Thursday, August 13, 2009

Wonder Woman in a bubble

Hi everybody!
Like BIRTH OF A NATION, GONE WITH THE WIND and SONG OF THE SOUTH, some "racial truths" quickly curdle in the light of increased democracy.
William Moulton Marston's WONDER WOMAN; which is far-and-away the definitive version of her; suffers from ethnic caricature and geo-political naivte.
Not that WONDER WOMAN herself displayed any base prejudice, which points to another vital contradiction that the WONDER WOMAN comics benefited from.
Like ALICE IN WONDERLAND, all manner of despicable behaviors were crawling around WONDER WOMAN, but WONDER WOMAN herself always remained above the fray.
After Marston passed, the lurid scenarios that WONDER WOMAN strolled through like a walk through the park disappeared.
Remove WONDER WOMAN from the majority of Marston's stories and they make absolutely no sense, even with WONDER WOMAN around, the rationale usually runs a bit thin.
To his credit, Marston did not write cookie cutter stories that any old character could participate in.
However, the hallucenegenic hyper-reality that WONDER WOMAN operated in never incorporated the conventions that other superhero adventurerers were ruled by.
Marston created a philosophy for WONDER WOMAN to live by, a personality for her to process with, and resources for her to overcome any foe.
Her tiara, her earrings, her Visible Plane, her bracelets, her magic lasso: these made her as well outfitted as Batman.
WONDER WOMAN did not need a Utility Belt as she was stronger than Hercules, swifter than Hermes and wiser than Athena.
WONDER WOMAN has the best, most efficient uniform in comics!
As a character, WONDER WOMAN did not contradict herself, but she proved difficult to integrate into her fellow superhero's stories: WONDER WOMAN could get into trouble on her own and get out of trouble on her own just fine.
Sorry to be briefer than usual, but I also wrote an email to a cultural icon about the WONDER WOMAN movie, tonight! Wish me luck!
Tomorrow, more goodies! Be good!
Brad

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