The Superhero Reader

Wonder Woman

203 Wonder Woman glorIa STeInem Reprinted by permission of the author from Wonder Woman (Bonanza Books, 1972), 2–7. ComiC books Were not quite respeCtable, WhiCh Was a large part of the reason I read them: under the covers with a flashlight, in the car while my parents told me I was ruining my eyes, in a tree or some other inaccessible spot; any place that provided sweet privacy and independence. along with cereal boxes and ketchup labels, they were the primers that taught me how to read. They were even cheap enough to be the first items I could buy on my own; a customer whose head didn’t quite reach the counter but whose dignity was greatly enhanced by making a selection (usually after much agonizing) and offering up money of her own. If, as I have always suspected, children are simply short people—ancient spirits who happen to be locked up in bodies that aren’t big enough or skillful enough to cope with the world—then the superhuman feats in comic books and fairy tales become logical and necessary. It’s satisfying for anyone to have heroes who can see through walls or leap over skyscrapers in a single bound. But it’s especially satisfying if our worldview consists mostly of knees and tying our shoes is still an exercise in frustration. The trouble is that the comic book performers of such superhuman feats— and even of only dimly competent ones—are almost always heroes. Literally. The female child is left to believe that, even when her body is as grown up as her spirit, she will still be in the childlike role of helping with minor tasks, appreciating men’s accomplishments, and being so incompetent and passive that she can only hope some man can come to her rescue. Of course, rescue and protection are comforting, even exhilarating experiences that should be and often are shared by men and boys. Even in comic books the hero is frequently called on to protect his own kind in addition to helpless women. But dependency and zero accomplishments get very dull as a steady diet. The only option for a girl reader is to identify with the male characters—pretty difficult, even in the androgynous years of childhood. If she can’t do that, she 204 glorIa STeInem faces limited prospects: an ideal life of sitting around like a Technicolor clothes horse getting into jams with villains, and saying things like, “Oh Superman, I’ll always be grateful to you.” Even as her hero goes off to bigger and better adventures, it hardly seems worth learning to tie our shoes. I’m happy to say that I was rescued from this plight at about the age of seven or eight. Rescued (Great Hera!) by a woman. Not only was she as wise as athena and as lovely as aphrodite, she had the speed of Mercury and the strength of Hercules. of course, being an amazon, she had a head start on such accomplishments, but she earned them in a human way by training in Greekstyle contents of dexterity and speed with her amazon sisters. (somehow it always seemed boring to me that Superman was a creature from another planet, and therefore had bulletproof skin, X-ray vision, and the power to fly. Where was the contest?) This beautiful amazon did have some fantastic gadgets to help her. an invisible plane that carried her through dimensions of time and space, a golden magic lasso, and bullet-proof bracelets. But she still had to get to the plane, throw the lasso with accuracy, and be agile enough to catch bullets on the steel-enclosed wrists. Her creator had also seen straight into my heart and understood the secret fears of violence hidden there. No longer did I have to pretend to like the “power and crunch” style of Captain Marvel or the Green Hornet. No longer did I have nightmares after reading ghoulish comics filled with torture and mayhem. Comics made all the more horrifying by their real-life setting in World War II. (It was a time when leather-clad Nazis were marching in the newsreels and in the comics. and the blood on the pages seemed frighteningly real.) Here was a heroic person who might conquer with force, but only a force that was tempered by love and justice. She converted her enemies more often than not. and if they were destroyed, they did it themselves, usually in...