Wednesday 27 August 2014

Wonder Woman comics that I have read.

It was certainly a big night last night for fans of strong-willed women who do what they want when they want and how they want, as Kate Bush took the stage for the start of her first tour in thirty five years.

Admittedly, her tour consists of playing just one venue over and over and over again until she wears a hole in the stage floor but, still, at least she made the effort to travel to the venue and didn't insist on making the fans come to her house to see her - like I would have done.

But what of that other strong-willed woman from our formative years? The one with the lasso and the invisible plane? The one who never sang of Heathcliff but became an icon just the same?

It can only be Wonder Woman. And here's where I take at look at the Wonder Woman comics I read in those formative years when I was too young to notice that she got tied up in every issue and too young to surmise as to why she got tied up in every issue.

To be honest, I've not read any of them since then, so my memories are likely to be a little hazy.

Still, even if I don't know what I'm talking about, I can at least admire the pretty pictures.


Wonder Woman #198

I don't know if this mag counts as being part of Wonder Woman's Emma Peel years or not. She's not in her old dominatrix gear but she is hanging around with Amazons. It almost hints that DC were trying to have their cake and eat it.
Wonder Woman #201, Catwoman

This one I do remember. Wonder Woman and Catwoman are after some sort of idol in Tibet or Kathmandu or Timbuktu or one of those other places that you didn't believe really existed when you were a kid.

Shoot me down in flames but, almost uniquely in fandom, I like Catwoman's Puss in Boots look from this era.
Wonder Woman #203

Right on, sister. Wonder Woman smacks us all in the face with a great big dose of women's lib as she takes on a department store owner who hasn't had a proper sprinkler system fitted in his workplace.

And you can read my review of this issue right here.
Wonder Woman #204, Nubia

Clearly, sorting out department store sprinkler systems didn't grab DC's editorial staff overly-much as a future direction for the strip because, just one issue later, Wonder Woman gets back to her old style and comes up against her sister Nubia, with not a fire prevention measure in sight.
Wonder Woman #205, Dr Domino

The villain in this tale has a head that's a giant domino. Exactly how one ends up with a head that's a giant domino, I have no idea.

Call me overly-Freudian but I think I may detect something vaguely suggestive about the cover of this book.
Wonder Woman #206, Nubia

To be honest, I'm not totally sure if I have actually ever read this issue but the cover look familiar, so I'm assuming I have.

Either way, I have no idea what happens inside other than what the cover suggests to me happens inside.
Wonder Woman #207

Proof positive that bondage can be a bonding experience for both mother and daughter.

I do always feel it must be weird for Wonder Woman to have a mother who doesn't seem to be any older than she is.

Then again, it must be fairly weird knowing that she's a statue that was brought to life.
Wonder Woman #208, Chessmen of Death

Yet again, I recall nothing of the contents but if the story really does feature a giant, evil chess piece attacking people with an axe, I suspect the failing is on my part rather than the comic's.
Wonder Woman #210

"You can't make me talk," says Wonder Woman, talking. Doh!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Wonder Woman - yes! Great stuff, Steve. If memory serves, WW 206 was a good issue (but don't hold me to that), the one that actually revealed Nubia was Diana's twin sister, kidnapped by Mars at 'birth' who Hippolyta had completely forgotten about (as you do)...

After reading about Kathmandu in so many comics, I was surprised when I went there and it turned out to be just like Sheffield (only, you know, in the Himalayas)...

-sean

Steve W. said...

I also hear that Tibet is very like Barnsley.

Anonymous said...

As it happens, I used to know a bloke from Barnsley who was a bit like Maximus The Mad.

-sean

Unknown said...

I only ever bought one Wonder Woman comic in my life and that was issue 210 shown here - the character never really grabbed me (preferred Black Canary at DC) although I do recall being rather fond of the 70s TV show (I wonder why) - Incidentally the Cat Woman costume you liked was designed by the (imho) massively underrated Frank Robbins

Anonymous said...

Someone at Cartoon Network must have also liked Catwoman's Puss-in-Boots costume, because it was used at least once on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Judging by Plastic Man's reaction in that episode, he really liked it, too.

A lot of critics (most famously, Dr. Frederic Wertham) have claimed to see all kinds of subliminal messages in comics, e.g., the idea of Batman and Robin as a gay couple. 99% of those claims are strictly in the eye of the beholder, and depend on reading things into the comics that were not intended.

Wonder Woman, though, may be the other 1%. Kinky images were common, particularly bondage scenes.

Re: WW #205's cover, though, maybe a Freudian would admit that sometimes a bomb is just a bomb.

Dougie said...

The only one I ever read was " You can't make me talk!" It was very pretty and silly and I thought it was just a comic for *bah!* GIRLS.
I'd like to like Womder Woman but the only time I almost did was when Roy Thomas and Gene Colan teamed her up with other super-ladies.

TC said...

The cover of #206 looks familiar to me, too, and I'm positive that I never had that issue. I think it's because it's similar to the 1977 Superman vs. Wonder Woman tabloid (aka All-New Collector's Edition #C-54).

Re: the invisible plane, I never understood what good it did for the aircraft to be invisible if WW was still visible while inside of it.