Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
...
OR: "... Out
of the Kitchen, and Into the Spandex": The
(Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel Comics
[ PART ONE ]
The Marvel Comics of the Bronze and Silver Ages -- i.e., "The House That Jack Built" -- is justly renowned, in fannish circlles, for many a storytelling innovation.
It was in the Stan Lee-scripted Jack Kirby- and Steve Ditko-created features of the 1960s, after all, that the more "naturalistic" approach to comics dialogue was first introduced (and promptly swept throughout the rest of the industry, in turn). It was such quiet (if no less groundbreaking, for all of that) penciling mavericks such as Kirby (again), Gene Colan, Gil Kane and (a little later on) Neal Adams and Jim Steranko who finally shattered the storytelling "tyranny" of the standard six-panels-per-page approach to mainstream adventure comics (chiefly in the course of their Marvel Comics work). And it was primarily through the creative agencies of such "second generation" Marvel scribes as (say) Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart that -- for better or for worse -- the fanniish conceit of an adamantine and structured "continuity" within any given company's published canon became common meta-fictive currency.
These are, none of them, minor contributions or innovations. (Which by no means should be taken as avowal that they are all equal ones.)
Additionally: it was Marvel Comics who gave us the first major, non- stereotypical African-American supporting character (City Editor Joe Robertson, in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN); the first major, non- stereotypical African-American co-protagonist (Gabriel Jones, in SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS); the first major, non-
stereotypical African-American costumed hero (The Black Panther, in THE FANTASTIC FOUR); and the first African-American costumed hero to boast his own ongoing comics title (Luke Cage).
... so, again: these are, all of them, eminently praiseworthy and welcome actions, taken on the part of writers; artists; and editors who (manifestly) felt that they were worthwhile ones to enact; and it is (ultimately) irrelevant whether said decisions were made for societal reasons, or simply merited four-color follow-through on their own inherent storytelling terms.
Unca Cheeks states all of the foregoing, by way of preamble, in order that the following not be misinterpreted (willfully or otherwise) as brute, reflexive "Marvel-bashing":
When held aloft alongside similar attempts engineered by their four-
color contemporaries -- in particular, those of their most significant competitor, DC Comics -- Marvel's meta-fictive explications of the distaff segment of their spandexed stable has been (and, by and large, continues to be)...
... well: somewhat... lacking, let us say. 
As is the standard, hereabouts: let's look at the actual, published
record, shall we...?
"Let the Silence Shatter!" [MARVEL-SUPER HEROES #15; July, 1968; Archie Goodwin, author; Gene Colan, artist] opens up with a shot of a frustrated and aggrieved Black Bolt [mute leader of the alien Inhumans] taking out his pent-up anger upon an ubertechnological device of his own silent invention; and his (then-)fiance Medusa, attempting to calm and comfort him.
[Quick INHUMANS FOR DUMMIES here, for those of you reading this who (understandably) may not know much about these minor Marvel Comics characters: Secret Race of Hyper-Evolved Humans, each one blessed (or cursed) with his (or her) own unique and fantastic super power. Black Bolt (the tragic, noble, cleft-chinned one) has a voice which shatters mountains; he's not much in the cocktail party chit-chat department. Medusa (the curvaceous redhead with the way-outta-hand 'do) is his Reg'lar Saturday Night Thing; she has Super-Hair.
[Super-Hair. God forgive me for even typing that. Super-Hair.]
"I know how you long to give voice to your feelings," the tonsorial tootsie soothes, sounding disturbingly like some spandexed, distaff version of Deepak Chopra; "... to free yourself of your self-imposed silence! I know the agony you face each day, for fear you might accidentally speak or shout, unleashing your destructive power on all around you!"
"If only I could help," the titan-tressed tamale further soliloquizes,
inwardly. "How it pains me not to embrace him, comfort him...
but [...] I would not have my love mistaken for pity!"
(We are deep, deeeeeep, you see, into the era wherein every single Marvel
Comics character nattered on and relentlessly on like unto one of the
cast regulars of DAYS OF OUR LIVES.)
"If none among the Inhumans can help their mighty monarch," the follicular femme concludes, turning on one shapely heel; "... what of the humans? Somewhere, there must be a person capable of creating a device to give Black Bolt the use of his voice!"
This, you see, was (and remains, to this very day) pretty much the sum and total of what Madame Medusa is/was: Black Bolt's compliant lover; resident crying towel; and general, all-around pneumatic Earth Mother Figure, in tights.
I mean: Black Bolt gets a silent case of the sulks... and here's Mommy Medusa, all cuddles and coos; sweetly and solicitously ready and willing to put everything else on hold, for just as long as Our Brooding Bruiser needs his big, dopey hand held for him. Black Bolt feels like curling up in the fetal position and sucking his thumb for few weeks or so... and here's Big Red Nursie: on call, 24/7.
This was, you see -- in essence; in practice; and upon sober, unblinking reflection
-- one seriously sick and one-sided relationship.
Be that as it may, however: the scene shifts to The Great World Outside...
and a trio of mesomorphic mooks: i.e., the Sandman (classically
competent Marvel Comics super-villain); the Wizard (classically under-achieving
Marvel Comics super-villain); and the Trapster (classically idiotic spandexed
ubergoober; and Marvel's answer to the likes of DC Comics' own Captain
Boomerang).
Said trio, you see, comprises three quarters of former Fantastic Four tag team, the Frightful Four; and (self-)appointed leader the Wizard has plans both long and short range necessitating their reuniting with the remaining 25% of their roster: namely, former super-villainess Madame Medusa.
"Whaddya mean," a plainly puzzled Sandman inquires, as a coolly calculating Wizard gazes implacably at an image of the distaff Inhuman on one of his wall monitors; "... she's one of our reasons for bein' in Europe? I thought you were after a more concentrated power source for that ID Ray of yours!"
"So I am, Sandman," the Wizard replies, evenly; "... and what I seek is in this area! But to steal it... we'll need the full power of the Frightful Four!"
(... which should give you all a pretty good idea of just how collectively
laughable and inept these career losers are, really. I mean: they need someone with SUPER-HAIR, in order to be counted truly
formidable.)
The Carrot-Topped Concubine, in the meantime, has more immediate and pressing concerns; as her sashaying along the picturesque streets of Paris has triggered the (seemingly) inborn killit-killit-KILLIT impulse of your average, pinheaded Marvel Comics civilian types.
"That swirling mass of living hair!"
one startled onlooker stammers. "The girl is... inhuman!"
(Not too shabby a guess, really, when one considers that it came from a guy
who -- in all painful likelihood -- worships Jerry Lewis.)
"Stop her -- rapidement -- before she mmurders someone!" a more elderly gentleman exhorts; keenly aware, he, of the natural linkage between mousse and mayhem.
"Because I am different," Medusa seethes; "... you think the worst of me! I should have expected as much from humans!"
(Yes, yes: Unca Cheeks knows precisely how damn silly those two
sentences look, juxtaposed one with another, thankyouverymuch. Which puts
him one up on whoever it was who edited this four-color floperoo, obviously.)
Undaunted at the prospect of facing down a woman armed with her very own (*snicker*) SUPER-HAIR: the angry mob surges towards the equally resolute Braided Bimbette...
... occasioning, in turn, a rapid long-distance response on the part of the wily Wizard.
"Why let this childish charade continue?" the criminal mastermind snickers. (A sentiment which the readers of the day -- God alone knows -- must have been echoing, at this junccture.) "The sooner she's with us, the sooner we can begin!"
"Also -- " (the Wizard continues, twisting a knob on his computer console) " -- it provides an excellent opportunity to test the newly augmented long-distance powers of my anti-grav machine!"
... and -- with no more storytelling preamble tthan that -- Madame Medusa finds herself a-whizzin' through the sunny skies of Gay Paree!
"Nom du chien!" one of the assembled onlookers blurts, in a line of
dialogue which -- betcha a dollar -- the (lamentably) late Mr. Goodwin probably
regretted, afterwards. "In addition to her devilish hair
-- she flies!"
S-U-P-E-R H-A-I-R.
[::shakes head in silent, bemused wonderment::]
That Jack Kirby, boy. I'm tellin' ya. Whatta card,
huh...?
Finding herself, at length, unceremoniously deposited before what appears to be a long-abandoned chateau, Medusa -- cognizant, doubtless, of the fact that there are still eighteen l-o-n-n-n-n-g pages to go in this tawdry little pseudo-epic, yet -- cautiously braves the Stygian darkness of same.
"By trailing my hair across the floor," a brazen
and wholly shameless Goodwin has Medusa ruminate; "... I sense the throb
of power equipment through the stone... it grows stronger
as I move in this direction!" As does this little gobbler's foul
and unholy aroma, I dare say.
"The warning light!" the Wizard brays to his twin fellows. "Medusa's at the lab door! Trapster! Sandman! To your places! [...] Be ready, both of you! I suspect it will take a struggle to get Medusa to listen to our plan!"
"There won't be any struggle, Wizard," a swaggering Sandman confidently avers. " 'Cause there's no way that hair of hers can hang on to my sandy body!"
In a scene bizarrely reminiscent of those old Charles Atlas "Hero of the Beach" ads, however: the cocky cutpurse ends up getting sand kicked in his own face, as the shapely Inhuman's fearsome follicles -- what the hell; I'm drunk enough to type it if you're drunk enough to read it -- rise up like some great, shaggy anaconda and lunge towards her foeman.
"Your insolence has improved no more than your judgment," a hard- eyed Medusa grits. "I don't need to hold you... when I can swirl my hair into a solid mass, and strike -- !"
My God, but I hope Gene Colan was paid top dollar for illustrating
this codswallop.
"... and by unwinding my tresses at high speed," she continues; "... the sand particles of your body are hurled about the room!" [Sic]
SUUUUUUUUUUUPER HAAAAAAIIIIIIIR! Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba-baaaa!
SUUUUUUUUUUUPER HAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRR -- !!
Just before Madame Medusa can use her all-powerful 'do to whip up on the Avengers; discover a lasting cure for bone cancer; and conquer all of the known space-time continuum, entire: the Trapster gooshes a great, sticky wad of paste all over her head.
"I must act before the paste solidifies," a despairing Medusa nonetheless resolves. "If I strain, I can [Pick One]:
A.) "... whirl even the stuck-together strands like a giant fan -- !"
B.) "... hobble my way towards the nearest corner... leaving a moist, gluey trail in my wake, like some great and improbable snail -- !"
C.) "... topple over backwards... affix myself to the floor... and then distract the three of them by whimpering for mercy like a whipped spaniel puppy -- !"
D.) "... do not a damned thing, actually. Except maybe
stand here and wonder why those bastards at Marvel didn't give me a real
super-power, f'chrissakes. Like, say, Matter-Eater Lad's.
Or Razorback's, even."
"Listen to me!" the Wizard demands, from across the room. "The
one thing you desire most, I can give you -- !" (Oh,
sure... like this yip-yop might actually have met a real, working writer,
someplace...)
"With my help," the eeeeevil genius smoothly continues; "... Black Bolt need never fear his voice again!"
"Your specialty is anti-gravity," Medusa observes, surreptitiously referring to her dog-eared and well-worn copy of HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE. "What do you know about harnessing sound?"
"Nothing is beyond me!" the bearded baddie confidently retorts. "Am I not called the Wizard?"
(Boy... hard to argue with logic like that, huh...?)
Thumbing the switch to one of his ubiquitous ubergadgets, then: the Wizard bombards the startled Inhuman with wave after wave of bone-
shattering sound; leaving her (ultimately) semi-conscious and gasping on the stone floor of the chateau.
"I'm still not without doubt, Wizard," a sticky and reeling Madame Medusa offers, once the cannons and klaxons have stopped kaBOOMing between her shell-like ears. "How can anything so destructive be used to aid the one I love?"
"As it now stands," the garishly-garbed gunsel reluctantly confides; "... it can't! But, by simply reversing the process of the Ultra-Amplifier, it could be turned into a super-modulator! And that would give Black Bolt control over the dread destructiveness of his voice!"
(Oh, hell... don't ask me if that made any bloody sense whatsoever.
E-mail Perfesser Quentin, f'cryin' out loud.
Psuedo-scientific comic book bibble-babble is his department.)
"But I know you and your wiles, Wizard" a muy suspicious Medusa counters. "Your help will have a high price!"
"On the contrary," His Royal Doofiness soothes; "... I ask very little! As individuals, we are all formidable --"
[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE: "Glue guns." Super-Hair.
Shyeah.]
" -- but as a team, we were invincible," he continues, conveniently glossing over all those occasions in the past the four of them had their respective hinders whupped -- singly, and collectively -- by the Fantastic Four; Spider-Man; Daredevil; Captain America; the Incredible Hulk; and "One-Armed Agnes," the withered and crone-like Marvel Comics receptionist. "I want you to rejoin the Frightful Four... permanently!"
"To again become a criminal," Our Much-Dismayed Miss bleakly ponders. "It means giving up everything... abandoning my friends, my relatives... severing the proud bond of the Inhumans... and, most of all... [Pick One]:
A.) "... sacrificing the love of... Black Bolt!"
B.) "... chocolate-flavored Moon Pies! Almost impossible to get your hands on, when you're constantly on the run from the law... oh, god... oh, sweet, dearest GOD... Moon Pies! MOOOOOOOON Pies -- !"
C.) "... an almost certain 'shot' at that Lady Clairol commercial endorsement!"
D.) "... whatever pitiably few scraps of meta-fictive dignity
I have left, hanging out with these four-color feebolas.
Not that chillin' with a big doggy by the name of 'Lockjaw' with a freakin'
tuning fork sticking out of his cranium leaves much room for bragging
rights, either, come to think."
"What is my happiness," the Femme Follicular concludes; true to her (male-scripted) nature as a big, soft, self-sacrificing kewpie doll deluxe; "... if the Wizard's device can free my beloved from such a burden?"
"Unfortunately," the Wizard silkily interjects, just as soon as Madame Medusa has given the whole life-of-crime dealie the big okey-dokey; "... to make the modulator practical, a far more concentrated power source than we have available is needed! [...] There's a newly discovered fissionable material that can do the job! If you're willing to help us steal it from the NATO lab where it's kept!"
"Whatever is necessary to aid Black Bolt," the love-struck lassie murmurs, caressing the nearest wall in the typically disconcerting manner made infamous by the way, way sexually repressed Marvel Comics heroines of the day; "... I shall do!"
With your kind permission, then, campers and camperettes: your bleary-eyed and trembling Unca Cheeks is gonna just skip right over the four pages following, in which Nothing Much Whatsoever Happens or is made manifest, save for:
1.) We learn that the given name of the "fissionable material"
in question is, in plain point of fact, "Quadranium 99." (... and a darned
good idea it must have seemed at the time, too, I daresay.)
2.) The newly re-augmented Frightful Four make hasty sky tracks towards the aforementioned NATO installation in the (comparative) class and comfort of the Wizard's "Anti-Grav Ship": which resembles nothing so much, upon sober reflection, as a hyper-thyroidal bocce ball, with windows; and --
3.) ... upon their arrival at said NATO installation: the Sandman and the Trapster both open up whatever puny, piddling stores of WhupAss they happen to have saved up, over the years, and pretty much go to town on the hinders of the armed guardsmen and sentries therein...
... which brings us all the way up to Page Nineteen; and a reluctant Madame Medusa's finding herself staring at the business end of a massive, adamantine NATO vault.
"The vault is outfitted with an intensified thermite charge," the Wizard calls down helpfully to a perplexed-seeming Medusa. "It will erupt if the lock is forced in even the slightest way -- !"
"Force is not my method, Wizard," the Inhuman snootily retorts.
"Medusa relies on skill!" (Yeah. Like you have any flippin'
choice in the matter, you mean. You GO, "Super-Hair.")
"Now, more than ever," Dame Medusa concludes; "... I see why such as the Sandman could not perform this task!"
Okay. Time Out, then, whilst your naturally quizzical Unca Cheeks avails himself of the opportunity to make the following queries of all and sundry, hereabouts:
1.) Why can't the Sandman just sorta... I dunno... ooze himself through the very same cracks in the vault's casing as Medusa's (presumably) much thicker hair, and open the door that way?
2.) For that matter: one of these four goobers calls himself
the Trapster, for the luvva Odin! Shouldn't disarming actual,
for-real... whaddyacallem... TRAPS and suchlike fall somewhere into his
silly, spandexed purview? What: they're keeping this clown around
for his rugged good looks, or something...?
3.) Finally: wouldn't a vault door which exploded upon virtual
contact actually make your average big deal, Big League super-felon's
job easier, rather than more difficult...?
I mean: pretend (just for a moment, is all) that Unca Cheeks was a Lycra'd-and-larcenous baddie by the name of... oh, say... "The Plush Phantom," 'kay?
THE WIZARD: "The vault is outfitted with an intensified thermite charge! It will erupt if the lock is forced in even the slightest way -- !"
PLUSH PHANTOM [studying the vault, critically]: "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So are my hemorrhoids, f'chrissakes. You want I should give them the quick once-over, as well...?"
THE WIZARD: "Seek not to betray me on this, Plush Wonder! Remember: what you do now, you do for the sake of your silent, beloved Black Bolt --!"
PLUSH PHANTOM [removing a single steel ball bearing from his Utility Belt; taking a step backwards from the vault, and squinting as if taking dead aim]: "Shyeah. Right. Like I care whether or not the big dummy loser ever yodels in public again or not. A voice like Pee Wee Herman, he's got. Decided preference for singing old Starland Vocal Band songs to himself, wherever he went. His drawing that Dares-Not- Make-Utterance-In-Public card was the best thing that ever happened to my people, you want the stone truth."
THE WIZARD: "Then you are saying you care not if --?"
[Sound of GARGANTUAN, EARDRUM-BURSTING EXPLOSION, as the Plush Phantom lobs the ball bearing; smacking the vault door dead center.]
THE WIZARD [shrieking like the big, excitable school girl he is]: "You... you cotton-stuffed cretin! What did you do to the -- ?!?"
PLUSH PHANTOM [shrugging nonchalantly in the general direction of the
wide-open entryway where the unyielding vault door used to be]: "Hey... o-p-e-n you wanted, right? O-p-e-n you've got."
[whips out lethal-looking ray blaster; levels it at the open-mouthed
Wizard] "Now... you're probably thinking, right about now: 'What could I possibly have tucked away in my wallet to show my appreciation
with'...?"
I'm telling you: I could bloody rule the Marvel Universe in six
months, if I wanted to. Three months, if allowed unrestricted
access to the Sub- Mariner and the Hulk.
Well: one dopey plot point leads to another... and Madame Medusa ends up back aboard the "Anti-Grav Ship," clutching the howitzer shell- like canister of Quadranium 99 to her howitzer shell-like bosoms; whereupon, the remaining three-quarters of Frightful Four, Ltd. call the question to a vote, and unaminously elect to beat the holy living crap out of her.
... or, rather, would have... if not for the
awesome, mind-boggling power of Madame Medusa's fabulous SUUUUUUUUPERRRRR
HAAAAAAIIIRRRRR -- !!
Utilizing her... ummmmmm... unique meta-abilities to hold off the other three in the enclosed space of the Anti-Grav Ship, Medusa manages to use her (Jesus whack me with a stick if I lie) "titanium-hard tresses" to sabotage the controls governing said conveyance, with the predictable result that the latter ends up scoot-scooting this way and that way across the Parisian skies like unto an amphetamine-crazed hummingbird.
"But your audacity still serves you ill, my dear," the Wizard
growls; advancing implacably towards her, anti-gravity discs in hand.
"For, at last... you're vulnerable to me!" (Oh. Eeek.)
Affixing said discs to the Quadranium 99 canister with the dealy aim of a man who's terrorized carnival "penny pitch" tents from one end of the country to the other, and back again: the Wizard forces Madame Medusa to undertake a final "doomsday" gambit --
("Once in the Wizard's hands," she panics; "... it will power his ID Ray Gun... then none in the world -- human or Inhuman -- may count themselves safe!")
-- namely: flinging both herself and said canister headlong out
of the craft... and into the unforgiving climes of the outermost edge of Earth's
stratosphere.
"Never mind that, fool!" the Wizard blubbers. "It's [an errant shot from the Trapster's paste gun] sealed us inside here... we're trapped! And the ship is out of control... heading toward the sea!"
"I've failed in what I set out to do," a plummeting Madame Medusa philosophizes,
on her way towards a sudden, jarring impact with the local terra firma.
"And, in the name of aiding Black Bolt, I've but added yet another incident
the humans may hold against our race! Perhaps... it is best
this way!" (Welllllll... yeah. Maybe. Perhaps.)
However: this brave (and ardently supported) resolve on Medusa's part flags at the critical moment; and so she --
... well. Unca Cheeks s'poses you all really better check this
one out for yourselves.
"By fanning out the great mass of my hair," the plucky and resourceful Inhuman calmly posits, on her way to Pancake City; "... by calling upon all my control to stiffen it... I give myself limited glide power!"
Ummmmmm...
... would you all kindly... ahhhhh... excuse your Unca Cheeks for a moment here, please...?
[:: Strides quickly from the room; shuts door behind him::]
BWAH-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa --!!
[::Re-enters room, looking markedly more composed. Except for the odd assortment of pronounced facial tics::]
Ooooooooooookay, then.
The story lumbers to an ungainly close with the sudden, swooping arrival on the scene of The Inhuman Studmeister, Black Bolt, his own improbably noble and bicep'd self; comin' for to carry his pliable Playmate back home to the Inhumans' hidden "Great Refuge," for more quasi- Freudian tea and super-sympathy.
"But dare I hope," a morose Medusa muses; "... after an apparent return to criminal life, that the love we shared will be unchanged?"
More's the pity, Madame; yes.
Be here in fourteen, pals'n'gals... when we take a critical, narrow-eyed gander at the prototypical Marvel Comics treatment of one Wanda Frank Maximoff...
... a.k.a., the Scarlet Witch.
Nothing is beyond me! Am I not called Unca Cheeks -- ?!?
The (Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel Comics (PAGE TWO)
The (Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel Comics (PAGE THREE)
The (Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel Comics (PAGE FOUR)
The (Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel Comics (PAGE FIVE)
The (Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel
Comics (PAGE SIX)
The (Sometimes) Muddled Image of Women In Marvel Comics
(PAGE SEVEN)
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