Wonder Woman Unbound (41 page)

In compiling the images for the book, I had wonderful assistance from Kate Leth (
www.kateordiecomics.com
), Christie and Pete Marston (
www.wonderwomannetwork.com
), George W. Maschke (
www.antipolygraph.org
), Barry Sandoval at Heritage Auctions (
www.ha.com
), Robert and Sharon Schulman of the fine rare books shop the Book Collector’s Library (
www.tbclrarebooks.com
), William Smith of the excellent pulp novel bookstore Hang Fire Books (
www.hangfirebooks.com
), and Roy Thomas (
www.twomorrows.com
).

Early drafts of the book were read by Drew Hanley, Wendy Hanley, Dr. Krista Kesselring, and Lindsay Pickrem, and their thoughts and comments were much appreciated.

I’ve also received a great deal of support for my writing online from Rich Johnston, who publishes my monthly “Gendercrunching” column at
Bleeding Cool
(
www.bleedingcool.com
) and the many guest posts Sue has let me write for the fantastic
DC Women Kicking Ass
(
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com
). Other folks like Susanna Baird, Brian Cronin, Alexa Dickman of
Ladies Making Comics,
Jill Pantozzi and Susannah Polo at the
Mary Sue,
Vaneta Rogers, Kelly Thompson, and yet again more people I’m rudely forgetting, have also been great with links, interviews, and the like.

I wrote the vast majority of this book in the study carrels at the Tantallon Public Library, which is a quiet, pleasant place with a great staff and an excellent comics section for when I wanted to take home something to read.

My agent Dawn Frederick of Red Sofa Literary took a chance on a new author when this book was a rough, unwieldy manuscript, for which I will be forever grateful. Yuval Taylor of Chicago Review Press bought it when it was somewhat less rough but still not there yet, and Michelle Hegarty of Modified Editing did most of the heavy lifting to turn it into the readable book it is now.

My best friend Lori read pretty near every draft of the book and endured me blathering on about Wonder Woman for years, and always had great insights and ideas. Huge chunks of the book are worlds better because of her input.

Finally, my parents, Lester and Darlene, my sister, Kate, my grandparents, and all of my family generally have been beyond supportive with this book. It’s been a long process, and they’ve had my back every step of the way.

Source Notes

Introduction

“
Wheeee! I’m a butterfly …
”
Wonder Woman
#182 (May/June 1969).

1. The Utopian Alternative

Wonder Woman comics from the Golden Age are collected in two formats.
Wonder Woman
and
Sensation Comics
are reprinted chronologically in seven hardcover
Wonder Woman Archives
editions thus far, through to
Sensation Comics
#58 and
Wonder Woman
#18. There are also three softcover
Wonder Woman Chronicles
collections thus far, which also include Wonder Woman stories from
Comic Cavalcade,
through to
Sensation Comics
#18,
Wonder Woman
#5, and
Comic Cavalcade
#2. Both include Wonder Woman’s first appearance in
All Star Comics
#8 in their first volumes. Select issues are also available digitally online through Comixology. There are various Superman
Archives
and
Chronicles
collecting
Superman
and
Action Comics,
along with Batman
Archives and Chronicles
collecting
Batman
and
Detective Comics.
DC uses
Archives
and
Chronicles
for its Golden Age collections, while Marvel uses
Masterworks.
Comics will be cited here with their issue number and publication date, and you can use those to find them in one of the collections listed above, unless the comic is from an unusual source, in which case that source will be cited as well.

The Golden Age

Information concerning the dawn of the Golden Age came primarily from
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, though most books on the history of superheroes provide similar information.

“
champion of the oppressed …
” Action Comics #1 (June 1938).

“
criminals are a superstitious …
”
Detective Comics
#33 (November 1939).

regularly outsold Superman …
See Ben Morse, “Thunderstruck,”
Wizard Magazine
179 (September 2006).

Tragic Genesis and Violence

For the tragic, violent nature of Golden Age superheroes, I relied on Dan Heggs’s “Cyberpsychology and Cyborgs” in
Cyberpsychology,
and Jeffrey S. Lang and Patrick Trimble’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? An Examination of the American Monomyth and the Comic Book Superhero” in the
Journal of Popular Culture
22, no. 3 (1988). Information about Jewish comic book creators came from
Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero
by Danny Fingeroth,
From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books
by Arie Kaplan,
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book
by Gerard Jones, and
Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero
by Simcha Weinstein.

Alan Scott became Green Lantern …
First appeared in
All-American Comics
#16 (July 1940), created by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell.

The Human Torch was an android …
First appeared in
Marvel Comics
#1 (October 1939), created by Carl Burgos.

special two-page spread …
“How Would Superman End World War II?” reprinted in
Superman Sunday Classics: Strips 1–183,1939–1943,
187–190.

“
You see how effortlessly …
”
Action Comics
#2 (July 1938).

“
I swear I’ll follow you …
” Ibid.

“
nothing left of him but charred ashes …
”
Captain America Comics
#1 (March 1941).

“I’m not talking, Bucky” …
Ibid.

through a railing and into a vat of acid …
Detective Comics
#27 (May 1939).

flip a goon over the edge of a roof …
Detective Comics
#28 (June 1939).

strong kick to stop a gun-toting villain …
Detective Comics
#30 (August 1939).

gas pellet thrown into the cockpit …
Detective Comics
#33 (November 1939).

William Moulton Marston and the Origins of Wonder Woman

Background information on Marston, Peter, and the creation of Wonder Woman comes from Geoffrey C. Bunn’s “The Lie Detector,
Wonder Woman
and Liberty: The Life and Work of William Moulton Marston” in
History of the Human Sciences
10, no. 1 (1997); and Les Daniels’s
Wonder Woman: The Complete History.

parlaying their work into a “real” job …
Charles Brownstein,
Eisner/Miller
(Milwaukee: Dark Horse Books, 2005), 188.

ads for Gillette razors …
These ads appeared in the October 24, November 21, and December 19 editions of
LIFE
magazine in 1938.

women made only slight gains in the workforce …
Claudia Dale Goldin,
Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 17.

often in jobs with little opportunity for advancement …
Ibid., vii–viii.

Although they could now vote …
S. J. Kleinberg,
Women in the United States, 1830–1945
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 288.

Those interested in higher education …
Nancy F. Cott,
The Grounding of Modern Feminism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 221.

“
take over the rule of the country …
” “Marston Advises 3 L’s for Success,”
New York Times,
November 11, 1937.

Elizabeth, his wife …
Marguerite Lamb, “Who Was Wonder Woman? Long-ago LAW Alumna Elizabeth Marston Was the Muse Who Gave Us a Superheroine,”
Boston University Alumni Magazine,
Fall 2001.

Her mother, Ethel Higgins Byrne …
“Byrne, Ethel Higgins (1883–1955),” The Margaret Sanger Papers,
http://wyatt.elasticbeanstalk.com/mep/MS/xml/bbyrnee.html
.

“Don’t Laugh at the Comics” …
Interview with William Moulton Marston in Olive Richard, “Don’t Laugh at the Comics,”
Family Circle,
October 25, 1940.

“
it seemed to me, from a psychological angle …
” William Moulton Marston, “Why 100,000,000 Americans Read Comics,”
American Scholar
13 (January 1944): 42.

“
America, the last citadel of democracy …
”
All Star Comics
#8 (December 1941/January 1942).

“
a double dose of pleasantness …
” William Moulton Marston,
Emotions of Normal People
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1928), 280.

“
women, as a sex …
” Ibid., 258–259.

“
there isn’t love enough…
” William Moulton Marston, letter to Coulton Waugh, March 5, 1945; all letters cited are from the Smithsonian’s collection of Marston’s papers.

“
only when the control of self …
” William Moulton Marston, letter to Max Gaines, March 20, 1943.

“
the future is woman’s …
” William Moulton Marston, “Women: Servants of Civilization,”
Tomorrow,
February 1942, 44–45.

“
the next one hundred years will see …
” “Marston Advises 3 L’s for Success,”
New York Times.

“
was writing a feminist book …
” Sheldon Mayer, quoted in Les Daniels,
Wonder Woman: The Complete History
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 33.