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Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #5

Wonder Woman Wednesdays

Sensation Comics #5Sensation Comics #5 takes Wonder Woman on adventures in the Navy. That’s right, her position as the military’s savior is not just limited to the Army. Diana doesn’t discriminate.

Here we see Diana filling in as Colonel Darnell’s date — this would be the second time she’s gone to parties accompanying him — since his wife couldn’t make it. Being the Colonel’s date gives her the honor of breaking a champagne bottle against the Navy’s newly commissioned submarine, the Octopus. However, Diana notices it’s too heavy to be champagne. It must be a bomb! So she throws the bottle into the ocean — pretending that her extra strong throw worthy of a World Series’ winning baseball team was just a silly accident. Oops. And good thing she did, as the bottle explodes on impact into the ocean.

Then Diana faints. Because that’s what a human woman would do! (I bet Etta wouldn’t have.) Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #5”

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Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #4

Wonder Woman Wednesdays

Sensation Comics #4

This week on Wonder Woman Wednesdays, Sensation Comics #4 warns all us girls about sexual exploitation/assault, the consequences, and how we can overpower what’s been done to us physically and mentally. Or as Wonder Woman warns us at the end, “It just makes a girl realize how she has to watch herself in this man’s world!”

Would a young girl reading Sensation Comics #4 recognize this in the tale? No. No more than a child reading Little Red Riding Hood would interpret it as a tale of stranger danger and sexual awakening. To me, however, it’s pretty clear.

In this plot, several women tied to government work go missing; Wonder Woman and Colonel Darnell investigate; and separately Steve decides Eve should go undercover. Turns out Baroness Paula Von Gunther runs a Nazi spy school for girls and brainwashes government typists into being her slaves/spies. Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #4”

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Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #3

Wonder Woman Wednesdays

Sensation Comics #3

This weekend, I attended the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. It was a wonderful and delightful experience. A gorgeous painting of Wonder Woman tied up in her rope — strong and proud — was part of the collection. Always exciting for the fan geek within. The main stage performance that night was called Cabinet of Curiosities and featured a mixture of theater, burlesque, cabaret, and puppetry. It was beautiful, self-affirming, and grotesque.

I realized as I read Sensation Comics #3 that Wonder Woman’s story is both an affirming tale for young girls to read about a female superhero and a Cabinet of Curiosities. As a modern reader and an adult, I find a lot of the Cabinet of Curiosities-angle ridiculous. And I think I’m still rather on the fence about young girls venturing into Marston’s Cabinet of Curiosities. I understand the feeling that Wonder Woman’s adventures there are not so innocent, but at the same time, I was also a young girl reading Anne Rice’s Cabinet of Curiosities, which are far more explicit. Diana being tied up as a hostage is innocent compared to Rice’s Belinda and her lover, the pedophile children’s book author/illustrator she runs off to live with. I have a hard time pointing my finger at Marston for being inappropriate or thinking that children need to be protected because I remember myself at that age. But enough about my tween years.

Sensation Comics #3 feels like the first real Diana story. Yes, once again, Steve’s job and foiling Nazi’s plots fits into the narrative, but this adventure was about Diana, her fellow secretaries, Etta, and Etta’s schoolmates. Oh, I should note that Diana changes jobs as soon as Steve’s discharged from the hospital. She becomes the secretary for Steve’s boss, Colonel Darnell. Yes, the Amazons have their own form of shorthand. Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #3”

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Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #2

Wonder Woman Wednesdays

Sensation Comics #2

Wow, just when I thought things couldn’t become stranger in the world of Wonder Woman. I suppose at least she’s wearing practical coolots This is the first issue where Wonder Woman gets tied up (twice) and the first appearance of Etta Candy, Diana’s human best friend and future wife of Steve Trevor.

In this issue, Steve and Diana are kidnapped from the hospital by Nazi agents, attempting counterintelligence gathering. They want to know what Steve knows about Nazi plots. Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #2”

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Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #1

Wonder Woman Wednesdays

Sensation Comics #1Sensation Comics #1’s the first Wonder Woman comic to make me scratch my head. I keep wondering what Marston’s doing here.

Okay, Diana takes Steve back to America in her invisible jet. Diana gets a lot of crap about the invisible jet, so much so that later writers just gave her the ability to fly. Far more practical. Except when having to haul around wounded soldiers (or your friends). Here her jet makes complete sense, especially since we already know the Amazons have a magic sphere which gives them access to building invisible jets. (Wow, invisible jet engineer would be incredibly frustrating. I just set the bulkhead there? Where’d it go? Or worse, on the assembly line, when you trip over the invisible screw you dropped weeks ago and didn’t notice.)

As I talked about last week, it’s a pretty good move to have Diana become an army nurse. Her job puts her on the front lines. Or as close as a woman could be in those days. This also makes sense.

On the other hand, my head scratcher was Wonder Woman’s first job — theater/circus performer –, random people’s reactions to her, and how she became a nurse if looked at through the lens of Diana being a new immigrant to America. Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Sensation Comics #1”