Friday, September 12, 2008

Friday Night Fights--Mannequin Style!!

It's Ladies' Night again, so let's take a look at a story from before you were born, 1958...

Let's join the one, the only Wonder Woman as she has to protect the hyper-wimpy Steve Trevor from some robbers:

Hurled so fast the red on the star vanishes...
Steve Trevor--grinning idiot!!
Ditko fingers!!Well played, Princess. But that's one of only four (yes, 4) times that she has to rescue the man she for some reason loves in this story. But the most significant rescue is this, the reason that I chose this story, something that always guarantees a place in Friday Night Fights:

WONDER WOMAN WRESTLES A SHARK!!!!!!!!!!


And he just sits there watching...Oh, and that wager you see Steve referring to? He had gotten Diana to promise that if he needed her to rescue him three times during the next 24 hours, she would have to marry him. I know, I know...

This story was drawn by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. Now, I'm a huge fan of Ross Andru--he was drawing Spider-Man when I got into comics, so he's always got a corner in my heart. But man, in 1958, he couldn't draw Wonder Woman's face to save his life (I would say any woman's face, but Princess Diana is the only woman in this story...). A few examples:




Plasticine, vacant, never the same structure twice...yuccchh. Unless, of course, he was silently commenting on Wonder Woman's origin as an animated lump of clay, essentially the first mannequin ever. Which makes me think I should finally get around to finish my epic Wonder Woman/Mannequin crossover fanfic. Oh, Kim Catrall, where are you??

Even Bahlactus couldn't make Steve Trevor into a real man...

Diana emasculates Steve Trevor many times in Wonder Woman #101 (1958), as reprinted in Four Star Spectacular #3 (1976).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I thought those frames looked familiar. I HAD that Four Star Spectacular, back in the day, thirty-two years ago. Believe it or not, this story wasn't as silly as some of the RK written WW stuff was. I kinda like it that the female protagonist ISN'T a marriage-minded fiend for a change. And I have to say I also kinda like the way Andru drew WW here...he was experimenting with a bit of a looser style than would be prevalent later. I like that her hair comes out OVER the tiara...later on, the head object was placed firmly on TOP OF the hair, squashing it down, making her look more repressed and school-marmish.