COMICS ARE FOR BOYS. At least, that appeared to be the prevailing wisdom among comics publishers during the post-war years. Even in 1947, when comic creator superstars Joe Simon and Jack Kirby invented the romance comic and attracted a whole new female audience, the women in comics were depicted as either terrifying dragon ladies or as meek homemakers. There didn't seem to be anything in between. Except maybe for Wonder Woman. I'm still not sure where she fits in ... OK, so Sue Storm was the final member of the FF to be awarded a pinup page (she had to wait till issue 10), and she's described here as "Glamorous" rather than as smart or resourceful or any number of more appropriate adjectives, but at least she's in the team. Wonder Woman was created by DC's psychology consultant William Moulton Marston. Based partly on his wife Elizabeth and partly on his menage-a-trois lover, Olive Byrne, Wonder Woman was conceived as an answer to the testosterone-heavy ...
AS THE DAYS of Marty Goodman's Atlas Comics drew to a close in the late 1950s, the publisher was casting around for the Next Big Thing. Locked in to a draconian distribution contract with arch rivals DC Comics, Goodman was limited to a tight eight titles per month and if he needed to launch a new title, he was forced to cancel an existing one. So, feeling that mystery and science fiction was the coming trend Goodman decided to launch three new comics to complement the existing Journey into Mystery, World of Fantasy and Strange Tales titles. The new books were Strange Worlds , beginning in December 1958 and replacing the cancelled Navy Combat , and Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish , both debuting in January 1959, replacing the cancelled Homer the Happy Ghost and Miss America . Journey into Mystery and Strange Tales had been around since the twilight of the Golden Age and changed in content according to Martin Goodman's take on his customers' tastes. So they bega...