Friday Night Fights: Bird Is the Word

(from Wonder Woman v1 #182, May-June 1969; by O'Neil, Sekowsky, and Giordano)
Here we have the Heroine Formerly Known As Wonder Woman using her kung fu to bring down Doctor Cyber's legion of attack birds. It's from the "mod judo" phase of Diana Prince's career, when she traded in her bracelets, golden lasso, and invisible jet for garish 60's fashion wear and a blind mentor from the inscrutable Orient (and I cannot type those two words without hearing them spoken as a Don Adams impersonation of Charlie Chan), the absurdly-named named "I-Ching."

So, to the nattering nabobs of the comics internet who fail to grasp both the history of Wonder Woman and the intrinsic nature of serialized adventure stories, I would like to point out that the conclusion of Amazons Attack, while pretty poorly done, does not constitute the irrevocable destruction of the character any more than the twenty-five odd issues she spent as lame Emma Peel clone (with a sidekick/guru who managed to blend half-assed ex oriente lux clichés with a patronizing racial stereotype) did. (More in-depth discourse on the present controversy can be found here and here.)

Of course, I happen to think mod-judo Diana stories are pretty ginchy -- what with the bird-punching and lesbian hippie B&D villains and all -- in a trash culture sort of way. That's the problem with being a committed retrologist: The abyss gazes also.

The Trashmen - Surfin' Bird (from The Tube City! The Best of The Trashmen, 1992) - Here's some more disposable pop joy from the 60's: a Dionysian mash-up (long before the term was ever coined) of The Rivingtons' "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" and "The Bird's the Word" from a Minnesota surf rock outfit. (Those crests on Lake Minnetonka, dudes... Totally bitchin'.)

The Puppini Sisters - I Will Survive (from Betcha Bottom Dollar, 2006) - Keeping the retro-novelty pop tradition alive, and I bless 'em for it.

Earle Hagen - Theme to The Mod Squad (from Television's Greatest Hits Vol 1, 1990) - If this tune doesn't instill an irrational desire to chase a cheap hood down a dirty alleyway (that oddly resembles a studio backlot) full of empty cardboard boxes then there's something seriously wrong with you.

(Linc Hayes ain't got nothin' on Bahlactus.)

things have been dark for too long

I spent way too much time trying to write a post about the first issue of Amazons Attack, DC’s current big dumb event book, before I realized that:

1. It was a rehash of this post, with “child murder” in place of “ephebophilia”
2. I don’t really care enough about it to write an elaborate critique
3. I lose half my readership every time I do a post about some current comics-related topic

So I just said “to heck with it” despite the fact that it made clever use of Iraq War atrocity photos and contained this wonderful bit of descriptive prose:

The post-Crisis relaunch of Wonder Woman came closest, but hit way too many sour notes, to the extent that reading it felt like eating a really great sandwich that has been spiked with random strips of tinfoil and stray human hairs.

Thank goodness I didn’t decide to write about the World War III miniseries. I might have put you folks off eating for a week.

Here are today’s music selections, completely free of their contextual burdens. It’s for the best. The stink of fan entitlement (today’s aborted theme) is harder to neutralize than the smell of cat piss, and far more unpleasant.

Booker T & The MG’s – Outrage (from Soul Dressing, 1965) – This is a very fitting choice for the fan entitlement/internet rage official soundtrack; its deceptively fierce title masks a whimsically goofy soul instrumental befitting a carnival midway. Who needs a display case when I’ve got Booker T?

INXS – Don’t Change (from Shabooh Shoobah, 1982) – A sweet sentiment, but it is realistic? The cozy haze of infatuation can only last so long before one starts noticing things like how one’s partner leaves empty Pepsi cans on the coffee table or fails to replace the toilet paper roll. No one ought to be pressured into transforming their core persona for the sake of love, but every healthy relationship should involve some degree of compromise, lest small resentments sprout into irreconcilable differences.

New World Symphony – Wonder Woman (from Tube Tunes, Volume 2, 1995) – Feminist empowerment, disco beats, and some really bizarre lyrics. Poor Diana. It’s sad when the high point of a superheroic icon’s career is the time she fought an evil version of The Carpenters (played by Sarah “Real People” Purcell and Judge Reinhold) while unraveling a murder mystery involving backwards masking.