  “grand mistress of spanks and slams” … Wonder Woman #22 (March/April 1947).

  “By Sappho’s stylus …” Wonder Woman #6 (Fall 1943).

  watch a movie in Sappho Hall … Comic Cavalcade #12 (Fall 1945).

  he stated outright that all of the Amazons were lesbians … Trina Robbins, “Wonder Woman: Lesbian or Dyke? Paradise Island as a Woman’s Community,” paper presented at WisCon 2006, available at www.girl-wonder.org/papers/robbins.html.

  Steve carrying Wonder Woman across a brook … Sensation Comics #94 (November/December 1949).

  bringing her flowers … Sensation Comics #97 (May/June 1950).

  The Changing Content of Wonder Woman

  “suggestive and salacious illustration …” 1955 Comic Code, in Nyberg, Seal of Approval, 168.

  “sex perversion or any inference to same …” Ibid.

  The Real World Carries On

  For the social activism of women in the 1950s, see Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz, specifically: Susan Rimby Leighow’s “An ‘Obligation to Participate,’” Dorothy Sue Cobble’s “Recapturing Working-Class Feminism,” Ruth Feldstein’s “I Wanted the Whole World to See,” Dee Garrison’s “Our Skirts Gave Them Courage,” and Margaret Rose’s “Gender and Civic Activism in Mexican Barrios in California”; and Lynne Olson’s Freedom’s Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970. For information concerning women and sexuality in the 1950s, see Wini Breines’s Young, White, and Miserable: Growing Up Female in the Fifties, David Halberstam’s The Fifties, and Brett Harvey’s The Fifties: A Women’s Oral History.

  “All you have to do is perform a few feats …” Wonder Woman #136 (February 1963).

  Interlude 2: Letters and Advertisements

  Advertisements

  Jewelry ads featuring smiling women … See National Diamond Sales in Wonder Woman #192 (January/February 1971); and Woodstock-inspired jewelry in Wonder Woman #193 (March/April 1971).

  a model “especially for girls” … This ad first appeared in Wonder Woman #183 (July/August 1969).

  Iverson cut any mention of their girls’ bicycle … Wonder Woman #186 (January/February 1970).

  In Fantastic Four, the ad showed a young man … Fantastic Four #47 (February 1966).

  young man was replaced by a young woman … Millie the Model #147 (March 1967).

  7. Wonder Woman No More

  Wonder Woman comics from the Bronze Age are collected in four full-color, softcover Diana Prince: Wonder Woman volumes, comprising her mod adventures from Wonder Woman #178 through Wonder Woman #203. A brief portion of her later adventures as the Amazon Wonder Woman are collected in Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors, comprising Wonder Woman #212 through Wonder Woman #222. DC comics from this era are collected primarily in Showcase volumes, with special volumes for specific, famous story lines. Marvel comics from this era are collected in Essential and Omnibus volumes.

  The Marvel Age

  For information on Marvel Comics in the 1960s, see Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution by Ronin Ro, Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon, as well as any book about comic history that mentions the 1960s at all … Marvel will come up.

  Marvel’s first new series, Fantastic Four … First appeared in Fantastic Four #1 (November 1961), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

  soon followed by The Incredible Hulk … First appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 (May 1942), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

  Lee and Ditko created Spider-Man … First appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962), created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

  the X-Men, a group of powerful … First appeared in The X-Men #1 (September 1963), created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

  Iron Man, a millionaire … First appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963), created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck, and Jack Kirby.

  Doctor Strange, master of the occult … First appeared in Strange Tales #110 (July 1963), created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

  Thor, the Norse god … First appeared in Journey into Mystery #83 (A
ugust 1962), created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby.

  Daredevil, a blind man … First appeared in Daredevil #1 (April 1964), created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett.

  “ranked Spider-Man and the Hulk alongside …” Bradford W. Wright, Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 223.

  The Bronze Age

  As always, see Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre by Peter Coogan, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book by Gerard Jones, and Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America by Bradford Wright for discussion of the emergence of this age, and any comics history book that discusses this period. For changes to Batman, see Les Daniels’s Batman: The Complete History and Will Brooker’s Batman Unmasked.

  Marvel ultimately surpassed DC in total sales … See Chris Tolworthy, “Marvel and DC Sales Figures,” Enter the Story, www.zak-site.com/Great-American-Novel/comic_sales.html.

  “I been readin’ about you …” Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76 (April 1970).

  “My ward is a JUNKIE” … Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 (August/September 1971).

  The End of Wonder Woman

  “I didn’t see how a kid, male or female …” Mike Sekowksy, quoted in Daniels, Wonder Woman, 125.

  “Girls! If you dig romance, and we know …” This ad appeared in Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #92 (May 1969), along with several other series.

  Steve went on a secret mission to infiltrate … Wonder Woman #179 (November/December 1968).

  “For ten thousand years, we have …” Ibid.

  “I love you, mother … you and my …” Ibid.

  Steve’s arrest for murder … Wonder Woman #178 (September/October 1968).

  “She’s so much more than what I thought …” Ibid.

  Diana saw an old, blind man being attacked … Wonder Woman #179 (November/December 1968).

  “I’ve lost everything! Without family …” Wonder Woman #180 (January/February 1969).

  8. Doin’ It for Themselves

  “films of the late 1960s and early …” Benshoff and Griffin, America on Film, 276.

  female lead characters wanted some control … Linda K. Christian-Smith, “Gender, Popular Culture, and Curriculum: Adolescent Romance Novels as Gender Text,” Curriculum Inquiry 17, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 389–390.

  letter columns and editorials in pulp magazines … Justine Larbalestier, Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2002), 106.

  one of the most popular subgenres … Ibid., 148–149.

  made Sue the most powerful member … See Laura Mattoon D’Amore, “Invisible Girl’s Quest for Visibility: Early Second Wave Feminism and the Comic Book Superheroine,” Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture 7, no. 2 (Fall 2008), www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2008/d’amore.htm.

  “Face it, Tiger … you just hit the jackpot” … Amazing Spider-Man #42 (November 1966)

  Diana Prince as the New Wonder Woman

  “I’m no more than an ordinary mortal …” Justice League of America #69 (February 1969).

  “As Don Rickles might say, ‘YOU DUMMY!’” … Justice League of America #72 (June 1969).

  “Then—there is fury …” Wonder Woman #180 (January/February 1969).

  strafing Chinese fighter jets … Wonder Woman #189 (July/August 1970).

  killed at least twenty men … Wonder Woman #190 (September/October 1970).

  shot down the enemy’s airships … Wonder Woman #192 (January/February 1971).

  “Happiness for any healthy, red-blooded …” Wonder Woman #182 (May/June 1969).

  “Imagine me in the same room …” Ibid.

  “on her quest for a new self …” Janice Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 138.

  “a passive, expectant, trembling creature …” Ibid., 145.

  “I’m becoming fond of Tim …” Wonder Woman #181 (March/April 1969).

  “in the few hours since we met …” Wonder Woman #182 (May/June 1969).

  Patrick McGuire, a pilot … Wonder Woman #187 (March/April 1970) through Wonder Woman #189 (July/August 1970).

  Ranagor, leader of the rebels … Wonder Woman #190 (September/October 1970) through Wonder Woman #192 (January/February 1971).

  Baron Anatole Karoli … Wonder Woman #196 (September/October 1971).

  Jonny Double, a private detective … Wonder Woman #199 (March/April 1972) through Wonder Woman #202 (September/October 1972).

  Diana almost kissed Superman … World’s Finest #204 (August 1971).

  “You lied to me! You said …” Wonder Woman #182 (May/June 1969).

  “Diana (Wonder Woman) Prince, hurt …” Wonder Woman #183 (July/August 1969).

  “Karate … judo … kung fu …” Wonder Woman #181 (March/April 1969).

  “Still, Ching fights better even …” Ibid.

  “I tried to tell you, Diana, I could …” Wonder Woman #186 (January/February 1970).

  “You can’t pay less than minimum …” Wonder Woman #203 (November/December 1972).

  “I’m for equal wages, too! But I’m …” Ibid.

  “Perhaps I’m incompetent and unsure …” Ibid.

  “Now I feel I’ve really accomplished …” Ibid.

  Lois Lane

  Lois had won the Pulitzer Prize … Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #80 (January 1968).

  “You’ve ignored me, hurt me …” Ibid.

  “You’ve had me on the string for years …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #90 (February 1969).

  transform herself into a black woman … Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #106 (November 1970).

  “It’s you who are blind! My heart …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #110 (May 1971).

  “Por dios, señorita! We all want to …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #111 (July 1971).

  “You don’t want to be down-graded …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #114 (September 1971).

  “Now that my sister’s gone, I’m going to live …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #121 (April 1972).

  “You’re only being twice as stupid!” … Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #122 (May 1972).

  “Be a good girl … oooo! Sometimes he is …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #127 (October 1972).

  “I’m tired of your super-interfering …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #129 (February 1973).

  “I-I’m sorry, Diana! But Superman’s …” Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #93 (July 1969).

  Batgirl

  “Everybody thinks of me as a ‘Plain Jane’ …” Detective Comics #363 (May 1967).

  “Holy interference! She’s ruining …” Detective Comics #359 (January 1967).

  “That suits me fine! Nabbing crooks …” Batman #197 (December 1967).

  “I’ll welcome her aid, Commissioner …” Detective Comics #359 (January 1967).

  “Batgirl sure is tops in my book!” … Ibid.

  she’d actually infiltrated the organization … Batman #214 (August 1969).

  “My vanity betrayed me!” … Detective Comics #371 (January 1968).

  “It’s the only way I can really fight crime …” Detective Comics #422 (April 1972).

  “Will they clean up the slums? Create …” Detective Comics #423 (May 1972).

  Emerald Empress

  “the most wanted female criminal …” Adventure Comics #352 (January 1967).

  the Empress blasted him out of the room … Adventure Comics #353 (February 1967).

  the Empress separated the two … Ibid.

  the Empress handled Brainiac 5 … Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #231 (September 1977).

  hammered the Boy of Steel … Superboy #198 (October 1973).

  encased him in a force field … Ibid.

  carried around a piece of Kryptonite �
�� Adventure Comics #352 (January 1967).

  9. Restoration and Re-creation

  “return our heroine to the feminism …” Joanne Edgar, “Wonder Woman Revisited,” Ms. 1, no. 1 (1972): 55.

  “the feminism and strength of the original Wonder Woman …” Gloria Steinem, introduction to Wonder Woman (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), 5.

  The Liberal Feminism of Ms. Magazine

  “the most widely recognized publication …” Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, 3rd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 2009), 46.

  “The purpose of NOW is to take …” Betty Friedan, “The National Organization for Women’s 1966 Statement of Purpose,” available at National Organization for Women official website, www.now.org/history/purpos66.html.

  “self-esteem and independence” … Mary Peacock, quoted in Amy Erdman Farrell, Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 42.

  based on the editors’ belief that … Mary Thom, Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1997), 46.

  Originary Matriarchy

  “is defined and differentiated with reference …” Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), xx.

  “the first males were mutants, freaks …” Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971), 35.

  “the previous age of peace and …” Ibid., 135.

  “in the beginning, there was woman” … Berta Eckstein-Diener [Helen Diner, pseud.], Mothers and Amazons: The First Feminine History of Culture, trans. John Philip Lundin (New York: The Julian Press, 1965) 1.