Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Wonder Woman #3 part 1 of 4

Wonder Woman Wednesdays

Wonder Woman #3

Marston decided that Diana and Etta wouldn’t just hang around Canada capturing Nazis for the holiday season. Instead, the women take off to Paradise Island. But not before some shenanigans. Eve Brown and Dorothy Lord are arrested as spies, and Etta petitions to Diana to prove that they’ve innocent. Apparently, Paula Von Gunther has given them up so she can get a lighter sentence.

When Diana and Steve go to the jail, Paula escapes right in front of them. Once again, she’s used her charm to get away and out of the guards’ view. Continue reading “Wonder Woman Wednesdays: Wonder Woman #3 part 1 of 4”

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”

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”