Wonder Woman Unbound (42 page)

Authors: Tim Hanley

“
these simple, highly imaginative picture …
” Interview with William Moulton Marston in Olive Richard, “The Women Are Our Future,”
Family Circle,
August 14, 1942.

Wonder Woman
outsold
Superman
at times …
Ibid.

The Women of Wonder Woman

“
Come on, let’s have a Superwoman …
” “Elizabeth H. Marston, Inspiration for Wonder Woman, 100” (obituary),
New York Times,
April 3, 1993.

Olive is often credited as the inspiration …
Daniels,
Wonder Woman,
31.

Roubicek was the first female assistant editor …
Norman Tippens, “Dorothy Woolfolk, Superman Editor,”
Daily Press,
December 6, 2000.

the only name we know is Helen Schpens …
Roy Thomas, foreword to
Wonder Woman Archives Volume,
vol. 6, by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter (New York: DC Comics, 2010), 6.

Several issues were also lettered by Louise Marston …
Ibid., 6.

Utopian Genesis and a New Approach to Crime Fighting

“
With its fertile soil, its marvelous vegetation …
”
All Star Comics
#8 (December 1941/January 1942).

“
we do not permit ourselves …
” Ibid.

“
the beauty of Aphrodite …
”
Sensation Comics
#3 (March 1942).

“
a race of Wonder Women!” …
All Star Comics
#8 (December 1941/January 1942).

“
You girls can develop strength …
”
Wonder Woman
#23 (May/June 1947).

took their marching band to distract …
Sensation Comics
#2 (February 1942).

FN a
zoste
r,
a belt that represented …
Michael J. Bennett,
Belted Heroes and Bound Women: The Myth of the Homeric War King
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 171.

“
Submitting to a cruel husband’s domination …
”
Wonder Woman
#5 (June/July 1943).

“
get strong! Earn your own living …
” Ibid.

“
Wonder Woman made me work like you …
”
Sensation Comics
#8 (August 1942).

“
You’re a born dancer …
”
Sensation Comics
#22 (October 1943).

Rather than merely recapturing …
Wonder Woman
#3 (February/March 1943).

2. Damsels in Distress

Information concerning the role of women in 1940s popular culture came primarily from Linda Christian-Smith’s “Gender, Popular Culture, and Curriculum: Adolescent Romance Novels as Gender Text” in
Curriculum Inquiry
17, no. 4 (Winter 1987); Rita C. Hubbard’s “Relationship Styles in Popular Romance Novels, 1950 to 1983” in
Communication Quarterly
33, no. 2 (Spring 1985); Justine Larbalestier’s
Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction;
and Leerom Medovoi’s
Rebels: Youth and the Cold War Origins of Identity.

Robbins found that the earliest costumed heroine …
Trina Robbins,
The Great Women Superheroes
(New York: Kitchen Sink Press, 1996), 3.

Timely Comics’ Black Widow …
Mystic Comics
#4, August 1940.

Quality Comics’ Phantom Lady …
Police Comics
#1, August 1941.

Miss America …
Military Comics
#1, August 1941.

the comic strip heroine Miss Fury …
Trina Robbins, “Miss Fury,”
Comics Journal
288 (2007): 110–111.

“
the perseverance of classical Hollywood …
” Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin,
America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Sexuality, and Gender at the Movies
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 203.

“
her value was acquired through …
” Linda K. Christian-Smith, “Gender, Popular Culture, and Curriculum: Adolescent Romance Novels as Gender Text,”
Curriculum Inquiry
17, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 375–376.

“
this literature was chockfull of cruel …
” Joanna Russ, “The Image of Women in Science Fiction,” in
Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives,
ed. Susan Koppelman Cornillon (Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1973), 83.

Wonder Woman

Superman rode a missile alongside fighter jets …
Superman
#18 (September/October 1942).

Batman and Robin delivered a gun to a soldier …
Batman
#30 (August/September 1945).

“
Wonder Woman says do your duty …
”
Sensation Comics
#8 (August 1942).

shut down Japanese bases all over the world, from Mexico …
Wonder Woman
#1 (Summer 1942).

to South America …
Sensation Comics
#18 (June 1943).

to China …
Wonder Woman
#4 (April/May 1943).

seized a German U-boat …
Sensation Comics
#6 (June 1942).

overturned a Japanese dreadnought …
Wonder Woman
#6 (Fall 1943).

captured an entire fleet of Nazi battleships …
Sensation Comics
#15 (March 1943).

a plot to poison the water supply …
Sensation Comics
#2 (February 1942).

disrupt American industry …
Sensation Comics
#16 (April 1943).

a Nazi spy impersonating an American general …
Sensation Comics
#20 (August 1943).

the hands of subterranean molemen …
Wonder Woman
#4 (April/May 1943).

an invading army from Saturn …
Wonder Woman
#10 (Fall 1944).

bullying was important to Wonder Woman …
Sensation Comics
#23 (November 1943).

When Steve was taken by Nazi gangsters …
Sensation Comics
#3 (March 1942).

about to shoot Steve …
Sensation Comics
#7 (July 1942).

“
Tearing off door after door …
”
Sensation Comics
#12 (December 1942).

“
Wonder Woman is the most gorgeous …
”
Sensation Comics
#2 (February 1942).

“
Wonder Woman—my beautiful angel …
”
Wonder Woman
#1 (Summer 1942).

“
Steve, overjoyed at having the case …
”
Sensation Comics
#13 (January 1943).

“
Oh, my beautiful angel …
”
Sensation Comics
#13 (January 1943).

“
Look, angel—this plane …
”
Sensation Comics
#24 (December 1943).

“
Oh, Steve is going …
”
Sensation Comics
#3 (March 1942).

“
Will—(sob) you—(sob) …
” Ibid.

“
Ha! Ha! Diana the sleuth …
”
Sensation Comics
#10 (October 1942).

“
I’m almost jealous of myself …
”
Sensation Comics
#7 (July 1942).

“
Superman didn’t become Superman …
” Soliloquy by Bill (David Carradine), in
Kill Bill: Volume 2,
written and directed by Quentin Tarantino (Miramax, 2004).

“
[Diana] will have to go on mooning …
”
Sensation Comics
#6 (June 1942).

“
the man Diana loves …
”
Sensation Comics
#2 (February 1942).

FN “Diana Prince” was literally someone else …
Sensation Comics
#1 (January 1942).

Lois Lane

rescuing her from kidnappers …
Action Comics
#1 (June 1938).

catching her as she plummeted …
Action Comics
#6 (November 1938).

faster than a speeding bullet …
New York World’s Fair
#1 (June 1939), in
The Superman Chronicles,
vol. 1, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (New York: DC Comics, 2006), 176.