Take something you love, tell people about it, bring together people who share your love, and help make it better. Ultimately, you’ll have more of whatever you love for yourself and the world. – Julius Schwartz
A few days before writing this I had a dream in which I was Hawkgirl, probably because we’ve been rewatching the Justice League animated series. And though she’s a bit different in the show than in Silver Age comics (in the show she’s single, more belligerent and naturally winged) the dream still made me think of my column of one year ago today, in which I discussed my love for her and two other comic-book heroines, Wonder Woman and Alanna of Ranagar. As I stated in that column, all three ladies…
…shared something…in common; they…appeared in titles edited by the late, great Julius Schwartz, father of the Silver Age of comics…Schwartz loved strong women and was a supporter of women’s rights at least since the 1940s, and most of the ladies (whether heroine, love-interest or villainess) who appeared in the titles he helmed were interesting, well-developed characters who stood out in sharp relief against the flat, stereotyped females who appeared in most other comics of the time (such as the rightfully-mocked Silver Age depiction of Superman’s girl friend Lois Lane, whose life was entirely dominated by schemes to trick the Man of Steel into proposing to her).
The job of a comic book editor is to coordinate the efforts of artist and writer, to set standards for his titles and to reject work which falls beneath that standard; he has to set a tone and ensure that it is maintained, and to help plan the “big picture”, the framework into which stories in that comic are expected to fit. So even though the typical editor neither writes nor draws comics (though there are notable exceptions), no other single person is more to thank if a title is good and to blame if it’s bad. Schwartz produced the best comics of the 1950s and early 1960s, bar none; he was a wizard at inspiring his people to superior work, and could steer a course through stormy waters where lesser men foundered. In 1964 two of DC’s most important titles, Detective Comics (for which the company was named) and Batman, were failing due to years of mismanagement by veteran editor Jack Schiff; the company did not want to fire him but the Caped Crusader had to be saved. So Schwartz was offered the helm of the two Batman titles…on condition that he give Schiff his two best-selling science fantasy comics, Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space (the title featuring Adam Strange, whom I discussed last time). Schwartz accepted the deal, and Batman and Detective soon soared in quality and popularity; Mystery in Space was cancelled two years later, and Strange Adventures limped on until it was rescued by another editor in 1967. Schwartz then went on to revive the various Superman titles in 1971 and Wonder Woman in 1974.
One of the most important elements of Schwartz’ managerial style was concentration on characterization. Though the restrictive “Comics Code” foisted on the industry after the Kefauver Hearings in 1954 tied creators’ hands in many ways, nobody was to blame for flat, static characterizations but the creators themselves, and Schwartz insisted on a higher standard. You can see an example of it in the story “Earth Victory – By a Hair!” which I introduced in “My Favorite Authors”; though the characters are necessarily simple (it’s only an eight-page comic story, which doesn’t leave much room), they are comparatively round and “The Wrecker” grows beyond his initially sexist attitude toward the strong female lead. Such competent, interesting female characters are quite common in Schwartz’s titles, and today I’d like to tell you about two others, one created by Gardner Fox and the other by John Broome, the two writers most closely associated with Schwartz.
The first, Zatanna the Magician, was the dedicated and courageous daughter of the crime-fighting Golden Age magician Zatara, who had mysteriously vanished. She was working to find him, and her quest intersected the paths of virtually every hero whose adventures were edited by Schwartz, starting with Hawkman and Hawkgirl and ending with the entire Justice League. This clever stratagem allowed Schwartz to tie his various titles together (an unusual idea at that time), and to present a new character without a magazine of her own in a multi-part story which made her popular enough to eventually gain her own strip (a back-feature in Supergirl’s title during the early ‘70s). I first encountered her in mid-‘70s reprints, and like many other readers I was enchanted by the sweet, vulnerable but plucky young sorceress, who later grew into one of the most powerful characters in the DC universe.
The other, Katma Tui, was originally intended as a one-shot character in Green Lantern. For those unfamiliar with the mythos, I’ll explain that Earth’s Green Lantern is only the local representative of the Green Lantern Corps, a sort of cosmic order of knighthood dedicated to justice and presided over by the mysterious Guardians. From time to time our hero encounters other alien Green Lanterns, and in issue #30 he was sent to dissuade a promising young Lantern who had decided to resign. But the Guardians, who are obviously less sexist than Terrans of the 1960s, neglected to tell him that this other Green Lantern was female…because they simply didn’t consider it an important detail. Our GL succeeded in his mission, Katma stayed in the Corps, and the readers demanded to see more of her; she eventually became the most popular guest star in the series.
Both of these ladies, like those I discussed last year, showed my young and impressionable self that a woman could be tough, resourceful, intelligent and powerful, yet still be beautiful, graceful and wholly feminine. And since all of them were to a large degree shaped by Julius Schwartz, one might say that, ironically, one of the first people who taught me about female power and self-esteem was a man. Of course, as a child I didn’t really think about that; young girls see female characters as women rather than as the fictional constructions of men. I don’t know what sort of negative garbage most neofeminists read that convinces them that most men prefer weak, stupid, useless sex dolls; Julius Schwartz and his crew taught me that men of quality like strong, resourceful women with minds of their own. And you know what? They were right.
Have you read the “new 52”? If so what are tour thoughs on the way the females are characterized?
I stopped buying new comics at the beginning of 1980 for a host of reasons, including price inflation (you may laugh), thinking I was too old for them at 13 (ditto) and severe frustration with the dealers skipping issues so that it had become impossible to dependably follow multi-issue stories (there were no comic book stores in south Louisiana back then). I occasionally read boyfriends’ comics until they started the whole “Crisis” thing, which annoyed me so badly that I never picked up a new issue again.
When my husband moved in with me in 2002 we married our collections together, and as there wasn’t a lot of overlap the size of my collection doubled; two years later I wandered into a comic store in New Orleans while killing time waiting for a call, and got into a conversation with the store owner which resulted in his offering me every Silver and Bronze age issue that I wanted for $5 apiece, regardless of cover price; it was a steal and I couldn’t resist. After that we started working on completing our Silver & Bronze Age collection, and we’re very close now; just Sunday night I bought the last issue of Action Comics and the last two of Superman we still needed.
Go out to your local library, find the graphic novels section (741.5973), and check out virtually anything by Geoff Johns (Marvel or DC) but especially his Blackest Night/Brightest Day saga; Gail Simone, especially Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman; and Jodi Piccoult’s Wonder Woman. This is our society’s mythology, as much as Hercules, Jupiter and Venus was Rome’s. Geoff Johns is considered by most comic book experts to have a) single-handedly saved the genre, b) pulled it into the realm of actual literature. Perhaps not serious literature, but literature none the less.
I was really offended by the Crisis thing, too, and I never bought another DC book after that. Although, to be fair, I’d only rarely bought DC since the beginning of the ’80s anyway. I’ve always been a Marvel person, but I’m not sure Marvel had any good female characterisation until the ’70s.
I noticed by the by, after I left the library yesterday, that 2 of my 3 favorite comic writers are women.
Rich
PS-Geoff Johns corrected most of the Crisis errors with the Blackest Night/Brightest Day saga.
When you cite “Crisis” I assume you mean “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, the series that retconned all the Superman loose ends?
Hollywood and TV have played a large part in portraying men as preferring brainless bimbos and helpless maidens, from the tied up girl on the railway tracks to the blonde bikini-clad decorations around the mafia Don’s swimming pool.
Of course, if “intelligence” is defined as being self-centered, hostile to male sexuality and emotional needs, and unceasingly demanding and critical, then perhaps most men would prefer a dumb blonde.
My brother, of course, has been patiently waiting for that Wonder Woman movie that gets promised every so often. I know he’ll have a long wait for that, because I don’t think Hollywood has a good handle on female action star movies.
I much preferred Hawkgirl on Justice League to Wonder Woman on Justice League, who often came off as rather self-righteous and obnoxious. (I grew up on the Linda Carter version, of course, who I liked much better though there may be some youthful nostalgia about an early crush involved there.)
Did you see they had Katma Tui in an episode of Justice League? My thought on seeing her, for the one episode she was in, was “Um… WOW!”
I’ve been watching Birdy the Mighty on Netflix, and I was thinking how similar it was in concept to a female Green Lantern series. Of course, it has those odd Japanese elements that you wouldn’t see in American series. I would still recommend it for any fans of Justice League, though, or Superman: The Animated Series. It’s very much similar to a standard issue American superhero show.
Unfortunately, the DCAU stuff on all the streaming services (that I know about, anyway) is limited to whatever the one DCAU movie that they currently have is. Which was Under The Red Hood previously, and I suppose they’ll get Justice League: Doom, eventually.
I think there are only two people in the entire universe who can play “Wonder Woman” and pull it off.
One was Linda Carter – damn, I loved her (still do).
And the other is India Summer – I know I’ll get some shit for that, she’s not as big up top as Linda Carter was – but who cares? WW is an Amazonian right? Didn’t they used to cut off their right boob so they could shoot a bow? I’m sure that’s some kind of urban legend but yeah – India Summer has my vote!!!!
” Didn’t they used to cut off their right boob so they could shoot a bow?”
That’s from the original Greek Myth. It actually showed up in recent comics in “Y the Last Man” as a neofeminist gang (Daughters of the Amazon) hunting the Last Man were doing that to themselves.
First disk of Birdy the Mighty added to queue. Thanks.
Sure… I think I watched two seasons in a weekend ^^
Oh, and it wasn’t the original OAV it was the Reboot (called Birdy the Mighty:Decode). Although I had heard of the OAV before, which is why I decided to watch it.
Ah. Well what I added was the OAV, though I did see Decode listed. I’ll watch the OAV sometime in June, and decide from that where to go.
The OAV is supposed to be good, but the dub on it is said to be a bit iffy. Not something to worry me, as I normally watch subtitled anyway (too much experience with truly bad dubs).
Yeah, I’m a subtitle man from way back. One half of my namesake taught me that.
I was only able to watch one disc, but rather liked it. The other is in what I call Netflix’s “holding patter:” DVD they expect to be available at some time, but not now.
I don’t know how some of this comes on your radar screen – honestly. I mean, I could see myself collecting comics – maybe in an alternate universe – but I don’t think I’d ever dive into the characters as deeply as you have, Maggie. Hell, my mind is always too busy thinking about women for me to research that kind of stuff.
^^This – this is true. And – another thing popped to my mind here …
If men are programmed by evolution to be attracted to exceptional physical characteristics in women that produce physically better offspring …
Doesn’t it make sense that we’d also be programmed to be attracted to SMART women? I mean, the human body is an awesome thing but it can’t rival most of the biological machines in the rest of the animal kingdom – some of whom run much faster than humans, or can fly, or can go without food for long periods of time. Man is a success on this planet because of his BRAIN – so doesn’t it make sense that evolution would have programmed men (as well as women) to include intelligence in their mating algorithm?
You know – after 50 years of breathing on this planet – I’ve been hard pressed to find a woman who’s LESS intelligent than I am – but I’ve found a handful. Sure, the body can suck a guy in and hold him for a brief period of time – but after that, if there’s no “smarts” to be seen in the eyes I always had to find a way out of the relationship.
I’m reminded of this “bikini girl extra” that I used to date in Hawaii named Sue. Sue did stints on “Magnum PI” and “Murder She Wrote” back in the 80’s – and they always showed her backside (it was her best side but I can vouch that what was up front was AWESOME). However, Sue was dumber than a football bat and I had to get rid of her – and her next boyfriend ditched her too (after a few months) for the very same reason.
Anecdotal – but I think intelligence in women counts for something. I’m not sure how much it counts in the mating algorithm of WOMEN though. Maybe not too highly since I’ve never been dumped by a woman on the grounds that I wasn’t intelligent! 😛
You ain’t as dumb as you let on.
Amen to that.
Never being a massive comic book head, I can’t really add much other than wasn’t Spiderman’s Gwen Stacy the only smart woman in the series who was intuitive enough to notice that there was more to Peter Parker than meets the eye?
The single element of the typical comic book series for which it was hardest to suspend disbelief for me wasn’t invulnerability or power rings or people moving faster than light; it was that a woman could know a man, even intimately, and not recognize him with a mask on. One writer in the late ’70s actually subverted that; there was a woman Bruce Wayne was dating seriously, and when Batman later had to save her and she looked up at him…she fainted, then broke up with Bruce the next day.
The mask thing isn’t that hard to believe – for me anyway. I’m an “extra” in the movie “The Tomb” and I play a “Tomb Guard” – and all the guards wear black kabuki masks with mirrors in the eye holes and balaclavas covering our hair.
There’s like 20 of us on the set and I fucking LOSE myself – we all look so much alike. One of the PA’s called out my name for something – and I started looking around for Krulac! 😛
I’m like … “Where the fuck is that guy?” 😀
That was during Steve Englehart’s run on Detective Comics, and the character was Silver St. Cloud. She told Bruce that she couldn’t stand waiting for him night after night, knowing he could be dead. Interesting that she didn’t expect him to give up being Batman.
I remembered Silver’s name, but not the writer’s. Thank you!
I always just kind of figured the secret identity was part of the package. If we take seriously questions of how likely is it that people won’t recognize the hero, then only Billy Batson/Captain Marvel has a sure thing. 😉 Of course, when every fifth story revolves around somebody trying to discover or prove the secret ID, well that’s just rubbing our noses in it.
Sometimes, though, it get really egregious. Here is a picture of Tsukino Usagi. Here is a picture of Sailor Moon. In one ep, Usagi’s little brother meets Sailor Moon. Never occurs to him that they might be the same person. Never even comments that they wear their hair the same way.
I eventually heaved a sigh and said, “It’s magic. She’s magically immune to being recognized.”
In the late ’70s DC came up with an explanation for why nobody recognizes Clark Kent as Superman which I thought was freaking fantastic, but was widely ridiculed. It had been established that Superman had a power of super-hypnotism; he could plant very strong suggestions in the minds of anyone who trusted him (which for Superman is nearly everybody). When he puts on his glasses and acts like Clark Kent, he is literally willing everyone around him to see him as meek and mid-mannered…and it mostly works. He first discovered it when a sketch artist did a picture of him that showed him as smaller and more feeble than he actually was, and everyone agreed it was a perfect likeness.
Yes, the glasses (made of Kryptonian glass to withstand heat vision) actually amplified the effect. Not a lot different from “magically immune” when it comes down to it.
The Golden Age Flash didn’t wear a mask, but kept his face blurry by vibrating it.
“Julius Schwartz and his crew taught me that men of quality like strong, resourceful women with minds of their own. And you know what? They were right.”
Yes, they were!
Check out Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose. It’s lead character is someone I feel you’ll truly appreciate. It’s creator’s site is here: http://www.jimbalentstudios.com/studio.htm
Wow! A girl that likes comics! AWESOME!
If you do like those characters, I do recommend that you restart reading comic books because in the recent years, things has become greater in story wise and art wise.
For Wonder Woman, I strongly recommend that you read Spirit of Truth.