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Comics Herstory: Wonder Woman

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ico001177-_sx360_ql80_ttd_Elizabeth Holloway Marston wasn’t a comic writer, artist, colorist, or editor, but her impact on the genre was great all the same. Marston was a psychologist married to William Moulton Marston, who was also a psychologist and the creator of Wonder Woman. Elizabeth, though not credited as an author in William’s work, shared many of his discoveries.

Elizabeth is largely uncredited in the creation of Wonder Woman, even though both she and Olive Byrne (a former graduate student of William’s who shared an extended relationship with both him and Elizabeth) served as inspiration for the character. Wonder Woman’s appearance was based on that of Olive Byrne, while the idea for her actual creation was Marston’s. Wonder Woman possesses traits of both women, including independence, intelligence, and confidence.

William called Wonder Woman psychological propaganda for the type of woman after whom others should model themselves. In a 1992 article, the New York Times gave Elizabeth Marston the title of “Wonder Woman’s Mom” for her role in the character’s creation. After her death in 1993, her son Peter said that he has memories of Marston demanding that William write a female hero because there were too many men. Upon hearing about his idea for a new comic, Marston famously told her husband, “Fine. But make her a woman.”

Wonder Woman first appeared in All Star Comics #8 in 1941, and was given her own series with Sensation Comics shortly after. Dorothy Woolfolk (DC’s first woman editor) also contributed to the establishment of Wonder Woman’s character, guiding William through writing Wonder Woman’s weaknesses in an appropriate way (meaning, generally, featuring as little bondage as possible).

Wonder Woman was introduced into newspapers in 1944, in a daily strip written by William. DC also put Joye Hummel on writing duties, hoping that her more innocent stories would tone down the glaring bondage themes present in William’s writing. The daily strip only lasted a year, and was recently released in a collected volume by IDW.

Throughout Wonder Woman’s seventy-plus year history, women have always played an essential part. Women were present in her creation with Elizabeth Moulton Marston and Olive Byrne and in the creation of her character and presence in comics with Dorothy Woolfolk. Women have also been essential in establishing her character and turning her into a household name, and keeping her a feminist icon throughout the years, beginning with Joye Hummel through, more recently, Gail Simone. Until recently, Wonder Woman was the only female superhero to have her own television show. Her legacy as one of the most popular superheroines of all time will continue with Gal Godot‘s portrayal in Batman v Superman and Wonder Woman in 2017. 

Comics Herstory: Dorothy Woolfolk

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sup61tale1In the 1940s, Dorothy Woolfolk’s success was another man’s Kryptonite. (Literally.) Woolfolk had an impressive resumé and became a prominent comics editor in the 1940s. She got her start at All-American Publications, which would later merge with other publishers to become DC Comics, and was the first woman to edit for DC. Woolfolk also edited books for Timely Comics, Marvel’s predecessor, and Entertainment Comics.

It’s hard to imagine Superman without Kryptonite, but Kryptonite wasn’t introduced into comics until 1949, more than ten years after Superman’s inception in 1938. Dorothy Woolfolk was responsible for Superman’s adverse reaction to Kryptonite, having found his perfection lacking. She said that he would become a more compelling character if Superman, like the rest of us, had a vulnerability. Kryptonite was introduced in Superman #61, “Superman Returns to Krypton!” when it became an important and definitive part of the Superman mythos.

Her contributions to comics were numerous, but she was also a driving force in the character of Lois Lane, and had a heavy influence in the development of her personality. Woolfolk also wrote an unknown number of Wonder Woman comics in the 1940s, which would make her the first woman to write the character (barring Elizabeth Holloway Marston, co-creator of Wonder Woman, though her contributions to the character aren’t fully known). The late Alan Kupperberg, a former artist for DC, memorialized Woolfolk in a blog post, saying that she held her own in an office that treated her disrespectfully and poked fun behind her back.

Woolfolk wrote for Orbit (a science fiction magazine) in the 1950s and returned to DC in the 1970s. There, she edited big name books like Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Young Romance, and Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane, among other superhero and romance titles. She also wrote the Donna Rockford series, a ten-book series about a teen detective, in the 1980s.

Dorothy Woolfolk died in 2000 at the age of eighty-seven, and though she isn’t a household name, her contributions to the comic industry have left a powerful impact on the personalities and makeup of the characters she worked with. She was nominated for a place in the Female Cartoonists and Comic Book Writers Hall of Fame in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, but was never inducted.