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YouTubeTape #10: Wonder Woman
The Tenth Tape: DC Dave and Doug Adamson play Tape #10, which looks at …
Wonder Woman
With co-hosts Ruth and Darrin Sutherland of the RaD Adventures Network.
Join us as we discuss the Earth-1 and Earth-2 Wonder Women and the role each plays in Crisis. We will examine the crossover issues they are involved in, including Wonder Woman’s book, Infinity, Inc, and The Legend of Wonder Woman.
Timestamps:
- 5:15 – Crisis News
- 7:46 – Ruth and Darrin Sutherland
- 26:18 – Promo: The Earth 2 Podcast
- 27:45 – Wonder Woman
- 1:17:17 – Infinite Earths Spotlight
- 1:35:26 – Promo: RaD Adventures Network
- 1:37:00 – Notes from the Multiverse
Leave comments for this episode and view episode related images at our website at: The Monitor Tapes.com / 10
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PROMO: The Earth 2 Podcast
PROMO: RaD Adventures Network
NEWS: DC Finest: Events – Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part One Trade Paperback
Music: Achilles
Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Who great story about your mom getting a tour of dc comics . Praise to all moms everywhere for the the amazing things they do and grandmothers.
That needed to be said .
Any ways not a big Wonder Woman fan that’s my little bros favorite (note little brother is now taller then big bro and he never lets forget it just call him by his nickname ice -man like the x-man character.) any ways I’m more of green lantern and flash green sliver age versions . For second g when George I thought you gonna say burns and was like ya Gracie Allen was not in the dc comics was she ? What weird comic that would as in the radio show the George burns and Gracie Allen show in there Christmas episode they once fought magic pirate to save Christmas and had a talking duck . I recommend check out the radio show you might like and the Jack Benny show and the mysterious traveler
Have made any u.k tv reference to my favorite British comdies
1. Red dwarf
2. Dads army .
3. Keeping up appearances
4. My hero
Random American shows to mention
1. The bay city rollers (American version was made by kroft brothers as well .)(they had international show as well )
2. Super human samurai syber squad
3. Memphis Wrestling 1982-1983
4.taxi
5. Andy Kaufman tv special
Despite the Bay City Rollers being from Edinburgh (my home town of course) I had no idea they had a TV show in the USA! Everyday is a school day.
We got Taxi here in the UK! You’re going to have to try harder for something super obscure here!
For balance, we never got Superfriends here (as far as I can tell), so y’all gushing about the show has no effect on us! I was probably watching Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds instead!
I don’t remember Taxi at all – I might have been too young. I do envy the Americans and their Saturday Morning Cartoons and also their Syndicated Mornings and afternoons of Cartoons. It used to drive my parents NUTS when my brother an I would get up at 6am to watch Thundercats Episodes the BBC WERE NEVER GOING TO GET TO. And Gi Joe Episodes which TV-AM could never get to show either, Transformers etc.
Maybe we should get all the Brits on this feed to do a special epsiode for Brick Crisis to discuss all the TV shows we had to suffer through to get snippets of ONE episode per WEEK of Centurions (Get Fresh I seem to recall made by Border TV) or Transformers or later on the New Captain Scarlett which was Brilliant and cut to death by ITV ….
Anyway SP I saw Superfriends on TV on holiday in the States – never saw it in the UK like EVER but I do remember the toys appearing for Super Powers.
Dont get us wrong Americans we got plenty of other shows including The Toy Line shows – just we didn’t get them that often and were barely one episode a week before they went back and reshowed previous episodes. Some even appeared on VHS to buy – Action Force (GI Joe) Transformers and M.A.S.K. all spring to mind. We did get some episodes of the likes of The Disney Cartoon hours – and we eventually got Batman TAS (but again not all in one go and often with studio bits in between). So we weren’t denied the good stuff…. Apart from Superfriends or Voltron (again a VHS find in my youth) or Robotech….. but hey we got Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulyssess 31 and Thunderbirds 2086… Anyway I’m WAY OFF topic here.
To bring things back … We did the the LIVE ACTION Wonder Woman….
Bucky, Memphis Wrestling is a pretty deep cut. Most Americans wouldn’t know it unless they were big old-school wrestling fans and/or grew up in the Memphis area. I discovered it on YouTube. Lance Russell and Dave Brown were great ringleaders of all the zany action.
Great show with the Sutherlands, Dave and Doug! I read a couple of issues of pre-Crisis Wonder Woman, but really began following the character with the coming of the George Perez run. As far as her involvement with the Crisis, I agree with Dr. Anj that it’s a shame that her “death” is so overshadowed by the deaths of Supergirl and Barry Allen.
Always great to hear Ruth and Darrin on any show. And ‘Earth Grell’ was fantastic!
One thing I have never really thought about before this discussion was how little Wonder Woman really is part of the Crisis itself. She wasn’t part of ‘The Trinity’ then. The fact that she doesn’t show up until Crisis #4 is a little crazy when you think of the position of prominence she has in the DCU right now.
Not that she has always been treated with kindness in these crossovers. You might remember in Final Crisis she is infected by Darkseid and because a war general for him.
For me, the thing that sticks out the most is how in the Crisis, Wonder Woman is ‘killed’ by the Anti-Monitor in a ‘blink and you’d miss it’ small panel. You might remember that my complaint about the Crisis was the pacing. When characters Kid Psycho and the cowboy Nighthawk have panels/whole pages dedicated to their dying including the reaction of nearby characters and Wonder Woman is just evaporated in one panel speaks to that pacing issue. Heck, Supergirl and the Flash have whole issues dedicated to their deaths.
Wonderful discussion … pun intended.
Ruth and Darrin, podcasting royalty! It was great to hear their opinions on the involvement of the Wonder Women in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, or, as they’re now calling it in recent DC comics, the Great Crisis (it’ll never catch on). I did enjoy hearing about Darrin and Ruth’s Earth, I didn’t actually know DC editors had informally christened an ‘Earth Grell’. I think in recent years I’ve seen reference to Skartaris being inside the Earth, but via a dimensional rift.
Excellent opening, boys, I loved hearing about your adventures in Crete. I bwaa-ha-haed at The Minotaur Tapes. What next, a trip to Transylvania for the Vlad Tepes?
Doug, Doug, I don’t believe you don’t know all about the New Format, you even dropped the phrase into your discussion of the Young All-Stars! Anyroadup, so far as I always understood it, the difference between Baxter and New Format was the weight of the paper, with Baxter being heavier. I’m a Baxter on my mother’s side, fascinatingly. And heavier.
How interesting to hear Darrin and Ruth‘s Great Crisis origin stories, and that Darren had the very common experience of an Andrew Preview origin… all the right comics, but not necessarily in the right order (you want ancient English telly references, you can have ancient English telly references, Doug, but you may have to explain that to Dave).
I’m impressed Darrin and Ruth read the Legend of Wonder Woman, as I wouldn’t consider that necessary research – it came after the Great Crisis, and really only touched on proceedings at the very start and the finish of the four issues – it was an excellent read, though
I disagree with Dave that Wonder Woman wasn’t terribly prominent back then, yes, her comic was on the verge of cancellation for years, but in terms of licensing she was everywhere. Possibly due to all those Super Friends cartoons she was definitely considered one of DC’s top tier, it was always Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. No way was Robin the third part of the Big Three (I hate ‘Trinity’, that has a specific meaning which doesn’t apply to superheroes), for example decades of World’s Finest splash pages that proclaimed the story starred ‘your TWO favourite heroes together together’ meaning Superman and Batman, while Robin was right there alongside them, invisible, unconsidered, unloved/
I politely disagree with Dave that Diana had a terrible 10 years before her book ended with the Middling – sorry, Great – Crisis, that was one of my favourite periods.Diana’s Bronze Age adventures were always solidly entertaining and the last few years, with Dan Mishkin and Don Heck, were fabulous. And Doug, I really do disagree, after issue 300 the Wonder Woman series was moving forward at a terrific pace. Heck, various aspects of the later issues were nicked by the post-Crisis series, such as the use of Themyscira for ‘Paradise Island’. After George Perez left Bill Loebs brought in Artemis, and longtime readers were nodding, ‘oh aye, it’s Orana all over again’.
OK, that’s me off to read an old copy of The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
Interesting fact a lot of old radio shows are available now as podcast like the Jack Benny show and the mysterious traveler and people even put sets of radio shows together . Also I think the long box crusade did one on the Sherlock Holmes radio show. And there is one called the black museum and the third man you would both enjoy
People are gonna start calling me Mr radio if keep talking about American old time radio
I’ve also listened to big finish audio dramas over doctor who , Sherlock Holmes and dark shadows
Nothing wrong with knowing stuff Bucky, be proud!
Thanks appreciate it
Random radio fact did you know marry Livingston the real life wive of Jack Benny her maiden name was Marx and yes she was related to the Marx brothers so that explains jacks friend ship with Groucho read in Jack Benny’s biography.
I did not!
I have a theory!
We all know that a majority of solo female heroes in the Crisis were “retired” in one way or another. So I wonder if Power Girl (and Huntress) sudden rejoining of Infinity, Inc. is because of either a) Because they started appearing in Crisis, or 2) To save them from the chop!
Now, yes, it’s very probably the former, but just let me have my corkboard and string moment!
But what about Huntress, you ask? (because you’re reading what I just wrote)
Well, going on nothing but vibes, the true power of a comic reader, but I suspect that it was originally planned that she survived only for them to change their mind and kill her (and Robin) off-screen!
tl:dr Roy was the MVP of the entire Crisis!
Huntress (Helena Wayne) survining Crisis was always going to be tricky as they still had Babs Batgirl. Had the Killing Joke Moment been planned for 1986…. Then I Could see a “Look Babs in a chair now oh but look just like we can replace Supergirl with Power Girl we can replace Babs with Helena” plan.
No matter what happened I’m sure Robin was for the chop. Actually Dave we might need to look into out our “Post Crisis how would we have done it” episode because I just had a plan for Robin from Earth 2.
Great show, guys. Ruth and Darrin have great NPR voices. Very calming. Early Wonder Woman is a bit of a mystery for me, so always good to learn more. I haven’t commented in a few episodes, but I’m still stunned how many people got Crisis out of order! Am I the weirdo for starting with issue #1?
Nah, there’s me, I understood how to count too.
As a person who (sometimes, occasionally) has an Amazing Amazon audiozine, Angela’ Wonder Woman Warrior for Peace was my favorite Princess Diana podcast. We definitely didn’t agree on everything and had different preferences, but I respected her opinion and her scope of covering a consecutive issue of Golden Age Wonder Woman comics, the Perez run, the New 52, and an episode of the TV show each round. I definitely wished she’d have gotten a Silver and Bronze issue in there as well, but she was taking on a lot as it was. I would say Angela was a more typical fan, being a woman herself, and being most drawl to the mythological stuff. My own blog/show was intended to make clear that I was an atypical fan who liked her as a super-heroine first, or at least as a more general adventurer, as in her non-powered Diana Prince period.
Angela had a good run before podfading– far longer than most, and certainly more substantial than my piddling efforts. For my part, while I’ve long boosted for Diana, I’ve long been aware that what I want for and from the character is not the same as the broader fandom. After the success of the movie, I basically gave up, because the sword-wielding Valkyrie take was solidified for a global generation of new and revived fans. Plus, by being so popular, Wonder Woman didn’t “need” my stanning anymore. But recently, I’ve encountered a lot of Wonder Woman content that’s reopened old wounds– disparaging runs and the character herself. And it’s walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.
You touched on something this episode, which was also a carryover from the Monster Society episode, which from the Shazam side I’d already talked about on the most recent DC Secret Files Podcasts. Basically, DC only rented The Marvel Family until the ’90s, which is why none of the broader Fawcett circle of heroes even made it into Crisis or Who’s Who (Bulletman, Spy Smasher, etc.) Likewise, DC Comics didn’t entirely own Wonder Woman until a few years after the Fawcett buy-out. This helped to limit her scope within the DC Universe, though not to the same degree as Fawcett. Further, Wonder Woman was a blockbuster seller in the Golden Age, to a broad audience. However, the G.I.s that used to spank it to Sensation Comics came home to make a baby boom instead, romance comics ascended as super-heroes became passe, and Wonder Woman was rejiggered into a “girl’s comic.” This created a stigma around the character for male readers, and thus limited her audience for decades. I’m sorry, but Mark Waid and Grant Morrison did not read Wonder Woman comics as kids, which is why their interpretations are uncharacteristically off for Silver Age revivalists. A generation of writers only knew her from Justice League stories, and didn’t know how or care to handle her any other way. Robert Kanigher, who was openly contemptuous towards feminism (and not exactly a super-hero fan,) wrote toxic solo stories for decades.
Wonder Woman’s sales in the mid ’60s of about 210K were dwarfed by Superman’s 824K and Batman’s 454K (which jumped to 898K in ’66.) Wonder Woman sales slipped below 200K after ’67, saw a slight bump midway through the I-Ching years, but slumped to 133K toward the end. But sales began to recover “The Twelve Labors” re-powered period from 1973. She peaked at 152K in ’77, by which point Superman was only selling 235K and Batman 168K (I wish I had Warlord numbers.) She also had some quite good writers in that period, mostly Gerry Conway, but also Cary Bates and Marty Pasko. Your mileage may vary on the Jose Delbo art, but I certainly liked it better than most Superman and quite a bit of Batman work in that time frame. I feel that one major issue was that just as the book was recovering from the white jumpsuit run, the book reverted to the World War II era to match the first season of the TV show. It took a couple of years of being decades out of step with the modern DCU to come back, by which time the TV show was wrapping up. There was also round robin writers for a while before returning to reliable Gerry Conway. Despite all this, 1979 was the strongest selling of the decade, averaging about 159K. Despite Conway & Delbo doing good work, the book plunged below 100K in the ’80s. There was a recover in 1982 with the Roy Thomas/Gene Colan run, which started out quite well, but lost creative and sales stamina. I don’t think I was alone in having more interest in the Huntress back-ups than the lead. Wonder Woman #300 was so much worse than the other anniversary issues of that general time frame, and nobody was interested in Don Heck work by that point, regardless of whatever relative unknown Dan Mishkin scripted for him. The cellar of 1984 was 52K. But see, Batman’s 1985 nadir was 75K, and Superman was down to 98K in ’86. Wonder Woman had problems, but so did DC overall.
So George Perez better than doubled sales, but what sales? At a peak of about 119K, it still sold below Marvel’s 150K cancellation line. Tales of the Teen Titans was doing 182K when Perez left for Crisis. Byrne Superman’s first year averaged 162K, while Batman ’87 shot up to 193K. Alpha Flight was pulling 202K under Mantlo/Ross that same year. As much as DC fans like us mythologize the Post-Crisis relaunches, and they’ve certainly held as catalog trades, they were only impressive sales-wise in comparison to how badly they had been doing. Darrin mentioned lasting a couple of years into Wonder Woman, and yeah, a lot of people stuck around for as long as Perez was still drawing it, a bit under two years. That book sank like a stone after, which is probably why they got Chris Marrinan instead of an artist anyone had ever heard of. Perez was never a successful writer, and many of his later projects performed poorly because too few people would show up even when Perez was still drawing his scripts. Post-Crisis Wonder Woman was so thoroughly defined by Perez, to the point where little deviation was tolerated, but no one ever interrogates whether that was a good thing. I can’t stand people saying that the Perez run was the greatest ever, because maybe to look at, but sure as hell not to read. Perez saved Wonder Woman from Greg Potter, and for a while Len Wein saved us from Perez scripts, but by year two we were right back in the dregs of Amazonian storytelling.
So anyway, I’ve illustrated that Wonder Woman’s Pre-Crisis sales weren’t that much worse than the World’s Finest, and that there were extenuating circumstances limiting both the amount and quality of extra-title Wonder Woman appearances. Where Doug really steps in it for me is implying that Wonder Woman had nothing to contribute during Crisis power-wise. Excuse me? Blue Beetle is all over this thing with his human-level bounding and his BB gun. I wouldn’t like the odds of the Bug in any contest with an invisible jet. Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman was basically one tier down from any given Flash-type super speedster. What the hell was Ted Kord doing representing Earth-4 in “Beyond the Silent Night” instead of Captain Atom? Like seriously, there’s Lady Quark, Superman, Uncle Sam, Captain Marvel, another Superman, and this wet fart of Blue Beetle at the tail end. Which is also why he wasn’t part of the incursion force into the Anti-Matter Universe, But Wonder Woman with her unbreakable bracelets and will-controlling Lasso of Truth was. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m indignant, since that logic doesn’t deserve to be dignified.
Others look on the post-300 years of Wonder Woman more kindly than I do, but honestly, about the only Superman stuff I’d touch in those years was drawn by Gil Kane. I actually bought the DC Finest collection of that Wonder Woman material, and would more readily read it. I miss so much of who Wonder Woman was Pre-Crisis, not to mention characters and concepts that are seemingly lost forever. Most of her ’70s stuff was pretty good, actually, and I’m really looking forward to an opportunity to dig into what we loss while everyone prostrates themselves before the Perez run above all else.