- How are you doing, you wonderful nerd? Excited for the Wonder
Woman movie, perhaps? One of the world's most
iconic superheroes is finally getting her own solo film
after over 75 years of history! And to mark this occasion,
we'll be whipping out the good ole' lasso of truth to
examine and explain some of Diana Prince's biggest
changes over the years. Today, specifically, we'll be
looking at her major reboot during the late '60s and early '70s where DC attempted to
Marvelize Wonder Woman. They took a character
they saw as too confusing, and tried to fix her by making her more like a Marvel character, and in the process created
the single most uncomfortably embarrassing period of Diana
Prince's comic book career. It was a story so awful,
so revolted by the fans, so backward and behind the times that even the creators of the comics
refuse to defend them today. - It's not one of the
most glorious chapters in my comic book career. - I'm, of course talking,
about the Mod Era Wonder Woman, fashion-obsessed, boy-crazy, emotionally unstable
kung-fu warrior of the '70s. And suffering Sappho, it was gods awful. So, in this video, I
want to attempt to answer three questions: What exactly happened? How bad was it really? And who is to blame for it? I mean, you read the title and thumbnail. You know a twist is coming. We should start by addressing
what this series was for those who may have never heard of it. For a little context, up
until around the 1970s, Wonder Woman was primarily
written by two people. First was, of course,
William Moulton Marston who created the character in 1941 and is credited with most of her stories until his death just a few
short years later in 1947. After Marston, Wonder
Woman's stories were written by Robert Kanigher, who stayed on as the series writer for two decades! After all that time
writing the same character, Kanigher was running out of ideas and the fanbase got
bored with Wonder Woman. It was only selling around
200,000 copies per issue! So basically no one was reading it! See, that's a joke because modern comics rarely
come close to that number. Either way, in 1968 DC
Comics removed Kanigher from the title and gave the
series to writer Denny O'Neil and artist Mike Sekowsky
who took over in issue #178. Over the first two issues, O'Neil and Sekowsky effectively
rebooted Wonder Woman, changing and getting rid of
massive portions of her lore until she was almost unrecognizable as the Amazon warrior we know her to be. Diana Prince gave up her costume, weapons, and powers becoming mortal
while the Amazons left for another dimension to
recharge their powers. Now powerless, Diana learned
kung fu under the tutelage of a blind martial artist named I-Ching. Her long time love interest Steve Trevor was also killed off, freeing up Wonder Woman
to have around six other love interests within a
short twenty-six issue run. She also became obsessed with mod fashion which at the time was spreading
from London to America. Instead of her spangly outfit, she would dress in clothes of that era, with a particular focus
on pure white garments. Readers were treated to shopping montages and witnessed Diana open up
her own clothing boutique called Mod-Ly Modern. Because of the visual change and the focus on the mod subculture, this
period of the character's history is referred to as
the mod era Wonder Woman. O'Neil and Sekowsky were
tasked with revamping and relaunching Wonder
Woman to be more relevant in that time period with a
focus on the culture and trends of the decade, and, of course,
the women's liberation groups that had started forming
all across the country. I have no doubt that O'Neil and Sekowsky had the best of intentions. They wanted to tell a real story of a real woman in the real world. No super powers. No spandex costume or secret identity. They thought they were doing
the right thing, but nope! They screwed it up. They took the single most
iconic and empowering female superhero and stole
her powers along with everything else that made
Wonder Woman Wonder Woman. If you heard me describing a fashionable, karate chopping Diana Prince and thought, "Actually, that sounds pretty rad!" Allow me to ruin those thoughts. Because, I get it. On the surface, that sounds
at least a little interesting. But once you start looking
carefully at the details within the stories, it quickly becomes apparent that this whole thing was
a massive backward failure that no amount of online
articles about how "it's really not that bad," can save. To summarize the two issue
arc that started this saga, Steve Trevor, was arrested for a murder that he didn't commit
at a hippie club called the Tangerine Trolley. To exonerate him, Diana goes undercover to
infiltrate the hippie community and find someone who could
confirm Steve's alibi. Adhering to the classic teen movie trope, Diana takes off her
glasses, gets a new hairdo, and dons trendy clothes,
and she suddenly becomes more attractive than anyone realized. After being freed, Steve and
Wonder Woman find themselves cuddled up on the couch
talking about Diana. You see, Steve is not
aware that Wonder Woman and Diana Prince are the same person. For somewhere around 27 years, they had a kind of
Lois/Clark/Superman love triangle. Steve Trevor loved Wonder Woman and didn't think of Diana
as more than a friend. And yet, now Steve seems to have a change of heart towards
Diana as he remarks, "She's so much more than what
I thought she was-in fact, "I think I'll ask her
out one of these days "and really get to know her." Could this be due to the simple fact that Diana had helped to
prove Steve's innocence? I guess, but it's not like Diana hadn't helped Steve out before. But she did so looking like this, and now she looked like this. Steve's comment about
Diana prompted Wonder Woman to think to herself, "Why, this is silly. "I can't be jealous of myself-can I? "If he can fall for Diana like this, "he can fall for any woman! "And I'll lose him forever
if I don't do something "to keep him interested in me! "Wonder Woman must change." In the following issue, a lot happens. Steve Trevor was once again in peril, and Diana was about to head
out and save him when she was suddenly summoned to
Themyscira by Queen Hippolyta. The Amazons had been on
Earth for 10,000 years, but their power was weakening, and they need to recharge
in another dimension. But Wonder Woman refused to leave because Steve still needed her help. Left with no other option,
Diana relinquished her costume, weapons, and powers and watched as Paradise
Island vanished from Earth. That's an incredibly heroic sacrifice giving up everything to help Steve Trevor. And she did so without hesitation. She went from powerful Amazon to earthly mortal in less than two pages. But as Tim Hanley points out in his book Wonder Woman Unbound, it's a little problematic. "Reading between the lines of
her rapid decision to give up "her superpowers, the fact is
that Diana didn't need to be "Wonder Woman to be with Steve anymore. "If Queen Hippolyta had
summoned Wonder Woman home "before Diana's mod makeover, "the depowered wallflower
Diana Prince would have been "all alone, because Steve
didn't care about her at all. "But now Steve was
interested in Diana and, "if mentioning asking
her out while on a date "with Wonder Woman was any indication, "he seemed to like Diana
more than Wonder Woman. "Not only could she remain behind "and date Steve as Diana Prince, "but she would be giving
Steve the woman he preferred. "No wonder she was so quick
to decide to stay behind. "It was a win-win situation
for the man she loved." Basically, by trying to setup
Diana Prince as a modern, independent female superhero during the women's liberation movement, O'Neil and Sekowsky
unintentionally created a version of the character whose
actions were dictated by her boyfriend's desires. Yikes. Then there was her interaction
with the Justice League. Because Wonder Woman no
longer had powers, she recused herself from the team in
Justice League of America #69. "I'm no more than an ordinary mortal now "much as I admire the Justice League, "I feel I no longer have a place in it!" Batman of all people was the
first one to chime in with, with quote, "Feel free to return anytime." Y'know, if having superpowers
is a prerequisite for being a member of the Justice League,
why are you there, Batman? How about you, Green Arrow? Got any explanations? No? Everyone here is a skilled warrior, and the only difference is that
Diana happens to be a woman? Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, not cool. That issue of Justice League was also written by
Denny O'Neil, by the way. So good job. And look, I get it. DC Comics was trying to make
Diana Prince more independent. They took her away from the Amazons. They took her away from
the Justice League. They even killed off Steve Trevor. Great. Fine. But they could have come up with a better way to go about it
that actually made sense. Or, as much sense as you
can make for a character based in Greek mythology. And for all that setup,
it's not like Wonder Woman was wholly independent in her own comic. After she had relinquished her powers, she met a blind martial artist
named I-Ching who teaches her kung fu over the course of a few months. The two of them acted as partners, fighting crime and righting wrongs. I-Ching was such a crucial
part of the new book that there were a few months
when the comic was called The Incredible I-Ching
and the New Wonder Woman. Let me restate that because I don't want to
undersell how bonkers this is. There was a time when Wonder Woman, one of the most recognizable
superheroes of all time, was second-billed under this
nobody on her own comic. What? Now, we are barely three
issues into this series, so let me give you some of
the average story elements present throughout this comic run. After her initial makeover, Diana Prince became obsessed
with fashion and shopping. One caption in issue #182 read, quote, "Happiness for any healthy,
red-blooded young gal, "is bedecking herself in
the latest fashion finery, "and our Wonder Woman just
happens to be a healthy, "red-blooded young gal," end quote. Because she was so trendy and
beautiful, Diana attracted the attention of many
men after Steve Trevor. In these 26 issues that the series lasted, she was involved with
seven different guys. Which is not a bad thing, but it is a notable difference
from how Wonder Woman was previously written,
along with her new attitude. Diana used to be kind,
caring, and rational. She would try to help her
villains, not just defeat them. But now, Wonder Woman was recklessly rushing into battle fueled by anger. If O'Neil and Sekowsky were
trying to portray an ordinary, everyday woman in Diana Prince, then their concept of an average
female was one of intense, hysterical emotion that made
rationality an impossibility. It's a ridiculously backward cliche. And we have yet to touch
on the craziest story throughout this whole run, the final issue that read
on the cover read, quote, Special Women's Lib Issue! So yeah, buckle up. Diana Prince gets a job as a spokeswoman for Grandee's department store. All she has to do is wear
Mr. Grandee's clothes, live a fancy, high-profile life, and endorse the Grandee brand. So again, yet another
fashion-focused plot point. But it turns out that Mr. Grandee is secretly paying all
his female employees below the legal minimum wage, and Diana's friend Cathy
wants to expose him. After a brief and
incomprehensible debate about interstate commerce law, Wonder
Woman finally outright says, quote, "I'm all for equal wages, too! "But I'm not a joiner. "I wouldn't fit with your group. "In most cases, I don't even like women?" End quote. This interaction is Diana
Prince, Wonder Woman, female icon effectively saying, "Women's lib is great and all, "but I don't really want
to be an active participant "or support it in any meaningful way." At a pivotal time when the world needed good female role models to look up to, Wonder Woman stood by saying, "Ooh, pass." As the story went on, they
eventually did take down Mr. Grandee's department store. As Wonder Woman reflects on
how accomplished she feels for doing some good for her fellow women, a crowd marches in arguing that shutting down the business was
actually counterproductive. Sure, women were being underpaid, but at least they had jobs of some kind. Now that the store is gone,
250 women are jobless, and Wonder Woman needs to answer to that. What will Diana do now? The final panel asks. Well, nothing, because
in the very next issue this entire mod era of
Wonder Woman will be undone. This story will remain unfinished; many plot points will be
erased from canon as well as Diana's own memory after she blacks out during a fight with a
sniper who kills I-Ching. The Amazons come back from their vacation and restore Wonder Woman
to how she used to be before all this mess started. This reboot was in no
small part due to real life female leaders demanding
that DC Comics bring back the original Wonder Woman
with whom they had grown up. At least, that was the sentiment. What ended up happening was
people cherry picking the parts of the old Wonder Woman that they liked while throwing out most
of the problematic stuff like Marston's affinity
for bondage imagery. Which, yeah, we'll make
a video about that, probably next week or so because that's the one
thing people want to discuss in regards to the Golden Age Wonder Woman. The point remains, this new
new Wonder Woman became the one we'd all recognize today,
from the Lynda Carter series, the many animated appearances, and perhaps the very first
theatrical Wonder Woman movie! So now we get to the question of who is to blame for all of this. Your first instinct might
be to blame Denny O'Neil and Mike Sekowsky because, y'know, they were the ones actually
making this comic book. Don't get me wrong, they
certainly deserve a lot of the blame, except for
the Women's Lib issue which was written by Samuel R. Delany, but it's important to consider the state of the comic book industry at this time. DC Comics was a powerhouse
in the Golden Age of the 40s. Superman, Batman, Wonder
Woman, and many more characters jump started the massive
superhero comic boom. Unfortunately, it was
because of their popularity that Fredric Wertham called
them out explicitly in his book Seduction of the Innocent
about what he saw as the potentially dangerous effects that comic books had on children. We've talked about it here. As Wertham went on his
crusade against comics and the Comics Code Authority
was put in place to censor the industry harshly, DC
was one of the companies in the spotlight getting torn apart. One smaller company named
Atlas Comics, however, was spared from the
wrath because they were only a C-list publisher at best. As the 1960s approached,
they started launching brand new superhero stories
under the name: Marvel Comics. Their fresh new characters
like the Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and Spider-Man became roaring successes ushering in what many refer to as
the Marvel Age of comics. But it's not like DC stopped
printing superhero stories. They were also introducing
new successful characters like Barry Allen's The Flash,
Hal Jordan's Green Lantern, and they, of course, kept writing Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. So what made Marvel so different? What set their heroes apart from what DC had been doing for years? Well for starters, Marvel put
their heroes in real cities, mostly crowding them in New York. DC, on the other hand, had the
fictional cities like Gotham, Metropolis, Central City, and so on. Marvel also gave a lot of attention to their alter egos of their heroes. Where the primary focus of a
Batman comic was simply Batman, the main focus of a Spider-Man
comic was Peter Parker who just so happened to be the
friendly neighborhood web-head. Marvel dove into the personal
lives of their heroes. They had lives outside of their costumes with real struggles. Over at DC, on the other hand, the biggest problems
Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince ever had were cliche romantic woes that
didn't have any real weight or consequence from issue to issue. DC stories might have been
fun and silly in those days, but Marvel made readers actually care and relate to the person under the mask. Marvel also tended to be more
culturally relevant than DC. The classic example being the mutant X-Men who acted as stand-ins for
persecuted social groups. All of these factors made
Marvel's comics feel real and relevant to the reader where
DC lagged behind the times. And this is precisely why
O'Neil and Sekowsky were tasked with shaking things up
for Wonder Woman's comic. If you read through the
mod era Wonder Woman with this context, you
can see certain stories and conventions that feel very Marvel. First, they wanted to make
the reader care more about Wonder Woman as an individual, so they took away her powers and costume in favor of focusing on her personal life as Diana Prince, boutique owner. They wanted to make her more identifiable. As Sekowsky pointed out,
quote, "I didn't see how a kid, "male or female, could relate
to the Amazon Wonder Woman. "It was so far removed from their world. "I felt girls might want to
read about a super female "in the real world,
something very current." End quote. And right here is where I would insert a very clever and original joke about how DC thinks Wonder
Woman is too confusing yet Marvel released two movies with a talking raccoon and tree monster. I think I'm the very first person on the internet to make that observation. I'm very proud. See the joke is that everyone says that. And it just gets funnier every time. O'Neil and Sekowsky also
placed their Wonder Woman in a real city instead of a fictional one. Taking a hint from Marvel directly, Diana's stories were set in New York. The final thing DC did to
this new Wonder Woman was try ever so hard to make her
socially relevant because again, that's what Marvel was doing. You get the idea. They were only trying to replicate Marvel's formula for success, but they could not have
failed any more spectacularly. O'Neil and Sekowsky tried
turning Diana Prince into Wonder Woman, instead
of just strengthening Diana Prince as the other
half of Wonder Woman. This made the character
weakened by her alter ego instead of allowing that
alter ego to shine and add complexity with the already
strong Wonder Woman herself. But to their credit, no one involved with these
stories seems to defend them. Denny O'Neil ceaselessly
apologizes for them and recognizes the mistakes that he made. - They said that I had taken the only powerful woman in comics and had taken her power away from her. It is now many years later and I absolutely see what
they were talking about - Good on ya Denny! Of course, this is just one short chapter in
Wonder Woman's history. In the next video, we're going to be going back
to the beginning to talk about the original Wonder Woman and how the intentions of her creator, William Moulton Marston,
are often misinterpreted. So, yeah, that bondage thing. And Diana's sexuality. Plus, we'll discuss how
Marston created Wonder Woman not for young girls to read, but for young boys to get them used to the idea of what he saw
as the inevitable matriarchy. All that and more, next time! So make sure to hit that
big, sexy subscribe button and tap the bell icon to
join the notification squad! You'll be in good company. In the meantime, I'd love to know your thoughts
on mod era Wonder Woman. Do you find it as backward
and terrible as I do? Or do you think it's not as
bad as I've made it out to be and I'm just reading
between the panels too much? I'd love to know your thoughts. We'll address some of them in an upcoming comment live stream! As always, I want to
give a massive shoutout to all of the Patreons, Cristoffer
Lange, Paterick Caddery, Alberto Ramirez, Elizabeth
Moncel, and Austin Rogers. And of course all of the
other wonderful nerds who support us over on Patreon
and these are their names. If you like the stuff that we do, if you want your name here,
go to Patreon.com/NerdSync! Until next time my name
is Scott, reminding you to read between the panels and
grow smarter through comics. See ya!
