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Like many treasured beliefs, this one is wrong.
That honor went to the many-armed Hindu goddess Kali,
holding a frying pan, a typewriter, a mirror, and other tools of the hyper-multitasking modern woman.
Wonder Woman graced the SECOND issue's cover.
William Moulton Marston,
the inventor of Wonder Woman, believed women were superior to men and should run the world—
and would do so in, oh, about a thousand years.
Hey, his heart was in the right place. Ah, or was it?
{William Moulton Marston testing his lie detector in a 1922 photo}
He was an American psychologist, lawyer, inventor, and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman.
Marston had a great deal of help from his wife, Elizabeth Holloway
(we have
her to thank for “Suffering Sappho,” “Great Hera,” and other Amazonian
expostulations),
as well as from his former student Olive Byrne,
with
whom he and Holloway lived in a permanent ménage à trois that produced
four children,
two from each woman.
Olive Byrne was the niece of Margaret Sanger,
whose youthful
brand of romantic, socialist-pacifist feminism was formative for
Marston.
Strange, huh?
Talking about things becoming strange ...
My DON'T BUY MY BOOK! Blog Tour is taking a strange turn ...
on October 12th
to the blog of
Crystal Collier
It is a strange sort of guest post.
Don't believe me?
Check it out for yourself!
Wasn't he a swell guy? At least we got Wonder Woman from him.
ReplyDeleteHe was certainly a Renaissance Man, delving in so many different fields. Yes, without him, Wonder Woman would never have been as she is now if she had ever been created at all!
DeleteHi Roland - I knew nothing about Marston ... or for that matter much about comics, or Wonder Woman ... but creativity of our minds makes us all individual - should we wish to show it.
ReplyDeleteCheers Hilary
The more I research people who interest me, the more I realize that the world at large truly never knew them.
DeleteIn light of those details, I can't decide if I like Wonder Woman more or less. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteThe early issues of Wonder Woman contain a lot of "interesting" aspects left behind when he left the comic. Bondage, subjugation of women, the superiority of women to men ... Makes you wonder, right?
DeleteThe illustration of Sensation Comics #1 immediately intrigued me.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you were going to get into Marston's personal life. How could you not, right? It's so fascinating.
It is definitely interesting. I learned to feel sorry for his wife and Olive Byrne. Despite the wild parties, the threesome (forced upon the wife with the threat of desertion), the two women becoming finally strong friends.
DeleteMarston was an innovator, a inventor, a charming (perhaps even sociopathically so), a man who was terminated from most jobs he ever had. Yet he gave us an icon for female strength and wisdom. Fascinating is the right word.