if you see a woman on the Upper West Side in her underwear in public ... well, isn't that always me?

I have a Wonder Woman photoshoot tomorrow. This thing is kind of taking off.

Molly Crabapple, one of Fleshbot's Top Ten Hotties of '05, has declined to be photographed as Wonder Woman, and has instead offered to draw herself that way. Oh, the powers of illustration!

Amazon

The Marvel Vs. D.C. series exemplified something very basic that is wrong with comic books and comic book fans. There is a prevalent idea that a stronger character is one that can beat up other characters. This is absolutlely ridiculous. Take Batman and Superman for example. As the characters were first created, Superman could kill Batman in hundreds of ways before Batman could even consider fighting back, and yet Batman comics are often much better than Superman comics.

This demonstrates that the enjoyability of a character does not rely on physical strength alone, and that it is relative to the character's environment. Having Batman appear in the same comic as Superman was a mistake that comics have never quite recovered from. Some may say that their relationship worked because they each brought something different to the table - Batman was the brains and Superman was the muscle. However, it was well established in Superman comics that Superman was supposed to be super-intelligent - that is to say smarter than any mortal could naturally be - meaning that Batman didn't even have that going for him. To level the playing field, writers would provide Batman with impossible amounts of ludicrous gadgets, and it would get to the point when you wouldn't so much be watching Batman solve crimes as watching Batman watch his gadgets solve crimes. It quickly becomes apparent that anything Batman can do, Superman can do much more cheaply and easily. Then you realize that Superman could eliminate all crime in Gotham City on his lunch break and Batman could use the extra free time to get counseling and maybe come to terms with his parents' death thirty years ago that is somehow still ruining his life. Then you realize how ridiculous almost all superhero comics are, so you stop reading them for five or six years, but your friend Steffan gets you back into them, and a few years later you find yourself writing a Wonder Woman blog and you try to figure out where your life went wrong. Wait, what was I talking about again?

Oh yeah, Marvel Vs. D.C. What made the series worse was that the outcome was decided by the readers' votes. That means that in someone's mind, it made sense that the most popular character would be the one who could beat the less popular one up, which is what makes him a better character. To put that in perspective, I am a much bigger fan of Stephen Hawking than I am of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I still have no illusion about who would win in a fight.

When you have a good mental image of the governor of California beating a wheelchair-bound physicist to a bloody pulp, you may understand what I mean when I say that many of the fights in Marvel Vs. D.C. never should have happened. One of these battles was between The Flash and Quicksilver. Somebody seems to have thought that we should see this fight. The only advantage that either has over a normal human is that they are both really fast. Quicksilver moves impossibly fast, but even at his fastest, he can't go faster than sound, whereas The Flash is faster than the speed of light. So not only is The Flash faster than Quicksilver, but The Flash routinely surpasses relativistic speeds, and since the writers generally don't understand relativistic physics, The Flash can pretty much do anything he wants.

Once you realize that The Flash can move faster than a neuron can fire, then you realize that every time The Flash has an opponent that has time to even formulate a thought or draw a breath, then The Flash is moving at such a small fraction of his top speed that for him, it must seem like he's hardly moving at all. Looking only at powers (I realize that superpowers should not be the only defining attribute of a character, but I think this post is long enough without going into characterizations), although Quicksilver is less powerful than The Flash, the lack of power makes him a better character. Once you've established that a character can move faster than his opponent can react, it doesn't even matter how much faster. Regardless, the result will be the same - the speedster will carry out his plan of attack before it has even registered in the opponent's mind that the speedster has moved. Having The Flash move as ridiculously fast as the speed of light only serves to underscore how poorly thought out the character is. You realize that once he reaches the escape velocity, he should just go shooting off the surface of the world. Then you wonder how he gets the energy to move that quickly. Then it dawns on you that you're trying to figure out the physics behind comic books and that you are a hopeless nerd and you hate yourself, so you stop writing in your stupid Wonder Woman blog to eat ice cream and cry.

At their best, comics should be considered as works of art and literature, and a discussion of literature is never enhanced by an understanding of who could beat up whom. That is why English professors rarely argue over whether Ophelia could beat Jay Gatsby in a fight (that and because it's so obvious that Gatsby could take Ophelia). Consider the following story that I just made up:

One time, I was at a comic shop, about to purchase a comic, while a rabid comics fan at the counter was going on about how great he thinks Wolverine is. "Wolverine is the coolest!" he raved. "Wolverine could beat up anybody! I bet he could beat up..." he glanced at the comic that I was buying, "...Supergirl!"
I retorted, "Well, Supergirl is a better developed and more relatable character than Wolverine."
The Wolverine fan considered this for a moment, then shot back, "Well, sure, but what if Wolverine was carrying kryptonite?"

My point is that in 1996, Marvel fought against D.C., I had a hissy fit, and it allowed the following picture of the X-Men's Storm wearing a Wonder Woman costume to see print:

comedian Susie Felber as Wonder Woman

Quoth Susie: "Best I ever looked in underwear as once I got boobs I busted out everywhere."


Visit Susie's blog.

Kate Beckinsale as Wonder Woman

From Egotastic -- Kate is being considered for the role of Wonder Woman in the upcoming Joss Whedon film, and these pictures from Halloween '04 seem to be bolstering her case.

not safe for work

Here are some porn stars Photoshopped to look like they are bodypainted as superheroines. But, regrettably, none of them is Wonder Woman.

lasso powers

From Seanbaby.com:

And maybe it's just me, but when a sexy woman in trampy hot pants and a halter top ties me up, I'm done playing games. When we were sharing drinks earlier, I told her I was captain of the olympic diving team and that I won a Nobel prize in Penis, but now... it's time for blunt, sexy, dirty talking honesty. If that kind of situation can't drag unmitigated truth out of you, nothing ever will, double-o-seven. I wouldn't lie to Wonder Woman, the only thing the lasso would do to me is get me uninhibited enough to go through with my idea to sing Barry White at her.

a quarter-century of wonder

So, last week when my mom saw pictures of me in my Wonder Woman underpants, she, naturally, assumed the act of wearing them was referential; of course I had had Wonder Woman underpants as a child, and of course I would remember this.

On the occasion of my visit, my mother searched through her photo collection, and finally discovered the germane photos -- but it turns out, I was not four or five as she had remembered, but rather a mere two-and-a-half, which is why I have no memory of having owned (and posed for photos in) Wonder Woman underpants.

And now, having returned home to my scanner with these photos, I present, "Jen as Wonder Woman: The Past Twenty-Five Years."


Uncanny, no?

Girl Power!

When you think of Womyn's Lib, of course, the first image to pop into your head is always Wonder Woman. This is usually followed by images of Wonder Woman tying you up, then slowly undressing. However, if you stay with the feminine empowerment line of thought, the next ones that you are likely to think of are the Spice Girls. Now, I know you're wondering how you can enjoy both Wonder Woman and the Spice Girls simultaneously. Don't worry! As those of you who saw Spice World know, someone has already thought of this and figured out a solution.

That is Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell in a Wonder Woman costume. I don't think you could find a more potent symbol of feminism unless you had a photograph of Gloria Steinem punching Friedrich Nietzsche in the face. While burning her bra.

In case you wondered what these looked like stretched over some DDs

Adult star Jenna Charm has Wonder Woman underpants.

Origins

This was the cover of All Star Comics #8, from December 1941. The comic featured Wonder Woman's first appearance. You will notice that Wonder Woman does not appear on the cover. She's not even mentioned on the cover. She got eight pages of story that were buried in the back of the comic. That's apparently because the Justice Society hates women. Here, the metaphorical "glass ceiling" in their organization is represented by The Specter's stupid crystal ball, which would have Wonder Woman revealed trapped within, if not for the ultra-lame Dr. Mid-Nite and Starman appearing in a fog of their own disdain for anything with a vagina.



8 months later, she ended up joining the Justice Society. She was easily the strongest member of this line-up of superheroes, so, naturally, she became the team's secretary.



Aside from the honour of getting the last billing in every issue, she got to read exciting letters about the boys' adventures. Her other duties included making coffee, laughing at the other members' jokes, and, of course, daily blow jobs.



The cover of Sensation Comics #1 was taken from Wonder Woman's first appearance in All Star Comics #8. This was during comics' "Golden Age" that took place from 1938-1954 (I have read many comics from that era, and can only assume that the name was intended as ironic). Notice the (relatively) modest skirt that she is wearing. This was common among heroines of the Golden Age, like Mary Marvel (right) and... um ... Mary Marvel (right) and other heroines like... um... uh...

Okay, so there weren't many heroines in comics at that time. So sue me.



In the summer of 1942, Wonder Woman became the first woman to star in her own serialized adventure comic book. I understand that this is what counted as a great step forward for women in 1942. It's easy to make fun of the sexism in comics of this time, but it should be noted that they really were trying to present a positive image for women to aspire to. Alongside William (inventor of the lie detector test (no, really (and, yes, that is related to why Wonder Woman had the power to make people tell the truth))) Marston's stories of Wonder Woman's adventures were comics that Alice Marble wrote about actual heroic women throughout history. So, say what you will about the psychosexual subtext, it really was a feminist comic.

Among the indignities that Wonder Woman had to suffer in order to get her own comic was the removal of her skirt in favour of a similarly patterned pair of short shorts.



By the premier of her new series in 1987, even the shorts were gone leaving only her underwear. Thus, flipping through Wonder Woman covers is sort of like the world's slowest strip-tease. (Eventually, it becomes worth it (right).) In this version of her costume, the eagle on her breast was replaced with the letters "WW," in case she forgot her initials. We can only speculate as to whether she ever turned it upside down and lent it to Mary Marvel.

Many have noticed the similarity in design between Wonder Woman's outfit and the American Flag (left). Others have noticed other subtle references to her national identity, such as her working for the United States government and busting the heads of dirty Krauts alongside the United States Army. This is a bit odd, considering that Wonder Woman isn't really an American at all. In All Star Comics #8, Wonder Woman's home was on Paradise Island, a small island in the Bahamas. Paradise Island was once known as "Hog Island," but I think the new name probably attracts more tourists. When Wonder Woman's origin was rewritten in the 80's, her home was identified as Themiscyra, the capital city of the Amazon tribe, which was located on the Terme River in northern Turkey. Interestingly enough, in the comic, this Eastern European city was located somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle, because aside from really sucking at physics, D.C. comics writers were apparently also not too keen on geography.

Themiscyra no longer exists, if it ever actually did exist (Greek histories claim it did, but they also believed in snake-haired women who could turn you into stone on sight, so some of their accounts have to be taken with a grain of salt). Herodotus said that after the Amazons' defeat at the battle of Thermodon (Oh, does that make you feel like big men, Greeks? Beating up a bunch of women? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!), the Amazons fled to the Russian Steppes, where they took their husbands from the Scythians, which was the origin of the Sauromatian culture. (As a side note, some maintain that the Scythians are philologically related to the Ashkenazi Jews. I mention this only because Ashkenazi has got to be the funniest name for an ethnic group I have ever heard.) There is archaeological evidence of the Sauromatians, and that they did indeed have warrior women, but they were conquered by the Mongols around 370 AD. Some anthropologists believe that there is genetic evidence among Mongolians that indicates their Amazon origin.

I wasn't particularly interested in the genealogical details of Amazons until I saw one episode of the cartoon series The Justice League, in which the League fights Amazon warriors on Themiscyra and I noticed that one of them was black. At first I thought this was an error, like the black Viking in The Norseman, but I did a bit of research to make sure. I found out that there was a group called the "Dahomey Amazons" in Africa, who were completely unrelated to the Turkish Amazons, except that they had warrior women. Also, I found out that Wonder Woman had a long-lost black sister named Nubia. The origin (above right) goes that Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, had made two figures out of clay, one black and one white. I haven't read the whole comic, but I think she was trying to make a set of novelty salt and pepper shakers, but misread the scale, so she decided instead to have Aphrodite bring them to life. Nubia was then kidnapped by Mars (who apparently didn't realize that he was from a different mythology) who trained her to be a warrior. Nubia is usually seen as Wonder Woman's enemy, but they do have their playful moments, like when they were in the local production of Rebel Without a Cause together (below).

Barbie as Wonder Woman

There is a Wonder Woman Barbie, but she's out of stock.

comedy is a tough job, but someone's got to do it

This is me, in my Wonder Woman underpants at the Jenny Vaudeville Show. In between my emceeing and joke-telling, I wondered aloud where I might find a man tied to train tracks to rescue.


Photo by Brian Van


Photo by Semyon


Also by Semyon. The fellow on the left is co-blogger Syd.

Read a recap of the entire show here.

Trish Stratus as Wonder Woman

Trish Stratus of WWE's "RAW" and "Smackdown."

from Epinions: an article on Underroos

Underoos: It’s Cool To Look Like A Fool

Rachel Bilson of "The O.C." as Wonder Woman

a modern Amazon

Humor writer Elizabeth Hanes on Mediabistro:

no no, Shania Twain really DOES work as Wonder Woman

This site features a veritable plethora of Wonder Woman "wannabes" -- by which the site creator means that Wonder Woman headbands have been Photoshopped onto photos of celebrities, as such:

Wonder-Background

Wikipedia on Wonder Woman:

In most adaptations, Wonder Woman is Princess Diana of the Amazon warrior tribe of Greek mythology. (Note that Diana is the Roman name for the Greek goddess on whom this character is based; Artemis is her Greek name.) The Amazon ambassador to the larger world, she possesses several superhuman abilities and gifts from the Greek Gods, including the Lasso of Truth, created from the Golden Girdle of Gaea and indestructable silver bracelets, formed from the Shield of Aegis. For several years she was described, in the splash page of each story, as being "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, swifter than Mercury, and stronger than Hercules."

Go here for more.

Here is where to get your underpants

The Wonder Woman cami and panty set is a cozy and economical way to develop a Wonder Woman-like appearance. Buying it here supports Bust Magazine, which we like to read.

Note - I ordered a small and found that the material is not very stretchy, so the bottoms barely fit up over my hipbones. So if you are vacillating on the size, you might want to order the next size up. ("Small" in this case means "size 2").

Coming soon -- photos of Wonder Woman underpants being worn in public. And posts from my blogging partner-in-crime-fighting, Syd Bernstein.

If you have some Wonder Woman underpants or other Wonder Woman costume, we encourage you to send us pictures for the site! Send to jen-at-jenisfamous.com

Welcome to the Wonder Woman Blog

This blog was created due to the convergence of several events:

• First, I became aware of the site Leiasmetalbikini.com.
  
• Then, a few short days later, I met burlesque performer Gigi LaFemme, who appears on Leiasmetalbikini. At the same burlesque show at which I met Gigi, I also met Creamy Stevens, who performed a Supergirl-themed strip act.
  
• Unbeknownst to anyone, I had recently been to the Bust website and purchased the Wonder Woman Cami and Panty Set.
  
• While waiting for my new Wonder Woman underpants to arrive and then seeing Creamy as Supergirl, I thought about how I might employ my new Wonder Woman underpants in the service of public WonderWomanhood.
  
• I had a vaudeville show coming up (I am a comedian), and I like to rock a good costume from time to time. Then, while advertising the vaudeville at a comedy show the week before, I blurted out "...and I'll be hosting in my Wonder Woman underpants!" And then I was committed to doing so.
  
• I did, in fact, host a vaudeville show in my Wonder Woman underpants. Photos were taken, and those photos were put on the internet.
  
• In response to this, my mother dug through her family photos and produced a thing I did not know existed: photos of me in Wonder Woman underpants from when I was two.
  
• Therefore, I clearly needed a blog about this.