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mosellegreen (mosellegreen) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-21 10:50:00

Entry tags:

char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: william moulton marston, era: golden age, publisher: dc comics, title: sensation

The Origin of Wonder Woman's Magic Lasso
This was published in Sensation Comics #6 in 1942.

Wonder Woman is summoned back to Paradise Island.

Of course no one will recognize you as long as you wear that little mask. Hey, your own mother didn't know you when you wore it for the original tournament to see which Amazon would go to Man's World to fight Nazis. And the costume isn't a tipoff at all.
Why kangaroos? I assume because they were indigenous to ancient Greece, where these Amazons came from. Greeks rode kangaroos all the time. I think "Jumpa" is a very clever name for a kangaroo. Subtle, yanno?

So naturally Amazon sports consist of tying each other up.

The smith's name is Metala. 'Nuff said.
How many of us are told by the gods themselves that we should tie people up and make them, ah, submit?

This seems to be the first intimation of the existence of Reformation Island. Yet again, Steve Trevor modestly gives all the credit to Wonder Woman, though as usual, he deserves some of it. And we finish up with Dr. Marston's conviction that he and his ilk could fundamentally change human nature. Now that I'm an adult I'm starting to find this rather disturbing, though if the method involves being tied up by beautiful women, it might not be so bad.

(Post a new comment)

	taggerung301 2009-07-21 03:11 pm UTC (link)
	as much as I love golden age wonderwoman crack, those faces creep the hell out of me (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-22 01:38 pm UTC (link)
	The prayer to Athena panel, though, is totally what this style of WW looks like at its best, the kind of thing that makes it such a quotable design source. Harry Peters just calls up 30s(even if this was the 40s) with a couple of curves. I kind of like the twistiness. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	kenn_el 2009-07-21 04:49 pm UTC (link)
	I just love the fact that the real life version of the lasso, the lie detector, has, in fact, changed not human nature, but human behavior. I assume one of the sports we didn't see the Amazons engage in was waterboarding. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	01d55 2009-07-21 08:00 pm UTC (link)
	I'm afraid I don't see the connection between the lie detector and waterboarding. (Reply to this) (Parent)

fredneil.livejournal.com
2009-07-21 06:47 pm UTC (link)

"Human character," not "human nature." Human charcter would be "he's an evil person, for whatever reason, but that can be changed." Human nature would be "people are intrinsically evil, no matter what." Take out the intermediary step of being tied up by a beautiful woman, and all Marston is saying is that love and wisdom can turn evil into good. Of course, I don't think anyone wants to take out that intermediary step.

It probably says something about the world in general that when this was published most readers focused on the love and wisdom part and didn't pay attention to the bondage, but now most readers focus on the bondage and overlook the need for love and wisdom to be behind it.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-23 06:24 am UTC (link)
	Indeed - it's become a cliche by now to say 'oh, we were so innocent back then', but we really were. Not only would we not have seen the bondage, we most likely wouldn't even have conceived of such a thing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	fredneil.livejournal.com 2009-07-21 06:50 pm UTC (link)
	This is another reason why I love the Wonder Woman/Steve Trevor relationship. He's all "Isn't my girlfriend great, I'm so proud of her." (Reply to this)

	bluefall 2009-07-21 10:21 pm UTC (link)
	I seem to recall exactly one story in which Marston gives somebody a really obvious good guy name (a judge named Juste, maybe? I'm pretty sure there was one of those, at any rate) who then turns out to be the crook. It weireded the whole story for me, and I walked away feeling unsettled and like nothing was reliable in this world. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	mosellegreen 2009-07-21 11:58 pm UTC (link)
	Hee. I don't remember that villain, but if I come across it as I repost, I'll be sure to mention it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-23 06:27 am UTC (link)
	Kangas just kinda sum up all that's cool about old-style Wondy, ya know? There is NO conceivable reason why they should be there (even though it's explained away later - they're from SPACE!), but they're there anyway, inexplicable yet appreciated. (Reply to this)