Jules Feiffer, in his book 'The Great Comic Book Heroes' (which is well worth looking up; it's frequently hilarious and often very insightful) put it thusly (and just for context, this is how he saw the situation as a young boy back in the midst of the Golden Age):
"...Clark Kent acted as the control for Superman. What Kent wanted was just that which Superman didn't want to be bothered with. Kent wanted Lois, Superman didn't - thus marking the difference between a sissy and a man. A sissy wanted girls who scorned him; a man scorned girls who wanted him. Our cultural opposite of the man who didn't make out with women has never been the man who did - but rather the man who could if he wanted to, but still didn't. The ideal of masculine strength, whether Gary Cooper's, Li'l Abner's, or Superman's, was for one to be so virile and handsome, to be in such a position of strength, that he need never go near girls. Except to help them. And then get the hell out. Real rapport was not for women. It was for villains. That's why they got hit so hard."
Here's some of what he had to say about Wonder Woman:
"...I can't comment on the image girls had of Wonder Woman. I never knew they read her - or any comic book. That GIRLS had a preference for my brand of literature would have been more of a frightening image to me than any number of men being beaten up by Wonder Woman.
(That, by the way, is in reference to a quote from Dr. Frederick Wertham in the previous paragraph saying that Wonder Woman is a 'frightening image' for boys because she is 'antimasculine'.)
Whether Wonder Woman was a lesbian's dream I do not know, but I know for a fact she was every Jewish boy's unfantasied picture of the world as it really was. You mean men weren't wicked and weak? You mean women weren't badly taken advantage of? You mean women didn't have to be STRONGER than men to survive in this world? Not in my house!"
And while we're on the subject (and because this IS Scans Daily), here's some of what Feiffer has to say about Batman and Robin being gay:
"Wertham cites testimony taken from homosexuals to prove the secret kicks received from the knowledge that Batman and Robin were living together, going out together, adventuring together. But so were the Green Hornet and Kato (hmm - an Oriental) and the Lone Ranger and Tonto (Christ! An Indian!) - and so, for that matter, did Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers hang around together an awful lot, but God knows, I saw every one of their movies and it never occurred to me they were sleeping with each other. If homosexual fads were certain proof of that which will turn our young queer, then we should long ago have burned not just Batman books, but all Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Judy Garland movies."