Letter to the Believer About Mort Weisinger

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I keep meaning to send this letter off to The Believer, but I don’t get around to it. Nerves probably.


One of my TCJ columns was all about Mort Weisinger, the miserable bent man who edited DC’s Superman titles during the 1950s and 1960s. I read a bunch of interviews in Alter Ego and so on (I don’t mean to sound offhand: the magazine makes for good reading) and I read a couple volumes of DC Showcase: Superman, plus old Weisinger Superman stories that were available on the Web (can’t find them now). I even sent away for some of Weisinger’s books: The Contest, 1001 Things You Can Get for Free, How to Be a Perfect Liar. I started with the idea that Weisinger was a jerk. Pretty soon I discovered that, yes, he really was. He was also banal to a degree that’s wonderful. You read Alan Moore rhapsodizing about the miracle conceits of the Weisinger period, and then you encounter the period’s mastermind and realize that behind the conceits lay a man who could not frame a worthwhile thought or write an interesting sentence. His brain had a big lobe for monkey-like ingenuity and no lobes for anything else. And of course he was a mess, an emotional slop pile, a heap of semi-liquid venom. He took delight in splattering anyone without the rank or assertiveness to tell him to lay off. If you want an idea of the low end of the human scale, spend some time researching Weisinger. 

Because he was a mess and he had to churn out comics, Weisinger’s neuroses showed up in the Superman stories he oversaw. So it is with artists and neurosis. But Weisinger had very little talent — less, say, than a writer coming up with a funny dream sequence for The Dick Van Dyke Show. The Weisinger neuroses poke thru the stories like broken bones thru skin. God, are they painful. There’s no aesthetic payoff, just the fascination of the awful. But, okay, I’ll settle for that.

My column, called “The Night Thoughts of Mort Weisinger,” looked at a couple of Weisinger fave stories and dug out their abundant emotional subtext. To the extent that anyone reads my columns, this one was a success. So why not resell it? Weisinger seems like a good subject for The Believer, a general-interest magazine that runs articles on ’80s teen movies and the man behind a mid-century publishing imprint dedicated to educating the masses. The Believer, I mean to say, is fairly eclectic and doesn’t demand topical hooks for its articles. So why not an account of how this nasty heap’s emotional problems got imprinted on the favorite reading material of 10-year-old baby boomers? No reason at all, except I’m having trouble writing the letter. I’m just the diffident type.

There is the chance, of course, that someone at The Believer will browse along to this post and save me the distress of stepping forward. I did a post called “Question for Kurt Busiek or Mark Evanier” and, damn, they both wrote in. Conceivably I could write a post called “Will You Love Me, Emanuelle Béart?” and she could write in and say no. 

I Don’t Care How Animated You Are, You Still Can’t Wear the Venus Girdle

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I just liveblogged my way through the WW animated film. If you want to see my thoughts as I went along, here’s the Update: First thread,second thread, third thread.

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Well, overall, the movie was about the level of bad I expected, I guess. I pretty much agree with everything in Chris’s review. The violence and sex seems calculated to go just so far and not farther in a way that ends up reading as smarmy and not much else. Exploitation can be fun if it’s either explored or used to push stories in odd directions. Here, though, it’s all controlled without much curiosity; the exploitation elements seem ladled out with a spoon, and the rest of the story doesn’t have enough thematic coherence or adventurousness to go anywhere. The twin goals (tell a typical Wonder Woman story; throw in (limited) gore and (limited) sex)) lead to paralysis rather than energetic frisson. As just a for instance, if you’re going to do WW exploitation, it seems like one of the more interesting ways would be to explore lesbian themes — but that would be R, and besides we’re not really willing to do that with a DC property — and so the only lesbian suggestion is done in the most banal way possible; set up as a sexual fantasy for Steve (who sees some Amazons cavorting in a pool) rather than as a real possible female alternative to dealing with man’s world. Thus, the only real love is love between men and women, which philosophically stacks the cards against Paradise Island as a viable community. The “moral” of the movie ends up being that Hippolyta must learn reach out to men in order to learn to love. In this (as in just about every other) way, the film is less adventurous than the source material; Marston did suggest implicit lesbianism in various ways, and while he had Diana fall in love with Steve, I don’t think he suggested that that love vitiated the Amazon’s community.

Indeed, when William Moulton Marston created WW, the whole point of the Amazons was that they were going to teach man’s world love — not vice versa. This, I think, points to the film’s central failure of imagination. The filmmakers just can’t figure out a way to admire femininity. They can admire women — but pretty much only insofar as the women are tough, violent, self-sufficient — masculine, in other words. You see this again and again throughout the film; the librarian is mocked for not being tough enough in the opening battle scene; then she gets brutally offed, essentially because she’s too girly to live. Wonder Woman herself taunts femininity at various points, mocking Ares for getting beaten by a girl, or teasing Steve for expressing his emotions like a girl. The end tries to walk this back a little, with Hippolyta rebuked for rejecting children and love — hallmarks of femininity. But the only way to get those back is supposed to be by opening themselves up to men.

Marston, on the other hand, had a vision of a femininity which was both strong and self-sufficient. For him, the Amazons weren’t unloving because they’d cut themselves off from men; on the contrary, cutting themselves off from the masculine was what made them embody love. In the film, being strong (masculine) precludes love (feminine); for Marston, being feminine is what creates strength (and submission and lots of bondage.)

The point here is that the movie’s vision of gender is just much, much more clearly designed of, by, and for men. The Amazons are essentially pictured *as* men. The reason their cool is their masculine attributes (kicking ass) and their problems are masculine problems — they’ve gone off into their cave, cutting themselves off from emotional attachments to be safe. The “message” could have been written by Robert Bly — trust your emotions! don’t be afraid to love! It’s focusing on male anxieties around castration and being tough and not wanting to be vulnerable.

In Marston, though, what’s glorified is not only strength, but female bonds…and, indeed, bonds in general. Marston’s emphasis on submission as a form of love and strength is decidedly kinky…but it also allows femininity to be something other than just opening yourself to a man. It can be opening yourself to a woman, for example. “Obedience to loving authority” (as he puts it) is, in Marston’s vision, not actually about patriarchy first, but about femininity first; after all, the loving authority doesn’t have to be male, and, in those old Wonder Woman comics, often isn’t. For Marston, femininity is an archetype that can exist entirely without reference to men.

A female community built around mutual submission and love is the ultimate source of strength in Marston’s world. For him, women are going to save man’s world. Whereas, for the filmmakers, the Amazons need men to save them.

Which is why the movie, with a kind of tedious inevitability, finds itself morphing into “Steve Trevor: The Animated Film.” Trevor gets a ton of screen time, and we actually learn more about his inner life than about Diana’s; it’s quite clear at the end why he kisses her, but it’s way less clear why she kisses him. The fact is, the filmmakers are more interested in the entirely pedestrian horniness and self-pity of this banal frat boy who find the girl of her dreams than they are in the journey of their putative star. In the end, her objections to man’s world are shown to be hollow feminist propaganda; all she really needs to cure her restlessness is a good man…or even a mediocre one.

Or, to put it more briefly: Marston’s Wonder Woman was a male fantasy that cared deeply about women and girls. And while that’s not ideal in every way, I would argue that this film is good evidence that a male fantasy which cares about women and girls is, overall, and in almost every way, better than a male fantasy that doesn’t.

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Update: Other posts in which I explain why no one is as cool as Marston:
One Two Three Four Five, Six, Seven and Eight, Nine.

Update: And a follow up post on the animated movie vs. George Perez

Is that your jaw or did you swallow a landing strip?

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Hey look! They’re having an argument…and they’re in a dark alley…and they get mugged! That’s a surprise. It’s almost as if they’ve left Marston’s original script behind, and all of a sudden they can’t think of anything but cliches. Almost.

Wonder Woman beats the crap out of the muggers and Steve simpers “That was kind of hot.” And fetishizing tough women is certainly a thing in contemporary movies. Having it underlined over and over by a frat boy, though, doesn’t really add to the glamor. Why isn’t she kicking the shit out of him, too, when he says stuff like that? I guess the filmmakers just can’t quite believe that masochism is sexier than sexual harrassment….

Fight with Demos is nicely choreographed, though….

“The symbol of tartarus…the greek underworld.” If you actually believed in the religion, you’d just say, “the underworld”.

This “Steve Trevor fighting as an equal stuff…” screw that.

And now he gets to save her from the giant lame bat thing? Did Marston ever let him save her?

50:40 Wow, that’s a grim vision of the underworld; you die and become enslaved to a massively fat decadent Roman despot (I guess he’s supposed to be Greek, actually.)

52:00 Good lord; Steve’s impassioned defense of men makes me want to barf. Sneering at the Amazons for cutting themselves off from man’s world; “Right, because what we need is less communicaton between men and women!” Um, except there are plenty of women on earth, you know, and you tend to interact with them by harassing them systematically , from what we’ve seen.

I bet he hates Bryn Mawr too….

“I’m not going to abandon a friend in need, man or woman.”

And she says, “By the way, you’re starting to sound like a woman.” And it’s a sneer, I think…I’m not sure how else to read it, she’s needling him for revealing his feelings.

Maybe she thought the scene was badly written too, though, to be fair.

54:34 Oh, Christ. Now he’s holding the magic lasso and revealing that he’s a womanizer and a pig because he’s afraid to be hurt. Break out the violins….

Could we please just fuck that shit once and for all? Demeaning women because you feel insecure isn’t cute or sexy or deep. It’s stupid and boring and makes you less, less, less, less appealing, not more. “Oh, deep down, he’s sensitive…it only takes the right woman to bring it out….” Yeah, well…don’t go back to him, Rihanna!

“nobody messes with lincoln!” says Steve. INteresting sentiment for a guy with a southern accent.

I’m just saying is all.

[Update: Really shoudn’t have just said. Not my finest moment. Justly chastised for it here)

Artemis’ giant sword is pretty fun…though, again, it’s hard to argue that she doens’t have some kind of penis envy….

Diana gets saved by her Mom? That’s kind of a let down….

57:42 And the President of the United States is an evil whacko. That seems believable, anyway….

And Wonder woman taunts Ares with not being able to defeat a girl. It’s hard for me to believe an Amazon would ever say that.

Zombie amazons, huh? And the librarian comes back from the dead all butch and tough. It looks like she was really fun to animate; her sort of lurching sword style fighting is maybe my favorite bit of action from the movie; very nicely done.

1:04: “The Amazons are warriors…but we are women too.” So she chose Ares the god of war because she wanted babies and a home? That seems fairly confused. Certainly I see the children bit…but, I mean….Amazons. Surely there are other romantic outlets?

1:07: The threat has been neutralized by “a bunch of armored super-models.”

and then we get her kissing steve. As my ancestores would say, “oy.”

Right at the end we get Steve behaving feminine-like; telling Diana to call if she’s going to be late because he doens’t want dinner to get cold. But it’s definitely played for laughs and seen as unmanning I think…

All right, I’ll have a final post with some last thoughts.

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Update: Update: First thread,second thread, conclusion.

Steve Trevor…why won’t you die?

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Jesus, he didn’t even get knocked unconsious.

Hey, it’s the bathing beauties splashing each other scene! Isn’t Steve lucky to have stumbled on that!

That is so fucking annoying. This is the absolute first intimation of lesbianism in the film, as far as I can see — have there even been girls hugging? I don’ t think so…and the butch/femme dynamic at the beginning, with Persephone and the librarian, was played completely asexual; Persephone *could* have tried to protect librarian in a romantic-savior kind of way, but instead she sneered at her as weak; no sexual tension allowed….

until the guy shows up, and we can package our lesbianism for his consumption!

Also, in the original Marston story, Steve gets knocked out, and Diana gets to gaze at *him* while he’s unaware/incapacitated. That story is about female desire; you’re identifying with Diana and what she wants. Not here, though.

Good lord, how many kicks to the groin do there need to be in one movie?

Also, Steve shouldn’t last for half a second in a fight with Diana, much less get in a solid blow.

23:05The amazons are horrified that Steve says “crap”. Again with the anal stuff….

Here’s the contest where they figure out who goes to the outside world. No fighting on top of kangaroo horses, though. When did kangaroo horses stop being cool?

25:54 Jesus, they killed the librarian; for a movie that talks about how much men suck, we are not being very kind to the feminine characters.

Yep the explanation of why she is going to wear red white and blue is almost completely nonsensical.

Good lord; the tit shot of her putting on the bustier. Why? (I mean, I guess I know why, but….)

Took almost half the movie to get her into the red and blue….and almost the first thing that happens after she puts it on is that Steve wolf-whistles at her. That’s pretty irritating….

I know folks have complained that the invisible plane comes out of nowhere. I kind of like that, though. Very silver age.

The bit where she teaches the girl to “disembowel her playmates” is also cute, as Steve points out. (The girls friends won’t let her play pirate because she’s a girl….) The girl-power is a bit preachy…but it is Wonder Woman, after all….

Good lord, Etta Candy as femme sexpot flirt is an absolutely hideous decision. I can see why you wouldn’t want the original Etta (fat, butch, talking only about how much she wants to eat); but making her into a kind of seventies feminist feminine nightmare?

I think it’s pretty much official; the movie does not like femininity. To the extent that Wonder Woman is cool, it’s because she’s traditionally masculine (strong, cold-blooded.) Even her reason for leaving the island is pushed masculine — it’s because she’s bored and cooped up, not, as in the original, because she’s got a thing for Steve.

Steve tries to get her drunk…he’s such a prick

All right.. new post.

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Update: Update: First thread, third thread, conclusion.

Does the Invisible Plane Have an Invisible Inflight Movie?

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We’re getting set to start the liveblogging of the Wonder Woman animated movie here. This is a new experience for me, so I expect there to be some technical difficulties (read: human error.) We’ll do our best though. If I seem to be taking too long between posts, you can always go skim through my ridiculously overextended analysis of Wonder Woman in comics. Or you can read Chris Mautner’s thoroughly entertaing review of the DVD I’m about to liveblog.

Incidentally, since I’ve read Chris’s review, I’m sort of expecting this to be not that great. And, as I said, I haven’t done liveblogging, so I’m not sure how this is going to work. So if you want dispassionate professional competence, you probably need to go find a newspaper…oh, right. Forgot; they’re all out of business.

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And here we go….

There’s the title; PG 13 just like I was promised.

Pretty nifty animation, visually; I feel a little like I’ve been dumped into the Lord of the rings though

Ooooh; scary minotaur men

Guess that’s hippolyta…hey they just killed a horse….no wait, it’s getting uphave been in trouble with the animated SPCA

1:42: okay, I think maybe the way to do this is to watch in ten minute bursts and then blog; otherwise I’m going to completely lose the thread, such as it is. So I’ll be back in ten.

2:45 So not quite ten minutes, really. Incidentally, the time is the distance into the film, not the actual time. I’m not in Australia. (or Wherever)

So Hippolyta is pretty tough; the opening sequence where she fights off twelve guys, gets picked up and then dropped by some flying monster thing, catches it with her lasso, decapitates it with her tiara (you’ve gotta love Marston; nobody uses the whole tiara as weapon thing anymore…where was I? oh yeah) while she’s in the air, no less, and then times it so she lands perfectly in front of Ares is pretty bad ass. But then Ares kind of has to ruin it all by suggesting that she used to want to sleep with him. What is that anyway? That’s not cannon…in the first WW story, Hippolyta and Hercules had a thing, which makes a lot more sense since, you know…Ares is the God of War. Don’t fuck with the God of War. As it were.

Also, Ares seems to be suggesting that witnessing bloodshed improves his sexual performance. I guess that makes sense if you’re the god of war….but is it really something you’d want to admit to your ex-flame?

7:14: the psychic energies of war? Good lord, who comes up with this stuff?

I’ve got to say, the Amazons are a pretty bloodthirsty lot too. It’s not so much Hippolyta decapitating her own son (I know, I know…a woman’s choice and all that), but the mean-spirited sneering mockery of the girl who’s not that into the fighting is very much male-coded behavior. We’re pretty far from Marston’s belief in Platonic gender difference, obviously….

10:40: Diana beats Artemis and sneers at her; a snotty Diana is kind of entertaining I guess… It’s not entirely divorced form the source material, anyway; Marston’s WW was kind of a snot too….

So Hippolyta hates all men, and then we’re introduced to Steve Rogers, flying overhead on a completely unexplained mission, involving some random country that apparently is willing to start an international incident by shooting down American pilots.

I like that the first thing we see Steve do is sexually harrass his subordinate (he starts talking about sphincters and then suggests he can help her out with it. Because, hey, anal references and sexual harassment are funny. If you’re a thirteen to thirty year old boy. Which is the audience for Wonder Woman these days, apparently. Who knew?

I couldn’t care less about this fucking fighter pilot crap. I know Steve Trevor isn’t going to get killed no matter how much I want him to, so what’s the fucking point.

I’m going to start a new thread, by the by….

Update: Second thread, third thread, conclusion.

The Cowardly and the Castrated: Color Coda

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Bill did a post about coloring in the Watchmen comic and movie, inspiring me to finally get to this post I’ve been sitting on for some time now.

A little while back Tucker Stone and I coblogged our way through the 2nd phonebook volume of Bob Haney Brave and Bold stories. Our mutual favorite of the tales was an amazing Batman/Deadman crossover, which is pretty easily The Best Batman Story I’ve Ever Read.

Anyway, after we’d finished the series, Tucker (who, unlike me, occasionally visits comics stores) purchased and sent me a copy of the original Batman/Deadman team-up which he’d found in one of those storied longboxes. If I’d found it myself, of course, I would have just kept it…but Tucker’s a better person than I am (like Kim Deitch…and probably most other folks for that matter….)

But to get back to the point at hand; I was especially excited to see the original artwork, because I was curious how the color would affect the visuals. The story is a bleak noir, for the most part, so black and white suited it well, I thought. I wasn’t sure whether the color would help or hinder.

I think overall it helps. I’m not sure who the colorist is (could it be Aparo himself? Probably not…though I know he did his own inks) but whoever had the chores does a very nice job. Take the panel below:

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The muted blues in the costume and the weird neutral orange/red background actually accentuate the shadow on the face; Batman ends up looking pretty scruffy, which I think is just right.

Similarly, this image is great in black and white:

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But I think it’s equally good in color; where, again, the brown really brings out the crazy shadow, actually emphasizing the noir feel rather than detracting from it. (Plus it really drives home the “this is a minority bit” — if you’re going to be racist, I guess it’s best to be as explicit as possible. Or, actually, maybe not, on second thought….)

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The panel below is improved too, I think; in black and white it’s not clear where your eye is supposed to go. With the yellow and red added, the contrast is much clearer. I love the way the car is turned more or less red to match the flames, so you have basically a few solid areas of color; yellow, black, red…and even white, as the speech bubbles are nicely incorporated into the aesthetics of the image as well. It emphasizes the stylization of the flames and of the truck…and really of the whole composition. It has a poster art, almost constructivist feel.

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Everything doesn’t work equally well. The color on the lips here makes Lilly (the woman in the center) look oddly unnatural.

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Though, on the other hand, I think the color helps add to her dyspeptically fierce expression here:

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And I love the way the touch of red shading makes Deadman’s path out of the body here more solid; it’s almost like he’s at the end of a twisty ectoplasmic fabric; an effect which is present, but more muted, in the black and white:

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So the color was quite successful overall, I think. Things really were better back there in the days before computers….