Skip to main content

Marston and Wonder Woman

I found the background of Marston to be quiet interesting.  I loved that he was a famous psychologist who kind of randomly took up the idea of working on comic books.  I found his earlier history to be extremely cool, in that he came up with the idea for the lie detector.  Loved the random stories pertaining to this concept, such as that of the two friends who loved each other but were already engaged to other people whom the lie detector found they did not love.  Marston was extremely accomplished in his field, teaching at Radcliffe, Tuts, Columbia, NYU and the University of Southern California, it is shocking to me that he would leave this field to work in creating comic books.  Marston however made the correct decision as he ended up creating the first true super herione, or rather the first successful super herione as the book states another one named Olga Mesmer, the girl with the x-ray eyes was the first, but she did not achieve popularity.  

Marston did not abandon his psychological concepts as stated in the book "Marston believed women were less susceptible than men to the negative traits of aggression and acquisitiveness, and could come to control the comparatively unruly male sex by alluring them"(Wonder Woman, the Complete History, pg 19).    Thus, Marston was targeting a male audience, and having female characters who were often bonded and tied up the male readers flocked to the wonder woman comics.  Many of the villains in the Wonder Woman comic books were quiet twisted and wonderful, such as Dr. Poison who was originally portrayed as a man but turned out to be a woman.  The wonder woman comic books and their creator truly have interested me, hopefully the rest of the book will continue to hold my interest.

Comments

philippos42 said…
You're reading Les Daniels's Wonder Woman: the Complete History? That's a good book.

As for Marston's career change, I got the impression he'd been fired from instructing for moral turpitude (i.e., his long extramarital relationship with Olive Byrne) & discovered comics as a way to have a more stable income. Unlike many comic book writers & artists, he kept ultimate control of his character, which helped him stay nearly his own boss (though of course he had an editor).

Popular posts from this blog

Understanding Comics Ch. 1-2 & Comic Book Nation Ch.1

To begin with, I really do like the idea of reading a comic about comics. I think it's a great idea and it's very well executed. As I was reading the first two chapters, I was surprised at how many examples there were of art in recent (and ancient, in some cases) history that are variations of "sequential visual art" and thus the foundations of modern comics. I'd never even thought about it before and it was hard to believe how many different kinds there were. I also love all the discussion about how our human brains automatically interpret certain images in a specific way, how we see others constantly but we identify ourselves when we look at cartoons, and how inanimate objects automatically becomes extensions of our bodies. The pyramid of styles was very interesting too as a way to conceptualize and almost graph or "place" a specific art style in comics. In Comic Book Nation , I enjoyed reading about the evolution of early comics from "funnies...

MegaCon 2011 Mobile Blog Entry

Next up, the Crime Noir Panel hosted by The Rack Pack Comic Podcast . Jimmy Palmiotti, Frank Tieri, Darwyn Cook and Dave Johnson are the speakers. MegaCon has matured as the comic industry has grown in importance in popular culture. Orlando's native convention should be attracting this kind of top talents and now it seem to be doing it.

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...