oscarbait 's review for:

Wonder Woman: The Golden Age Vol. 1 by William Moulton Marston, Various

adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Obsessed with the ways early Wonder Woman comics serve two masters: at once blunt WWII propaganda and thinly (VERY thinly) veiled fetish porn. Every issue provides an excuse to put a woman in bondage and ends with a plea to buy war bonds. The worldview in both manners is blindingly simple, colorful and blunt - same as the paneling, art, and coloring. There's something so compelling about it? These comics are bursting at the seams, conflicted by their own contradictions. It grapples with some incredibly complex ideas: what is freedom? Who deserves it? If freedom is good then why do girls in shackles make me feel tingly?

And always they are forced to find an easy solution. 

"If girls want to be slaves there's no harm in that. The bad thing for them is submitting to a master or to an evil mistress like Paula! A GOOD mistress could do wonders with them!"

The comics are thoroughly shaped by their culture. Unreadably racist at times (the Japanese portrayals are exactly what you may expect) (shout-out to my favorite bit villian, the horrible racist caricature and inexplicable crossdresser, Dr. Poison). Of particular note is Sensation Comics No. 7, in which a company price-gouging milk is revealed as an evil German scheme to raise a generation of weak American children. So many very particular preoccupations of the time rolled into one! Fixation on milk (courtesy of the dairy industry), generational panic over children's health and strength (because weak children can't grow up to be soldiers), the general miasma of fear and paranoia– and, of course, seeing the fruits of American industry and capitalism and pinning them on foreign invasion. Some of this stuff is perhaps not so outdated.

It's one thing reading weird old pulp that has been buried in the annals of memory, but it's something else when it has the weight of culture on it. Like, I know these characters! I'm American! This bitch has been in the miasma of pop culture my entire life! I know Wonder Woman, I know her origin, I know her lasso! And yet they're SO goddamn weird. I can't get over this. Why didn't anyone tell me?

Would not recommend anyone read these. They suck. The actual reading experience is kind of a slog. But I'm obsessed. Forever maybe. 

(I have to at least read until Dr. Poison, the love of my life, shows up again)