Wonder Woman MEGA Episode (Wonder Woman The Golden Age, Wonder Woman The Silver Age & Wonder Woman The Bronze Age)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great Harah, it is time for me to say hello
and welcome to Geek History Lesson. I am Ashley Victoria Robinson.
Jason Inman is not allowed on the podcast today because,
as you may obsessed out from the title of this episode,
we are going to spend some important long term time
on Themiscira. This is our Wonder Woman Mega episode and

(00:22):
if you don't know, you are in the right place.
We're gonna teach you everything you need to know about
all of Wonder Woman's history. Themiskira aka Paradise Island is
where she's from and men are not allowed to be
there or touch the ground. And so Jason's not allowed
on this episode, except he's going to be featured in
every single other episode that you're gonna get a chance
to hear.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Today.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
We are as led by me taking a journey through
all of Wonder Woman's history from the Golden Age through
the Silver Age up to the Bronze Age, because frankly,
Diana Prince deserves as much exposure as possible and I
want you to learn as much as I did going
back to her incredible publication history. Oh, got out your

(01:00):
lasso of truth, put on your cool headband, spend around
a bunch of times and do your makeup as good
as Linda Carter's. Because it's time for Wonder Woman's mega episode.
Take it away, past Jason and past Ashley.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
In your Satin Tides fighting folio rides and old red,
white and blue wonder Woman, wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
That's right, because you're weak. History lesson On, wonder Woman.
The Golden Age is now in session.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Make a Haakah dev stop, whoa with love, Make Laijah
del the truth of wonder Woman, Golden Age, wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Man go Age, Hello, and welcome to Geek History Lesson.
I'm Ashley Victoria Robinson, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Jason Wonderful and men, welcome to your mind University, the
place where we're going to tell you about classical figures
in the Great Pantheon. That sometimes may be a superhero
that dresses up in the red, white and blue, and
that is who Ashley.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
That is the Wonderful, the iconic, the feminine wonder Woman. Diana,
Prince of Thymyskira.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
That's right, yeah, Themyscira. If you guys have been like
living in a cave somewhere, maybe you don't know that
there's a giant Wonder Woman movie coming out, and it's
it's pretty awesome. We can say at the time of
this recording that we have seen it, Yes, but we're
not going to talk about the movie in this episode.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Why not, Well, because next week.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
We're going to be doing our wonderwe movie review after
the movie's opened, so that you know, some of you
can see the movie, some of you can see have
your thoughts with our thoughts because it's gonna be full spoilers.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh yeah, and we'd like to respect your spoilers exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
And just like our past episodes on Superman and Batman,
Wonder Woman has such a lengthy and huge history that
we have to break her up, just like we did
Superman and Batman. That's right, This is only wonder Woman
the Golden.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Age, Yes, and we will go into the exact timeline
that that covers in a little.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Great We also want to tell you too, you really
want to stick around all the way to the end
because we.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Have one of our coolest guests.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
One of the coolest guests we have ever gotten on
this show, Ashley.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Do you want to introduce it that is?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Or should I introduce that is?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
I will give her an intro and you can say
her name. How about we split it up, joke, You
dinna make it even more difficult. Okay, Sure she is
for my generation, for children of the nineties, the definitive
wonder Woman, still playing the role till this very day.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Susan Eisenberg, the wonderful voice over actress. She yeah, she
was the voice for wonder Woman in Justice League and
Justice United, Superman, Batman Apocalypse, Justin Doom, Injustice and Justice two,
and the DC Universe online. So she's pretty wonderful.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
She is a wonderful woman.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
And she has played wonder Woman, so of course we
had to have her on our first wonder Woman episode.
But enough of this jibba jabba. Let's move on into
the Hencent Origin, which is the first part of our podcast.
But before we get to the Tencent Origin, I'm wonderfully
skipping ahead. I believe we have some excellent listeners out
in the Mind University that have suggested this lesson.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
We have a minefield of tas for this week's lesson,
including Shadows of Ash, Still, Brave Love, Gene s Sam
Martinez as d F g h j K lp qw
E R, Alexis N Bowen, and tree BRANCHI thank you
so much for requesting Diana Prince Wonder Woman episode.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Thank you tree Branchy, because now you're going to send
us into the dens End Origin, which I said before
is the first part of our podcast where we give
you the cliff notes version everything you need to know
about Wonder Woman. So when you want to impress your
friends right before, right as you're walking into the Wonder
Woman movie, you can be like, hey, guys, I know
all these details and I got it from ge Guessory Lesson.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Okay, Ashley, take us away.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
So she is, of course Princess Diana of Themiscira, a
very famous d C Comics character. Her first appearance was
an All Star Comics number eight in October of nineteen
forty one. So she is a she's in an old lady.
She is a seventy six year old beautiful Amazon.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
She's a member of the aarp is.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yes, definitely. She was created by William Moulton Marston with
the inspiration from various women in his life that we
will definitely be touching on, and artist Harry G. Peter,
which I cannot believe is his real name. Her most
famous alias is, of course Diana Prince, which she has
adopted in her civilian identities, giving beginning in the Golden Age,
she is an Amazon and a demigod, although we're not

(05:35):
going to touch a lot on the demi god stuff
slash touch on it at all, because that doesn't happen
until the modern age of comics, got it. We're going
to focus on her as an Amazonian princess and as
a secretary, and well, you know what all that means.
Her team affiliations and partnerships have included Steve Trevor, The
Justice League, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Girl, and her abilities
include superhuman strength, speed, durability and longevity, flight, skilled hand

(06:01):
to hand combatant, a lasso of Truth, a shield, indestructible gauntlets,
and an invisible jet as it was renamed during the
Linda Carter TV series.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Is that when it became a jet from a plant.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
That is we'll touch on that a little bit in
our history lesson, And of course she has famously been
played by Linda Carter, Susan Eisenberg, and Gal Gadot. Yes,
and that's your tensent origin on Wonder Woman.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yes, and that we of course we jumped a little
bit out of the Golden Age there, but it's okay,
it's all right.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Wonderment's so big.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, good talk about her.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
All right. Let's move into the meet cute, which is
our section that we stole a.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Term from romantic comedies, where we tell you where we
first met wonder Woman in our lives.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yes, so, Jason, I'm curious if this is gonna be
one of your standard answers, where did you first meet
wonder Woman?

Speaker 2 (06:48):
What do you feel is my standard answers?

Speaker 1 (06:50):
You are a wizard magazine man.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Listen, Batman the animated series showed me everything.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Hey man, No, we both we both have in our
origin stories.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
You know, wonder Woman's really tough because it's just like
Superman and Batman.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Batman. I kind of wonder, I don't know why I
said it that way. I love it.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I kind of wonder if I just kind of always
knew who she was.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I feel like she's always been just such a huge
part of ours.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Guys, Superman, Batman, and wonder Woman. I really feel like
I knew who she was before I read any comics
of her. Now I first became aware of who she
was actually read one of her Adventures was a comic book.
Back in the day, Walmart, which was one of my
my prime sources of comic books, would have these ten

(07:38):
packs of comics for like five dollars. And that was
back in the day, of course, when comic books cost
like a dollar to a dollar fifty.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
You good all day.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
You would see ninety nine cent comicooks all the time.
You usually they were the young reader comic books.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
That doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, but anyways, so you could buy these packs and
the packs were all it was usually DC. Marvel didn't
do this for some reason, which is I always thought
was weird.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Because they were broken at the time.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Uh No, this is early nineties, so Marvel the Marvel
was doing just fine. Uh So it would be like random.
So that was like the first way I read Man
of Steel by John Burne, like, but it'd be like
issue three and then be like The Justice Society of
America by Mike Paraback, which I've talked about in the series,
Like that's where I discovered that was in these packs.
And then I remember some issues of wonder Woman was

(08:21):
were sneaking in there, and some of them were the
George Perez Wonderful an issue that's a good run and
the first one I can remember. I cannot tell you
the issue, but Wonder Woman like Cheetah's on the cover
or something like that, and like Cheetah's like going at
Wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
That could be like thousands of Wonder Woman comic books
for as far as i'm but anyways, it was a
Cheetah versus Wonder Woman issue. Yeah, and it was in
the it was at night, That's what I remember. But
from there, I've read a bunch of Wonder Woman. I've
read the New fifty two run. I've read a bunch,
I've read George Prez's run. But Wonder Woman a lot
of our adventures that I've read were she's with the

(09:00):
Just League. So there you go. How about yourself?

Speaker 1 (09:02):
So I first met her in the Justice League show.
I mean, yes, I knew who Wonder Woman was. I'd
seen her because you knew who she was exactly, But
that was my first real encounter with her as a
character was when that series came on, because I was
mostly reading Batman stuff and she didn't appear in any
of the issues that I picked up. And it's not
like it is today where there is a ton of

(09:24):
kid friendly and then specifically female friendly stuff that was
very accessible before this these series of cartoons came along.
So yeah, and I loved that. Even though she's definitely
a supporting player next to Batman and Superman, she can
definitely stand her own like they're the leaders of that show,
but she doesn't take any crap from them.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
So yeah, that's my meet cute.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Great, let's move right into the history one oh one
of Wonder Woman in the Golden Age, where a teacher
Ashley is going to hop into the way Way Back
machine and travel back to nineteen forty one, and also
she's going to tell us what time periodes is this lesson
takes place in.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Yes, so this lesson is probably gonna have a little
bit more of publication history than we normally touch on,
because I think it is really important and important to understanding,
particularly this Golden Age incarnation. Sure, so, typically the Golden
Age of comics is considered to be between nineteen thirty
eight and nineteen fifty, so that's what we're working, and
we're working in nineteen forty one to nineteen fifty, so

(10:23):
only about ten years of comics is what we're going
to cover.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
It doesn't go all the way to the sixty one
or sixty two. Where are they first as a Barry Allen.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
So see that depends because the thirty eight to fifty
is what publishers, if you're making a grand generalization, would cover.
We're actually going to go up until about We're gonna
mention an event in sixty two because that's sort of
the end of this version of Wonder Woman. But most
of what we're covering is a lot of standalone adventures.

(10:50):
So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna give you
some publication history. I'm going to recap her first five
issues and then tell you some weird stuff that happened
and the trend of this storytelling because overarching narrative didn't
exist at this point.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
And that's totally fine because I know also in the fifties,
superhero coomboos kind of went out of fad and they
didn't sell very well.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
They did in Wonder Woman's series actually got canceled. She
wasn't published through a lot of the late fifties. Wonder Woman.
Don't worry, she came back. That's why they Yeah, well
I'll tell you, I'll tell you what happens.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
I'm excited about this.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Let's go okay, so publication history. William Moulton Marston, great
name was a famous psychologist at this time, already famous
like world famous, Bill Knight, the science guy, famous, Neil
de grasse tys and famous.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
I mean I put him on a higher level than that,
but sure, I'm just trying to.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Think of like who were two scientists, but who were
two scientific figures? You know, no, no, no, in popular culture,
and he was famous for inventing the polygraph or the
line of detector. He struck up an idea for a
new kind of superhero, one who would triumph not with
fists or firepower, but with love. So he's like kicking
around this idea of like, I don't know, like maybe

(11:59):
I'm all right a superhero. And then he was telling
this to his wife Elizabeth, and she said, quote, fine,
but make her a woman? Was he English? Do we know?
I think he's American? But I don't. I don't.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
I don't know, my dear Elizabeth. William, here I have
an idea for superhero. Maybe maybe this person has long hair.
Where's the colors of the of the American flag? Missing something? Here?

Speaker 1 (12:34):
I'm missing one important element, an hour glass figure. Dear godzooks,
that's it.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
My superhero needs hips.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
So I think that Elizabeth Marson doesn't get enough credit
because Wonder Woman being a woman is a pretty important
part of her car is.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Probably it is one of the most important.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Probably one of the most defining facts about her. So
I really wanted to mention that fun fact. Steve Trevor,
who is, of course the love interest of Wonder Woman
during this time period, he holds a position in American
Army intelligence, We'll get into that, and he often used
a lie detector while he was interrogating bad guys.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
This is this is a smart businessman. Guys, sell me
some detective tests.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yes. He later gave an interview with Family Circle magazine.
I have no idea what that is, stating that that
there was an untapped potential in the comic book medium
and that was why he felt compelled to create Wonder Woman.
So William Moulton Marson originally named her Suprema Suprema Suprema
s U. P R. E. M.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Anyway, but I did not know that before researching this
in the original pitch, so he hands it in to
the original editor and the Sheldon Mayor, and she is
she is called Suprema the wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yes, and then Sheldon Mayer was like, that's great, We'll
just call her wonder.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Like, look, man, this casts us per letter Let's cut
some of these offs.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, well, I mean lettering was a lot more difficult
back then. That's probably a legit because they're also Suprema
is a stupid name. It's okay. I think wonder Woman
is a better name. Wonder Woman's a way better name.
Suprema is a very Golden Age of comics name.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Hey, I just want to put a call out there
to all the writers. I don't think it's copyrighted, but
Suprema would be a great unless that's the daughter of
Supreme that Alan Moore hero, but nevermind, I don't know.
Suprema is a great name, should be a superhero.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah. And if you look at Harry Peters's original sketches,
but you can find they're on They're all over online
search Wonder Woman original sketches. If you look at any
of the covers or any of the interior art for
these Golden Age stories, she only wears a skirt when
they're really feminizing her. Most of the time, she's wearing
shorts in order to keep her modest and covers.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
And most of the time if i'm and correct me
if I'm wrong, because you just read all these issues,
doesn't she only wear a skirt on the covers?

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, she never wore or on particular splash pages, but
it's always shorts. And I'm like, dude, I wish they
would make those. I would wear them right now. They're
so cute, Like you call them georts?

Speaker 2 (14:57):
What do you call them?

Speaker 1 (14:58):
They're just shorts?

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Okay, cool floey hair?

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Ready? Yeah, yeah, sort, No, that's gene shorts. So Max Gaines,
who is the publisher of National Periodicals and all American
publications that would later merge to become V rebranded his
DC hired Marston based on this pitch, and then he
was basically given a first appearance right off the bat.

(15:21):
And fun fact, while Wonder Woman was highly influenced by Elizabeth,
his wife who we just talked about, she wears these
gauntlets that you know have become very iconic, and the
gauntlets that she wears in the Golden Age are black
and they're more like leather bracelets. And we'll get into
what they mean in the continuity, but this was an
homage to a woman named Olive Burne who was a

(15:41):
student of Marston's and in a polyamorous romantic relationship with
William Marston and his wife. Yea, yeah, yeah, if if
you want to know more about that, or recommend a
book that you can read at the end. But the
gauntlets are specifically an homage to her, and I think
it's really kind of sweet that they existed this very day,
although they've evolved a lot a lot since that, like

(16:04):
all superhos exactly. Marston then wrote an American scholar, when
reflecting on his creation of Wonder Woman, that not even
girls want to just be girls. So long as our
feminine archetype lacks force, strength and power, not wanting to
be girls. They don't want to be tender, submissive, peace
loving as good women are, women's strong qualities have become

(16:24):
despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to
create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman
plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
There's a good pitch.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Now, there are parts of that statement that you're like, well,
that sure was the forties that like a good woman
is submissive. But I think that the whole idea of
making a character like Superman but who is distinctly feminine
is one of the most important parts of her and
has lasted to this very day. And it's pretty cool
that in the nineteen forties there was a creator out
there who wanted to do that for all of us. Yeah,
and fun fact, while Marston was originally writing these comics,

(16:57):
in order to preserve his professional reputation, he wrote under
the pen name of Charles Moulton. So if you go
and you look at a lot of these golden aged stuff,
even in the omnibi that are being republished today, it
still says created by Charles Moulton. Harry Peter the artist
is not credited anywhere except he'll sign the final panel
of the issue or the bottom of the cover, which

(17:18):
kind of which was a trend during the which was.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
A trend of the day. Especially if you go back
and Bob Kane, Bill Finger didn't get a lot of
credit for a lot of the early Batman stuff, even
though bill Finger is responsible for like creating Robin and Joker,
and also Bob Kane would also have artists got straw
him and still say because they he was hiring them out,
he was still just sign it. It was all his Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, that's just my modern sensibility. But I'm like, I
can't believe that there's no little thing that says.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
But it is a good thing. Mind by now, even
though they're not going to change the pages, because I
understand that, like, it's a good thing that. Like in
the Wonder Woman movie, in the credits, it says wonder
Woman created by William Moulton.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Marston, Yeah, and Harry Peter, Yes, it does. I know.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
It just says most Martin.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Oh he gets a special thing, so he gets a
special things. Sorry. So Wonder Woman was so popular following
her debut. She is the first truly like pop culture sensation.
There have been female heroes that came before her, but
she's the one who broke the mold so big that
following her debut in All Star Comics Number eight, she
was given her own solo series Sensation Comics, which was

(18:19):
first published in nineteen forty two, less than a year,
about eight to nine months after her first debut, and
she got her own solo series quicker than any other
comic book character up to that point. In history. Now,
since then, there's obviously been characters that have rushed directly
to series. But I think that's pretty amazing. It is
for a female character.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
I remember, right, I think it took Superman like fifteen
to twenty issues before they gave him Superman, Yes.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
And I know I think Batman it was three two
or three years.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
It was two or three years for Batman as well. Yeah, yeah,
before he got Batman.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Now, obviously this is because she came after those two characters,
but the response is what drove that happening. But we'll
get back to Wonder Woman in just a minute. Now,
let's talk about this all right. So now it is

(19:09):
time to jump into the fictional history of Wonder Woman,
which is what I know. You all shut up to
this Golden Age lesson for Like I said, I'm going
to recap Wonder Woman's first five issues for you.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
I'm so excited about this.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
They're kind of amazing. I'm gonna be honest with you.

Speaker 2 (19:24):
I have never read Golden Age Wonder One beyond her first.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Appearance, so I had never read it before researching this
ish this episode, and I was lucky enough to get
the first volume of the omnibus.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
I think the Golden Age oas.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yes, we're going to talk on this a little bit later,
but I think of the of the Golden Age, I
think these ones are the best, okay personally, all right,
so let's start with All Star Comics number eight. This is,
of course, your classic origin of Wonder Woman. She is
a baby gallam made out of clay by Hippolitza, whose
name is given the French spelling, which is hy po lte.

(20:03):
But I'm assuming everyone still called her Hippolyta, because that's
what Anglos call her, because Hippolota wanted a baby so bad.
But you know, the Amazons were made to woo men
and to bring love to the world, and they lived
on this amazing island and during that time. This is
the only time I've heard Diana's name ever explained, although
I think it's fairly obvious if you know anything about
Greek and Roman mythology. It is an exact homage to

(20:26):
the Roman goddess of the Moon and the hunt. In
Greek tradition, she's called Artemis, and Roman she's called Diane
or Diana. And I think this is yeah, because she's
a powerful female.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
I did not know Diana and Artemis were entered the
Roman Greek names. I did not know that they are.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah, and Apollo just gets to be Apollo see Roman.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
But see that that makes a lot of sense, especially
being a child of the nineties comics, that when they
replaced Wonder Roman the nineties call they've been in a
new character called Artemis.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yes, exactly, exactly. I also thin it's ironic because of
the New fifty two Azarello and Chang's she fights Artemis.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
She fights Artemis a lot then I.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Need and like kicks her butt.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Artemis is a ginger.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yes. They also explained why they wear the bracelets. So
remember I said that Wonder Woman has the gauntlets, but
they're like these weird black leather cuffs. So the Amazons
live on Themyscira because Hippolyta lost the battle to Hercules,
and Hercules enslaved them, and then she led her revolt
and they were free, and they moved basically away from

(21:27):
the realm of men because Hercules led men and men suck.
So they wear these leather bracelets. And when you turn eighteen,
you go and do a ceremony in this temple, and
they're like they light the candles and they burn the incense,
and they put the cuffs on you as a reminder
of their time in bondage and to never let a
man bind them again, which is going to become a platform.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Let me ask you this at this point, and I
don't know if this is in your lesson? Do you
know what wonder Woman's And they might not have explained
this in the Golden Age. Do you know what Wonder
Woman's gauntlets are made of?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
No?

Speaker 2 (22:00):
The shield of Zeus.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Oh, I don't know. If they don't say that in
the in the fifty issues that I read, I might
feel like that's a la.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Might be it might be a thing too, Yeah, probably,
But it's a weapon. It's a shield of Zeus that
was broken and reforged by Hephestius.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh that's cool.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Thank you for telling me that. So, Heppaula says a
pretty good mom as it turns out, and she has
a magic sphere. Now in the modern age you usually
see this as like a window, or maybe like a
magic mirror, and she uses the magic sphere to teach
Diana all arts, sciences, and languages of the modern and
ancient time. Cool. So Diana knows everything you could want

(22:39):
her to know, except how the modern world works.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Diana is a walking Babelfish.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
She's amazing. So they use it to a spy on
the world of men to make sure that they don't
have to interfere. And that's how. And they're looking in
their little glasswind they see Steve Trevor, who is quote
the most valuable man in army intelligence and out and
they see that he's being captured by these two Germans

(23:03):
named von Storm and Fritz, which I think are the
best names for German officers by Americans. Ever, they just
call them Fritz. They don't even care. And he's flying
in his robot plane, which is a big deal because
the robot plane is what is going to win the
Americans the war.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Now, this was his WL war.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
This is set in World War two as World War
two is going on, so like it's definitely an American
power fantasy. But I think there's you should give a
lot of leeway to it and understand that this was
to help people cope.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Well a lot of it. A lot of the comics,
especially during the forties, were almost used as propaganda pieces.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Absolutely, and there are ads throughout here that by war
bonds support your troop.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yes, so they're all about like like the American spirit,
and we can win the day, and we can do it.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
We're just just you wait. Okay. So these two Germans
von Sturman Fritz, they steal Steve Trevor's robot plane and
they use the robot plane to dive bomb an American
bass and they kill all these Americans and it's so tragic,
and the Amazons are.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Like, well, that sucks, and they're just watching it.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
They're just watching it. They don't have TV.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
It doesn't happen anywhere close to Themoscara.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
No, okay, it happens on an an unspecified American bass.
They're zooming with the sphere, Yeah, zooming enhands Diana throughout
those a whole issue. I wrote this many times in
my note. They draw her like Betty Davis. Eddie Davis
was very famous for the shape of her eyes. Diana's
eyes are very heavily lidded. I think it's an aesthetic
of the time, along with the kind of buffont hair

(24:33):
do that she has. But I actually think the way
they draw Hippolota is like much more beautiful, Okay, like
Hyppolica is the most beautiful Amazon of the gold.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
You're saying, you're saying that Diana is the ugly duckling
of Thescary.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
I'm just saying, Diana's mom is hotter than her, that's all.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Diana's mom is hotter than her.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
So in the wake of seeing these poor American basses
and poor Americans will just be destroyed, Hippolita appeals and
praise to Aphrodite and Athena, of course, goddess of love
and beauty, and then was in war, and they appear
before her and they tell her to send her greatest
wonder Woman, which is the title that they used to
refer to their warriors, to send their greatest wonder Woman

(25:10):
with Steve Trevor, who who was washed up on their
shore by this time, to protect quote America, the last
citadel of democracy and of equal rights for women unquote.
Death is a very generous today. You're welcome, world.

Speaker 6 (25:28):
But this is the thing that Jason was talking about, Like,
this is, you know, the propaganda bleeding into pop culture
and maybe if you were a little girl in nineteen forties,
this was what you were looking for.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
But it sticks out like a sort thumb for modern readers.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Well, let's just the interesting thing about and this is
something that I think modern people, I would say, especially
post nineteen ninety, we have. I would even say maybe
post nineteen eighty, although the Cold War not I dipped
into this a little bit. We have a hard time

(26:03):
dealing or conceptualizing this world.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
I think in a post Cold War world, yes.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Where it was like the end of the world was
around the corner.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Well, and this is only a generation away from the
war that was supposed to end.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
At all wars, and so we're getting a repeat war. Yeah,
and so we're and this is a comma, but coming
out knee deep in this war that's like the Nazis
are going to come over and invade New York at
any moment.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yes, So about five panels into meeting Steve Trevor, Diana's
in love with him and very sad that he's unconscious.
He has a quote brain injury concussion end quote. So
she begs to go with them to the Land of
Men and hypologize like, nope, you're my daughter. So they
have a contest in order to see which wonder woman
is going to accompany him. She puts on a zoro
esque domino mask that hides who she is in no way,

(26:50):
shape or form, and she ties with another Amazon blonde
terror named Mala. Malla's kind of important, and she'll pop
up again in Sensation Comics, but we'll talk about that
when it happens. And they come down to their final contest,
which is Bullets and Bracelets, where they are given a gun,
they shoot at each other and whoever can block the
most bullets wins. Diana wins. She reveals herself. Everyone's like,

(27:10):
oh my god, Diana, I didn't know it was you.
And then Hippoulata was like, look, I made this super
cute outfit to celebrate the Americas. So here you go.
Put this on instead of your white dress now. So
Diana later on will return to Thymyscira Themiscira, Sorrysiramscira. She
will return to Themiscira and relive these events in I
think it's issue eight, and we basically get a clip

(27:32):
show issues later, we get a clip they literally live.
I don't know if it's because people because Sensation Comics
was a new series, but they lift panels from this
and they reprint it, but it ends with a new
fight between her and Mala, and she beats Mala again
because like, why wouldn't she.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
I wonder if somebody was late, like an artist or
William Martin Marson got sick. It's possible, and they were like,
we just got to fill in.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
But it is, like like I said, because I read
them all and like to be like, man, it's only
we're like at the clip show. Okay, so fun. Fact,
many of the Amazons that we still know by name
are mentioned in this issue, Philippus and Tiape, and they
remain a part of the mythology to this very day,
although many of them will get new races assigned to
them later on and more important, bigger roles in the future.

(28:16):
But they're here and that's cool. And like Jason mentioned,
Artemis is not introduced early in Wonder Woman's history because
she's basically a replacement. She might know.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
No, here's the thing, she's not in this issue. Okay, okay,
I don't I look for her. I don't exactly remember
where Artemis is introduced.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I just remember the eighties of the nineties, like she's
a modern content.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
It might be George pres but again, like I just
remember kind of like as Reeal, like she kind of
just popped up out of nowhere, and again she might
have appeared before that. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Well, I'm sure we'll cover that when we get we
get to when I.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Get to wonder Woman in the modern age, we'll figure
it out.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
There are also definite hints of homosexuality that a modern
age reader can find if you're looking for them in
this issue, although you know that's something that remains controversial
to this very day. But I appreciate that that it
was definitely there now, Jason, Like I said, I've I
read a lot of the Golden Age Batman stories for
our episode on that. I haven't read a lot of
the Superman stories. Oh you're missing out. I think the

(29:05):
wonder Woman stuff holds up way better than the Batman stuff,
and it has, as we'll get into a little bit,
it has more over hints of overarching narrative. Do you
think in your experience the Superman hold up in a
similar way? Oh, hold up in a similar way. How
the Golden Age of Superman? Do you think it feels
more modern than some other Golden Age? Because I think

(29:27):
Batman stories are very like one off detective stories like
the Superman have been overarching theme.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
No, well, Superman's early adventures are all about one thing.
They're all about social justice. Every single one of them
about social justice. It's about protecting the poor, protecting the
weak from like corporations and businessmen and politicians. It is
about which makes sense, you know, because he's a farmer's son,

(29:57):
so of course he would represent like his class. Superman
is more about class and class wars kind of almost.
It's more about him being like, hey, just because my
people are poor doesn't mean we don't deserve fair and
equal rights.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
So in Wonder Woman, in the narrative of the story,
every issue will get a callback to either Themyscira or Amazons.
The Superman refer back to Krypton.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
In every issue, No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Or does he refer back to his Kansas farm life.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Well, interesting, Kansas wasn't introduced into Superman until the seventies.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
You're right, and I knew that. Does it refer back
to his parents or his origin here and there?

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Okay, but not as much as see, that's an interesting
thing I think about Wonder Woman is Wonder Woman really
and that this might be cognizant of the one when
you think about that, characters like Wonder Roman. Compared to
Superman and Batman. There are certain characters you find in
comic books that don't have a lot of great runs,
and sadly, I think Wonder Woman is one of those characters.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Would I would say she has less than ten great runs.
And the problem I.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Think about Wonder Them, The biggest problem that I think
of with Wonder Them is that a lot of writers,
I think gets stymied by her origin and can't ever
move past it.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Well, because she hasn't. She is still an Amazon whereas
she and she's not a survivor the way that Superman
is a survivor.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
And Orbaman exactly, yeah, a survivor of a tragedy. She's
just a girl that was like, I'm going to go
do this thing for a while and sometimes I'll come home.
Yeah yeah, yeah, no Superman. You know, it's interesting. I
think I think the Superman things are best to read
to get an idea of how people felt at the
end of the recession going into the war. Interesting, I
think it. I think allows you a very street level

(31:36):
look into what living in a major American city might
have been like.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
And I feel like Wonder Woman is a look at
how we were all supposed to behave at the height
of the war, or as it was ramping up and
becoming more real.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
I mean, it kind of sounds like from every little
bit you've told me so far, that Wonder Woman is
really about, like, hey, this is actually how we should
treat everybody.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
It is it is, but it's also this is you,
you reader. You should go and do something about this,
because Diana would. So let's talk about Sensation Comics number one.
If you have a copy of it, you should send
it to me. So this is the first introduction of Yes, please,
I would love to own this. It's expensive. This is
the first appearance in the introduction of the invisible jet.

(32:19):
Although at the time it was referred to as a
transparent plane, it is not called an invisible jet until
the Linda Carter television series.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Which is made of transparent allumin If you know that reference,
that is correct.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
It is transparent aluminum. So there you go. So she
takes the transparent jet and she takes Steve Driver, who's
still unconscious, and she flies them all the way from
wherever it is that Themyscia is. Because they never really
tell you. Yeah, in the Mediterranean Sea, somewhere. She flies
him to Walter Read Hospital. Wow, which is interesting because

(32:55):
I didn't really know what Walt. I mean, I knew
it was a hospital, but I remain until a couple
of weeks before because Jason I were talking about it.
So she drops them off there and then she goes
shopping because she doesn't look right. So while she's out shopping,
she's accosted by gangsters. So she beats up some gangsters
and throws their cars into buildings. Then they shoot guns

(33:18):
at her. So she does her bullets and bracelets, but
every time she does bullets and bracelets, she has a
library's like, I don't want to play bullets and bracelets now,
Guys like it's a game to her. I guess. She
gets noticed by a producer of a traveling side show,
so she becomes an actress in order to make money
doing bullets and bracelets so that she can build a
life for her and Steve when he wakes up, does.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
She wear the Wonder Woman costume when she does the.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Bullet she does with the Zorro mask? Yeah, with the
masks well, because it's not quite a dominant like it's
a piece of fabric wrapped on your head mask, So
there's no indication for how long she's an actress. It's
probably eight panels. Then she returns using her earnings to
go and find Steve Trevor who's still unconscious.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
This is a pretty serious injury Steve's They took it
to Walter Reed.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
He's in a bad way. So as she's walking up
the steps to Walter Read, she sees an army nurse
with glasses who looks exactly like her, and she is
sobbing on the steps of the hospital. So she comes
up to her and she's like, who are you, why
do you look like me? How can I help you?
And there's just like, my name is Diana Prince, and
my fiance who I'm in love with, just got deployed

(34:27):
to South America, and I don't have any money to
go marry him and have a baby. So Diana, Diana
of Themyscira, gives Diana Prince all the money she just
earned and said, I'm buying your identity, give me your clothes,
go to South America. So Diana Prince hops on a plane,
goes to South America and then mails Wonder Woman a
thank you letter. At the end of the issue, look

(34:48):
we're like halfway through. I don't wanna, I don't, I don't.
I don't want to make this podcast uh topical.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
But wonder woman is an illegal alien, Yes, she completely is,
and she's living under a false identity ra.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
And this this, this is not even the end of
the two Dianas. I think it's you ten or twelve.
Good lord. She Diana Prince comes back with her husband
from South America, who sees Diana of Themiscira in the
nurse outfit on a date with Steve Trevor gets into
a fist fight with Steve Trevor, and then Diana Prince
comes to Diana Themiscira and demands her identity and her
old job back.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Listen, lady, you gave it up. Sorry for money, you
gave it up.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
You don't get your name same important.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Steve wakes up and breaks out of waul to read hospital,
even though they tell him not to go fight Nazis,
and then Diana Prince, the nurse, is blamed for not
watching Steve more closely, even though she wasn't there. Steve
Trevor crashes another jet out of the sky and Diana
saves him by using the robot controls in her transparent
plane and she lowers a rope ladder, puts her knees

(35:56):
over it, and hangs upside down like in the Batman
sixty six movies. Cool catches him out of the sky
on a ladder while doing bullets and bracelets at Nazis.
I'm watching it out for knowing, But guys, I don't
want to do bullets and bracelets. I don't want to
play bullets and bracelets, right like that, Yeah, that's the
voice that I imagine. So she kills all the bad
guys with bullets and bracelets. But luckily, Diana had her

(36:17):
mom look up the location of another secret bass, and
she just calls her through the use of telepathy, and
so they go there. Steve, they go to a secret
Nazi bass. Steve poisons everybody in the Nazi bass that
they land on with gas, including a guy in the
foreground who looks suspiciously like Hitler a right, and breaks
his leg while doing so.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Steve breaks his legs.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Steve breaks his leg the Nazis and I.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Was concerned about Hiler.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Well, you know, it's just equal opportunity. Saving Wonder Woman
and Diana Prince become romantic rivals in the final issue
of the panel because as Diana Prince, she can't get
Steve to go on a date with her because he
loves Wonder Woman so much and she's just the plain Jane.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Oh so he doesn't know.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
No, he's an idiot, but he doesn't figure glasses. You
don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
But the nurse followed him to the European Theater and
he doesn't figure out.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
No, Wonder Woman followed him to the European Theater.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
But wouldn't Diana Prince also be in Europe dating training day?
Does he go back to America for dates?

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Well, he's not supposed to be in Europe. They go
back to America, Okay.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Because he's he then held and then he sees Diana.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, they're globe trotter. So that's it. That's sensation comics
number one. That's a lot. That's a lot of time.
This is like six months a year of time. Like
I said, they're very I mean the coloring and it's
the product of the time never changes. This could all
be within an hour.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
I know things moved, you know how that like your
grandparents are like things were slower and shimpla back then.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
No, they were not.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
They were way faster. Guy, We're lazy.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yes, sometimes you take a whole comic issue for a fight.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Sometimes the whole comic issue just has yeah one conversation. Yeah,
good lord. They didn't screw around.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
No, not at all.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Comics better.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
So here's sensation number two. Diana Diana. When I say Diana,
she's the nurse, and I say wonder woman, she's the hero.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Great, that helps, all right, that does help.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Diana and Steve are kidnapped. She is hog tied, which
will happen every single issue from here on out in
until the seventies, and he is hogtied and gagged by
Gestapo agents. They are together. They are interrogated and tortured
by Doctor Poison. Now Doctor Poison is a Nazi bad
guy with an ugly green costume in ugly green goggles

(38:33):
who uses poison and gas to get their way. Initially,
I look at the art, this is a man, Okay,
I was gonna ask you that. However, at the end
of the issue it is revealed to be a woman.
We'll talk about that, which leads to the character that
you will see in They'll.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Wonder if because doctor Poison is in the wet. Now,
can I ask you a question real quick because you
read this issue. Do they ever explain or or is
there an idea that, like the Doctor Maru or doctor Poison,
the woman was wearing a disguise to make it pear
like she yes.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Da, I'll tell you at the end of the I'm sorry,
that's okay. So she interrogates them. Neither of them gives
up anything because they have really strong will. So they
take Diana. She's all hog tied, and they throw her
into a room away from Steve Trevor because who knows,
and then you know, luckily, like she had her handbag
with her clothes in it, so she changes into a
wonder woman. Now, Diana Prince always has to carry her

(39:22):
costume with her in case she has to charge into
battle and become a wonder woman. But she often has
a hard time locating a place to change and has
to like run off and find a room somewhere. And
she's because it's not the seventies, it's the forties. Sorry,
she's not as smart as Clark Kent, who can always
seem to find him a phone booth when he needs it,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
And you can see radio waves fun fact.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
She once gets naked and changes into her Wonder Woman
outfit inside a milk tank that's attached to the back
of a truck while it is careening out of control downhill.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Well, see that just shows me her skill that she
was able to jump into this thing.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
She was thrown into it by gangsters as Diana and
then changes into Wonder Woman inside of it because she's
trying to uncover a sidebar. She's trying to uncover a
milk racket that is seeking to take the nutrition away
from American children, an entire propaganda piece for the milk, and.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
You could only buy milk at certain days.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Milk's disgusting. Uh, you're an American, that's true. So Doctor
Poison meanwhile tells Steve Trevor her entire plan, which is
to contaminate the American military's water supply using Reverso. Well,
what is reverso? I'm so glad you asked. Reverso is

(40:40):
a drug that will cause all who ingest it to
do the opposite of what they are ordered to do,
and was specifically developed to undermine the efforts of American
soldiers and their allies. Sounds amazing, right, The greatest thing
about Sensation number two is it introduces Eta Candy, and
so Eda basically gets made fun of for being a

(41:02):
fat girl by everyone. But she is the leader of
all the girls at Holiday College. So Diana meets her
and she's like, bring one hundred Holiday College girls to
help me. And they get in their jeloppies and they
drive back to find Steve, Eda and all these like
beautiful girls.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Because Edda, we're in America.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
We're in America. Because Eda was originally a patient of
Diana the nurse, and she was really skinny, and after
she got out, she ate all this chocolate and now
she's like, butta, and she got more self confidence. Ironically,
you know.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
What would have stopped her from eating all that chocolate?
Revers though, no milk.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
There is milk in chocolate. Milk not that's down the line.
And the Wonder Woman, so Eda and the one hundred
Holiday College Girls beat the living snot out of every Nazi.
This is gonna happen in almost every issue from here
on out too, all these college girls just beating up
these army guys. Cool and wonder Woman breaks into Steve
Trevor's cell, she frees him. The Holiday Girls handcuff all

(42:00):
the Nazis, and Wonder Woman reveals that Doctor Poison is
none other than Princess Maru Evil, analog of Princess Diana
in every way, who hates the Americans. I actually think
it's cool that, like one of her chief bad guys
of the Golden Age is another princess.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, that's kind of interesting because Doctor Poison has kind
of been forgotten.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yes, so I was going to ask you about that, Jason.
Doctor Poison is one of Wonder Woman's earliest rivals, and
she's pretty important at this time. But when you think
of the pantheon of Wonder Woman villain, does she come
to mind for you? No?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Not really. But I know that there have been some
attempts to wret Connor and reboot her. I know, and
I don't know if any of them have been really successful.
But no, when I think of Wonder Woman, I do
not think of Doctor Poison.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Then who do you think, off the top of your head?
Who's the joker to Wonder Woman's Batman aries aries more
than Cheetah?

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Yes, I don't like Cheetah at all. To be honest
with you, I am not.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I think a lot of people want to bring her
up though, because she is a female foe.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, Like they did a thing where the granddaughter of
Doctor Poison has shown up.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, I think that's a cool idea, Like if you
had a Doctor Poison for every generation. I can get
behind that as an idea.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
And they also did a thing in The New fifty
two where Doctor Poison was like the daughter of a
Russian scientist.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yes, I believe so.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Whatever, But then then they and then also in now
in Rebirth, they did a thing where Doctor Poison is
like a Japanese soldier spy kind of girl. So, you know,
I don't know, and I'm kind of One of the
things I'm kind of glad about the movie is that
it seems like we're taking a lot of Golden Age
reference and I like that.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
I think that two has the potential to not interfere
with anything they're going to try to maybe do in
the Justice League movies or in the modern age.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Doctor Poison should be Diana's joker, I think. So.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I think there's a lot of potential in just the
idea of that character. All right, So Sensation.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Comics number three, Oh lord.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
So Diana learns that Steve is finally being formally discharged
instead of just riding away from the hospital, and she
breaks down in tears because she's so sad that he's
gonna be leaving her and she's not gonna be able
to nurse him every day to make her stop crying.
Because Steve is a man and can't handle feelings, he
has his friend who is a colonel, hire her as
his secretary. But Diana is so beautiful that Steve's secretary, Lila,

(44:19):
is jealous. But somebody during this time is leaking secret
information out of Steve's office. Now there's lips, sinks, and
there's a bunch of people other than Steve who work
in this office, and all the girls, all the secretaries
are suspected because a man can't betray the army. And
Diana is ordered because she's so good at her job
that she's had for six hours to give all the

(44:41):
girls health examinations because that's how you're going to find
a spy. And it gets like weirdly sexy, like she's
in her nurse outfit. They hire her because she's a nurse.
She'll be able to tell if someone is lying to
her not because she has a last lot of truth
and she's like, she's not feeling up, but she's like
touching all these women who are kind of in their underwear,

(45:03):
getting a sound. I get it. Lila, who is Steve's secretary,
refuses to undergo her examinason, so she attacks Diana with
a bottle and Diana punches her unconscious.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
And does nobody react to like this?

Speaker 1 (45:18):
There's no one else in the room at this, It's
just it's just she brings one girl in at a time,
has her way with them. My cousin Hello, Well, Lilah's
sleeping on the floor. Diana goes through her clothes and
discovers that she's the spy. She finds the note. Of
course she has a no one. She reports this to
her superiors and uh, she is arrested instead of Lila

(45:42):
being arrested, so she's hogtied, thrown into a room, changes
into Wonder Woman and breaks out. She kidnaps Lila, who's
woken up by this time, and jumps out a window,
and Lila is so scared that she confesses now. Wonder
Woman has a habit of jumping out windows a lot
in the beginning, usually with someone else in her arms,
and she seems to be a lot like Superman, and
that she can only take these huge bounding leaps. She

(46:04):
can't fly the way she is in contemporary continuity.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Do you want me to confirm that for you?

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (46:10):
I know exactly she cannot fly in the Golden Nation.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah, that's what I mean.

Speaker 7 (46:13):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Wonder Woman does not gain the ability to fly until
nineteen eighty five.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yes, I didn't know it was that late, but it
was a.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Post crisis before that. She can only like leap like great.
She she can jump role she can jump real far.
And it's the invisible jet.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Yes, the transparent plane. I think you meet. He's right,
because if she could fly, she wouldn't have it exactly,
would be seay. So it turns out that Lila's not
the spy, but Lyla has a little sister who looks
exactly like her named Eve. Twins in the storm and
just go with it. Eve is actually the spy because
she fell in love with the Nazi agent and accidentally

(46:48):
revealed all this classified information to him. So Lila and
Wonder Woman swim after Nazis who are trying to escape
in a motor boat, and they find this Nazi who
seduced Lilah. Does sister Eve, and they waterboard him until
he reveals his plan to her to take over America.
Wonder Woman then sends a mental radio call to Eda

(47:09):
to intercept Steve so we can't be killed by Nazis.
A mental radio call is basically Wonder Woman built a
cylinder that has a TV screen on it and a
phone coil that connects to a headband that projects her
image if Eda puts it on her head and she
can receive the telepathic message.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Okay, how does that it? Now?

Speaker 1 (47:27):
To put it on? She just checks in every once
a while wearing it.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
I guess it's not very practical.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, So she's like, come and bring the Holiday girls
and like say the day so a wonder Woman rescues
Steve from literally being crushed by Nazis. Eve is accepted
into Beta Lambda. Beta Lambda is the sorority at Holiday
College that Eda's in charge of, and she's hazed by
her sisters in a hilarious final panel that involves her
being tied up and spanked by girls in masks. Okay,
which which is gonna show up a lot in the

(47:55):
next few comments.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
There's some common themes here, howgdy yes, A lot of
a lot of sensual situations. This Holiday College seems like
a school that you go to to go to vacation. Yeah,
because it's called the Holiday College. They don't seem to
be doing it.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
It's not spelled the same way. It's h O L
l I.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
D A Y still anyway. Yeah, and Steve Trevor seems
like a complete idiot.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Steve Trevor is an idiot, but he's the most valuable
man in Armunes. He's not an idiot. He's just not
as heroic as Wonder Woman. That's solid.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
It's because he's not because Wonder Woman who's saving the
day every single time.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
That's funny. Put a pin in that. Okay, So here's
the last one I'm going to recap for you because
this has been a long journey since als right, Yeah,
this is Sensation Comics number four US fifth appearance. So
Diana decides that she's gonna make Steve jealous by talking
to him about how great her boss, his best friend,
this colonel guy is, because Steve won't date her because

(48:50):
he loves wonder Romans. Come on. Steve tells Diana about
a string of government girls who have been murdered and
that she needs to be careful.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Wait a minute, all right, so here's here's okay. So,
so Diana's like, all right, I'm gonna make him jealous.
So Steve, this colonel guy is so great Steve, and
he's like, Diana, all these girls are being murdered. That's
his response.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yes, Steve has really, really bad social skills. Diana.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
I don't know if you know, but you work for
the government, and how these other governmental secretaries have been murdered.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
That's pretty much how it goes. I'd watch your tone.
Steve's a little murdery in this issue. I'm so Diana,
of course, takes it upon herself to investigate the number
one suspect, who is a German baroness. Oh all right,
and this Baroness is going to be camonn ongoing adversary
for Wonder Woman throughout the Golden Age. And you have
a name, uh, the German Baroness. Okay. She's usually referred

(49:48):
to as the Baroness, and she often gets a Scooby
Doo level revealed toward the end of an issue where
the bad guy is unmassing turns out to be her. Yeah,
it's pretty great. So the Nazis want Eve remember the
little sister from last issue, Oh Yeah, to come back
to their side and attend their school. But while they're
trying to recruit her, she's held up from a meeting
that she's supposed to go to at Beta Lambda for

(50:09):
more hazing. So she shows up late and the Beata
Lambda girls punish her by forcing her to wear a
collar and ordering her repeatedly to quote submit to us.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Interesting, So she takes.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
A nail file and files her way out of this
metal collar that they've tied her up with, like a prisoner,
and she runs off to go to Nazi spy school. Meanwhile,
Steve Trevor's also been looking for these missing girls, and
he beats up some Nazis in the woods. Yeah, and
then it is revealed that the Baroness did kidnap these
government girls to go to her Secrets by school, and

(50:40):
she kills them when they betray her, So Wonder Woman
goes after her. When the Baroness throws a costume ball
and Diana goes dressed as wonder Woman because duh, and
Steve thinks she's so beautiful as Wonderful, but Steve like
has no idea.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Ste He's like, you're the secretary.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
No, He's like, you're wonder Woman. She shows up as
a wonder Woman. She thinks she's gonna pretend to be
Diana and Steve's like, oh hey, wonder Woman, you look
so great. Okay, Steve's an idiot, allows herself to be captured, hogtied,
oh my god, and agrees to go undercover and be
the Baroness's slave because the Baroness doesn't want her to

(51:17):
go to spy school. She wants her to be her
personal slave. This establishes the Golden Age tradition of wonder
Woman that if her bracelets are bound by man, she
loses all of her Amazonian power. So they take change
and they bind her two bracelets together, and this happens
pretty frequently until the seventies.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
It's like her kryptonite.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
It is, yeah, it is very much that. So using
Amazonian psychology, she is able to free many of the
don't ask me what that is, many of the women
who were also captured. But her strength is gone and
she could not break out. So Steve, of course, is
also captured by the Baroness and he's like walking around
and he discovers wonder Woman alone in a room. Oh woman,
and Hey Steve, and then they are simultaneously discovered by

(51:58):
Nazis then take them out onto the roof before a
firing squad. But luckily Eda and the Holiday Girls break
into the facility and they beat this. Not out of
all the guards. Wonder Woman does bullets and bracelets again.
They get to Europe. Don't worry about it, okay, and
she and Steve defeat the Nazis and then all of
the Holiday Girls line up to kiss Steve. Sounds like

(52:20):
a great night for Steve. Yeah. So not long after
this is the issue I talked about where Diana returns
to Thimyscira at the time Themskira Sorry And this The
cool thing about that issue, like, besides the fact that
it's a weird clip show, is that this introduces keanga's
for the first time. So keangas are the giant kangaroos
that Amazons in the Golden Age would ride around and

(52:42):
they would fight each other on It was like jousting
but more crazy, And we do meet jumper jumpa is
specifically Wonder Woman's kanga jumpus still exists, usually in some
of the more like Ya friendly adapts.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Just recently made a stuffed jump up.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
It's so yeah, they're kingas, but this one is jump up. Yeah,
because it's the Golden Age, I guess I want to
ask you it is. So from here on out, I'm
going to kind of summarize some important appearances and some
trends that we see.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Guys, this is the Golden Age. This is going to
be a longer than normal episode and we still have
a season. But you know what, I'll tell you what
I think going through these Golden Age issues were so fun.
I don't care that this is a long episode.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
I thought about summarizing ten, but it seemed too long.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Don't cut anything else out. Let's just keep rolling. Okay,
this is a fun time.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
So in Wonder Woman number six, which was published in
October of nineteen forty three, because Sensation Comics ends and
then they rebrand it as Wonder Woman.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
They renamed Sensation the one roun.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Basically they renumber it. So in Wonder Woman number six,
which a couple of years later, we meet a character
called Priscilla Rich. Jason, do you know why Priscilla Rich
is important?

Speaker 2 (53:46):
She would later go on to Mary Elvis Presley.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
I wish that would have been so cool though she's
actually the original Cheetah. Oh, I did not know. So
the Cheetah first appeared in nineteen forty three. I know
you don't, but she's in a more than wonder Woman
character very early in Wonder Woman's history. Now, most people
when you think of Cheetah, I know you're sitting there
thinking that it's doctor Barbara and Minerva, because that's the
one that is currently in continuity. She's probably the best

(54:10):
of the cheetahs. I'm not gonna lie. The original Cheetah
is a lady in a costume, sure, but Barbara and
Minerva is not introduced until the Bronze Age in Wonderment
volume two, number seven from August of nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
And we'll get to that in the next.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Next two episodes or so. Yeah. But yes, so there
are actually like five cheetahs, but the original Cheetah originated
in the Golden Age. Original Cheetah. Yes, that was a
great sentence. I'm so sorry. Most of Wonder Woman's Golden
Age adventures have her thematically protecting women or saving women
who can't save themselves from peril, and then giving them
the social or physical skills in order to save themselves.

(54:45):
So it's very much, you know, like teach a girl
to punch, and she'll punch your way out of danger
from here on out. And it's usually I was trying
to do the teaching man a fish thing. It's usually
because none of the men want to help her. Help
help the women, Okay, whoever the her is, and the story,
like Steve is usually like these government girls is getting murdered,
but I'm not gonna do anything about it, but you
should watch your back. So then Diana goes off and

(55:07):
tries to save the day. She also does work as
Steve Trevor's aid as Wonder Woman, So whenever Steve is
going somewhere on a mission, Wonder Woman shows up to help,
and she always does the heavy lifting, and it's always
her who saves the day, and he always gets the credit,
although to the great credit of William Moulton, Marson and
whoever else was working on the scripts, editors, whatever. There

(55:27):
was always a panel to usually the second or third
to last panel of the issue, where he's speaking to
a crowd and they're saying, you're so amazing, Steve, how
did you do this? And he goes, no, it all
belongs to my beautiful angel Wonder Woman.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
He's always call her angel.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
He does, he does. That is something that is still
being used in current continenty. Greg Ruck is using it
a lot in his run.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
I use that in The Wonder rooman animated movie made
by Bruce tim Like. Steve Trevor calls her his angel.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Yes, he calls her his angel because I believe the
first time he sees her, she kind of comes, she
jumps down, and she's Halo. They sort of do that
a little bit in the new movie as well. They
definitely do, but so I appreciate that even though everyone
is trying to give Steve the crowd like he knows
he's a schmuck, and he's like, no, it wasn't meam
so sorry. She spends pretty much every issue until the seventies,
like I said, being tied up by bad guys. Sometimes

(56:09):
she's tied up by vines and tentacles depending on where
the story is set, which is weird in and of itself.
From time to time, she can use her ability to
speak to animals. That is something that is established in
the Golden Age cool, and she's usually able to call
a bunch of like familiars to her side in order
to beat up nazis all right, although there is an
issue where she's tricked into believing that she's a dog

(56:31):
and she wears a dog costume.

Speaker 8 (56:35):
Golden Age.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
I want to assume it's supposed to be like an
answer to Catwoman's popularity, but I don't know they were
like dog Girl at that time. Cat one was only
called the cat. Oh that's true.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
She was a jewel thief.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
But I don't know. It's weird, Like there is even
go find this panels really famous if you google it.
Like she's wearing like a dog costume, brown dog costume,
it's in there. I think it's the Baronessa's there and
she's like, oh mark for me dog. We all have
things in our lives we regret, and that is what
Wonderoman of rest. Yes, there's also heavy commentary on gun
violence and the current American political state during this time,

(57:08):
because you know, it's a time of war. They were
pacifist creating the story. Wonder Woman has been held up
as both a pacifist and feminist icon for this reason,
and I just thought that was interesting because the TV
show Arrow has dealt a lot with gun violence recently,
and Supergirl is obviously making political commentary. So it's an
interesting way that Wonder Woman has been doing these things
from the beginning and now they're bleeding over into more

(57:29):
pop culture.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
And it's also very interesting especially since now Wonder Woman
has become this character in the DC universe that kills
that Batman and Superman don't have a problem with killing. Yes,
so it's very interesting that she's all about peace and violence,
but now she's like, look, if I stab you with
my sword of you're a bad guy, so.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
What you deserve it? Yeah, Yeah, it's a little bit
of the modern sensibility. Now during the Golden Age, Wonder
Woman does not cross over with any other contemporary superhero
neither do any of the rest of that until she
joins the JSA, although this is specifically because William Moulton
Marston did not believe that she would ever follow anyone
else's lead beside Steve Trevor and that she was better

(58:07):
in a solo capacity, although in All Star Comics when
she returns to it, Wonder Woman joined the Justice Society
of America and William Moulton Marson threw a giant fit
in the DC offices because he did not believe that
Wonder Woman would ever let a man lead her, or
that she would alie with other superheroes. And then the
big thing that ends the Golden Age of Wonder Woman

(58:29):
is the Flash number one twenty nine from June of
nineteen sixty two, because that is when she is with
a lot of other heroes shunted off to Earth two.
This is where some of the JSA stuff comes into
Jerk Flash. Yes, and this is the beginning of her
quote Silver Age life. Some people want to equate it
with when Donna Troy first appears, but Donna Troy doesn't

(58:50):
appear until nineteen sixty five, which I think is well
into the Silver Age by that point because Donna Troy
is held up as her protege, so most people would
consider for Wonder Woman nineteen sixty two, even though in
the grander scheme the Golden Age did end before that.
After that is when her mythology changes a little bit
and her themes, the thethmatic themes of her story change

(59:11):
because we get new writers on her for the first
time ever. So that is your history of Wonder Woman.
Yea age, so ut of bondage, a lot of bondage. Yes.
It is funny because some of it has definitely remained. Yeah,
I'm to the modern age. So shall we go into
recommended reading.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Yes, let's go to recommended reading, the place where we're
going to give you books that if you are so
curious about wonder Woman the Golden Age, you can go
read them. You go get check them out geek insro
lesson dot com slash recommended Reading. We have a full
list there and if you click on those books, we'll
take you right to Amazon and you can pick up
those books and a little bit of percentage of your
sale comes right back to the main university.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Yes. So if you liked the publication history part at
the beginning of this lesson and you think that they
sound like crazy amazing people who created this crazy amazing character,
there's a great nonfiction book that you can pick up
called The History of wonder Woman. I bought it for Jason.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
It's a straight up biography of Marston.

Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Yeah, it's it's great, but through I would say, mostly
through the lens of what led to wonder Woman. So
pick that up and then DC is amazing. They're publishing
all this great Golden Age bound together in a lovely omnibi.
So you're gonna want to pick up wonder Woman the
Golden Age Volume one and volume two. They have some
outstanding Darwin Cook art on the cover. Yep, they're beautifully

(01:00:25):
restored and like I said, I think they read really well.
So you want to go pick up all that stuff. Great?
All right, now let's move into our discussion.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Yes, the part that we've been waiting for, Ashley, why
don't you Why don't you introduce us in?

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
All right? So we are going to talk to the wonderful,
the beautiful, the incredibly talented Susan Eisenberg, who has played
wonder Woman in Justice League, DC, Universe Online and the
Injustice games that everybody knows and loves. Thank you so

(01:01:00):
much for joining us. One kissed your lesson today, Susan.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
So my first question starts at the beginning. When you
learned that you were going in to read for a
wonder Woman for the first time. Did you take any
inspiration from Linda Carter, who was probably the most iconic
wonder Woman of the time.

Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
You know what, It wasn't in my consciousness to do
that at that point. I mean I hadn't really, I
mean as much as I grew up with Linda Carter
because she was the voice and the embodiment of the character.
When I was younger, I wasn't geeky about that stuff.
So it's not like I held her close and then
went in with her sense the sense of her when

(01:01:39):
I went to audition. And the truth is, the first
audition was just, you know, at my agent's office. The
second one, I had to go to Warner Brothers, and
I meat Bruce tim and Andrea Romano, and.

Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
Bruce gave me the picture of her.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
So it's not like he handed me a picture of
Linda Carter and said, Okay, do your thing, Oh that's cool.
It was it was the picture of what we know
Diana to be from the Justice League, and they were
very clear about how they wanted me to voice her.
And so you know, I didn't grab from Linda Carter's portrayal.
I mean not that she wasn't definitive, but I didn't

(01:02:14):
borrow from her to do what we needed to do
for Justice League.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Do you remember any more of the audition process, Like
do they ever do something where they had you read
with Kevin Conroy, Batman or Superman as well?

Speaker 5 (01:02:29):
No, they didn't and in fact, you know, I think
they would do that if it were a theatrical release,
and then I think they would want to test the
chemistry and if it's on screen and do they look
good together and blah blah blah. But with us, No,
I mean, I think, honestly, I think we got so
incredibly lucky that our vocal cast for Justice League blended

(01:02:52):
as beautifully as they did, because it really felt like
we'd known each other for a really long time. And
that stuff you can't, you know, you can't conjure it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
It's either there or it's not there.

Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
But no, I remember going by myself to Warner Brothers
and having to read for Bruce and Andrea, and you know,
the stakes were really high because it was Wonder Woman
and it was an animated series, and they were really
clear on what they wanted. Like I said, they gave
me direction and wanted to see how I took the direction?

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
Can she take the direction? Kind of thing? And I
guess what.

Speaker 5 (01:03:31):
I did was okay, because you know, a couple of
weeks later, I got the call.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Now, does anything come to mind as a favorite episode
or a moment that you got to perform in Justice League?

Speaker 5 (01:03:42):
You know there are too many because it was years,
but I mean not to say that they aren't favorite episodes.
I mean, this little Piggy I always talk about because
I got to, you know, do that banter thing with
Batman and kind of have that fun little sizzle once
in future thing, because I just think it's such a
perfect episode with every thing in it, the music, the story.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
I mean, I just I just loved it. I mean.

Speaker 5 (01:04:06):
The first episode because it's like that's there, you go, there,
you get the introduction to the character. I feel felt
like when she was leaving Themyscira to you know, to
go to a man's world.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
I mean, all of that was.

Speaker 5 (01:04:20):
Just you know, it's a joy to be able to
have something that juicy to play.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Now, how has voicing wonder Woman changed over the years,
Because you've been lucky enough to make a mark on
wonder Woman in this amazing Justice League series, but also
you've now been more recently voicing Wonder Woman as a
villain basically in the Injustice series.

Speaker 5 (01:04:44):
It's true, Jason, you do not lie. Yeah, I know,
and it's it's I'm telling you. It was really weird
to play her that way because that's just so not
my tendency to want a voicer like that, but you know,
that's the job, right and that's the vision. So for
the story. You know, she's definitely badass in Injustice too,

(01:05:07):
and there's not that sense of camaraderie obviously with the
other cast members. It's a it's a different ballgame altogether.
But it's also you know, like I said earlier, it's
just a different vision of.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Her, and as an actor that that's my job.

Speaker 5 (01:05:23):
You know, it's people paying me good money to to
make their vision come off the page, if you will.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
Is there anything that you like better about the kind
of work that you get to do an Injustice hmm?

Speaker 5 (01:05:35):
That's interesting, Well, I mean it is. There is something
fun about being that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Haughty and don't f with me kind of character.

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
I mean, you know, Justice League on television was on
Cartoon Network and this is like a far cry from that.
So there's something really freeing about doing that and having
the fun to do that. But you know, I got
to do a little of that with Justice League, so

(01:06:07):
you know, it's just you know what, you guys, it's
just all fun. Like you get to go to work
and you get to be wonder woman, and I don't
care what project it's in. If you know it's it's
a pretty good day. I mean, that's that's the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
All right. Now, we have some questions.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
They're going to make you think a little bit about
the character, a little bit more about the character of
Wonder Woman. And Michelle, one of our lovely patrons over
at patreon dot com slash jaw and asks what do
you think it would take to make Wonder Woman turn dark?
Like Superman losing Lois of course in the Adjustice series
turned him from the side of light. What event do

(01:06:45):
you think or what type of event do you think
could do the same for wonder Woman.

Speaker 5 (01:06:50):
You know, I think her essence isn't dark, so it
would have to take, you know, something that was done
to her unwillingly, or if there was something done to
humanity at large, if she were to see something like
a nuclear holocaust or experience something so dreadful that she

(01:07:10):
no longer believed that Wright could win. I think that
could turn her dark. I don't think she has I mean,
I do think she has so much faith, so I
don't think that's likely. But I think if that were
to happen, I think that could be something that could.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
Turn her dark.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
John Devenny, another one of our patrons, wanted to ask you,
what themes in Wonder Woman's stories or the cartoons, movies
past or present do you think still relate to today's society.

Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
You know what I get told all the time that
she is a beacon for people and that she has
such the character has such compassion, And what I really
loved about playing the character initially was that she was
an outsider and she had to go to this group

(01:08:01):
and make a life for herself and it wasn't easy.
And I think that for so many people out there,
life is not easy, and I think they need and
we need beacons. And I think that she has done
that so bravely and so many of her creations, you know,

(01:08:22):
whether it's in the magazines, the comic books, Justice League,
and I think it'll be huge in this movie, in
the Wonder Woman film that's about to be released. But
I think that that still resonates, that notion of being
an outsider and being a woman in a man's world,

(01:08:46):
being new to the group at the Justice League, all
of that having to acclimate and finding your way, and
she does it, and she does it heroically, So I
feel and this is just me.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
I feel like that that.

Speaker 5 (01:09:02):
Resonates huge, hugely for people because I've been told by
so many people how she has been their strength through
really dark times.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Now for many people, myself included, you were my very
first introduction to Wonder Woman. So I wanted to know,
how does it feel to have made such an indelible
mark on the most iconic female character.

Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
It's extraordinary, I mean it really, you know, there's nothing
like it. It was a job that I got very
early on in my career, and I feel like I
was given this tremendous it's a privilege to voice her,
and I feel like I was given this extraordinary gift
back in two thousand and one, and I still keep

(01:09:49):
getting this gift known as wonder Woman.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
You know I think that. I mean, I'm just I got.

Speaker 5 (01:09:54):
Lucky in a huge, huge way, and I never lose
sight of that. I ever don't have gratitude for her
and for the job, because to know that you can
have an impact or you have had an impact on people,
that you've been a part of somebody's childhood that they
associate with you, you know, associate you with this icon

(01:10:19):
this beautiful, beautiful character Uh, you know, it's like it's
an extraordinary stewardship that I've been entrusted with, and you know,
it's it's just it's a great, great honor, it really is.
And I get told I didn't when you're recording the show,
you know, you don't. We were recording in a vacuum basically,

(01:10:41):
I mean, you're at the studio. And it really hasn't
been until the comic cons and social media that I
think I really understood the power of the Justice League
and how much it impacted people. That has been a
huge eye opener because if you ask me, like, you know,
ten years ago, did I know that the answer would

(01:11:01):
have been absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Now I have a question I'm very curious about. Since
you have returned and left the role of Wonder Room
a couple of times, what do you use as an
actor to drop yourself back into the mindset of Wonder Woman.
How do you get back into her head?

Speaker 5 (01:11:21):
Well, she's never far from my head. And you know,
and it's funny that you said I left the role.
You know, I never left. It's funny because you know,
as an actor, you either get asked or you don't
get asked.

Speaker 4 (01:11:33):
And it's really.

Speaker 5 (01:11:34):
People ask me all the time, well, why didn't you
do it for that project or that project? We have
no control over that. You know that they often go
in different directions. They want to try something else out,
They want to try a celebrity out. They like somebody
else who's maybe younger, or you know, it's a Hipper
wonder Woman whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
I mean they have there's no Hipper wonder Woman Susan.

Speaker 5 (01:11:58):
But you know they have their recent they you know
in quotation marks, they have their reasons. And so it's
it's sweet that you would say I left, but I
never left.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
But the truth is she she's never far.

Speaker 5 (01:12:09):
From me because when I played her for five years,
all I need to do is conjure that Diana up
and she's right there. I mean, all I need to
say is great, Hara, and I'm right there. Yes, you know,
if I if I say, you know, if I in
my head talking to Superman and tell him I'll meet
him in the watch Tower, I'm there. And you know,

(01:12:31):
it's not like I don't have a script. It's not
like I don't have a director. It's not like I'm
just put in a room and somebody says, okay, go
do it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
You know, I do have a script, I do have
a director.

Speaker 5 (01:12:41):
I often have an image and Injustice she looked very
different than Diana from Justice League.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
See you online game.

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
I mean that, you know, there's there's a whole other
team there in place to tell you, to give you
parameters and say okay, this is what we're looking for
and now go ahead, and you know, to be perfectly frank,
I mean, it's not a huge stretch for me to
do this. It's like I'd love to say, well, I
you know, I have to I have to go away

(01:13:09):
for weeks at a time and get into character. It's like, no,
she's she's you know, just crazy and lovely and wonderful,
and she's right there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Because of your answer, I'm now going to tell people
that we've literally had.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Wonder Woman on our podcast. Now.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Yes, Susan, this has been an amazing pleasure to talk
to you. Where can our listeners find you on the internet?
And do you have any future projects that they can
check out?

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
I do have a Yeah, I do have a future project.

Speaker 5 (01:13:43):
It's an animated movie, but they I can't talk about
it yet, so that's kind of a drag. But I
think people will love it, and it's it's it's a
great character. It's not wonder Woman, but it's an amazing character.
The Justice League is having a reunion in Denver at
Denver Comic Con, and that's the last week of June,

(01:14:04):
first weekend of July, and hopefully they will film it
so all the Justice League fans out there can see
the League reunited on stage with Andrea Romano reading from
some original scripts from the show. So I think that'll
be really special. And people can find me if they'd
like to follow me on Twitter, I'm at Susan Eisenberg

(01:14:24):
one on Instagram Susan Eisenberg twenty one, and if they
just want to chat or see what I'm up to,
they can go to my website. It's Susaneisenberg Voice dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:14:39):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Well, thank you so much for talking with us about
Wonder Woman. Thanks for inspiring us all to be wonderful women,
and thanks for telling us where we can find you
all over the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Could we before we say goodbye? Yeah, could we hear
you say great Hara, just one last time?

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
Okay you ready?

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
Great Hara, amazing chill. I used to want to save
the world before I gave it all up to design clothes.
Your Geek History Lesson On Wonder Woman the Silver Age
is now in session. Hello and welcome to Geek History Lesson.
I'm Ashley Victoria Robinson and I'm Jason lasso Inman.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Welcome to Geek History Lesson because this is the podcast
where we take one character from pop culture movies, television,
comic books and tell you everything you need to know
about it in a little bit less than an hour.
And today's episode is all about wonder Woman. One. I
guess she wouldn't have a theme song. We're still before
her show, aren't. No, We're not before a show. We're

(01:15:41):
going to cross over into her show. Okay, all we
will talk about the show very very briefly. Well, what
are we talking about? What section of history are we
talking about? Wonder Woman the Silver ag Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Wow, right, we like the Silver Age?

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
It's fine, Well I didn't. I don't know whether that
question was like right for the airhorn learn or write
for that? We are talking about who knows why not
more approval of the Silver Age?

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
Which one were you for knowing the answer? Mostly because
the Silver Age, I'll fully admit silverage is not my
favorite Aero comic ex Well, actually, I want to say,
do we want to define the ages now or wait
till the main No, We're gonna do that in the
main lesson. Okay, cool, But we do have a couple
of ta's. We have a couple of sweet souls who
requested this, and they include Shadows of Ash, Still, Brave Love,

(01:16:26):
Gene s, Sam Martinez, A S, D F G h
K JK LP QW e R. You're a sweet person,
I'm sure, but screw you for just slamming your hands
on your keyboard and colinade a username, Alexis and Bowen
and tree Branchie, thank you so much for requesting wonder Woman.
This silver age. That's right now. Before we get too
deep in the weeds about what the silver Age actually means,

(01:16:47):
I think Jason has something he wants to talk to us.
I want to talk about the Kickstarter age. That's not
a real thing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
But what is a real thing is that I am
launching a forty eight page combook called Super Best Friend
on Kickstarter on January nineteenth of this year. Could be
in the future, could be in the past, depending on
what time period you're listening to it right now. It
is basically what if Maddie Moore, the best friend to
the world's greatest superhero, accidentally leaks his best friend's secret

(01:17:14):
identity to the entire world. His best friend, of course,
being Captain Terrific, the world's greatest superhero.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
Who seems a lot like Superman.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So if you like Superman, if you like Booster Gold,
if you like the Amazing Spider Man, then you're gonna
like the hyghjinks of Maddie Moore the sidekick finally becoming
the hero in my new comic book called Super Best Friend.
You can go to Super Best friendcomic dot com, or
if that link doesn't work for you, you can just go
to a Kickstarter and search for my profile, Jason Emmett
and you can click that little notification button. You can

(01:17:43):
follow me on Kickstar. You can follow the project and
you'll get a notification when it goes lives. There are
a lot of really cool stuff that is going to
be for only the people that donate in the first
forty eight hours, so you're not gonna want to miss it.
And if you have missed that, you're listening to this
in the far future.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Sorry. All right, let's move into the first part of
the podcast, which is the ten cent Origin, and that
is where I'll give you all the basics about what
you need to know about Wonder Woman. So she is
Princess Diana of Themiskira aka Diana Prince, a DC Comics
character who first appeared in All Star Comics number eight
from October of nineteen forty one. She was created by

(01:18:16):
William Moulton Marson and Harry Peter. Because we are conveniently
leaving off the fact that she was also co created
by Elizabeth Marson and Olive Byrne, she is an Amazon
and a Demi God, and her team afiliations and partnerships
include Steve Trevor, The Justice League, The Justice League, Dark Batman, Superman,
and Wonder Girl, and her abilities include superhuman strength, speed,
durability and longevity, flight, skilled hand to hand combatant, a

(01:18:40):
Lasso of Truth, a shield, and indestructible gauntlets.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Yes, and really quickly, before we move too far, I
just want to mention that everybody that if you want
to learn about Wonder Woman in the Golden Age, was
there one of our previous episodes, that is episode one
sixty four.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
I was going to bring that up. I'm so glad
that you got I'm sorry, I was okay, I was
trying to help you, Professor. No, I I accept the
help and I'm grateful for I was right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
You know, we these takes so much research that we
have to do these it it's not been one hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
And fifty episodes. Yeah, that's fine, let's move it to
the meat cute. Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
The meat cute is a section of the podcast where
Ashley and I are going to tell you where we
first meeted and cuted Wonder Woman. Although I believe we
did this in the previous episode, but we're gonna do
it again.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
We do all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, in case you ever go to a
cocktail party and somebody's like.

Speaker 8 (01:19:24):
Hey, it's like nineteen sixty and there's a lady over
there with an invisible jet.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Who is she?

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
And that way you can answer yes, wait, no, that
was a ten in a word.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Actually, I am lost in the multiverse of DC multi
verses and ages, and I apologize. The meat cute is
basically where we talk about where we first met the character. Yes,
so I did not be Wonder Women in the Silver Age. No,
I met her on Justice Leaue The animated series. How
about you Death Superman, so I met her in the
Dark Ege.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
You can go to like if you go back to
episode one six before you get a little longer full
versions of those stories. We gotta let's cover today, so
let's hop right into the history one oh one. Jason,
what's that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
That's where you're going to tell us everything we know
about Wonder Woman the Silver Age. Yes, all the details.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
So if you did listen to the Golden Age episode,
I did reference some events that went up to nineteen seventy,
but the Silver Age, and this is per Jason his
Superman the Silver Age episode two o seven. Silver Age
lasts vaguely from nineteen fifty six to nineteen seventy. For

(01:20:30):
Wonder Woman, it does get extended into the seventies, just
because that's how long. It's different with each character. This
is a vague thing, so there's no single event that
can be said to herald the beginning of the Bronze Age,
which is the end of the Silver Age. So it's
a little bit more arbitrary. Whereas we know that the
Silver Age begins with Flash of Two Worlds.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
No, it begins with the first parents of Barry Allen. Sorry,
my mistake, and so showcase something. Let's should we go
through the Let's go through the ages real quick and
just explain him to everybody, just in case case you're
coming to this brand.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
New Okay, what's the Golden Age? Well, the Golden.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
Age is where the first parents a Superman. It's passing
comics and all these By the way, these are very loose.
These are constructs developed by comic book nerds. Part of
the reason why we're very being very wishy washy is
because there is no herd. There's no academic Yeah, there's
no hard and stop like you know the Bronze Age.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
Oh, by the way, Barry Allen debuted in Showcase number four. Okay,
I actually have that fact for something I'm gonna bring
up later. Oh cool, coo cool.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
So it's the Golden Age is from nineteen thirty eight
to nineteen sixty correct.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
Uh when nineteen fifty six is the earliest, Yes, because
the Silver Age is supposed to be nineteen fifty six
to nineteen seventy. Sorry, I'm just.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
Trying to bring up my list of all the ages here.
So Golden Age is nineteen thirty eight to nineteen fifty six.
The Silver Ages, again said, begins with the official appearance
of Barry Allen and the age from nineteen fifty six
to ninety seven. That's what you're going to cover with
Wonder Woman. Then it goes to the Bronze Age, which
is nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty five. Then there is
the Dark Age, which I don't know if we've talked

(01:22:11):
about it. I don't know if you liked that title,
but it's like, we're comics become very mature. It's Watchmen
and Dark Knight returns and YadA YadA, and then from
two thousand and on it's considered the Modern Age. Some
people have called it the Digital Age.

Speaker 1 (01:22:21):
They might actually call it the Kickstarter Age. You made
that joke earlier, but that might be what it gets
known as when you look at the publishing trends.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
A funny thing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
I actually think that far in the future mm hmm
and far listeners of geek hischral lesson, I kind of
think that a new age of comics will begin with
twenty twenty, and I think that will be named the Kickstar.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Or maybe twenty ten, right when Kickstarter is sort of somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
In there, I think it's gonna yeah, because I think, ah, whatever,
we don't want anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
We're not comic book a story.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
There's in case anybody is listening like they were a
big fan of our cheat up yeah yeah last week
and they're like, oh, this is cool Wonder Woman, there's
a chance they may not know what the ages are,
and I wanted to make sure we explain that. Okay,
all right, now, Ashley, let's get back to Wonder Woman
the Silver Age. What really matters in this lesson.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
So one of the most important things which happens to
Wonder Woman during the Silver Age is she gets a
massive reboot penned by Robert Canneger. Now, Jason, do you
know why Robert Canneger is an important figure in comic
book history Outside of his work on What the Woman
The Name is Familiar?

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
I'm gonna say he's a writer in the Legion of Superhero.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
He introduced Mary Allen in Showcase number four and kicked
off the Silver Age. Oh well there you go. Yeah, yeah,
which is the only reason why I had a note
about when Mary Allen was launch. Well, good for him.
While this may seem, yeah, this seems a little convenient,
but It's true he did that and then he came over.
In fact, the only reason that a new creative team
took over Wonder Woman from William Moulton Marston, Elizabeth Marsden,

(01:23:49):
and Olive Burne is because William Moulton Marston died and
so he didn't have the ace up a sleeve of
being like, well, I created Diana Prince, I'm the only
person who can write her. Robert Canneger was a close
personal friend of his, took over the book, made massive
changes to the book because he also took over as editor,
and so he basically got to operate with very little

(01:24:10):
oversight or pushback in the same way as Stanley got
to operate when he was creating the superhero universe over
at Marvel Comics.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
And that was common at the time, whereas people would
be writing editing and they would edit their own scripts.

Speaker 1 (01:24:21):
In fact, which we're not a big proponent of. We
are not. In fact, when he was doing this, Elizabeth
Marston publicly spoke about is Elizabeth Williams's wife. His wife, yes,
publicly spoke out against the changes that he made to
the book and her disgust with it, and then he
invited her out to dinner and she said nothing about
it because she's a lady. But there are several public

(01:24:42):
statements where she's like, I don't like what he's doing
to my little baby Amazon. All right. Marston was originally
preceded by Sheldon Mayer, who only wrote like four issues
of Wonder Woman before he took over, so basically he's
like an interim place holder.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
But Cannegher is like, this is like the guy since
the creator to write this, to.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
Write this for any amount of time, and he is
going to write this book for twenty years, so hold
on to your bet.

Speaker 2 (01:25:07):
Well that's interesting though, because that does not exist for
Batman or Superman, like the original creators kind of like
got off those books in the forties. So we had
the original creator all the way through the most of
the fifties. Yes, wow, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:23):
So the Silver Aids marks a shift in the popular
comic book landscape away from war stories, you know, because
we sort of left that era behind from a World
War perspective at least, and romance stories really surged and
were really really popular. Diana Prince was starring in Sensation comics,
and she did have a romantic relationship in the Golden

(01:25:44):
Age with Steve Trevor. So Robert Canneger takes that and
puts it right front and center.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
By the way, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you rupt you,
and I apologize for because I wanted to make my
point of I think that sensation comics that still exists,
like action and detective comics.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
I absolutely agree. It's a great title. It is a
great title. Now you'll remember from the Wonder Woman of
the Golden Age episode that Steve Trevor is an og
part of Wonder Woman's mythology. But in those stories she
is a take charge lady. There is comics from the
forties and the fifties of Diana carrying Steve around in
her arms, and he calls her angel and proposes to

(01:26:19):
her all the time, and she's like, no baby, I
got stuff to do, and like leaves them alone. Give
me that again, No baby, I got stuff to do.
Throughout the cill Rage, you actually see a ton of
covers and comic book stories that invert this. We get
the first cover where Steve is carrying Wonder Woman in
his arms out. I am going to reference a lot
of covers throughout this episode, and it's because I want

(01:26:42):
to show them to Jason to make my point. I
will be sharing all of these on our Twitter at
GHL podcast. So, Jason, I want to show you the
first issue of Sensation Comics where Robert Cannegher takes over
and just like describe it for the listeners and tell
us what's going on here.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
It's a blonde eyed stet Steve blonde eyed. It is
a It is a blondehaired man, Steve's Rogers. It looks
like Steve Rodgers, It's Steve Trevor. It looks like Steve
Rodgers in an army uniform carrying Wonder Woman, and Wonder
Woman looks very like.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Oh Steve. So this, this cover is what Elizabeth Moulston
pushed against. She did not like that Steve is carrying
Wonder Woman in his arms in this way. In the
Golden Age, wonder Woman led at a Candy and her
posse of the Candy Girls into battle against war villains
and dictators, and in the Silver Age she is often

(01:27:35):
captured by similar figures dictators, warlords, heads of government and
sits around crying and fretting until Steve shows up to
save her. Already then, so this transition to damsel in
distress marks the first thing in a long line of
total retcons and reboots where Wonder Woman goes from being
a feminist icon, forward thinking and powerful to a woman

(01:27:56):
who needs a man to help her through the world. So, Jason,
I want to ask you a question, in an effort
to be fair to Robert Knnigher, who I don't think
went in here with bad intentions.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
Nobody ever sets out to make a bad comic book.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Was there any chance that the first major run after
the Marstons was going to be any good? No?

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
So, I mean that's a short answer, but yeah, yeah, yeah,
there's just no way.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
I What they did was like, was revolutionary. Wonder Woman
was so progressive for the time.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):
Well, and you can see this to the modern day
mm hmm. Wonder Woman is a very difficult character to write,
and I think the big reason why she's similar to
Superman that they are such products of their time that
they only seem to work when they are in adventures

(01:28:46):
or stories that harken back to that Golden Age storytelling,
and every time you try to knock them out of
it and they don't work.

Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
If I may as well, I think the reason that
the Golden Age stories still to this day, stand up
and if you go and listen to our Golden Age episode.
I had a blast reading about all of those. It's
because there were two women consulting and co writing it
with their husband slash lover Like, I just think it's
time for some women. Y wonder Woman is what I'm

(01:29:17):
saying in this Silver Rage lesson. I think there's a
woman writing wonder one right now. Actually, oh there is.
Juilli Wilson has also been at it for a while.
But I think it's a wonder Woman's stories are mired
with strictly male creative teams, and I am not saying
that you have to be the thing to write about it,
but considering Wonder Woman's long history, I think that may
have helped along the way. Sure. Many comic book historians

(01:29:40):
also credit this tonal shift to the Comics Code Authority. Jason,
what is the Comics Code Authority?

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
The Comics Code Authority is basically this organization that had
a lot of power over comic books for I don't
know this mid fifties to the nineties, and they would
say yay or nay to things that could be in
comic now's raided because a lot of people had a
lot of problems, especially government officials, that Batman and Robin
hung out a lot with no women around, and a

(01:30:07):
lot of people thought they were gay.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Yeah, God forbid, they were just buddies or father and soide,
God forget.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Yeah, that a father and son could just be alone
in a house together.

Speaker 9 (01:30:15):
Yeah, yea yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
So Wonder Woman. A good thing that kind of comes
out of these tone shifts is eventually she does become
more embroiled in the Greek mythology and magic that I
think has come to define her, and that you and
I both like about her character. It is just a
long road getting from there to hear she is presented
much more as a Helen of Troy character. In the

(01:30:38):
Silver Age, she's renowned for her beauty, sought after by
men whose mother prayed over her crib for baby Diana
to be quote as beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena,
as strong as Hercules, and swift as Hermes. The shift
begins in Wonder Woman number one oh five, which was
published in nineteen fifty nine and is appropriately called the

(01:30:59):
Seak Great Origin of Wonder Woman. In this issue, Diana
is born Hybolica gives up this prayer, and Aphrodite casually
drops by Hebolodus home to bless Diana and bestow her
power upon her in the traditional Greek sense. If you've
read the Iliad, you know Aris comes down from the
sky during the battle and bestows his power on Hector.
So Athena, I'm sorry Aphrodite does that for Diana. Part

(01:31:22):
of this still sticks with wonder Woman mythology to this
day because Aphrodite is traditionally her matron goddess, So that's
kind of cool. I will accept this. Then, every other
meaningful Greek god in the pantheon also comes by to
pay tribute to sweet baby Diana, including Hercules, which is
where I take issue because the Golden Age Amazons freaking
hate Hercules.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Yeah, I thought the bracelets were the chains of Hercules.

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Yes they were. They do not like him. They do
battle against him for several years. I believe at one
point they rip one of his arms off. So I'm like, Okay,
you didn't even read the source material that your buddy wrote. Okay, great.
Sometime later, when Diana is in her teens, or she
appears to be in her teens, she's a young woman.
I'm not going to pretend like I understand how people
age on Demuskira. All of the men on Earth are

(01:32:08):
wiped away. They all die in a mysterious ancient event.
And hyppolgiz out time. I mean, am I right? And
Hippolyta holds Diana in her arms, and they weep together,
and they rend their clothes and they tear their hair
because the most important thing to them are men. And
Hippolita literally says, quote, woe is us dot dot dot

(01:32:30):
We are dot dot dot alone now end quote, because
all the men have died. They're so sad Amazon. They
are so sad that all the men died. In the
same issue, we also learned that teen Diana built a
boat that she used to sail to Paradise Island on
her own from Man's World, despite the fact that Robert
Cannegher told us of her literal birth on Paradise Island

(01:32:53):
in a story a couple issues earlier. The Secret origin
of Wonder Woman. If you haven't got other is kind
of a disaster. It is all over the place. It
ignores the mythology of the character and the rules that
he sat down in his own story as he penned this.

Speaker 2 (01:33:09):
It's it's a little weird that he is sort of
negating some of the Martians stuff as well.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
I mean, at some point he's going to negate pretty
much all of it. Wow, Also as I wonder why
the shift. Look, I don't want to talk too much
about misogyny, but I'm not going to pretend that that's
not part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
Well, and I get and there will be plenty of
that in this lesson, because that is just part of
the world.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
What was happening exactly, And you have to look at
this through the lens of history. But if you think
about that, and then you think about it coupled with
the Comics Code authorities, so suddenly there are all these
rules breathing down your neck. You know, we are also
going to get to some events where Robert Kannenger does
some very mean things to some real life women. I
just think he wasn't. I just think he was the

(01:33:55):
wrong choice for that good dude. I don't think he's
not a good dude. I think it was the wrong
choice for this book. I think you might have stumbled
upon it with the Commis Code authority.

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
I think Commas cod authority might have affected wonder One
more than anybody would have thought.

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
I can't imagine what that would be like, because you know,
you and I create comics and we have pretty much
autonomy with what we want to do.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
We we're pretty misogynistic, I know exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
We hold our yeah, the female let only just coming.
We hold ourselves to a certain level of standards because
we are writing for all ages. But like, can you
imagine if somebody came down from the sky and was
suddenly like, no, I do not think so.

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
It would have been the government. Yeah, Like if the
government it was a government agency.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
Can you imagine if they said no, Jupiter, Jet and
Chuck can't live in the same house because obviously they're
having sex even though their children and siblings. Like everything
the Commas Code Authority did was insane yea true. So Also,
as the Greek mythology is ramping up and several of
the Golden Age elements are winding down, we are losing
the inclusion of actual goddess at a candy in Wonder

(01:34:52):
Woman's story, what is she the patron got of candy? Okay,
of curvy gals, of confidence, of singing at the top,
I've sugar, I'm saying woo woo, as our Golden Age
readers will know, I love Etikanddi Wooooooo, she's a woo girl.
Wonder Woman joins Batman and Superman with having a serious
sales dip during the Silver Age, part of which we

(01:35:15):
all know is due to the rise of Marvel Comics.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):
My brain weirdly a corrected that sentence to Eda Candy
joined Superman and Batman was and I was very confused
at the beginning of that, But it continued, so sales
plummeted on one.

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
Of the sales plummeted, and Sensation comics became populated with
new characters that had no tie or story relationship to
Wonder Woman at all. Now, if you were a contemporary
comics reader and you think that is strange, that is
because up until a transition that comes at the end
of the Silveryge to the beginning of the Bronze Age,
all comic books were anthologies. It was like picking up
an archie's digest so you could get Sensation comics, not

(01:35:49):
every story had Wonder Woman in them. During the Golden Age,
when she became really popular, it became all wonder Woman stories,
And in the Silver Age, now we're losing some of
that a little bit, and then Jason, let's the same
happened for Action in Detection and every comic suffered from this.
Eda Candy and the Candy Girls were sidelined permanently because
of seduction of the innocent. Now, what is seduction of

(01:36:11):
the innocent? A seduction of innocent?

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
If I remember, right, that's the report that created the
Comic Code Authority, or that's the report that was that
led to that was talking about how comics were quote
unquote perverting the youth of America.

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
Yes, and it was written by Frederick Wortham, and he
called Eda Candy and the Candy Girls quote gay party
girls end quote well they are very happy, you know what.
I hope there was a bunch of nice lesbians driving
around beating up Nazis together. What a dream. But that
is the reason that Eda Candy has been nothing but
a supporting character ever since then. In fact, I think

(01:36:48):
if it wasn't, it was not until Lucy Davis played
Eta in The wonder Woman, the first wonder Woman movie,
that the character became a regular wonder Woman's staple once again.
Because now she's in pretty much every wonder Woman's story.
So that's how long it took this character to come back.
Throughout the Silver Age, Diana does what several many DC
Comics characters did and join the Justice League as a

(01:37:09):
founding member. There's a really weird storyline during these early
issues where wonder Tot comes to life thanks Gardner Fox,
who's basically a baby and a diaper who only speaks
some baby talk. It's horrible, and so much of this
happened in the Silver Age because DC was making a
lot of choices from an editorial standpoint, based on what
they saw as successful in the Superman title. Now, I

(01:37:33):
understand Superman and Wonder Woman are very similar, especially at
first blush, but they are not the same. You can't
govern your Wonder Woman stories the way you govern your
Superman stories. You can't govern your Batman stories. On and
on an other for almost any character would of course,
but what was working for Superman in the Silver Age
was the Superman family. And so we introdu crazy any stuff. Yeah,

(01:37:54):
and so we introduce wonder Tot to close out the
wonder Woman family. Now, Jason, can you name the members
of the Wonder Woman family in the Silver Age. I
didn't know she had a family. There are four.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
Members, Okay, I'm gonna say, home boy, I know we
have is Wonder Tot one of these. Wonder Tod is
one of those. We have Wonder Tot, we have Wonder Girl.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
Yes, do you know which version? No, that's okay, not
Donna Troy, basically the not Donatroit.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
I'm going to say, we have Well, Keanga should be
one of these. No, Kenga is not around now, the
Wonder Kangaroo.

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
She's not considered a member of the Silver Age Wonder Woman. Well,
that's wrong. Diana is one of them. So you got
three each seed one or more.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
Oh, Diana's considered part one of these people. Yeah, well
then I'm going to go fanciful and I'm going to
say the Wonder Robot, the robot butler of Wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
You did pretty good. So have Paula Ta, who was
referred to as a Laita at this time. L y
t A is the Wonder Queen. What come on, Diana
is the Wonder Woman. That is stretching the definition of
the Wonder family here. Donna Troy Girl was Wonder Girl,
and then Wonder Tot was the last one. What is
especially weird about Wonder Woman stories in the nineteen seventies

(01:39:08):
is the bild to Diana surrendering her powers? Do you
mean the sixties? Well, it's yes, it starts at the
end of the sixties. But Wonder Woman through the seventies
has no powers whatsoever. Okay, So when writer Mike Sikowski
takes over, he has Diana give up her powers, stating
that she would rather live in man's world without powers
than follow her Amazonian sisters who get shunted off to

(01:39:31):
their own dimension because of reasons. Fans of Diana Prince
may know that this leads to Wonder Woman adopting just
the moniker Diana Prince and a more of full time capacity.
Wonder Woman kind of goes on the back burner and
becomes an alias, whereas wonder Woman was just her name
for a really long time. Diana Prince was the alter
ego that she adopted when she became an army nurse

(01:39:53):
during a golden age. When Mike Sikowski said what he
said about this and why he made this a wonder Woman,
he said, quote what they were doing in Wonder Woman.
I didn't see how a kid, male or female could
relate to it. It was so far removed from their world.
I felt girls might want to read something about a
super female in the real world, something very current. So

(01:40:16):
I created a new book, new characters, everything. I did
up some sketches and wrote out some ideas. End quote.
He is also joined on this run with Denny O'Neill
and Dick Shordono, who are two legendary comic book creators.
We talked a lot about them. Since she has no superpowers,
Diana does what every young girl wants to do. She

(01:40:37):
becomes a fashion designer and opens a quote mod boutique.
End quote. Readers only familiar with contemporary comics probably think
this is wacky and absurd, and it is very much
those things. However, with romance comics being popular and fashion
comics being popular, if you're not familiar with Millie the Model,
you go ahead and google that right now. They were

(01:40:57):
so popular at the time. I don't think this change
for Diana is completely out of left field. I don't
think it was the right change, but I think the
effort to contemporize her and bring her to a more
street level of storytelling was a smart move. Publishers do
it continually. It's why people claim they like Batman better
than an a character and this is for anybody that

(01:41:17):
doesn't know.

Speaker 2 (01:41:18):
This is of course that classic cover or the images
you've seen of Diana where she's like in an all
solid white suit, in an all purple suit.

Speaker 1 (01:41:25):
Yes. Yeah. DC Comics was obviously trying to corner this
piece of the market with their most prominent female characters
speaking to younger, more contemporary people. So in Wonder Woman n.
Number one, seventy eight in nineteen sixty eight, Danny O'Neil,
who was writing, became obsessed during this time with stripping
characters of their superpowers, and so that's ultimately what led

(01:41:47):
to Diana giving up her powers. Like I said, throughout
the seventies, Diana Prance explores spirituality, which was very trendy
at the time, also very trending now, and even gets
herself a mentor, a Verson of indetermined Asian origin named
i Ching to instruct her in martial arts and ancient weapons,
which I would pretty much have imagined being an Amazonian

(01:42:08):
she would be a master of several martial arts. But
there you go. Iiching kind of becomes like her Alfred,
or perhaps more appropriately like her Wong, and appears in
a bunch of covers throughout with very merry questionable coloring.
The quote unquote training allows Diana to fight people even
without her preternatural powers, which is cool, but like not

(01:42:29):
as fun as giving her superpowers in my opinion. And
once Diana is ready to kick butt again, her book
adopts another popular genre of the time, spy dramas. Now
you'll know this from Pasky history lessons if you listen
for the last year or so. This is at the
height of the power of James Bond movie. So espionage

(01:42:50):
was a natural evolution for the Princess of Themiscira. Apparently.
I want people to check out. I'm going to share
this cover wonder Woman one eighty one. It is straight
up at James Bond homage. I'm going to show it
to Jason right now. It's this one right here.

Speaker 2 (01:43:05):
I've seen that cover before.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
She's literally like skiing down a mountain.

Speaker 2 (01:43:09):
It's a perspective shift and it's wonder Woman with yellow pants,
questionable and green coat and the skis in the ski
poles are like coming at her from all sides of
the cover.

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
Yeah, and we know that James Bond has a whole
bunch of ski chases. She's standing over ching there.

Speaker 2 (01:43:26):
I mean it's it's it's specifically inspired by there's a
there's a Roger Moore movie that's in the snow, but
on Her Majesty's Secret Service, which is the George Lasimi
film like mostly takes place in the Alps.

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
Yes, and inspired that scene an inception as well. Yep.
I would also argue that the Avengers television show really
informed this, and I don't mean Avengers like Captain America
and Thor I mean Avengers like Steed and Missus Peel
that they directly affected Lady Spy Diana, not least because
they have the same hairstyle in all of these covers.

(01:44:01):
Diana's main villain at this time becomes doctor Cyber in
the Doctor Poison, Doctor Psycho proud naming tradition doctor Cyber,
doctor Cyber who dabbles in ideas of technology and spirituality,
which we're popularizing and emerging at the time. I don't
think we've seen doctor Cyber since the Silver Age. I
could be wrong. I don't know. Uh, these issues are

(01:44:23):
actually kind of cool if you read them in the
context of the time period when they're being published. I
it'sly hilarious by modern technological standpoints. But wonder Woman is
a character that I go to, like Jason was talking
about a little earlier, for big action, for mythological epics,
for her to fight a minute time. I'm not interested
in wonder Woman hacking personally. Now, Jason, do you think

(01:44:44):
Wonder Woman should be striving to be on the cutting
edge of technology?

Speaker 4 (01:44:47):
No? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:44:48):
Does this feel silly?

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
It feels really goofy? Yeah, I mean doctor Cyber, I'm sorry,
is a really dumb name.

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):
Terrible name. It's a really dumb name.

Speaker 2 (01:44:56):
And I get it because like Cyborg is down the pike,
Cyborg's not very down.

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
The Cyborg is like literally around the corner from this.

Speaker 2 (01:45:03):
Yeah, so I get that, Like computers must have seem
new fangled and amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:45:08):
Jim Drake is also not super super far down the
line wonderful like Batman.

Speaker 2 (01:45:13):
It makes sense for bad Yes, it even makes sense
for Superman because Superman's a science fiction character.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
But for wonder Woman, Wonderman is fantasy. It's sword and.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
Sandals, sword and sandals, like, that's Wonderman. I was gonna say,
is more classical, Yes, classical in the literary. I could
see doing it if you wanted to like do a
juxtaposition of modern verses that technological.

Speaker 1 (01:45:34):
But like, I know that's not what they were doing. Yeah,
so yeah, I don't know. I am sad to report
though publishing sales of Sensation Comics and Wonder Woman went up,
but criticism went up as well. With the feminist icon
Gloria Steinem, she founded a magazine called Miss MS, still

(01:45:55):
being published, debuted in nineteen seventy two. Jas based I
know Glorious nine by the way, I've heard of that name.
Gloria Signing, by the way, is incredible and iconic and
people should absolutely be reading her work. It is still
very relevant to Google. Yes, Jason, based on this lesson,
who do you think Glorious Steinem put on the very
first cover of Miss in nineteen seventy two. Well, I

(01:46:17):
think it's obvious that it's Wonder taught, so it's wonder
Woman and the cover states wonder Woman for President. I
will also share this and I'm showing it to Jason Roman.
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:28):
I love the idea of the Wonder Woman for President.
It's a weird what is she picking up with her
lasso like a city block?

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
What is going on there? Yeah, it's like a city
because she's going to save your city. She's taken you
away from the war.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
Peace injustice in seventy two. Yeah, well this would have
been the height of Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (01:46:43):
Yes, which I think also may have been why they
were like, we already did wonder Woman at war? Are
we going to do that again? Miss? Recently a few
years ago, in twenty twelve had its fortieth anniversary issue.
They put wonder Woman back on the car. Do you
have that cover? I have it and it's drawn by
the alreads Mike and Laura. Oh that's so maaze. How beautiful?

(01:47:06):
Is it? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
Stop the war on women this time?

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:47:09):
Wow, that's amazing. Well done, MISS magazine, Well done.

Speaker 1 (01:47:13):
So I'm going to share both of those. They're really nice,
Loge incredible. So I mentioned that MISS was first founded
in nineteen seventy two. In nineteen seventy three, a fabulous
journalist named Joanna Edgar wrote a criticism titled wonder Woman Revisited,
taking a look at the silly tonal turn in wonder
Woman comics because she had grown up with Golden Age

(01:47:36):
wonder Woman issues. And she opens her articlead. She opens
this article talking about how she was the kid who
would go out to the sidewalk and swap comics with
other kids, and they were all boys and they didn't
like Wonder Woman, so she would have to trade them
three Wonder Womans for one Superman. And then she talks
about with this shift, is it going to be the same,

(01:48:00):
is it going to be as good? Because she doesn't
like that Wonder Woman's becoming more trivialized and she wants
to trade.

Speaker 2 (01:48:05):
She wants a comic trade to be one for one
like all of us exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
Come on. And then she notes at the end of
her article that next year, so in seventy four, the
first female editor is coming on to Wonder Woman. Her
name is Dorothy Wolfock. And so I know Dorothy yep iconic,
very iconic. And so the last question is will she
still have to trade three for one against Superman? Or
is this going to ground wonder Woman. It kind of does,

(01:48:31):
because the Bronze age is a dope time for Wonder Woman. Look, I.

Speaker 8 (01:48:36):
Have a message for those boys on the street.

Speaker 1 (01:48:40):
Who's the writer of this. I'm sorry Joanna Edgar.

Speaker 8 (01:48:44):
Listen, boys, I know you're listening, and I know you're
still alive.

Speaker 1 (01:48:48):
I mean they very well could be.

Speaker 8 (01:48:50):
Oh yeah, they're listening. How dare you did this to Joanna?
If I find you, you're going to get the biggest
pounding of your life.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
I haven't heard someone say pounding in a long time.
This book, I know the Zipzappan for the kids. This
article is. It's quite short by modern standards. I read it.
It's incredible. It was good for nineteen seventy three. It
came up in the first Google search, so I'm sure
it didn't quite well done. Na, well done. Not only

(01:49:19):
do I think this is a wonderful piece of comic
book journalism, I actually think this tone, in this kind
of analysis is what we should be striving to move
back toward. It's also a great piece of feminist journalism.
You can find it for Frownline. I'm going to share
the link right because I can't recommend enough that people
check this out. So now we're going to enter the
Robert Canagan is a bad guy section a little bit. Oh,

(01:49:40):
but I thought we'd moved past him. Oh no, he's
still the main writer. Okay, yeah, we have a couple
other people coming on to the team, but he is
still the writer and the editor at this time. Okay,
so he still controls the fate of one right. Yeah,
so even when he steps back as a writer, he
is still working on wonder Wolding. Okay. Following these sharp
criticisms by editor Gloria Steine, she was actually tapped to

(01:50:02):
curate thirteen original Marston Wonder Woman stories in a printed
collection with an introduction that she wrote for DC in
nineteen seventy four. And I need people to understand the
significance of this because trade paperback markets barely existed before
two thousand. So like the fact that they curated a

(01:50:23):
collection of Wonder Woman and let Glorias Seinem picket and
write the intro is like culturally so significant.

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
Yeah, trade paperbacks really weren't a thing until post nineteen
eighty five because that was mainly a creation of the
direct market director comic book say Yes, and then like
the nineties of word trade paperbacks really explode and then
two thousands where everything got a trade, everything got a trade.

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
So that's a big thing. I will say.

Speaker 2 (01:50:48):
I wish DC instead of just being like, hey, do
you want to curate our collection, was like hey, Juanna,
do you want to write Wonder Woman? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:50:57):
Well, I mean it's still only nineteen seventy a.

Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
Little too progressive for nineteen seventy three.

Speaker 1 (01:51:02):
I mean I wouldn't. I mean, look, can you imagine
I would have died? You're lucky.

Speaker 2 (01:51:06):
The Hot Loves hooligant Oh sorry sorry, Hot Lips Hulhan Hulahan.
There you go, who we love and we stay on.
Hooligan's her brother, the Hot Lives. I can't say the
name now. It's a tongue twister. But Hot Lips was
a progressive as she was, and that's all you're gonna get.

Speaker 1 (01:51:21):
She's not that progressive. She's a biomodernis standard. So in
the yeah, I should have let her write it. Johanna
would have would have been great, would have done an
amazing job. Can we hire her now for it?

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:51:32):
Sure, let's find her. You're still working, you let me know.
The seventies also sees a return of Diana to World
War Two for a little bit, with her timeline converging
with Man's world, and this was due to the popularity
of The Wonder Woman television show starring actual Goddess Linda Carter,
which was set during World War Two. Throughout the first season,

(01:51:52):
I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the
wonder Woman television show. We're not going to talk about
it a lot. But compared does not the other television
shows at the time, like Star Trek or Mash which
Jason just referenced, I don't think Wonder Woman holds up
as well, but it remains iconic. Linda Carter is amazing
and did such an outstanding job as an actor and

(01:52:13):
an advocate to this day, and it did succeed in
elevating Diana to the same level in larger pop culture
as Superman and Batman for the first time arguably in
her publication history. So we're very, very grateful for that.

Speaker 2 (01:52:27):
The show does everything for wonder Woman that the nineteen
sixty six Batman show did for Batman. It for a
lot of people for a long time, for about twenty years.
For people, Batman was Adam West, wonder Woman was Linda Carter.

Speaker 1 (01:52:42):
My mom still thinks one of Room is lit.

Speaker 2 (01:52:44):
And she yees, and Superman was Christopher Reid and all
three they are the classic.

Speaker 1 (01:52:48):
Yes, there are in sort of a film point of view,
there the Golden Age.

Speaker 2 (01:52:52):
They are the Golden Age film trilogy. Yeah, or even
though like I know, she was on TV. Yeah, she
is just as important as Adams Batman and Chrisopher Reeve Superman.

Speaker 1 (01:53:01):
And it is because of this series that we have
not won but two Wonder Woman live action movies. Yep.
So I just wanted to say that really quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
He held the torch for a long time, Linda Carter
and probably until Susan Eisenberg.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):
Yes, so good past podcast guests, isn't it good for her?

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
And well done? And I've met ms Carter once? Lovely,
Oh really, it's very very lovely.

Speaker 1 (01:53:25):
Oh good. She's so beautiful. She's just a great Instagram follow.

Speaker 2 (01:53:28):
She is truly a wonder Woman. Yes, so far, I'm
so so far. I will say that, like, I think
it's one of those parts where, like I hope you
realize if you're playing wonder Woman, like what that means
to people. And as far as I know, every person
that's played wonder Woman, that's truly a wonderful woman.

Speaker 1 (01:53:44):
It seems like it. Yeah. Following the goofy turn in
the Weirdness of Diana Prince Superspy, Robert Canneger takes up Robert.
We haven't gotten to the scary stuff yet. I'm sorry, no, no, no,
takes up writing duties on Wonder Woman once again, and
let me tell you, he paid very very close attention
to the outcry and the demand to return to a

(01:54:05):
more serious wonder Woman. So the first thing he does
when he gets back on Wonder Woman, as he introduces
the quote, evil black wonder Woman named Nubia, pops up. Yes,
I would like to state that Nubia does evolve into
a very cool, very powerful character by more aware creators.

(01:54:31):
Nubia is super cool. I would love to see her
in a movie. I think she should be used way
more effectively and way more often in current DC comics continuity.
I would love to do a GHL on her. Yep,
I did not realize that she was evil. I didn't
realize she was evil either.

Speaker 2 (01:54:48):
No, she should be in she should be in modern
Wonder Woman storylines.

Speaker 1 (01:54:52):
I absolutely agree. And I also think, and I think
we've said this on most of our wonder Woman centric episodes.
I really think that the auxiliary Amazonians could be used
more in the comics perspective, like Sensation comics should be
the adventures of the Amazonians. And that's the closest thing
I think you can get to a Wonder Woman family
because it doesn't make us much sense because one woman

(01:55:14):
is not known to be married and have children and
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:17):
By the way, I knew that this was a real deal.
But action figure Spotlight, hold on, we have we have
music for this right now?

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
Oh, hold on, hold on, not perfect action figure Spotlight. Migo.

Speaker 2 (01:55:34):
Yes, all seventies toy company that a lot of people
would call dolls. They made a Nubia action figure that
is tied into the Wonder Woman TV show. I'm showing
a picture to Ashley right now.

Speaker 1 (01:55:47):
Oh, she's got a cool streak of white hair. That's
a great Migo, actual life. I remembered they made an
action figure of her, and so like, that's really cool.
So Nubia has action figures. Well there you go. Please
make a note so that I can be sure to
share that and I actually figures. Nubia and Diana go
head to head for several issues. The covers are stunning.
If anyone is familiar with the film poster for a

(01:56:09):
Faster Pussycat Killed Kill, it's a lot like that. It's
these two like tough ladies fighting each other on the covers.
But rather than explore a feminist dynamic between these two
characters or having them come to an understanding. We have
a mass shooting. So Robert Cannegher introduces a sniper who's
hunting down characters and who is the very first person

(01:56:29):
that he murdered as well, I'm so glad you asked.
It's a woman's magazine editor, like Gloria Steinem who sort
of launched this all in the first place. And I
think that is so despicable and so deeply ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:56:47):
So I'm I'm just gonna rewind you a little bit
just to make this abundantly clear. Please say that all
that again, like WHOA is the exact.

Speaker 1 (01:56:54):
So he introduces Nubia. Yes, Nubia, Diana fi fight first
person that knew so no, no, no, no, it's not Nubia.
So instead, so they fight a couple times for a
few issues. It's kind of interesting. And then instead of
exploring a relationship between them, maybe bringing Nubia on as
a partner or doing like they could have done really
cool things they had a great opportunity, instead they introduce

(01:57:16):
a sniper character who's going around killing people, and they're
Diana's trying to hunt the sniper down, and the first
person who the Sniper Murders is a woman's magazine editor.
Miss is a women's magazine. Gloria Steinem was the editor.
The criticism from Miss magazine is what launched this reboot
in like it's it's so ugly. It would be like

(01:57:37):
a modern day I'll make. I'll make the safest analogy
I can I can do. It would be like a
modern day comics team doing a mass shooting and drawing
you and I having been shot because we spoke critically
about their work in the past, or because we didn't
like the character that they were writing.

Speaker 2 (01:57:52):
Yeah, we criticized them on an episode.

Speaker 1 (01:57:54):
Yeah, like it is. It's an ugly, ugly thing to
have done. It's kind of gross. And and this is
the point where I'm like Robert Cannegher, like, thank you,
thank you so much for Barry Allen. He has a
lot of really important contributions to comics, But this is
the thing where I'm like, this is why his name
is not as lauded as some of his contemporaries from

(01:58:14):
the Silver Age, right, Dick Giordana's why, Julia Schwartz, this
is why, because like this is horrific. This is like
trull behavior to the Mac. That's so crazy because I
get not liking her, like that's fair. He doesn't have
to like her.

Speaker 2 (01:58:31):
It's so funny because Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman
all have these like weird dips and rises, and their
dips and rises are almost all around the same time,
are very close life. And it's weird because Wonder Woman's
dip is right now, and because at this exact same time,
Batman and Superman stories were like getting really good. Yes, yeah,

(01:58:53):
and we we're not going to get that for like
another five years with Wonder Wolman.

Speaker 1 (01:58:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that it's probably the most despicable
won Roman story of all time here, yes, and yeah
that happened, so boy. Like I said at the beginning,
the Superage has never been super to my taste. But
doing this lesson through the lens of time and from
our contemporary sensibilities, this was weirder and more difficult for

(01:59:18):
me than doing the Golden Age episode, which is from
an older, more backward that's not the right word, piece
of history than modern day. Like I thought this was upsetting.
It's just because the character was more pure, Yes, maybe
that's it, And maybe it's because the female character who
I care a lot about. You can also argue that
under Robert Cannegher's rule of the Wonder Woman franchise rain

(01:59:44):
that he stunted her for several decades he was in
charge of Sensation and wonder Woman because the titles kind
of went back and forth for twenty years before. And
this is what's going to make it all okay, George
Perez is on the horizon with a Wonder Woman reboot,
be real badass again. We're gonna go into the Bronze Age,
and this is where we're gonna end our We gotta
get through Bronze Age before we get to George Pere.

(02:00:05):
But yes, yes, but he's coming, He's coming. He's right.
You can actually argue that his wonder Um run starts
in the Bronze Age, but kind of depends. But there
is great stuff for Wonder Woman in the Bronze Age.
She gets the best hair she's ever had. And that's
where we're gonna wrap up our Silver Age lesson on Wonder.

Speaker 2 (02:00:21):
Woman, cool, weird and upseting, so rich to bed for
wonder Woman.

Speaker 1 (02:00:26):
There you go. We're able to survive the Silver Age. Yeah,
who I mean? She made it out, But boy, boy,
that reputation boy and really quick. If you do want
to hear more from Jason and I about the Silver
Age and wonder Woman in the Silver Age, I highly
recommend that you check out our Patreon.

Speaker 2 (02:00:44):
Yeah, go over to patreon dot com slash jaw on
the jawii in you can listen to the Patreon exclusive
podcast Gee Cares. Listen to Extra, where we're gonna be
talking about the best Wonder Woman's Silver Age villains. Nubia
may or may not be on the list. I can't
promise anything, but if you go over there and support
the podcast, you get that podcast, you get Jason n
Ashley's excellent adventures where Ashley and I go a little

(02:01:06):
bit more personal about our lives. And then there's a
Just League podcast coming very soon, so buckle up for that.
Go over sportspod Patreon dot com slash jowing, and we
thank all our super friends who are already over there
and being nice supporters. Yes, that's the easiest way to
sports podcast patron.

Speaker 1 (02:01:21):
Alrighty, now we're going to talk about the recommended reading.

Speaker 2 (02:01:23):
Yes, it's the recommended reading where if you are interested
in more Wonder Woman Silver Age adventures and nonsense then
you can go over to geeksh Lesson dot com slash
recommended Reading. Ashley will have some picks for what you
should read over there. You click on the widget takes
you at Amazon and the book comes right to your door. Wow.

Speaker 1 (02:01:40):
The Mine University gets a small percentage of that purchase.
So the thing that I always am going to recommend
on these Wonder Woman episodes, specifically, it's The Secret History
of Wonder Woman. It deals a little, it's it's mostly stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:01:53):
That happens before the Silver Age, but nonfiction book we
really clear.

Speaker 1 (02:01:56):
It is Eisner nominated, Eisner winner, and I think it
is the best deconstructing from a modern perspective of who
Wonder Woman is and where she stands in comic book history.
It's really good. It also recommends a lot of great
supplementary material if that is your jam. Cool, and then
I'm also going to recommend Wonder Woman Diana Prince celebrating
the Sixties omnibus. For some reason, there is wonder Woman

(02:02:18):
the Golden Age omnibus, and there's Wonder Woman the Bronze
Age omnibus, but there's no wonder Woman the Silver Age omnibus.
So this is the collection that I recommend that you
go check out if you are looking for stories from
this time, and then lastly if you want a little
bit of silver age and some other stuff too. Wonder
Woman a celebration of seventy five years. We've recommended a
couple of these in the past. These are really wonderful collections.

(02:02:41):
Great collections like shout out to the collections team and
whoever's curating each of these individually. They do a really
really good job at giving you a smattering of the
best or most interesting or most surprising from all the
ages across the history of these characters. This is when
I do these lessons always where I go to start
on the wonder Woman collection is no different. So is
well designed. The covers are always awesome, beautiful, like the

(02:03:02):
even the inside, like the front cover dress is always gorgeous.
They're just nice and.

Speaker 2 (02:03:05):
They're also full of a bunch of essays by various creators,
like talking about the various ages.

Speaker 1 (02:03:10):
They're great collections. They're great coffee table or bookshelf books
as well. They make you look really smart. And now
we're gonna move into the teaching tweet. Jason's favorite part
of the podcast. Ah Yes, the teaching tweet is where
Ashley is going to tell you. So you's gotta sum.

Speaker 2 (02:03:25):
Up wonder Woman the Silver Age and a little bit
less than one hundred and forty characters, maybe two hundred
and eighty depending on how Twitter has changed its character spacing.

Speaker 1 (02:03:33):
We're not quite certain. That's why I'm not a huge
fan of the section. But I agree to do it
because you students want it. And you can find this
tweet on our social media at GHL.

Speaker 2 (02:03:44):
Podcast on Twitter. Go follow us there if you're not Ashley.
Here is your wonder Woman Silver Age tweet.

Speaker 1 (02:03:52):
Wonder Woman the Silver Age tried out a couple jobs,
lost a couple friends, got a TV show, and is
ready for her final form at silvery Do you believe
that wonder Woman's final form comes in the Bronze Age?
I believe that all of the pieces are put in
place and at the end of the Bronze Age. And
I say that because obviously I'm coming from the bias

(02:04:13):
of who I think wonder Woman is and what I
want to see in wonder Woman. Absolutely, and if you
love wonder Woman in the Silver Age, please tell me why.
I would just thought that was an interesting statement. I
do because for me, like I'm I'm so psyched to
do the Bronze Age.

Speaker 2 (02:04:27):
The only judgment I'm giving on this podcast is.

Speaker 8 (02:04:31):
To those three boys who wouldn't trade those combooks out.

Speaker 1 (02:04:34):
Dare you?

Speaker 2 (02:04:35):
You're cruising for a bruising and then Robert Canneger. Yeah,
I have a fist sandwich for you, sir, I think
you did. I still have a fish sandwich for him.
I'll fight his ghost.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
You're the ghosts of Robert Canneger. Do you know where
we live?

Speaker 2 (02:04:52):
I'm ready, I took I have some shopman, Howard.

Speaker 1 (02:04:56):
Wonder Woman is a pretty unique character in the d
C Comics pantheon. She is truly a god amongst the pantheons.
We got the word pantheon.

Speaker 2 (02:05:07):
Depends on whose definition you're following there, But yes, for
the sake of yes, I will say yes.

Speaker 1 (02:05:11):
So Jason, I want to ask, I'm wanna drill down
into this a little bit. For your money you're in
charge of, do you see comics? How much money can
I put on those fifty dollars or a DNAR. I'm
gonna say a nar. Okay, I'm gonna put a DNR
on this. Just one, only one is wonder Woman in
your view, more of a comic book care some more
of a superhero character, or more of a mythological character.

(02:05:34):
Oh man, I can tell you which one I prefer.
Please do. That's what we're here for your opinions and
hot takes, because I don't.

Speaker 2 (02:05:44):
Think there is an answer for that. And I also
think that depending on who is the writer or who
is the creator director, that changes. Because there are some
really good Wonder Woman superhero runs and there are some
really good wonder Woman. How did you define it mythologically? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
mytholodic because.

Speaker 1 (02:06:05):
There are some Wonder Woman stories where she is in
ancient civilizations, She's in different parts of the world, she's
fighting gods and goddess story.

Speaker 2 (02:06:12):
Where she's just putting in Circe and Ka Cheetah in
the face, yes, versus like Circe for it or a
doctor psycho.

Speaker 1 (02:06:18):
Who I just do not like the war. We are
going to talk a little bit abou Cheetah today, So
good pool Chah. You know, I know it's trite and
I know it's kind of overdone.

Speaker 7 (02:06:29):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
I do like Wonder Woman being like a mythological character,
I really do. I think that's the stories that I
want to read like because I I do like the
run where they reveal that she's a Demi God. I
do like that run, and I do like the runs
where she's fighting Hades, and it's something it's I know,

(02:06:54):
it's a very quick, very easy shorthand kind of like
what we have with Thor and Asgard, But to me,
it's something that makes her stand out in the DC universe.
And without it, she's just super powerful lady in a swimsuit.

Speaker 1 (02:07:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:07:09):
Yeah, And I kind of like her being godly, And
it also makes her unique among the trinity of Batman
and Superman. It also makes her because otherwise she's just
girl Superman.

Speaker 1 (02:07:21):
It also makes her unique among the other big, strong
ladies of the DC universe. It makes her unique when
she stands next to Mary Marvel or when she stands
next to Big Part.

Speaker 2 (02:07:29):
It makes her queenly. Yes, it makes her feel like
a leader amongst humans. And I think I like that
more than Yeah. I don't know, because I will say this,
I'll throw this out there, and I know you're gonna
tell us a lot about these villains. I think a
lot of wonder Woman's superhero or super villain normis are lame,

(02:07:49):
whereas I think her mythological villains are really interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:07:53):
Oh well, with that in mind, because we're gonna talk
a lot about the ones today, I think it's time
that we say hello and welcome to Geek History Lesson.
I'm Ashley Victoria Robinson.

Speaker 2 (02:08:02):
And I'm Jason Wonderful and men, welcome to your mind University,
because this is the podcast that we call the Mind
University Geek History Lesson, because you're here to learn, because
I am a TV writer from Kansas and Ashley is
a com book writer from Canada, and we're here to
tell you everything about a certain character or pop culture
construct in a little bit less than an hour. It's
a day we're talking about. Let me see, let me

(02:08:23):
hold me that my papers here, hold on a second
likely oder the typewriter, wonder woman in.

Speaker 1 (02:08:30):
Hold on, I got a wonder woman. Say it properly,
place put in the paper up.

Speaker 2 (02:08:36):
In the Bronze Age, we're a very analog age. That's
where we typewriters.

Speaker 1 (02:08:41):
Well, if it's truly the Bronze Age, just no typewriters.
There's no podcasting equipment. You and I are fighting people
off with very very heavy swords and shield and.

Speaker 2 (02:08:50):
Actually, if this is the seventies, we'd actually be up
there like a news pressure. Oh well, I welcome listeners,
will listen the nineteen seventies broad Nose Park.

Speaker 1 (02:08:57):
Somebody's just got someone's furious with you. Someone doing their
job right now, and they really hate how I sound.
I just want to say that Jason pulled down his
pop filter, which is a little thing that goes in
front of the microphone. So when you say your p's
and b's and stuff, does something you're spinning And I
was truly perplexed by what you were doing. Yeah, you
have to do that for the rest of the popecast.

Speaker 2 (02:09:17):
NOD NORAD Command. We have an invisible jet flying over Colorado.
Jet of Bogie flying over Colorado. No it's not a drone.
No it's not a drone. I said, NORAD, not Houston.
Houston is not.

Speaker 1 (02:09:29):
I don't know where NORAD is the only thing we
drove by NORAD.

Speaker 2 (02:09:32):
You thought if we're the fake stargoot and Trian Mountain
is that's how of Colorado Springs.

Speaker 1 (02:09:36):
The only thing I know about NORRAD is the Athletic
Radar and Aerial Display or something like that. DEFEND is
the Seinfeld joke. That's a timely reference review. I thought
that's completely wrong. I have no idea. So if you
realized welcome to the Bronze, if you're listening from Norad
email us hears that, I know we have a listener.

(02:09:58):
One listener O, Nora. It's got to be the security
gig guy, right for sure, Dal or not binary power
right sure, somebody in the security gated Nora.

Speaker 2 (02:10:09):
It's got to be listening to this for sure. For sure.

Speaker 1 (02:10:11):
I do want to shout out our thas everyone who
ever requested a wonder Woman episode gets shouted out in
these ages episodes. So thank you so much to Shadows
of Ash, Still Brave Love, Gene S, Sam Martinez, A S,
D F G H J K L p Q W
E R. I'm sorry you have the worst season names.
The cat smash the keyboard. Someone definitely smashed their hands down.

(02:10:32):
Alexis n Bowen and Tree Branchy for requesting wonder Woman.
I think you're going to get requested a lot of
our stuff. Alexis is an og and I think she
she might win for most requests of let's just say
it right now, she does. She does. We love you
You're You're the Queen of you are the winner.

Speaker 2 (02:10:51):
You win the ghl No prize, which is nothing. It's
this hearty handshake.

Speaker 1 (02:10:56):
Did you get it? Jason? Did mind it? So I
think you should feel it and energetically. Just a quick refresher,
let's run through a tense on origin in case you
have decided to listen to this but you don't know
who Wonder Woman is. Princess Diana a Femis Skira aka
Wonder Woman is a deep Wonderwoman Thanks so much, DC
Comics character. Her first appearance was an All Star Comics

(02:11:17):
number eight in October of nineteen forty one. She was
created by William Moulton Marston and Harry Peters and William
Moulton Marston's girlfriend Olive, who never gets official credit. And
I love her and that is why I shot her
out every single time. She is also known as a
Diana Prince. She is an Amazon and a Demi God,
as Jason talked about in the intro. Her team affiliations

(02:11:37):
and partnerships include Steve Trevor, Justice Leek, Batman, Superman, a
Wonder Girl, and her abilities include superhuman strength, speed, durability
and longevity, flight, skilled hand to hand combat and alas
So of Truth a shield an indestructible gauntlet. Why did
she have Steve Trevor a theme song? I've never heard
of favorite before. I'll tease this a little bit. I

(02:11:57):
am not pro Steve Trevor in the Bronze. Okay, so
we're gonna we're gonna turn into a real ass ob
We're gonna talk. No, look, it's a whole thing. It's
a whole thing, including visual aids that we've got to
get through some other business with the podcasts, very visual media. Well,
I do have two photos. I'm going to ask you
to react to its Steve Trevor in the Bronze.

Speaker 2 (02:12:19):
You're gonna time everybody's gonna get a podcast react huh.

Speaker 1 (02:12:22):
Yeah. We love the reacti verse, Reactiverse reactors. But if
you want to hear us talk more about superheroes and
our potential experiences as superheroes, I want to really encourage you,
of course, to go check out Patreon dot com slash
jawin that's jaw i i s.

Speaker 2 (02:12:39):
Paton dot com. Slash l is the perfect plus to
get all your podcast tea needs, including out free podcast
and exclusive discord earn uh. If you like things. This
is about Greek mythology. It's called Titans. You get every
news breath of the Titans. Team Totans series on a
podcast called Teen Titans called.

Speaker 1 (02:13:01):
Talking Titans Talking hosted by myself and Diego Anthony Dunias.
We represented by you and Diego Anthony Niaz. We recently
had an episode where we had the voice cast of
Teen Titans give us one answer to one question. It's
really fun.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
You've got the radio performers of the Teen Titans. Yes,
Rodeo podcast experience.

Speaker 1 (02:13:20):
Exactly, and we are answering on this week's Geekause Reels
an extra podcast which superpowers we would like to have?

Speaker 2 (02:13:27):
Yes, what's what superpowers of the most medical benefits for
nineteen seventies colorstics Kalistonia exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:13:36):
So check that out Patreon dot com, slash Jawa.

Speaker 2 (02:13:39):
It's kind of weird that the nineteen seventies sound like
a nineteen fourios radio presentation.

Speaker 1 (02:13:43):
Yeah, but you've committed to this and I think the
bit's just going to carry out.

Speaker 2 (02:13:46):
It's pretty amazing what a fist over a microphone accomplished.

Speaker 1 (02:13:51):
There are no literally there are no audio effects on this.
Jason is doing all this. This is just my voice
fist and you I'm not really close to the microphone.
All right, So let's get into the Bronze Age. Now.
If you've been listening up to this point and you
don't understand the Bronze Age, and you really just do
only understand it as a historical period, I'm going to

(02:14:12):
give you a really quick recap that comic book historians,
which is a really fancy way of saying comic book readers.

Speaker 2 (02:14:19):
And I'm sorry, and we should say too, we also
have two or three other two other amazing wonder woman.

Speaker 1 (02:14:25):
I'm going to get to that. I have the numbers.

Speaker 9 (02:14:27):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I got it. I will go
back to the Guard Show, go back to your old
I'm Laura over over.

Speaker 1 (02:14:38):
And these periods are meant to denote tonal shifts within
the comic book universe. They are all generally agreed upon, although,
as we are going to figure out once I explain
them to you, not exclusively followed. So the Golden Age
of comics was from nineteen thirty eight to nineteen fifty.

Speaker 2 (02:14:58):
Six, broadly Houseian.

Speaker 1 (02:15:00):
Era broadly, and it ends with the first appearance of
Barry Allen in Showcase number four, which was published in
October of nineteen fifty six. That's the Flash of Two
Worlds cover. You've seen it or you've seen it homaged,
and if not, google it, it's really neat. The Silver
Age of comics is generally considered to be from nineteen
fifty six to nineteen seventy, which had restricted storytelling under

(02:15:23):
the Comics Codes Authority. Often led to silly stories, but
we start to see more hints of depth towards the
end of it. It was preceded by the introduction of
the Comics Code Authority. It doesn't exist anymore, don't worry
about it. The Bronze Age, which is what we're going
to talk about today, is generally considered to go from

(02:15:44):
nineteen seventy to nineteen eighty five. The precipitating event is
Jack Kirby leaving Marvel and the death of Gwen Stacy
and Spider Man won twenty one. So that's the era
that we are sitting in today. If you haven't listened
to our true prest episodes on Wonder Woman, as Jason alluded.

Speaker 2 (02:16:02):
To, I was just so excited about them. I'm sorry,
that's okay.

Speaker 1 (02:16:05):
I was like, we gotta explain this verse and then
we can do all of them. We gotta talk about
wonder Woman. Episode one sixty four is wonder Woman the
Golden Age, and episode three point fifty is wonder Woman
the Silver Age, and I will say a wonder Woman
the Feminist Age. I feel like I will say, you
think the Silver Age was the Feminist Age definitely, because
that was when she was on the cover of Miz
magazine and she kind of began We're going to talk

(02:16:26):
a lot about feminism in this episode as well, but
that's when she was really became this pop culture feminist
icon because this was, you know, the beginning of the
sexual revolution was in the Silver Age and women's lib
and all of that.

Speaker 2 (02:16:38):
And I should say, like, yeah, if you never listened
to our past episodes, we have a bunch of Superman.
We've Superman has made it all the way into the nineties, yeah,
and we have Batman. Batman's made it all the way
in the eighties. And I know there's been some requests
for Robin the Golden Age.

Speaker 1 (02:16:50):
We also did our first Team Tight and we did
teen Tight tmes Silver Age Lost.

Speaker 2 (02:16:54):
These episodes, I think are some of our best episodes. Yeah,
so go check them out.

Speaker 1 (02:16:59):
Check them out.

Speaker 7 (02:17:00):
So Wonder Woman's Wonder Woman adventures in the Silver Age
don't have as clean a break as Batman and Superman's.

Speaker 1 (02:17:14):
What is considered to be this tonal shift is the
introduction of the character Nubia. We talked about Nubia. I
decided to include it in our Silver Age episode that
we've already listened to. This is the expansion of the
Amazonian cast of characters. It brings more Amazonian canon characters

(02:17:36):
to the real world of the DC universe.

Speaker 2 (02:17:38):
Can you explain who Nubia is? For a lot of
people like myself? Yes, I can be forgotten who Nubia is.

Speaker 1 (02:17:43):
So the very lazy, utterly lackluster way to describe Nubia is,
she's the black wonder Woman. Okay, you've seen her. She
always has a magnificent hairdoo. She wears the traditional Wonder
Woman stars and stripes costume. The Bronze Age of Wonder
Woman is considered to start after Nubia's.

Speaker 2 (02:18:03):
Introduction, which is around ye uh.

Speaker 1 (02:18:06):
Nubia's introduced at the end of the seventies. Okay, but
Wonder Woman gets a complete revamp, retcon reintroduction by George Perez,
a complete redo of her origin story, a complete wiping
clean of these characters. These Amazonian characters don't get referenced

(02:18:29):
again for quite a while. Okay, so if you're reading
wonder Woman, Wonder Woman's bronzies is actually considered to start
after Crisis on Infinite Earth with her reboot, so we're
a little bit later in the Bronze Age than Batman.

Speaker 2 (02:18:43):
In Superman tradition, will know, technically, by our definitions, like
we've done in previous episodes, that would be the Dark Age.

Speaker 1 (02:18:49):
So again, what I what I what I'm trying to
have you understand is.

Speaker 2 (02:18:52):
That I'm just clear, I'm bringing up questions that the
listeners are.

Speaker 1 (02:18:55):
Going to have too. Yes, And and Wonder Woman's Bronze
age is very very small because she goes right into
the Dark Age, but it's considered to be in the nineties,
So she's a little bit behind Superman and Batman.

Speaker 2 (02:19:09):
Kind of because she because she got complete a complete
reac complete reaboot.

Speaker 1 (02:19:12):
And and I'm gonna tell you a little bit of
the history of why this happens. But ultimately I and
I chose to do these episodes with this demarcation point,
so that I didn't teach you all about Nubia, wipe
that clean and what that did to her canon, and
then introduce you to a brand new canon halfway through
the episode. So I chose to do that for the

(02:19:34):
ease of these episodes. But I also chose to do
that because Wonder Woman, if you look at her publication history,
it's not as clean as Batman and Superman. And that
is just, frankly, because the editors and the people in
charge of DC Comics did not care about their female
superhero as much as they did about their two male superheroes.

Speaker 2 (02:19:54):
Well, wonder Woman has always been I hate to say it,
that the if we're the second fiddle, the third fiddle.

Speaker 1 (02:20:00):
If we're ranking look, if we're ranking the Trinity, it's Batman's, Superman,
wonder Woman in that order. Yeah. So I acknowledge that
it's messy. I acknowledge that it's pushing the generally considered
bronze age bounds. But this is what Wonder Woman spent
a lot of time in this on the This is
what wonder Woman readers generally considered to be her bronze

(02:20:21):
age arc is the George Perez run. So that's what
we're talking about today. Cool. So I'm gonna tell you
how they developed this brand new origin for wonder Woman.
Greg Potter, who was a writer and the creator of
jem Son of Saturn, Everybody's favorite story, collaborated with Janet Race,
the Wonder Woman editor at DC Comics at the time,
to rework wonder Woman. They were struggling. They did this

(02:20:45):
for a while, and then they brought in George Perez.
George Prez incredible artists. I always think of him, of course,
as being the new Teen Titans artist, and he did
a legendary Avengers run in the seventies, Yes, Crisis on
Infinite Earths. He also draws the best hair in all
of comics bar nine. Like you can tell if there's
a woman on panel, you can tell it's a George

(02:21:07):
Perez Big Beasts, Yes, absolutely amazing. They stated that they
were inspired by John Byrne and Frank Miller's work at
the time, and they wanted to give a more serious
tone to Wonder Woman because she'd kind of been a
sillier character. So she just came out of her spy
age where she was depowered and she was kind of

(02:21:28):
a sexy go go girl, for a lot of the
seventeen and we should explain that that is.

Speaker 2 (02:21:33):
Of course, John Burn's complete reboot of Superman and Man
of Steel took him back with a brand new origin,
and then it's not a complete reboot.

Speaker 1 (02:21:40):
So soft, it's always a soft frame.

Speaker 2 (02:21:42):
Van Miller did a soft reboot a Batman in Batman
Year one. Yes, so it's basically like all three. All
three these characters got it back to the basics around
the same.

Speaker 1 (02:21:51):
Time, yes, but as always, Batman only gets a mostly
back to basics reboot. Janet Race left DC Comics to
return to traditional publishing before Is She One came out
and editorial duties were taken over by Karen Berger. I
just want to mention that specifically, because the only woman
who worked on Wonder Woman in this era was always

(02:22:12):
in the editor position. Just an interesting fact from me
to you. Perez was given the job of plotting and penciling.
Potter contributed to the first two issues, then he left.
He was briefly replaced by Len Ween. Len Weed, of course,
legendary creator who worked on and created every single character
you love from the eighties until George Perez began taking

(02:22:35):
the book on solo. Plotting in issue eighteen, George Press
also drew this entire run, so he did a lot
a lot of things that you like or maybe don't
like about this age. You can lay at the feet
of George Perez because he really took this on. The
fun thing about Wonder Woman, like I said, is she
does not have the clearest definition in her eras like
Batman and Superman. So we're just going to have to

(02:23:01):
deal with it. But if you want a little bit
more info on Crisis on Infinite Earths, we do have
a series of episodes called Crisis Club. You can get
longer form video versions of them on the Patreon, but
you can also listen to audio versions if you go
back to episodes two eighty two to two eighty six. Yeah,
but the Patreon.

Speaker 2 (02:23:19):
Just to give you a fun fact, I think the
I think we put each podcast. Each podcast episode was
two episodes of Crisis, Yeah, smashed into one. Yeah, so
it's one and two. You're missing like an hour of
each episode. It's a lot of info.

Speaker 1 (02:23:35):
Yeah, So we've had we have them, but they are
available Patreon. They are available. So let's explore the theme
of rebirth. Rebirth is a word that DC loves to
throw around, and rebirth is very much everything that's in
store for wonder Woman throughout the Bronze Age. Wonder Woman,

(02:23:55):
as rewritten by Len Ween and George Perez, not only
Diana but the entire Amazonian race a completely new introduction
to comic book readers. I read the whole series for
the first time in preparation for how many issues this episode?
Oh my god, it's five volumes. It's it's massive. I

(02:24:18):
think it's sixty some issues. So it's like it's a
good long run, the type of which we don't get anymore.
So you don't. I read it, so you don't have to, basically,
thank God, and I'm here to tell you everything about
this new origin. I would like you to keep in
mind that in the nineteen eighties you got a little
more bang for your book than we get these days.

(02:24:39):
And what do you mean by that? Thirty six pages
of comic book story, not the thirty six pages of
comic books? Wow? Exactly, wow.

Speaker 2 (02:24:48):
No, actually, right now it's trying to signal for an
ad but I'm still wow about these pages. Thirty six
pages of we don't get you, thirty six pages of podcast.

Speaker 1 (02:24:58):
Thank you, Christopher walkin wal He said, wow, wow, yeah, yeah,
the question for Walkuner is right here. Wow yeah, got you.
So what I'm ready? So this is thirty six pages.
It's not the mere twenty pages that we're supposed to
be great and you'll receive.

Speaker 2 (02:25:16):
Now, George Perez was writing I know he was getting
an assist but Lynnlean, but he's writing Hansling. Yeah, yeah,
and I think he was inking this stuff too.

Speaker 1 (02:25:23):
Yes, he was like, holy cash, just I want you
to think about how tired George Perez was. Well, I
send you off look to pray.

Speaker 2 (02:25:29):
And if you know, if you know anything about gege Prez,
and you've seen any pictures of him, the like great
George Prez, you know he just wore Hawaiian fashionista. Yeah,
this is probably why he probably was so tired that
he was like, wife, I cannot be bothered to pick
up shirt anymore. And she was like Hawaiian shirts. It
is George.

Speaker 1 (02:25:43):
She made a lot of his shirts, I know, and
iconically yeah yeah yeah, So we're gonna get back to
George Perez and his shirts and what this thirty six
pages of Wonder Woman Origin nonsense is just the second
Gee Kiss Tray Lawson we are back. We have all
put our Hawaiian shirts on, we have all hunkered down,
we have all inked these origins. And uh now I'm
going to explain to you the thirty six pages of

(02:26:04):
Wonder Woman number one.

Speaker 2 (02:26:05):
Okay, hold on a second here. Before we went to break,
Ashley called this a bunch of nonsense. So it's comic books.
It's all nonsense. I know, I know, And it's all
funny books, and it's all goofy and it's all stupid
and silly, and you can love it still, but you
specifically called it nonsense. As a person who like consumed
a lot of this Wonder Woman in a very tiny period,

(02:26:26):
why what about this is not again, it's actually because
laud it is one of the greatest Wonder.

Speaker 1 (02:26:31):
Woman forst is it's actually I use the wrong It's
not nonsense. It's this is a very serious mythological retelling
of Wonder Woman's origin. I mean also itself very serious.
This is like and it's deeply tied to lore.

Speaker 2 (02:26:49):
And this is also this is kind of the definitive
Wonder Woman origin in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (02:26:54):
Like look, if I can be honest, I think I
was overwhelmed by the radio voice, Oh okay, and I
was like, please, we just need a break. You gotta
go with it, you know, all right, let's go, let's go. Okay,
we open on a prehistoric man clubbing his pregnant prehistoric
wife to death. Well thanks everybody, So doesn't that feel

(02:27:16):
feminist right off the bat, I'm going to sign off.
I'll see literally hits her in the head and cracks
her skull open and she bleeds out on a rock.
So that's how that's how we meet. Wonder when yeah,
smash cut too, Artemis. Smash cut, smash cut too, Artemis,
Athena and the Greek pantheon, the goddesses are all pitching

(02:27:38):
to Zeus that they want to create a new race
of humans who share a more deep tie back to
the gods of Olympus Areas, of course, is being a
giant butthole, and he's the only god who stands up
and opposes them. It's quite a powerful gigantic butthole. So
Zeus followed, follow the butthole vibes and just raise but

(02:27:59):
hoole and just rage quits the entire discussion because Aris
is complaining about it the whole time. So Artemis Athena
Aphrodite Hestia nice deep cut by the way there, George, Demeter,
and Persephone go behind the backs of all the buttholes
and they go right to Hades. Hades grants them access
to the souls of the old world who had passed

(02:28:21):
away when Guya, the goddess of Earth, was the only goddess.
They're preserved by her in a very special place in
Hades Realm, and they are reborn into new, more powerful
bodies than ever before. These reincarnated souls become the classic Amazonians, Hippolyta,
Philippus and Tiape and Monolope and Hipolota the proper Greek spelling.

(02:28:47):
Thank you so much for that. They are placed on
Earth to usher in a new, more beautiful age of humanity.
This takes up us up to page seventeenth. Okay, so Heracles, yes,
Heracles Greek name Heracles, and theseus into attacking the Amazonians

(02:29:07):
because he hates them because all the goddess has created them.
So he's like, I'm gonna take my big strong man's
and attack these big strong ladies. In order to keep
the amazon safe, Poseidon splits the sea for three months
so that they can walk to Themyscara. They walk across
the the Themyscira. It's like the Moses Party of the Red. Yeah,

(02:29:28):
it's actually really neat. Themyscira is described as a paradise
island where they can be protected from future threats so
long as no man sets foot on their shorts was,
of course the classic rule off Themyscira, paradise island, whatever
we're calling it. Hypaulita loves her life. She's the queen
of the Amazons. She's getting kisses from her girlfriends on

(02:29:48):
the cheek. But I do want to say, for the
nineteen eighties, pretty progressive. There's a lot of cheek kissing
by the Amazonians. Okay, lady and lady, there's no man's
is We believe all amazon Onians are lesbians in this household.
So it's nice to see the seeds of that planted
in the Bronze age. So she loves her life's having
a wonderful time. But she's got this like deep internal longing,

(02:30:11):
and she talks about how she's missing something like physically
inside of her body. So she goes to talk to
their oracle Monolope, and she's like, I'm so sad and
I am missing something deep inside my body, what's wrong
with me? And Menalope lets her know that this is
because she was the only reincarnated soul among them who
was pregnant when she was killed. Remember the prehistoric lady

(02:30:32):
who was pregnant and club to death in the opening. Yeah,
this is This is the woman's soul who is reincarnated
into Apolita. So she needs to go to where the
land meets the sea sculptor baby out of clay, and
Athena will bring it to life. So she does, and
thus Diana, a Roman name, not a Greek name, is born.

(02:30:54):
I will always take umbradge with the fact that wonder
woman is tied to Greek mythology. But they called her
a Roman name. You gotta let it go. I know
they did it because Diana is a common name that
you could have in the human world. But like it
just it sticks out to me like a sore thumb.
Her name should be Artemis. So Diana and the Amazons

(02:31:15):
live happily for thirty thousand years. They're having a wonderful time,
and then Monolope warns of a threat. So Queen Hippolita
holds a competition for a champion to be chosen you know,
like very Greek Gucker Roman. We're wrestling and we're shooting
bows and arrows, and we're riding horses, and we're running
and jumping in climbing trees. But she forbids her daughter
from competing. So of course Diana does it anyway, and

(02:31:37):
of course, because the book is called Wonder Woman, she wins.
So the trials conclude with the Flashing Thunder. Have you
ever heard of the flashing Thunder? I don't know what
it is. So it's it's very strange because everything up
to this point really mythological. George Press's art is very stylized.

(02:31:57):
The coloring is very beautiful. And Tiapee pulls out a gun,
a handgun, and that's the flashing thunder, and she shoots
three bullets at Diana, and Diana has to survive it
in order to become the champion. Oh so she does
bullets and bracelets.

Speaker 2 (02:32:16):
Oh yes, okay, So it's the idea of the ancient
meeting the model.

Speaker 1 (02:32:21):
Yes, so they've brought this incredible weapon from the human
because like swords are an advancement on bow and arrows,
the gun is an advancement on swords. But it's such
a tone shift in the comic because she whips it
out from under her like green Greek style cloak, and
it's like it's like a glock. I don't know. I

(02:32:42):
think that's cool. I think that's pretty cool. So of course,
Diana bullets and bracelets, no problem, nobody gets hurt. She
has gifted Hara's girdle because yes, you can be a superhero,
but you have to be skinny. I mean it's the eighties,
the era of the supermodel, like come on, and her
ceremonial costs, and we end on a splash page of
the classic Wonder Woman with stunning George Perez hair. That

(02:33:06):
is the first issue of Wonder Woman's New Origin. Any
thoughts or initial reactions, Jason.

Speaker 2 (02:33:12):
I mean not really. It's very long. Was this all
the first issues?

Speaker 1 (02:33:16):
This is thirty six pages? This happens thirty six pages. Oh,
when you read this series, Issue one and two have
a lot of words on the page.

Speaker 2 (02:33:28):
Well, that's the youth because we used to like to
read them back in the day, back in the day,
my day, we read books.

Speaker 1 (02:33:37):
But you can just watch them. It's interesting because when
you get into like later issues, it's it's a lot
more modern but like there is, it's very much presented
as if it's this tale out of history, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 2 (02:33:51):
I mean the gun thing is very interesting and it's
something I wish we could have cut. We would have
seen in the movie that would have been cool.

Speaker 1 (02:33:58):
I think it's a neat thing, and I'm surprise it
wasn't co opted more because the bullets and bracelets seen
like that theme precedes this and we do see it
a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (02:34:10):
And I will say that the really good piece of
writing in this is that you can tell that George
pres Was and len Ween were very much like we
have to make you care about the Amazons, yeah, and
we have to explain why they're special, because if we
just keep being like it's a tribe of women, nobody's
gonna care.

Speaker 1 (02:34:30):
And they really do go out of their way to
show you, like how who these characters are. Like Antipee
is very like she wants to fight all of their
battles and they're like, no, that's what Aris would do.
And Menalope, who's an Amazonian who gets kind of lost
in the shuffle. She's their oracle. What's her name again, Menalope? Menlope?

(02:34:51):
She is very Sage and Austeer, like she really is
removed from them, but she's very, very wise and hypologizes,
really care like they do a better job at differentiating
their individual personalities I think than a lot of modern
Wonder Woman stories. Unfortunately, the series is an immediate financial
and critical success. People loved it from issue one. They

(02:35:13):
were like, her hair is great, this origin is great,
She's great. I know.

Speaker 2 (02:35:19):
These covers are beautiful. Yeah, and they still hold up.

Speaker 1 (02:35:22):
The wrap around cover that they now have on the
hardback collections is just absolutely stunning. It marries it goes
on to marry Wonderwoman more closely to these mythological origins
even in the modern world. So Jason, knowing that, who
do you think is the first villain? It's actually three
villains that Wonder Woman faces off against.

Speaker 2 (02:35:41):
Okay, I think it's got to be Sircy the Witch
because we're staying Greek. I think it's got to be
Aries because we're staying Greek. And I'm just gonna go
Cheetah because Cheata is the very like, we got to
have somebody for her to actually punch.

Speaker 1 (02:35:55):
You got one out of three, correctly, Okay, Then who
shows up? So the first villain that that she no,
Poseidon helped them walk through the sea, but he could
turn a villain, you could turn into a villain. That's true.
But yeah, Posidon, this historically kind of this, kind of
kind of bad. So you're you're one for three. So
her original villains are Aries, Phobos, and Damos. Do you

(02:36:18):
know who Phobos and Demos are? Fear? Who's Demos? I forget?
So it's the god of It's basically fear and panic.
Oh okay, they're the two sons of Aries and Aphrodite. Okay, okay,
so it's apology, but also all men on purpose. I

(02:36:40):
definitely think this was on purpose. Other pantheon members who
do show up in this arc include Charon, the guy
who brings you across the river sticks Hepestus Harah Femus,
who the writer's state is the Messenger of the Seas.
That's not true. The Greek Messenger of the Seas is triton.
EMUs is actually the goddess of justice, natural and divine law,

(02:37:03):
and she's the daughter of Gaia, so it makes sense
to include her. But they use this name and they
attribute it to the wrong character. But she so she
does appear, but I just thought it was very strange
because they get a lot right from mythological history, and they.

Speaker 2 (02:37:21):
Get that very raw. So we're back to adaptation right again.
It's the idea of like, you cannot be beholden to
a previous thing if it's going to break your story,
if you if and again you know, so they trusted
their gut and they made a choice and they went
for it. Yeah yeah, but I just because no matter
what they do, somebody is going to be like the
Greek mythology did this, Well, that's I just did it.

(02:37:42):
I just did That's why you called it nonsense earlier.
That's why I called it nonsense.

Speaker 1 (02:37:46):
So Bronze Wonder Woman was explicitly intended to be feminist,
despite the fact that once again, the one woman who
was a major part of the creative team was the editor.
The nineteen eighties sees the end of second wave feminine
and the ramping up into the right girl feminist movement
of the nineteen nineties. If you are someone who has
read any of these texts, you can definitely see them

(02:38:09):
lifting direct phrases and philosophies and putting them into the
mouths of characters like Diana and a couple of the
women that'll introduce you to later a quick crash course
in the values of second wave feminism. It's built upon
the idea of sexuality and family and domesticity and workplace

(02:38:31):
and reproductive rights not being counterparts to each other, so
they're not in opposition. There's something that a woman should
all have togethers. And it fights the idea of inequality
and official legal inequality, so the idea that like a
woman would suffer professionally if she left to deliver a baby,
whereas a man would still have the same career trajectory.

(02:38:53):
So it's a lot about marrying the values of a
nineteen fifties housewife with women's lib and that's what we
see see Diana try to do throughout this run. And
she's trying to be a great woman of Earth but
also a great woman of the Amazon, so she's trying
to be a superhero and a goddess at the same time.

Speaker 2 (02:39:11):
I just want to throw out the signal right now
to any men listening to be like good wish they
just talk about comic books. If you don't think Wonder
Woman is inherently about feminism. It has been about feminism
since nineteen thirty nine, then you're a damn idiot and
you haven't read wonder Woman comums.

Speaker 1 (02:39:28):
I would also encourage you to go and read the
interviews with George Perez and Lenuin and from this time
where they're saying this.

Speaker 2 (02:39:35):
So I just want to say, as as the other,
the non female contingent of this podcast, understand what the
hell you're reading. And if you don't think wonder Woman
is about women's rights and feminism, then I'm sorry You've
never understood a single wonder Woman comic book you've ever read.

Speaker 1 (02:39:51):
And I just wanted to bring that to light so
you can understand, like why these types of stories are
I'm not trying to let warn this run is.

Speaker 2 (02:40:00):
I think if you would ask most people, this is
the era that most people would be like, this is
the best era of wonder One.

Speaker 1 (02:40:07):
This era definitely deserves to be a contention. Yeah, So
there are two key Wonder Woman characters that we haven't
met yet. Jason, who are we missing from Diana's story
so far? That's been part of a wonderful mythology since
the Golden Age.

Speaker 2 (02:40:21):
Well, a guy you don't like, Steve Trevor, Yes, And
then the other person. I'm just going to make a
guess at a Candy correct fact.

Speaker 1 (02:40:29):
So yeah, Wonder Woman spends a few issues getting set
up as Diana and bringing Diana to the forefront, and
so then we finally get when we finally meet them.

Speaker 2 (02:40:39):
Old Softy McGee, Steve Trevor.

Speaker 1 (02:40:42):
Old Heart as Leather is Steve Trevor hard? Oh yeah,
so Eda Candy we're introduced to is the attache to
Steve Trevor. That makes sense. Who is sent on an
off the book's mission for General Kohler, a corrupt military
man that Steve had previously testified against in court. This version, yes,

(02:41:03):
But I bring it up because this version of Steve
Trevor is a Vietnam veteran, not a World War One
or World War Two in the eighties, which is which
is interesting because in the modern day we struggle now
with where to place Steve Trevor.

Speaker 2 (02:41:18):
It's the same as Tony Stark, being like, did Tony
Stark blow up in Afghanistan? Or did Tony Stark blow
up in some South Korean war like he originally did
in the sixties.

Speaker 1 (02:41:27):
And I really respect the creators for being like, nope,
We're We're doing contemporary to the time feminism with Diana.
We're going to do the story of a contemporary military
man with Steve Trevor. He does have a successful military career,
but he also does question the military industrial club complex.
He does not blindly follow, which is new for Steve

(02:41:49):
Trevor up to this point in Wonder Woman history. This
version of General Kohler is upon possessed by Aris, who's
sent you know, who's trying to break through the protective
outside of Themyscira. So that's the mission that Steve gets
sent off to in the middle of the night. So
Steve Tremor, we're talking about Steve Tremmer.

Speaker 2 (02:42:09):
Does he still does he? Is it still or do
they change this? I'm sorry if I'm getting ahead of you.
Is it still the classic he crashes on the island? Yes?

Speaker 1 (02:42:17):
Yeah, okay, okay. So George Perez, the artist and a
fighter je okay, cool, pretty much universally draws the most
beautiful people in comic book history. His version of Steve
Trevor is not the most beautiful person in comic book history.
And I would like to show you a picture of him,

(02:42:39):
and I would like for you to describe him to
the audience, because podcasting is famously a visual medium. This
is Steve Trevor.

Speaker 2 (02:42:45):
Well, here's the problem with this, uh one. He looks
like a sailor. He's got like a blue knit cap,
he's got cold he's got like a fur collar and
his thing gloves. But this is the thing of like
I can tell he's young, bes to be young because
he has blonde hair, But the way George Press has
drawn him with so many lines in his face, he
looks like he's in his sixties.

Speaker 1 (02:43:06):
He looks ancient. He's stopped by the sailor.

Speaker 4 (02:43:08):
Ma.

Speaker 2 (02:43:09):
This is that is something that like artists that sort
of draw in George Prez's style. It's one of those
things that their style is so simple that the second
they had too many lines to a face, it looks old.

Speaker 1 (02:43:19):
It's very strange because obviously, like Diana is very beautiful,
and she you know, never has any marks on her face,
and he flows and and they juxtapose her with with
a Steve Trevor who looks like he could be her grandfather,
and you slowly watch their love story on school and
it's it's a bit strange to me. I don't like

(02:43:42):
the way Steve Trevor looks distracting to me. And it's
my only real note with this whole series is like
the way Steve Trevor looks like he looks. That's why
I said, like old is leather, Steve Trevor like he
looks like he look he's a Vietnam Vet. He seems
some stuff looks terrible, and he's the romantic lead of

(02:44:03):
the comic. Like Jason asked about earlier, Steve's playing does
go down in the water outside of Themyscira. He also
accidentally fires a bomb on the island while he's going down,
but luckily herme's just kind of showed up out an nowhere.
I was like, Diana, you're the hero. Now have a
golden lesso of truth. She lassoes it, and she sadly

(02:44:25):
she does not ride it like slim pickens out of
the atmosphere, but she is able to sort of wing
it away. You don't understand that reference, go figure it out. Yeah,
And then she brings Steve back to man's world where
he can heal properly and she can learn how to
better protect her people because before this she didn't really
understand that there was this protective barrier around Themiscira and

(02:44:47):
now that she's your champion, they were like, ah, this
is clearly what she is to protect us from. So
they send her over to Earth, over to human's world,
and she's like, Okay, I guess I'll go over there
right now. She takes up with Professor Julia Kappitellis, who's
a professor at heart, who immediately decides that they can
live together and introduces Diana to the monster of Boston
traffic at rush hour. That's a joke just for Jason Boston,

(02:45:12):
you know. Yeah. Yeah, Because Diana has this amulet of
ares that has a companion in man's world and she
needs help translating it. And Julia is this professor of
ancient Greek everything that we need for the plot. So
so she's the one physician. She's like, oh, you speak

(02:45:33):
ancient Greek. I also speak ancient Greek. Have a sweater
and come live in my house with my dad, h daughters.
Isn't that some sweaters?

Speaker 2 (02:45:41):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:45:41):
It's during this time that Phobos and Demos, the sons
of Aris, are terrorizing not only Wonder Woman but her
cracked team of Steve, Etta and Julia, playing such tricks
as sending a Gorgon, but emphatically not Medusa, just a
Gorgan to Earth to rapidly age Professor Julia's teenage daughter

(02:46:01):
into an old woman, and then rapidly ate your house
until the wooden beams collapse in upon themselves. Jason, Yeah,
why do writers always want to have Diana interact with
teenagers and children? Do they? I feel like in every
Wonder Woman Run, there's a scene where she has some
meaningful interaction with a young girl.

Speaker 2 (02:46:21):
I mean, I don't know if I agree with that
sentiment at all, because I have not encountered it that often.
But my best thing would be to say that it's
because you're trying to impart a moral lesson to a kid.

Speaker 1 (02:46:37):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (02:46:38):
You know you want a young girl to read this,
and so, like, you know, you're trying to get her
to be like, look, you can be like me. M
I don't know. I don't know that this is a
trope of Wonder Woman from what I've read of wonder Yeah,
maybe it's a trope of the George Perez run.

Speaker 1 (02:46:54):
Maybe I just feel like every Wonderman Run, the like
I said that I've ever read, is like there's some
young girl that Diana has to be like, don't worry,
I'll save you and you can be a hero too.

Speaker 2 (02:47:05):
Well, I mean that's in a lot of superhero stories.
I mean, Batman's got a Robin, Superman's got a Jimmy Olsen.

Speaker 1 (02:47:11):
Sure Team Diana discovers that Ari's corruption has infiltrated the
American military system unimaginably called Project Ares. I think this
is definitely a very again post Vietnam sentiment. So not
only is there the corruption of all these monsters are
coming to Earth, but it's also in the systems of

(02:47:35):
government that were in place to protect them.

Speaker 2 (02:47:37):
Well, I mean to me, if Arry's supposed to be
this god of war, you think, you know, a strategy
is a part of war, and you would think he
wouldn't name the project after himself to signal to all
of his enemies that hey, comes.

Speaker 1 (02:47:46):
Stop this. Yeah exactly. Diana is dubbed wonder Woman by
the American media because they're afraid, I think, call their
Princess Diana, they'll confuse her with the Princess of Wales.
I like you, I like that. Okay, it's okay.

Speaker 2 (02:48:02):
Very cute, but also very strong. She doesn't have a
secret identity, she's very much. I'm Princess Diana, and they're like, well,
we got a Princess Diana.

Speaker 1 (02:48:09):
You know, I really liked that Diana Spencer exists in
the DC. You I like it. That's cool. They should
be friends. They should be you know what they should be,
they should have met. That's the crossover, uh, that we
all wanted. I'm going to tell you a little bit
more about how Diana defeats a. Yes, Princess Diana Wales

(02:48:32):
takes down uh, not only Aries, the god of War,
but Project Aries, the American military industrial complex. Sure, right
after this, we are back on geek history lesson. We
are talking about Princess Diana, Yes, that's right, the blonde one,
and we are talking about how she tied into the
bronze age of Wonder Woman in d C Comics history.

(02:48:53):
We just revealed that Aries is a big plan was
to take over the military using Project Mary's very imaginatively named,
and it's up to Team wonder Woman to take him down.
They are able to use the member the ambulet that
they had before that they had to find the mirror
of Yes, exactly that, the mirror of it, so they

(02:49:14):
call it. So they're looking for its mirror, which usually
means there's two of one thing, right, Okay, Diana, when
she holds it, it's it's almost like it's out of phase.
Sometimes you can see it and sometimes you can't, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:49:29):
It vibrates with a different frequency of the universe. It
might be to a certain Star Trek movie that just
came out.

Speaker 1 (02:49:36):
So she stands in front of a mirror and does
that a little bit. Why in front of a mirror?
And then they fall through the mirror to where the
mirrors on the Is it a full length mirror? How
do they fall from the mirror hanging on the wall? What?
And they get sucked through the mirror to where Phobos
and Damos have been hanging out with a bunch of
snakes so that they can defeat the sons of Aries

(02:49:57):
and also a bunch of snakes. Now, to be fair,
Phobos not Fomo. Phobos mythologically does have like a beard
of snakes and does command snakes. But they basically use
this as a chance to have Diana. If you've ever
seen the Class of George press cover where she's fighting
a giant snake, it's this specific issue. And once they
defeat Phobos and Demos, they are able to return from

(02:50:22):
the mythological world to the real world to overcome the
same version of the conflict. In the real world. They
basically fight a pit of actual snakes. Then they go
to a military base and enter another den of snakes
where they have to take on all of these generals
and all of these people that had worked with Eda
and Steve in order to wipe Ari's influence out of

(02:50:44):
the American military. Okay, so Perez is doing this thing
where he is I'm gonna use mirror again. He's holding
the mirror up to nature. He's telling us by the
extreme examples of what they're doing with these monsters in
the mythological world. And then they come back to the
human world and they do the same thing and the
human world and that happens again and again and again
and again throughout the Bronze Age. Okay, Diana defeats Aris,

(02:51:07):
and her Bronze Age adventures have seemingly come full circle.
I mean, you know, once Wonder Woman has defeated Uncle Grandpa.
Where else is she gonna go if she's not going
to immediately join the Justice League.

Speaker 2 (02:51:18):
Her Bronze Age sort of Dark age.

Speaker 1 (02:51:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, well I went to
the I have a question for you as you're fine. Yeah,
defeating Aries end I quote canceled oblivion. So what else
could there, you know, possibly be heard of? She defeated Aries.
That's usually a wonder Woman's story ends when she defeats Aries. Well,
in this era of wonder Woman's storytelling, we started with

(02:51:42):
a retcon and a rebirth. Okay, I said, We're gonna
have a big theme of rebirth throughout this, so why
not end with another retcon and another rebirth? Uh? This
rebirth is a bit more literal than you might be expecting.
Fighting Aries and taking him down and protecting both the
human world and her family back on Themiscira almost destroys Diana.

(02:52:06):
She's on the brink of death, so they take her
back to Themiscira to that special little island that they
have just off the coast where they put everybody to convalesce. Uh.
Sometimes there's a purple ray there in the Golden Age.
So she's there convalescing. They're not sure if she is
gonna make it, but she does, of course, because it's comics.
Nobody dies in comics, and when she recovers, she's given

(02:52:28):
magical winged sandals from Athena weirdly, instead of from Hermi.
I was gonna say, what didn't be from her? You
would think no, but hermis gave her the last so earlier.
That's weird. So now she gets wings sand from a feed. Yeah, yeah, George,
what's going on here? Why did you call the messenger
of the seas Hems instead of trying.

Speaker 2 (02:52:47):
He was doing he was doing three things at once.
He didn't he was He was probably waiting on half
a shirt from his wife. He just had to make
the book, just had to come out.

Speaker 1 (02:52:54):
So he's just writing with only half a shirt the book.

Speaker 2 (02:52:56):
The book had to come out. Though his wife was
sewing the other half of a sleeve, it wasn't there yet.

Speaker 1 (02:53:00):
And what's important about the magical winged Sandals is that
they will allow her to continue going back and forth
from Themiscirra to the human world. She can pass through
the shield that's protecting it because she did such a
good job saving both of them. At the same time,
she could continue to be the champion and guardian of both.
She doesn't have to be one or the other, which
again sort of continues his feminist theme of like you
can do both. You can integrate both things into your life.

(02:53:22):
You don't have to choose. I really really like this beat.
There there is again a funny little subplot toward the
end where we get another Princess Diana mix up and.

Speaker 2 (02:53:33):
The end and they were like, but this is the
height she was at the height of her popularity.

Speaker 1 (02:53:37):
Princess too. This is right pre you know, it's right
around the time of the divorce, the revenge dress. Like
everyone is really, everyone's really, she has mentioned several times
throughout this series. The end of this age includes the
introduction of an archaeologist named Barbara Minerva Jason. Who's Barbara Minerva? Cheetah?

(02:54:00):
Where are we in the real timeline? Here we are
in nineteen ninety right now.

Speaker 2 (02:54:10):
Okay, so we're well into the Dark Age? Actually, okay, interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:54:13):
All right, So again this is considered to be the
end of this era, Barbara Minerva, and this is why
the introduction of Cheetah. So this is the first introduction
of Barbara Minerva as Cheetah. We've had two cheetahs previous.
Oh they had different names. Yes, okay, So we do
have an episode on this episode three forty nine all

(02:54:35):
about Cheetah Barbara Minerva would go on to become the Cheetah,
the most iconic Cheetah, but there were two different women
called Cheetah. We cover them both really briefly in our
Cheetah episode. It's her introduction and then what eventually would
lead to her establishment as this foe for wonder What

(02:54:55):
this is considered to be her demarcation. Okay, she expressed,
this is an archaeological interest in Wonder Woman's lasso. She's like, Oh,
that's interesting. I would like to have that.

Speaker 2 (02:55:07):
Yeah, I heard you got it from Hermes, even though
it feels like it should come from Artemis.

Speaker 1 (02:55:10):
Yeah, exactly. It's pretty significant because it introduces yeah, like
I said, this version of Cheetah into d C comics history,
and from this point forward pretty much establishes her as
a top tier Wonder Woman villain, because up to this
point it had either been Aarris Yes, who we've spent
a lot of this episode talking about, or Circe, who

(02:55:32):
Jason mentioned earlier. It gives Wonder Woman for the first
time a human villain who's based on Earth who she
basically can't just you know, lasso into oblivion and call
a day, which is what happens when she comes face
to face with every other human threat. Sure, and that
is your Bronze Age episode on wonder Woman. Okay, if

(02:55:56):
you want to read more about this, if you wait,
we got to I need a final ask here. Oh
well the final ask is okay, yeah, go for come
we doing? You want to regret? Okay? Yeah, I haven't.
I have questions? Sure, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:56:07):
So, and I'm assuming this is for the listeners as well,
So I'm going to ask on the behalf of the listeners. So,
if you were to do another wonder Woman, is is
it going to be wonder Woman. It's going to be
wonder Woman in the Dark Age. But it just won't
It'll start in like nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 1 (02:56:25):
Yeah, so it'll yeah, so it will take up with
basically this what happens once Barbara ba Nerve is introduced.
I know it's muddy, Yeah, I understand it. And again
it's because this era in the late seventies, when Nubia
was introduced.

Speaker 2 (02:56:41):
They basically like put Diana on the sidelines and we're like,
it's all Nubia.

Speaker 1 (02:56:44):
So there are two schools of thought about whether that
story is more Silver Age or more Bronze Age because
it straddles a lot of the political issues that were
present in the nineteen seventies, and again because Wonder Woman
doesn't have as clear demarcations. The school of thought that

(02:57:07):
I chose to go with was that Nubia belongs with
the stories from the seventies, okay, And then if you
follow that, it's that the George Peyres run is the
Bronze Age, and then the Dark Age picks up with
Cheetah going forward. And again it's messy because I could

(02:57:29):
have talked to you about Nubia, but that would have
been half the episode, and then we would have rebooted
halfway through, okay, And I thought this was clearer, sure,
And I thought this encapsulates under the type of storytelling
asks where the next Wonder Woman comes up. I'm just like,
where where are we going to be? Like what? What?
What of here?

Speaker 2 (02:57:46):
You we're going to because like, yeah, it's only going
to be It's it's basically the next one is going
to be just Wonder Woman in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (02:57:51):
Yes, but I will say from that point forward from
a Wonder Woman point of view, and I look, I
assume when we do teen Titans, we're going to get
into a similar messy era because of the Wolfman Perez run. Yeah,
because it also doesn't follow as cleanly the demarcations at
Batman and Superman does. But once you get from the
nineties forward, because of brand integrations and because of events

(02:58:16):
and dare I say event fatigue. Every time there's a
demarcation between the Dark Ages and the Digital Age, everybody
gets a reboot. So it's much cleaner from this point forward.
And this is I think applying these formats to smaller characters,
it gets messier. It just is what it is. So

(02:58:37):
we all do the Dark Age. But yes, as you say,
it will basically be wonder Woman in the nineties, because
I can't remember off the top of my head what
the demarcation is of the Dark Age where we end it.
Recommend it's been so long since we did it. Tell
us some reading. I think you have some reading for us, Yes,
recommended reading where if you want to read more about
Wonder Woman in the Bronze Age, you go to Geeki

(02:58:58):
History lesson dot com slash recommended reading. You pick up
any of these volumes of your choice. Luckily, DC Comics
put together some really, really beautiful collections of the George
Perez Wonder Woman. There's five volumes. They're all on there.
Start at the beginning, read it all the way through
to the end. It's one of our most straightforward recommended
readings of all time. Next, why don't we roll into

(02:59:19):
the honor roll? Jason, would you tell me what that is?

Speaker 2 (02:59:21):
Let's if you go over to Apple podcast and give
us a five star review on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 (02:59:26):
We'll shout out your review on the air no matter what.
You're right. This review comes from Uko Matt, who says,
amazing podcast. The first episode of GHL I ever heard
was the Digimon one, and as a huge Digimon lover,
it was neat to see them go into detail of
the history of it and since then I've been hooked
on the podcast, Uko Matt, I also love Digimon. So

(02:59:47):
thank you so much for the digital love with your
Apple podcast review. Welcome into the Teacher's Lounge. And if
you want more from Geek History Lesson, you can find us,
of course, all over social media at geek History Lesson. Okay,
I'm gonna write that down, I don't remember. Thank you
so much the name of the podcast super easy to
find Jason, Where can we find you?

Speaker 2 (03:00:07):
Uh. You can find me on Blue Sky at Jason
Inman for the first time ever. And you can find
me on threads and Instagram at Jollin.

Speaker 1 (03:00:15):
Where are you about, I'm everywhere at Ashley V. Robinson cool,
And now it's time for what have we learned today?
I know we need a sound effect for that.

Speaker 2 (03:00:27):
Uh, command to actually Robinson come on to a Robinson
comment command or I mean sort guard booth the front?
Good to actually Robinson guard booth to the front. Go
to Robinson?

Speaker 1 (03:00:38):
Hello, how can I help you over? To know you were?
Don't the military? So I don't have to follow that.
It's a non military radio code? Over? This is a
podcast looks not a radio close enough over? Nope, I

(03:00:58):
believe it's time for or what have we learned? What's
that over? It's why we have to reply it? Or okay, great?
What have we learned today? Today? We have learned that
the comic book ages are liquid and meaningless. Today we
have learned that Wonder Woman's mythological roots will always shine

(03:01:19):
through and present her most interesting stories. And today we
have learned that Steve Trevor is an old man.

Speaker 2 (03:01:28):
I think you know the thing that I am always
constant reminded by comic books. The thing that I learned
from this podcast is that all comic books are kind
of meaningless, and you just need to take what you
love and what you find enjoyable from them, and that's all.
That's all that matters. What makes you happy, makes you happy,
and screw the rest.

Speaker 1 (03:01:45):
I think we've also learned that even amongst the greatest
runs in all of comic book history.

Speaker 8 (03:01:50):
It always gets a little bit confused, some real dopies.

Speaker 1 (03:01:52):
Thus it's okay, Yeah, that's okay, And we love them anyway,
We love them through it, and we love you for listening. Yeah,
we love you. So thanks for listening to Geaks the Lesson.
I'm Jason in then I'm Ashley Robinson and Bronze Age. Ashley,
will you please close out this podcast? Last is now dismissed.

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