Kermit the Frog is the problem

I love the Muppets, I absolutely do. They are almost always guaranteed to improve my mood with their wacky antics, but they don’t always work. Sure I’d take anything Muppet over anything Kardashian but a lot of the newer stuff has fallen flat. Some attribute this solely to them being acquired by Disney and “Disney not understanding the Muppets” which is partially true. The Muppets are meant for anyone to enjoy, while the Disney era has leaned them more to kids with the risqué and cynical being removed. If you don’t believe me about the cynicism listen to the Rainbow connection from the Muppet movie, on the surface it’s a nice song about rainbows but actually look at the words “Rainbows are only illusions”. The more interesting passage is “Who said that every wish, Would be heard and answered, When wished on the morning star, Somebody thought of that, And someone believed it, And look what it's done so far” because who thought of “when you wish upon a star” Disney. The Rainbow connection is the Muppets saying the Disney message is potentially harmful. The Muppets are wide-eyed dreamers but they’re mostly realists (some characters are unaware of their faults like Miss Piggy), the older audience are aware that Fozzie’s jokes are awful, and every time he makes an awful pun Kermit cringes or Waldorf and Statler yell at him from the balcony. The Muppets were not meant for kids, Jim Henson had 2 other shows with puppets meant for kids (Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock) The Muppets were for the whole family.

This lack of cynicism is part of the problem but the real problem is Kermit is not Kermit. Let me explain Kermit the frog is the centre of the Muppets, he was Jim Henson’s favourite puppet, his go-to if he ever needed to do an appearance. Kermit predates the Muppet show or their random appearances to do skits on late night talk shows. The plush amphibian started out on Jim’s early public access show Sam and Friends. Most episodes of Sam and Friends are now lost media, but Jim used Sam and Friends as a way to experiment with films and puppets. Jim Henson always thought of himself as an experimental film maker first and a puppeteer second. Puppets were his chosen medium because he thought they could do more than entertain toddlers, which is why he was so hesitant to make Sesame Street until he found out it was actually educational. Jim Henson with the Muppet Show and Sesame Street played many characters; Ernie, Rowlf the Dog, Dr Teeth, The Swedish chef, but Kermit was his go-to. Kermit being in both shows drew criticism at the time, but it makes perfect sense Jim and Kermit are the same. Kermit in the Muppets is a paternal figure who keeps the groups of misfits and oddballs together but with his role of leadership is stressed. Kermit is passive aggressive but also empathetic and caring like a real person. The best description of Jim Henson I’ve ever heard is “a Doozer pretending to be a Fraggle” and if you don’t know what that means I’ll explain. Fraggle Rock has an ecosystem with Doozers who are workaholics and are obsessed with building massive towers that the Fraggles eat, The Fraggles spend all day making up silly songs and playing games. Jim Henson was always working on the next project whilst trying to emit an air of whimsy.

Jim Henson died in 1990 shortly after selling The Muppets to Disney. Now Disney didn’t start off ruining his legacy, we got the classic Muppets’ Christmas Carol, and part of the reason this worked was it shifted away from Kermit. The centre of the film is Gonzo as Charles Dickens and Rizo as the rat who argues with Charles Dickens. Kermit plays the role of Bob Cratchett which keeps Kermit central to the story, but he doesn’t have that many scenes to hide the fact he isn’t Jim anymore. Replacing Kermit with Gonzo was a smart choice, Gonzo may not have been the most popular Muppet (despite objectively being the best he is called “Gonzo The Great” it’s in his name), but he had a similar relationship with his Muppeteer. Gonzo was created as a form of therapy for Dave Goelz who worked on the show making Muppets, Goelz was painfully shy and he was given any puppet he liked to be his and he picked Gonzo because he was kind of funny looking. Gonzo’s personality like Kermit’s is complicated, lots of the Muppets are simple Animal likes Drums, Piggy is conceited, the Swedish chef makes a mess but Gonzo has depth. Gonzo is a show-off but insecure, he acts out because he’s lonely, he doesn’t have a family he doesn’t even have a species he’s a “Whatever”. Gonzo was the focus of the next two muppet films, Treasure Island where he and Rizo tag along with Jim Hawkins for all the major scenes and Muppets from Space. Frank Oz once said “Muppets from Space wasn’t really a Muppet movie” and well he’s right but that’s not a bad thing (also Oz told George Lucas to have MORE Jar Jar in Star Wars so can we trust him). Muppets From Space is unique among the muppet movies, the meta-element of them is gone from it. All the other movies have a nod and a wink that this is a movie, either because the muppets are adapting a well known story or because of 4th wall breaks. The Muppet Movie is overtly about a fictional version of how the Muppet show started, The great Muppet caper has a recurring deliberately bad joke that nobody can tell Kermit and Fozzie apart despite them being a frog and a bear. Muppets take Manhattan is the only other one that doesn’t have this element to it, except at the end with the broadway wedding of Kermit and Miss Piggy. But Muppets takes Manhattan isn’t about the Muppets as characters, it’s still about them as performers. Muppets from Space is about Gonzo, it’s about how he’s the only one of his kind, how he doesn’t feel like he fits in and at the end him realising it’s ok to be different because all the Muppets are different and they all love him.

Unfortunately Muppets from space bombed and the next Muppets specials were terrible, Muppets Wizard of Oz which had one good joke in the whole thing and then it’s Wonderful Muppet life, which was about Kermit wanting to commit suicide.

After those 2 stinkers we got a yellow life preserver called Walter. Walter was a new character and the centre of the film Muppets. I can only assume Walter was another self-insert character as anyone who trains to be a Muppeteer is probably an even bigger fan of the Muppets than me and that was Walter’s defining trait. Despite Walter being the saving grace, Kermit had to be centre again for the painfully unfunny Muppets Most Wanted. Muppets least wanted (as I have officially dubbed it in my head) is a step backwards with Walter is a small role and then ABC’s The Muppets doesn’t even have Walter in it (his Muppeteer Peter Linz was still involved but without any leading roles). The ABC Sitcom got cancelled and Steven Witmore was fired from the Jim Henson company by both Lisa and Brian Henson citing radically different reasons as to why Witmore’s Kermit was wrong. Lisa believed his Kermit was an “Amoral drunken sociopath” and Brian thought he was a “complete pushover devoid of charm”. Witmore openly complained that the show made him “do things Kermit would never do like lie” but these fell on deaf ears and Kermit was forced to act out of character.

Kermit now isn’t fairing any better. Disney Junior have revived Muppet Babies (something they can only do because they own Marvel who did the animation for the original series) but Kermit is a wimp. Kermit isn’t even the one who comforts the others. That role belongs to Summer Penguin (a new character added for the reboot). And the adult Kermit who is now played by Matt Vogel: he’s so lifeless, everything coming from him seems like “Would Jim do this” or “will this test well”. 

Kermit doesn’t need retiring but he isn’t the leading frog he used to be, now he doesn’t seem like he could lead anything. The Muppets should’ve changed and evolved, Jim Henson never let a setback stop him. He had to make 3 different pilots for the Muppet show and move to another country to make it. But Disney keep going back to what they think worked but it wasn’t Kermit we liked it was Jim, I think what the Muppets need is to be more of an ensemble but Matt Vogel’s Kermit has to change; he shouldn’t be a lifeless parody of his former self. 

Wonder Woman: Feminist Icon or Male Fantasy?

As one of the three characters who have been published by DC continuously since World War 2 (the other 2 being Superman and Batman) and often the sole female member of the Justice League, Wonder woman is easily one of the most recognisable and popular female superheroes. However, one question has lingered over her since her creation, is she a champion smashing through the glass ceiling (or carefully unhinging the roof if it’s her invisible plane) or just fetish fuel for adolescent boys. Wonder Woman’s history is more obscure than her colleagues, with her often feeling like a clear third to the World’s Finest team. Wonder Woman is popular but she tends to be popular with non comic readers, if comics sales where the only factor in whether or not a comic is cancelled Wonder Woman’s publication would be as patchy as Aquaman’s but due to her selling a lot of merch to girlfriends and daughters as well as potential readers scared off by the boys club of chauvinists that haunt comic book stores monthly drooling over the sexy pin-up girl posters. 

The best place to start looking for an answer is to look at her creator and his reason’s for creating the character. Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston a former psychology professor at Harvard University. Marston was notorious for feuding with other professors including one who became the inspiration for the recurring villain Dr Psycho (a small man with an intense hatred of women and desire to see them subjugated at any cost). Marston’s most notable contributions to the sciences are the patent on the lie detector (which the research was mostly done by his wife Elizabeth) and DISC theory which he expanded on in many books like the “emotions of normal people”. DISC theory is all about how humans interact with each other and how they get what they want from one another as people are social creatures we need each other and form groups. A healthy relationship to him is one of equals trusting equals, and the best way to gain trust is to “submit yourself to a loving authority”. A loving authority would never abuse those who they have control over, but within submission you throw yourself upon them hoping they are loving which is why it builds trust. These beliefs are a cornerstone of Wonder Woman and her beliefs within the earlier stories (the ones by Marston). Marston’s was an adamant supporter of women’s rights even believing that emotionally healthy women are naturally more compassionate and caring than any man and would in fact be the better leaders, because men are only good at following orders, lifting things and maths. 

Marston was fired from Harvard University as the educational establishment did not like the polyamorous relationship him and his wife (Elizabeth) had with their student Olive Byrne. With his teaching job gone Elizabeth took a job as a secretary and William looked for a new way to promote his ideas, his first attempt was through pornography but with strict laws prohibiting its sale he looked for a new medium for a shady character like himself could work (and Olive raised their children). The new fad of “Underwear Heroes” in children’s literature was the perfect place for him to write about his ideas, seeing that boys had Superman to look up to he wondered who girls had as a role model? He couldn’t find one so he made one himself. Creating a new woman out of clay with the best parts of Olive and Elizabeth he created “Suprema the Wonder Woman”. He pitched this new character to National comics the biggest publisher of Underwear heroes with such characters as Superman, Batman and Green Lantern. Thinking he had a kindred spirit in the publisher Mort Weisinger, a man who took a massive risk on the sci-fi stories of second generation immigrants Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, he was sure he had a buyer. Mort hated it, he gave Marston some advice “girls don’t buy action stories” and “shorten the name”, Marston complied with the second piece of advice and proceeded to selling “Wonder Woman” to All Star Comics (who would be bought by National Comics and merge to become DC Comics).

In December 1941 Wonder Woman debuted in the pages of Sensation comics a book she would share with Mr Terrific and the Gay Ghost. Wonder Woman unlike most comic book characters had her first few issues dedicated to her origins and back story (Superman got a single page saying her was from space and fans had to wait 8 months to find out what would possess a man to dress up as a Bat and fight mobsters). With the Wisdom of Athena, the Beauty of Aphrodite, Strength greater the Hercules and more Swiftness than Mercury (note she is equal 2 Goddesses and greater than 2 Gods) Wonder Woman is saving the life of American spy Steve Trevor. Steve Trevor is a self insert of Marston himself, Marston also worked as a spy but Trevor’s role in the series is to be a Damsel in Distress similar to how in Superman comics Lois is really good at finding people to kidnap her, Steve Trevor is the worst spy in the world. Steve has the innate ability to be captured by the enemy when going out to get a pack of cigarettes, but due to his male gender he is promoted for Wonder Woman’s work (similar to how Marston got praise for Elizabeth’s work). Sigmund Freud wrote about how women have “Penis envy” Marston argued that this is not literal, but women are jealous of how current society (or “Man’s World”) has put them in a role of dominance, Steve Trevor embodies how great it is to be a man and be praised for work you didn’t do.

Wonder Woman altruistically gives up her role as a doctor and princess of paradise island to continue to care for her patient who is one part baby bird one part patronising douchebag who calls her “Angel”. After making this decision she finds out about the history of her people, how they where subjugated by Hercules (later tellings add under the orders of Zeus but early Wonder Woman had a smaller pantheon of gods). The tools used by Hercules are now her greatest weakness, if they are welded together Aphrodite and Athena will strip an Amazon of their strength and they will be exactly like a normal woman but with them unbound the bracelets give an Amazon boundless strength and they’re nifty at deflecting bullets (Amazonian children like to play a game called bullets and bracelets and Diana herself is the islands champion at the game).

Now in Man’s World Wonder Woman must blend in and find some form of income, she at first becomes a circus performer where she shows off her skills at Bullets and Bracelets. This would be a temporary arrangement as her manager was a crook and Diana took him to the authorities. Her real lasting alias in man’s world she would gain by identity theft, stealing the identity of a woman who wanted to leave the army so she could be wed (fortunately the 2 look alike and have the same first name). In this role she could help nurse Steve back to health until he gave her the job as his assistant. 

With the series continuing from that point new characters had to be added, every superhero needs a sidekick and Wonder Woman got a whole sorority of them called the Holliday girls. This was inspired by Marston’s intensive research into a sorority at Harvard which Olive was a member of, studying them he got many of his ideas of submission and loving authorities. The most notable member of the Holliday girls is their leader and often head spanker Etta Candy and obese girl obsessed with eating nothing but sweets. The Holliday girls are fiercely loyal to Wonder Woman and often appear at the end of stories summoned by Wondi via her “Mental Radio” to go and beat up Nazi’s. 

As well as run of the mill Nazis Wonder Woman would take on some more colourful criminals: the first would be Dr Poison a woman so consumed with penis envy that she wishes to pretend to be a man and poison everyone. Baroness Paula Von Gunther an Austrian noble woman who kidnaps women and dominates them into becoming her spies, then having them seduce allies officers to find out military secrets which she then sends to the Nazis to help them win the war. Wonder Woman defeats her by taking over her cult because “she is a more loving master” and they (implied) become members of the Holliday girls. Paula Von Gunther would actually go through a redemption arc with her being a puppet of the Nazi’s and the Amazons taking her on with Wonder Woman being her mistress in charge of her rehabilitation. Other enemies of Wonder Woman in the Marston era include Mars the Roman god of War who lives on Mars and with his 3 lieutenants; The Earl of Greed, the Lord of Conquest and the Duke of Deception use their skills to aid the Nazi war machine and hate how an agent of Aphrodite has been aiding the allies. Less focused on the war effort are Dr Psycho and Wonder Woman’s most enduring nemesis The Cheetah. Consumed by Jealousy and Greed Priscilla Rich is transformed into her split personality The Cheetah who wants what other women have, she wishes to be as strong as an Amazon but this is feeling of pure entitlement. She is completely unhinged and will do anything to get either Hypolita’s magic girdle or Wonder Woman’s lasso. When being told she is unworthy of such powerful artefacts she would most likely respond with “But I want them”.

This story is probably apocryphal but it’s too good not to include. One day a friend, a neighbour of the Marston family knocked on the door of their house, there was no response. She waited a few minutes and knocked again, noticing the door was open and as she was friends with Elizabeth and Olive she let herself in. Not finding either of them in the living room or the kitchen she walked into Professor Marston’s office. In his office she was greeted by the sight of Elizabeth dressed in a skin tight leopard print leotard and cat ears and the professor and Olive tied to chairs. Olive was in a tiara, knee high boots, a red corset and blue skirt and professor Marston was in an Army uniform with hat and no trousers or underwear. Make of that what you will but the Professor is supposed to have had a massive erection as well.

Marston would write Wonder Woman until his death, and would write most of her stories. Wonder Woman was given the role of Justice Society secretary (a role in tribute to Elizabeth) so she could appear on the covers to promote the book but the writers wouldn’t have to deal with Marston’s constant notes about how to write the character. But not long after Marston’s death came the Comics code Authority, this caused many series to get overhauled. All the feminism and fetishism they could find was washed out the series. Etta Candy was no longer a sorority girl she was now an obese orphan girl who was good at getting kidnapped. Wonder Woman’s rogue’s gallery became more and more women (violence between men and women was prohibited in CCA approved books which all of DC’s where) and with this came the power of Super Empathy, this meant she had a calming aura that would help her get to root of a problem (a handy tool for Paradise Island’s only Ambassador into Man’s World). 

The 1960’s a good decade for Women’s liberation in America but what of the Wonder Woman comic series? With low sales DC gave the book to Dennis O’Neil who was gaining a reputation as the reinventor of classic characters. Harry G Peter’s eagle crested girdle and starry pants where deemed too 1940’s for their new younger audience of girls. Wonder Woman was to lose her whole history, and not just lose it give it up for Steve Trevor, who was promptly killed. This is what’s known as the Mod-Era Wonder Woman where she runs a fashion boutique and learns Kung Fu from a blind master. This era is best known as the worst era of Wonder Woman comics, her lore was almost entirely rewritten and her archenemy during this time is The Catwoman (yes Selina Kyle the Batman badguy) and has more than a passing resemblance to the Frank Miller era of Daredevil (theres actually a storyline where she has to climb a mountain to revive somebody and features her fighting Ninjas). 

With Dennis O’Neils departure from the book the Wonder Woman series returned to something closer to it’s status quo, but DC thought with the success of the Adam West Batman maybe the producers could have a go at Wonder Woman and a pitch pilot was made. The pitch pilot revolves around one joke, Diana Prince transforms into Wonder Woman and becomes uglier, her enemies scream at the site of her but she’s convinced she’s beautiful… unsurprisingly this series did not get green lit.

After William Doziers abysmal attempts at a Wonder Woman TV series, DC tried again with a failed TV movie that has nothing to do with Wonder Woman other than the name. A third attempt had to be made and this one starring American beauty pageant contestant Lynda Carter is possibly the most famous version of Wonder Woman. It’s also easily the most overtly feminist “Fighting for your rights in your satin tights and the old red white and blue” is right there in the theme tune, or what about this quote from the pilot “no society should continue if they don’t recognise the accomplishments of women”. 

The first series is about as faithful to the original comics as it can, the conservative medium wouldn’t have Etta Candy spanking sorority girls on during Tea time, but Etta was still there as another secretary and friend of Diana Prince. Steve Trevor was still there played by Lyle Waggoner (who was second choice to play Batman in 66) and still as capable at getting kidnapped by Nazis as ever. Episodes of the show are almost 1:1 adaptations including the pilot which is mostly Sensation Comics 1 and 4 stapled together. But faithful adaptations of 1940’s comics are expensive so the 2nd season onwards abandoned the WW2 setting in favour of the contemporary 1970’s. Steve Trevor became Steve Trevor Jr played by the same actor, she was a spy, but her rogues gallery rarely appeared opting for cheaper more realistic villains (but Frank Gorshin appears in one episode as the Superman villain the Toyman).

In the 1980’s Wonder Woman comics made strives for gender equality in the boys club of Superhero comics, Dann Thomas in 1983 became the first woman to write Wonder Woman (but with her husband Roy, the first woman to write her solo would be Romantic novelist Jodi Picoult 2006) and Trinna Robbins would do art duties on the mini series “The Legend of Wonder Woman” a recounting of her earliest adventures (and about the only version DC doesn’t reprint). 

The big headline for the main DC Universe in the 80’s would be the Event comic Crisis on Infinite Earths which would completely reshape the DC universe (except for Batman comics). Post Crisis Wonder Woman Art and scribe duties went to George Perez who was top tier talent at the time having just finished his run on New Teen Titans (DC’s best selling series at the time). Perez would add more greek mythology to Wonder Woman, her reason for leaving Themyscira (previously Paradise Island) would be to stop Ares (not Mars this time) from launching a Nuclear warhead. The Amazons would now have been enslaved on the orders of Zeus and Hypolita would free them by tricking their warden Heracles. Hera lead them to the new land where they would be safe but Hypolita would long for motherhood due to her being raped by Heracles. This longing would be so great that Hera had to breathe life into the clay doll she carried around and this would be Diana. Wonder Woman would no longer have an invisible plane but instead would be bestowed with gifts from the gods; The Speed and Flight of Hermes (the only man allowed on Themyscira), The Wisdom of Athena, The Cunning and Strength of Artemis and The Beauty of Aphrodite. This era would also give a greater importance to the occasional Wonder Woman (and Superman) villain Circe. Circe had appeared in earlier stories but with a greater tie to Greek Mythology on the antagonists from Homer’s Odyssey was given pride of place and made a nice counterpoint to Dr Psycho. While Dr Psycho wants to subjugate all women because they make fun of his height, Circe wants to turn all men into manimal slaves that worship her. With these two Wonder Woman fights for equality between the genders and not just saving women from the wickedness of men, equality women can be evil too. 

The relaxing of the Comic’s Code Authority cause the artists post-Perez to make a distinctive choice with Wonder Woman’s already skimpy costume to shrink it. Over the years Wonder Woman’s pants shrunk to the point that they became a thong, but her bracelets have been growing since Harry G Peter left the series so much I want the original Wonder Woman to meet the current  one and say “I see you have the Novice Bracelets, you must work on your skills at Bullets and Bracelets”. If they weren’t shrinking her costume artists where (and this trend continues to now) adding armour, this is an insult. DC does this with Superman and The Flash as well but it makes the characters look weaker, as if Wonder Woman can’t deflect bullets with her bracelets. If anything it would make the villain seem better because now the hero doesn’t trust in their abilities. 

With changing creative teams in the 90’s Wonder Woman’s costume shrank again until one man, John Byrne said no more and drew her wearing more comfortable looking pants. I actually have this theory that she was not in fact wearing smaller and smaller pants but she had been wearing the same batch from the 40’s all this time and they’d been shrinking in the wash. Byrne’s run added many things to the lore, Diana Prince now worked at a fast food chain, her best friend was an archeologist and she had finally gotten competent sidekick (Donna Troy never actually served as her sidekick and was created solely for the Teen Titans). Cassandra Sandsmark was the daughter of Wonder Woman’s best friend and Zeus, Cassie would go on to be in Young Justice and Teen Titans. But how did Byrne treat Wonder Woman herself, well she became a martyr, she took hits and punishment so that nobody else would. While still motivated by empathy and her inner strength, it makes Wonder Woman heroic but also more of a submissive when Wonder Woman had previously been the loving dominatrix. DC editorial during John Byrne’s tenure kept mandating he use specific characters, and a specific one during each arc, Wonder Woman’s solo book had stopped being solo and became a team up book, this trend would continue off and on until 2005.

Greg Rucka would be the next writer to make lasting additions to the Wonder Woman mythos, his addition would be the super villain Veronica Cale. The best way I can describe Veronica Cale is as Wonder Woman’s answer to Lex Luthor. A self made billionaire industrialist and scientist who is motivated by envy, Veronica hates that Wonder Woman is viewed as a feminist icon. She doesn’t think Wonder Woman deserves the accolades as she was given opportunities Cale never had, Cale never got to be raised on a magical island of all women, Cale has no superpowers, everything she has she learnt through work and all she wants is to knock down the demigoddess to her level.

Times where changing in Geek Culture with the success of the Doctor Who revival, Harry Potter and the Twilight books more women where willing to identify as geeks and get into geeky things like Superhero comics. DC capitalised on this by giving Wonder Woman her first female writer who would reintroduce the character after the Infinite Crisis event, Jodi Picoult for a mini series called “Who is Wonder Woman?” after this mini series the main book would be taken over by Gail Simone. Simone’s run was the most popular since the 70’s even though it added relatively little to the lore, it’s most enduring legacy is that it outs Wonder Woman as bisexual. However DC couldn’t let a good thing last, despite the series being the best it had been for a long while (both in writing and sales) they had to abruptly fire Simone from the series and replace her with J Micheal Straczinski fresh from his tenure at Marvel. In the false name of Hera JMS and Jim Lee in Wonder Woman 600 introduced Wonder Woman’s new costume a Biker jacket and leggings. The sales of 600 where strong, 601 weren’t and 602 sales were worse. Fans were outraged, some because of the firing of Simone, some for the new costume and some because Straczinski had just ruined Spider-man over at Marvel and he looked set to work his magic at DC.

Wonder Woman’s first major outing outside of the comics was the Hanna Barbera series Super-Friends, but in that show all the heroes are reduced to different powers the only real personalities are the Wonder Twins who are mind-bogglingly annoying. But DC in the early 2000’s had 2 failed attempts to bring Wonder Woman to a wider non-comic book reading audience. A pilot episode for a new live action TV series was made written by Boston Legal and Ally MacBeal creator David E Kelly, starring Addrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman and Elizabeth Hurley as Veronica Cale. This version has nothing to do with Wonder Woman comics, Diana Prince is the CEO of a major corporation who sells her likeness to toy manufacturers and complains about the expectations of her like “Wonder Woman is supposed to have perfect tits” that is an actual quote from the pilot. The series was not green-lit and to this day fans wonder what they where thinking. The other failed live action project for Wonder Woman was Joss Whedon’s film version. This was often spoken off in hushed tones over the internet as a what if (to go with Whedon’s failed Batman movie) and with the directors success of The Avengers fans became more and more curious as to what it could be. All that was known about it was he intended Cobie Smulders (best known as Robin from How I Met Your Mother) was to play Wonder Woman until the script leaked online. At first some journalists thought this was a fake, but alas this was the real thing. Joss Whedon’s “Feminist” credential has always felt shaky to me but with this script was one of the final nails in that coffin. The script gives intense graphic details of scenes of foot fetishism, Wonder Woman performing stripteases and Steve Trevor as the main character.

DC Animation had greater success bringing the character off the comics page with an animated movie and her inclusion into the Justice League animated series. The animated film starring Keri Russell and Nathan Filion as Steve Trevor, is a mostly faithful adaptation George Perez’s run on Wonder Woman. The biggest change is that Ares is the one who tried to enslave the Amazons not Hercules, which is done to streamline the story. Without a doubt my favourite part of the film is where Wonder Woman punches Steve Trevor and tells him to show that he needs to show more respect to women. Unfortunately that strong feminist message cannot be found in DC Animations other version of Wonder Woman, there she is reduced to what I call the “Jean Grey Role”. In the Justice League animated series, Diana is a lovesick teenager pining over Batman (because the DCAU is made by Batman fanboys for Batman fanboys). Producers justified this decision with “we didn’t want to explore a romantic relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman” which is just insulting to the character that “she needs a love interest”. But in reality giving Batman the arm-candy strengthens him, makes him the coolest one, something the DCAU is obsessed with doing so much so that every other member of the Justice League is weaker than their comics counterpoint except him. 

Wonder Woman would also appear in The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All Star Batman and Robin written by Frank Miller. The version of Wonder Woman in these stories would be a straw feminist, an excuse for Frank Miller to give his criticisms of modern feminism which as he’s a racist, misogamist as well as a talentless hack he had a lot of them. Miller’s idea of feminism is hating all men, at that what Wonder Woman monologues about semi-coherently (did I mention Frank Miller is not a good writer) yet paradoxically is in love with Superman whom she has sex with in the sky causing a snow-storm. How that works I have no idea my only guess is its not snow but instead Super-sperm. These stories would not warrant mentioning but they actually went on to inform the next era of Wonder Woman’s history (and not as a reaction against). 

DC rebooted all of its comics in 2011 with the New 52, whole back stories would be rewritten and Wonder Woman got Brian Azzarello as her writer. To those who don’t know Brian Azzarello is to Frank Miller what Robin is to Batman, he’s his biggest fanboy and also a misogamistic piece of shit. Wonder Woman was no longer a champion of Peace and Love but a 2nd rate Xena and later the Goddess of War. She was no longer brought to life by a goddess but the daughter of Zeus. She wouldn’t use her lasso of truth to find the solution to a problem she would now use her Godslayer sword to stab things. The Amazons where no longer subjugated unfairly but would now sail the seas in rape gangs, looking for men to impregnate them and then kill them. Over on Justice League New 52 Wonder Woman would be in a relationship with Superman once again reduced to his arm-candy. Wonder Woman had sold out all of her values and she was about to get a movie out of it. 

The Wonder Woman movie produced a story-credited by Zack Snyder, a man whose only original movie is Sucker-punch which encourages rape “because it allows women to grow stronger” would not make a good Wonder Woman movie. Produced by Brett Ratner who actually raped someone on the set of the movie (would not want to uphold the feminist ideas of Wonder Woman). Gal Gadot who when the story of his rape broke to the media campaigned for his removal from the sequel suddenly went quiet when the victim, her childhood friend accused her of helping him do it. The Movie itself removes any relevance of the Goddesses from the story, opting for Zeus to rule the Amazons, this is not an all female society but a male fantasy for one man to have a whole harem of warrior women. The film also chooses to have Steve Trevor be a competent spy (also not having Wonder Woman nurse him back to health, thus changing her motives from altruism to a desire to kill Ares) and not once despite his constant patronising does Wonder Woman stands up to him. The film also ends with her giving up her role as Wonder Woman to run a fashion boutique (just like the Dennis O’Neil era). The only reason this film got any praise as a feminist moment had to come from how overdue a female lead superhero movie that was watchable was. 

With her history covered which is Wonder Woman? Well, the answer is both. Wonder Woman’s history is problematic and not just because she fought a villain called Egg Fu (a giant egg with a Fu Manchu moustache who speaks in “engrish”). Wonder Woman doesn’t actually belong to DC Comics, no fictional character actually belongs to their publisher, she belongs to the reader. She lives in out collective imagination and there is certainly evidence for both sides of the debate. But we as readers can choose which stories inform “Our Wonder Woman”, we can select the most uplifting and feminist, we can pick the silliest or we can be slimy creeps that DC are more than happy to cater to and pick the worst. The choice is up to you and sure Marston her creator was a complicated man but he had good ideas as well as bad, to remove him wholesale like DC has tried to do is wrong. Thankfully they’ve published Grant Morrison’s Wonder Woman Earth One which is an exploration of his ideas, criticising the ones that don’t work and praising the good ones. The future of the character is not decided yet, hopefully more and more creators will reject Azzarello’s run and draw inspiration from the better ones, currently Greg Rucka has returned to the book and her characterisation as a compassionate diplomat have returned with him. 

DC’s Trinity have different roles in their universe; Batman is there to punish the wicked, Superman to protect the world and Wonder Woman is a healer. Her main goal is to have the Amazons make peace with men, so they can have a better future, to heal the mistakes of the past. She wasn’t meant to do this with violence, classic Wonder Woman doesn’t carry any weapons, she stands openly and offers emotional support. She helps in a way that is different from the very male Batman of punching criminals. DC have tried to move Wonder Woman away from that, to just the woman who ties people up, taking away Marston’s greatest idea that understanding and compassion are greater than violence.

Why it took so long to get a show like Primal?

Cartoons are for kids” is a stigma that animation has spent many years trying to over come, and in some ways still is. We may now live in a world with “Adult Animation” but this labelling is still strange, most mediums you put “Adult” in front of it means pornographic but animation while it can mean that it can include the Simpsons. Western animation is limited in what Adult animation can mean, it generally means Sitcom, but Genndy Tartarkovski’s new series Primal may look like Zack Snyder’s reboot of the Flintstones it is nothing like the never ending barrage of edgier and edgier Family Guy clones that dominate the genre. 

So where does this idea that Cartoons are for kids actually come from? The original theatrical shorts where played in movie theatres along side any movie, of course the travelling roadshow musicals didn’t have the cartoons but audiences wanting to see Casablanca or The Grapes of Wraith weren’t demanding their money back when after the news reel Woody Woodpecker or Bugs Bunny showed up with their zany antics. Some theatrical cartoons from this time are now banned for being to raunchy like Red Hot Riding Hood or Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves (that ones also rightly banned for other reasons). But Coal Black actually leads to the answer, Disney. Walt Disney animation as well as making theatrical shorts started to experiment with longer animation the first of which being Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but feature length animation was very expensive so expensive that even the Oscar win made their profit margins razor thin. So to subsidise their income they had to merchandise everything, but adults in the more conservative 1940’s wouldn’t have Donald Duck on their lunchbox and grown women wouldn’t have a Minnie Mouse pinafore, but kids if they loved the character they’d want them on everything. So animation to become feasible needed to be toyetic so the next theatrical release for Disney’s animation division was Pinnochio which is literally about a toy that comes to life. This might sound like I’m being critical of Disney but I see this as a utilitarian act, and without them there would be no innovation within the medium as the highly experimental Fleischer studios (known for Popeye, Felix the Cat and Betty Boop) crumbled under the costs of animation post-unionisation. While Disney had found a market selling toys to children via animated films they did make attempts to try and appeal to a more high-brow and adult audience with Fantasia and the lesser known Make Mine Music, these failed to make the money the studio hoped for. Fantasia was in the mind of Walt Disney a more grandiose idea, they would own their own Fantasia theatres (Fantasia being more of a genre) and every few weeks a new animated short would be added to the playlist meaning that if you kept coming back to the theatre to see it you would see new content each time. In 1945 Walt Disney even commissioned Salvador Dali to come up with a shorts for a second tour of Fantasia, the short itself was finished in 2003 and was named Destino. After Fantasia failed to live up to it’s creators dreams they tried again with Make Mine Music but this time their would be more styles of music in there, while Fantasia was classical Make Mine Music had Baroque and Jazz pieces for Diversity. 1946’s Make Mine Music did alright at the Box Office, but this could be more to do with the war effort than the quality of the film (also because of the war Disney did not make a full feature length animated film until 1950).

Many attempts by animators where made to break the glass ceiling of it just being a kids medium. Hanna Barbera attempted it first with two animated shows, The Flintstones which started out advertising cigarettes and was about two married couples the Flintstones and the Rubbles. Inspired by the Honeymooners the Flintstones storylines were about Fred jealousy of what his neighbours have and him being a neglectful husband. As the series continued the show became more and more kiddie with the additions of more Dino-pets, babies and an alien. Hanna Barbera’s other attempt to crack a more adult audience was doomed from the start, Jonny Quest was based on the comic book art style of Doug Wildey and was meant to emulate the success of Dr No. The show started out with Race Bannon as the leading hero (working title then was “Amazing Race” not Jonny Quest), but with it being animated and with a time-slot that was just before children’s bedtimes the show got altered to being about Jonny. Further medalling happened and the show had a cartoon dog called “Bandit” added to show, Bandit was also drawn in a completely different style to the rest of show and more and more corners where cut because the show wasn’t that profitable and the shows art deteriorated and started to look more and more like the Flintstones. Hanna Barbera had another attempt to break into prime time television with the animated show “Wait till your father gets home” which is most notable to be the last prime time cartoon series (not one off special) before the Simpsons, Hanna Barbera also had so little faith in selling the show as animated they produced an alternate version of the pilot as a live action sitcom.

An oddity of theatrical success for animated came about in the form of Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat and it’s success came from leaning into its subversion of a children’s genre. Fritz the cat featured un-family friendly themes like Sex, Drugs, unconventional sex and experimenting with Neo-Nazism. The films success spawned many imitators including; Down and Dirty Duck produced by Roger Corman and directed by one the future creators of Rugrats and Once Upon a Girl a fully animated pornographic cartoon made by disgruntled Hanna Barbera employees in their spare time and far less successful sequel to Fritz (with neither the comics creator Robert Crumb or Ralph Bakshi’s involvement), Bakshi’s next projects were Heavy Traffic and Coonskin which is even more controversial than Fritz. After Coonskin getting banned Bakshi started making fantasy films, the first of these was Wizards but starting with his adaptation of Lord of the Rings he started using a technique called rotorscoping. Bash wasn’t the first to use this technique, it was first used by Fleischer studios for their out of the inkwell series and it was actually quite normal for it to be used in hand-drawn animation. Walt Disney often used it for more realistic movements in their children film most notably Margaret Kerry for Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. Rotarscoping is done by filming someone for reference and then drawing an animated character over them, for Ralph Bakshi’s animated fantasy films he filmed an entire film on a low budget with props and the drawing fantastical elements over them. 

Animation broke into prime time with the Simpsons and while the earlier episodes tackled more taboo subject matters like depression in it’s first season. But by Season 11 when all of the shows creators had left Ian Maxtone-Graham took over and the show changed, it lacked any empathy or investment in the characters. The animation now wasn’t being used to increase the storytelling, it was being used more of gags and so Homer could get away with things no human could, shattering the bounds of reality that the show had previously. Adult animation had found it’s place on TV (while Bill Plympton did make feature animation and Ralph Bakshi continued until his career collapsed around Cool World). MTV created Liquid TV that featured shows like Aeon Flux an Avant Garde cartoon series and The Maxx (an adaptation of Sam Keith’s comic book) neither made a mark but what was successful was more of the same. Every cartoon comedy (even ones intended for children) where told to be more like The Simpsons, so inevitably we got Family Guy. Family Guy became The Simpsons minus any subtlety, but even with that as the show progressed the point got missed by everyone even those who work on the show, Peter is not supposed to be likeable he’s an illiterate slob and a chauvinist whilst Homer in his earlier appearance (pre-“Jerkass Homer”) is flawed and lives in a world where anyone who can help doesn’t care, Peter is irredeemable. Animated shows became a way of presenting unlikeable protagonists getting away with everything, animation does have a tradition of winners and losers look at the Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny, Tweety Pie and The Road Runner always win and Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Wile E Coyote always lose, but these cartoons are detached from reality as opposed to Archer. Now I actually like Archer but I often wonder does this need to be animated? especially as the art style in the creators own words is “too look as realistic as possible” and yes the characters and sets are very detailed but you know what looks like real people? actual humans. The animation seems to be there to make the characters pain funny, we don’t think “that poor man” we think “ha ha it’s ok he’s just a drawing”. It creates a detachment a lack of empathy, which is the opposite of what Primal achieves with it’s animation.

  

Finally after all that context I’ll explain why I think Primal is finally animation for adults living up to it’s potential. Of course this is entirely from a fan perspective, I have very limited experience with animation, I’ve made the flash animation of a bouncing ball that everyone makes as part of an IT course but everything else I’ve ever tried to make with animation has been limited at best (and nothing like what I hoped it would be). So I’ve been comparing the techniques of one conjurer to another as they use skills I do not possess but this is the internet and anyone who can type can express an opinion. Genndy Tartakovsky is a master of his craft, and with his first series entirely made for Adult Swim (he previously made Samurai Jack which had it’s last series on Adult Swim and increased the violence) he has done something different to everybody else. Primal’s storytelling is done entirely dialogue free. It’s all told in animation whilst other shows will have 2 characters talking, in Primal it’s all in motion and we know what Fang (the Dinosaur) and Spear (The Caveman) are thinking in any scene. Silent characters are nothing new to animation, but they’re mostly reserved for gags like Tom and Jerry, in Primal the stakes are serious. The two characters are fighting for survival and are also working out how to get along, it’s all conflict and resolution. Not to mention it’s violent and you genuinely feel the pain of these characters and hope they survive, Spear is as expressive as an comic panel by Jack Kirby. In fact the whole art-style is quite Kirby-esque, it’s all stylised. Primal isn’t the only piece of animation I’d like to add to the Adult animation renaissance the other candidate would be Netflix’s “Love, Death and Robots” but that as anthology is a mixed bag, with some falling into the trappings of “make it look as realistic as possible” which really adds to the stigma of animation as a lesser art form (these episodes almost always bored me) but some like Zima Blue told an interesting sci-fi story with an animated style of their own proving animation can do more than cheap laughs at others expense and still have a more “mature” audience.

Why Telltale is the definitive Batman?!

Batman! easily DC’s most popular character, his logo can be seen on wide-eyed children’s backpacks and cynical Generation X-ers alike. The character has changed to the tastes of audiences through out the decades. Batman has been the aspiring fascist dictator of Frank Miller’s comics. The apologist for the patriot act in Nolan trilogy and the stoic champion for justice with Kevin Conroy’s voice for DC Animated Universe. The erudite backroom brawler of the Adam West series and the overdramatic showman of the Burton films. He’s made puns while written by Neal Adams and insisted he works alone in the 90’s whilst being in The Justice League.

Batman doesn’t have a personality anymore, every reader’s Batman is different. Fans ascribe a personality to Bruce Wayne, cherry-picking the media and actions they want for “their Batman” because of this creative teams can create a ripple through the Bat-community with their decisions writing the character, one example would be Bruce Timm whose idea of Batman is god’s gift to women and the only member of the Justice League who can save the day on their own. Timm wrote a prequel to Batman Beyond where he revealed that the Bat-family broke apart because Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne were having an affair leaving Dick Grayson feeling dejected. Some fans think it’s creepy that a man in his early 40’s was having an affair with a 19 year old, some dislike that Bruce Wayne could be such a lying manipulator and others think it’s just awesome that Batman shags so much. 

The truth about Batman is that he’s a Mary Sue, but this only seems to be brought up as a problem when it’s a female character. Batman isn’t just a Mary Sue he’s the Mariest Sue to ever Mary a Sue. Everything comes easily to him, quantum mechanics he can learn that in a night he’s in tip-top physical condition. He can even be such a jerk that he can commit acts of child abuse (yes actually think about what he did to Jason Todd) but still be allowed in the super boy-scouts floating clubhouse in space.  

Now these are all usually problems with a character, no consistency and creepy creative teams drooling over them so hard you suspect they need to wear his cowl to get an erection. Telltales format of game actually makes these a strength because you can’t make a choice thats out of character for him, and you can make him whatever kind of Batman you want. There are of course limitations to this you can’t choose between Burton’s Art-Deco Gotham or Dick Sprang’s Gotham where every factory has a giant fully functioning version of what they make on the roof. You’re also limited in how much you want to work alone as Batman because you can’t drop in Robin to help you punch criminals. You also can’t pick which villains you want in each storyline so you have to stick with the obnoxious pseudo marxist Penguin the developers created. But your character of Bruce Wayne is exactly as Brutal or Merciful as you choose. You can have him try to seduce as many reporters as you like, have him distrust Jim Gordon and be as rude to Alfred as you like as the story unfolds.  

The philosophy of Legion (according to K Ben on Comics)

I have nothing but respect for Wisecrack, in fact I would even site them as an influence on my style of blogging (other video essayists I would honour in the way being Nerdsync and Lindsay Ellis). But they recently published a video on the TV show Legion looking for the core philosophy of the series, and I think they missed this so I thought I would write a piece all about what I believe the shows message was.

So what is the Philosophy of FX’s Legion; that hatred and cruelty create more hatred and cruelty so be kind. Which I think is suspiciously like the philosophy of The X-men, funny that it’s almost like they’re connected. 

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Why did you open this if you haven’t watched the show?

Legion is the story of David Haller, recovery drug-addict, misdiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and unreliable narrator. When the series opens David is in an asylum being tortured by Lenny and crushing on Syd, both of whom at this point may or may not exist as David is the only person in the asylum who they talk to. By the second episode of the series David has been recruited into a para-military mutant team with Syd (now confirmed to be a real woman), and as the first season wraps up we find out than Lenny is actually the Shadow-king a powerful mutant wanting revenge on David’s father (at this point implied but not confirmed to be Professor Charles Xavier) for defeating him in psychic combat when David was still a baby. Over the first two seasons David grows to be a better person and even by the end of the second season he has defeated the Shadow-king in an astral duel choreographed to Behind Blue Eyes by The Who, and at the moment David is winning in the duel is the verse that includes “If I swallow anything evil” and “If I shiver give me a blanket” both of which being admissions of wanting help. The second series wasn’t all happy sailing for David as a future version of Syd told of how he would bring about the apocalypse, this sowing seeds of distrust towards David which lead them to believe without question that he raped Syd, ignoring completely that the Shadow-king an immensely powerful and manipulative telepath capable to creating illusions could’ve faked this to get revenge.

At the beginning of the 3rd season, the Not X-men have teamed up with the Shadow-King to stop David who has started a cult full of lost hippies that get high of the bottled love pheromone he produces with his mind. The Not X-men then try to stop David and he has them all join him in a version of What’s so Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding by Elvis Costello (this is of course somewhat hypocritical of David as from being hounded by the “Heroes” he vaporised all of his cult and his ex-girlfriend). The remaining episodes are mostly about David trying to travel back in time to prevent his life going wrong, which we know could be successful or fail miserable as Episode 14 which was part of Season 2 also showed alternate version of David one of which he was a business man who used his telepathy to get ahead and another timeline he was a homeless drug addict. 

After being vaporised Syd’s mind is now found on the Astral Plane (a world that exists purely as thought and metaphor) but now as a baby and is given a second childhood raised by two other lost minds acting as her parents. They also take in another lost girl who gets seduced away from their fairy tale lifestyle by the Big Bad wolf, a psychic entity who can be best described as an edge-lord. The kind of guy who makes an unfunny racist joke and thinks it’s the best joke ever because it will offend “libtards”. He is of course defeated in a Rap Battle by her adopted father who defeats him with a verse about how “puppies aren’t afraid of me” and “he gets more hugs than hate mail” with the finishing blow of “I sleep well at night knowing people love me, can you say that”. 

The final episodes of Legion have David in the past, on the days when his father met Amahl Farouk (better known as the Shadow King) and trying to ensure his father defeats him in a way that won’t allow him to escape. Of course the Not X-men and present time Amahl Farouk make it to this time as well. Syd and another member of their team protect Baby David and his mother, because during her time in the Astral Plane Syd has realised that Baby David is innocent. Whilst still believing current David might be a lost cause but that baby has done nothing wrong, his future isn’t determined. The Telepaths duel, David and Past Amahl Farouk duel with all their powers, but Charles and Future Farouk sit down and talk. Charles and Future Amahl reach an agreement, so David’s life will not be destroyed. The Shadow King shows his past self psychically his future and he realises not even he should be that cruel. David and his mother sings Mother by Pink Floyd but with it recontextualised. To be about how she will protect her son rather than how she will stifle him with paranoia. 

We end with the versions of Syd and David that we knew ceasing to exist and being erased so that new better ones can take their place, a rebirth and this time for David without somebody trying to make him miserable.

Of course Legion could also just be a story, to quote the first season “there are two sorts of stories, those created to keep us safe… and those created to teach empathy” but even with what it says about the nature of stories, empathy is a form of kindness.

But even if I’m wrong about Noah Hawley’s series, I got a positive message from the show and loved the story he told so I’m better off being wrong on this one.

Explaining Happy! (And Grant Morrison)

What is “Happy!”, well take the Jimmy Stewart classic Harvey, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, any Quentin Tarrantino movie and a heap of commentary on the state of Superhero comics, filter it though the views and philosophies of Grant Morrison and thats “Happy!”. 

So brief synopsis of the book and the Syfy (or in the UK Netflix) series. Happy! is the story of Nick Sax (whose name should really be spelt Sacks to keep with the Christmas theme of the story), a disgraced cop turned mercenary and high functioning alcoholic and drug addicts reconnecting with his estranged daughter (Hailey) by rescuing her from being molested by “Very Bad Santa” whose been hired to do such things by the mob as revenge for Sax killing an extra family member (he was hired to kill 3 and killed 4). The bonus one having made a deal with Mr Blue (the main gangster) to split the money they where hiding between them, but with him dead, Blue has no access to his ill-gotten gains. Sax’s only ally in rescuing his daughter from not so jolly Saint Nick is Happy a blue horse and Hailey’s imaginary friend. Happy is 1-2-3-4-5 grades higher than a hallucination but only Sax can see him, Happy is also in stark contrast to Sax. Happy is everything you’d expect a child’s imaginary friend to be, loving, caring and very excitable. Now as Happy was originally published as a 4 Issue mini-series by image comics for a full length TV series things had to be added, unlike many other adaptations Grant Morrison did write the pilot episode and the finale of Season 1 and only the opener to Season 2. Additions to the book include Sunny Shine a prima-donna children’s TV presenter who owes his success to aiding in organised crime and a pact with the “Wishees” (another addition from the book) parodies of the Teletubbies that are secretly Lovecraftian elder gods that feed off of misery.

Now nothing by Grant Morrison is just a story, Morrison writes about his own life in a distorted way. He uses a method that he calls a “Fiction suit” to incorporate himself into the story; in Animal Man he became the character the writer, in the Invisibles he was King Mob, in All Star Superman he was Lex Luthor, during his run of X-men he was Professor X and in Happy he is Sax. Other people also get fiction-suited into his stories, Mark Millar was Kid Omega in his run on X-men and Morrison’s father was Flex Mentallo (in his eponymous series) and Superman in All Star Superman. In Happy! very bad Santa is Frank Miller and Alan Moore. Very Bad Santa only exists to pervert and distort something innocent and harm children, much like how these two started the Dark age of comics which lead Superhero comics to become more dour and depressing and Hailey is the innocent children who won’t look up to Superman or the Flash because they read Watchmen or any piece of crap written by Frank Miller. Even though Miller and Moore have drastically different political views (Moore being an Anarchist and Miller being an Anti-Feminist and self proclaimed Fascist) they both created comics intended to be deconstructions of Superheroes but are really just Adolescent trash that think they’re deep. Now Sax is no saint and Morrison in his post-Marvel work is more reflective and realising that he is also guilty of this but Sax like Morrison changes his way in the story and does what he can to protect his daughter even if Sax had abandoned her before she was born. Mr Blue is of course the editorial staff of DC (in the series he’s played by an actor who looks a lot like Brian Azzarello a contemporary comic book writer who worships and tries to emulate both Moore and Miller whenever he can), and DC seem to have sold their core audience of wide-eyed innocent children who aspire to be Superheroes for Miller and Moore fanboys. DC’s practice can also be described as predatory, a very good example of this is Harley Quinn, Harley was an innocent character with the mind of a child and the victim of the Joker but now she’s a fetish, licking phallic objects like baseball bats and sleeping with all the male heroes when they guest star in her comic.

What about Happy the eponymous character, how does he fit into all this criticism of DC comics. Well he doesn’t, Grant Morrison has certain theories about how the universe works. Happy is 5 grades above a Hallucination because he’s from the Fifth Dimension. Now stay with me on this, humans are fourth dimensional beings, we can fully perceive four dimensions (height, width, breadth and time), Comic book characters are one dimension below us, which puts them at the mercy of Four Dimensional beings, writers and artists craft their whole world, we change how they act on a whim, this is how Batman can be both Adam West and the version from Dark Knight Returns. His whole personality is defined by his creative team, he can be an angry loner or be part of a team of super pals. Now beings from the Fifth Dimension can affect us, but we can’t perceive them just like how Spider-man has no idea that Stan Lee is making him fight Doctor Octopus again. When we come across beings from the fifth dimension we can only imagine what they are and handily the fifth Dimension is to us Imagination. With Imagination we can create new worlds but we can’t exist in them we’re stuck with the four we have, to master imagination is to become akin to godhood. Happy as an imaginary friend is created by Hailey through the Fifth Dimension (which is imagination) and has become a native to that world, and with this he is all powerful but due to him being made by a child has no grasp of his powers (these ideas where alluded to in the second season of the TV series) and while Happy is a benevolent Fifth Dimension inhabitant others like the Wishees are not so nice and only wish to mock and toy with lesser beings on our plane of existence.

And if you can wrap your head around all that well done you now understand most of Grant Morrison’s back catalogue.

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Fixing the Stan Lee Girls

Comics from the 1960’s weren’t enlightened on their portrayal of women. It’s just a fact, no two ways about it. Sure it was a genre aimed at young boys written and drawn almost exclusively by men, but under a modern lens the early Marvel comics don’t hold up very well in this regard. To quote Professor Marsden when asked to weaken Wonder Woman (his creation) “How are young boys to grow up to respect women if we don’t show them examples of strong women”. Now the Stan Lee girl is a variant on how women (who weren’t Wonder Woman) where written in this era. The Stan Lee girl is young glamorous and has all the personality of day old dish water but is also very important to the male protagonist(s) of the Superhero book. Not all characters that fit this mould are Stan Lee creations, like Saturn Girl from the Legion of Superheroes or Elasti-Girl from the Doom Patrol, but Stan and his tendency to put his name on every book produced by Marvel (even if he had nothing to do with it) makes him synonymous with the trope.

Now that’s explained why not continue reading this as I explain how 4 of Stan’s creations became well actual characters not just “oh gosh isn’t she pretty”. I will not explore every female character that has a Stan Lee creator credit or I’d be writing a 200 part piece on the subject and Black Widow has been omitted because she wasn’t actually created by Stan and in no way fits the profile being first introduced as Iron Man’s Archenemy and not his love interest.

Sue Storm

The first woman of Marvel Comics (assuming the Fantastic Four haven’t lost their status as the First Family) and master of running away. Sue in the early comics is really good at getting kidnapped, especially by Doctor Doom or Namor. She brings antagonists to the Fantastic Four, while Doctor Doom uses her as bait for the other 3 members of the team out of convenience, Namor is to be the other rival to her husband Reed Richards. Prince Namor tries to lure her to be his queen, always unsuccessfully, because for her to be actually tempted to turn evil would imply some form of personality. Susan is actually so notoriously useless that in a weird Meta issue (Fantastic Four 11) the F4 read letters sent to them by “Fans” and Sue bursts into tears because all the letters get call her useless. This of course outrages Mr Fantastic who invokes the name of Abraham Lincoln to defend his future wife. 

Fantastic Four 22 is when the attempts to make Sue better started, before this issue Sue could only turn invisible and hide, this issue gave her the comics code classic Telekinesis. Telekinesis is one of the girliest superpowers in comics (not that it’s effeminate but it’s mostly held by female characters) because it can easily adhere to Comics Code Authority guidelines about violence between men and women. The female hero using Telekinesis can fight back without actually hitting the super villain or henchman and with this at least Sue could fight back and didn’t need her sign saying “kidnap me” as much anymore, although Dr Doom might still do that because “expediency often outweighs originality”. 

Sue’s next biggest developments were marriage and motherhood. Side note it’s officially canon that their son Franklin was conceived after the first time the F4 saved the earth from Galactus which makes me ask the question after the earth was safe did Mr Fantastic give The Thing and The Human Torch some of their pocket money to go the cinema. But the change from teams eye-candy and damsel in distress to motherhood really suited Sue as she pretty much filled that role in the team anyway. The Fantastic Four are a squabbling family who often fall out and Sue is the under appreciated peace-keeper and emotional support for the boys. With Franklin added well she just has another child to look after but this one shouldn’t know better than to be an immature show-boater, I’m looking at you Johnny Storm. 

Sue’s last real moment of characters development comes from Fantastic Four 280, where the villainous Psycho-man (kind of an obvious villain name), turns Sue into Malice; Mistress of Hate. Now with a name like that she’s obviously an enemy to the rest of the Fantastic Four who she proceeds to beat the snot out of (once and for all proving she is actually the strongest member) which to many fanboys is the most important thing. But this has to end abruptly by Mr Fantastic realising its Sue and declaring “Susan stop acting hystericaly” which somehow (plot contrivance) snaps her back into her old self.

The Wasp (Janet Van Dine)

Unlike most female characters from silver-age Marvel, Jan started with some semblance of a personality. She was the plucky rich girl who was Hank Pym’s fan-girl and really wanted to join him on his scientific adventures. Jan seemingly relegated to the sidekick role by the virtue of being a female character even if Ant-man was dependent on her because she paid for all of his scientific equipment. But I’m ignoring the elephant in the room, their relationship is just the fucking worst. Panel to panel all these 2 do as a couple is squabble, Stan Lee once while tried to decipher why Ant-man was never a colossal hit like The Hulk or Spider-man. Now I’m going to go out on a limb and say young boys reading their superhero comics for a little escapism from their parents arguing don’t want to read about the male hero in the comic declare “Get in the kitchen” and his girlfriend/sidekick say “no I bought the kitchen you go in it”.

The lack of popularity lead to the cancellation of all Ant-man books and the duo became stalwarts of The Avengers where they kept trying to rebrand Ant-man because “he has a silly name” so he took on names like Black Goliath (despite being neither African American or wearing Black) Giant-man and finally after a mental breakdown Yellowjacket. Dr Pym became the joke of the team and his team mates often made fun of his mental instability and the fact that Jan was better at superheroing than him. In a last ditch effort to stay on the worst Superhero team of all time (1970’s Avengers are just terrible) Dr Pym created a fake Ultron attack that would prove his worth. This is when the infamous slap panel comes from (the slap is actually an artistic flub and was intended that he pushed her out of the way). After this incident Hank and Jan divorced (despite the fact they never should’ve gotten married in the first place), and also Jan became the leader of the Avengers and while she occasionally stumbled with her confidence she lead the team admirably even if she did keep changing costume every other issue because she was a “fashionista”.  

Scarlet Witch

First appearing in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Wanda was manipulated by Magneto’s magnetic personality (not a joke actual reason), into joining his terrorist organisation. This is a strange trend that still exists with female villains, Marvel did it with Medusa when she had amnesia and joined the Frightful Four and DC currently have the Cheetah (Wonder Woman’s Archenemy) being manipulated into crimes by Lex Luthor. Comic writers have this strange idea that women can’t be mastermind villains, they have to be arm candy to the big bad, female villains are still rare even when they’re not arm candy, Batman’s Poison Ivy is often portrayed as more of an Anti-hero than a true terrorist or Catwoman as a criminal with a heart of gold. 

Scarlet Witch and her brother Pietro (aka Quicksilver) where rescued from their life of crime by Captain America who had them enter his new team (the second ever line up of Avengers) nicknamed Cap’s Crazy Quartet with the fourth member being former Iron Man villain Hawkeye. As time went on Wanda stopped spending so much time telling her brother “the whole world doesn’t hate you” despite the fact he is a complete and total jerk. Avengers and the few X-men comics she appeared in focused more on her bizarre back story and this is truly a sign of gender equality because most of the male Superhero characters don’t have much in the way of personality traits but they have extensive adventures.

Wanda’s history includes being raised by a mutated Cow named Bova (with her brother), previously mentioned manipulations by Magneto, training under Agatha Harkness in witchcraft, marrying a robot, being unable to have children with a robot, magicking up her own babies (that turned out to be demons), blowing up Avenger’s mansion, rewriting all of reality, travelling back in time and being persecuted for witchcraft, getting engaged to Doctor Doom and a search to find out who her father is. With all that, it’s not surprising that she hasn’t developed a personality, with that much back story you try having some hobbies.

Gwen Stacy

How did modern Marvel fix Gwen Stacy? They created a whole new character of course. Gwen’s initial storyline was a love triangle with Peter Parker (secretly Spider-man) and Mary Jane. Mary Jane was the more fun of the two girls, she was a party girl, she was the hip cool one who talked in Jazz lingo while being completely oblivious to the fact her name was a slang term for Cannabis (but what do you expect this was a funhouse mirror look at youth culture written by a middle-aged man to an audience of 13 year olds). Gwen was a more quiet studious girl whose ideal evening was curled up on the sofa with a good book and drinking hot coco. Marvel’s writers wanted to end the love triangle but they couldn’t have the notoriously indecisive Peter pick between one of them, so the next logical choice was made to have her be dropped off a bridge by the Green Goblin.

Gwen was now treated as a what if to Marvel writers, whenever Peter was too down on his luck or fighting with Mary Jane something might happen to bring Gwen back. Most notably her Biology teacher cloning her in an attempt to get revenge on Spider-man (yes it is as confusing as it sounds).

In the 21st Gwen was made cool, the drummer in an all girl punk rock band, with a cool new costume. The Spider-Gwen comics actually make you realise something about Spider-man comics which is we only care about Peter Parker because he is Spider-man.