#constipatedduck

Love it! I was Mama Cass- I have a vintage dress that looks exactly like something she would have worn around Monterey era

Sometimes peoples personalities can be grating, but I still really like the pictures/songs/whatever they post and reblog.

Well sure! I don’t really like “top” 10 lists, because I don’t like to have to choose, but here are 10 off the top of my head right now:

10. Hawkgirl

Hawkgirl is not only one of the first superheroines, but maybe the first direct female equivalent of an existing male hero. I love the conceit of early Hawkgirl stories: she usually puts on the costume after being left behind by Hawkman, she usually uncovers the mystery while competing with Hawkman, she usually gets mistaken for Hawkman by the bad guys. I guess that was pretty headstrong for the 1940s, but too often she gets benched while Hawkman actually wraps up the case.

9. Lois Lane

The original hardass, and loving it. I hope to get more of her on my blog soon.

8. Valkyrie

The epitome of the 1970s male comics writers’ straw-man conception of man-hating feminism (MISANDRY OK?), Valkyrie is never not fun.

7. Congresswoman Batgirl

OK, so I’m a huge politics junkie and I fcking love Congresswoman Batgirl. Yes, in the ’70s, Barbara Gordon was both an elected member of Congress AND Batgirl. 

6. Medusa

Her power is super-strong, prehensile, bright red hair — which is cool-looking and an instant classic. In the early days she was a classic Marvel villain-turned-anti-hero, with the self-confidence of the queen she is. Just a really amazing character.

5. Invisible Woman

I do in fact love Sue Storm a great deal. I think Stan Lee intended her as a kind of anti-Wonder Woman, an experiment in writing a character whose feminine weakness was also somehow her strength — an experiment which also crashed up against 1960s feminism so nicely. My unpopular opinion may be that I think early, weak, conflicted Sue Storm is much more interesting than the modern, tough, grown-up supermom Sue.

4. Black Widow

She had this whole Cold War anti-hero spy thing going on in the ’60s, and this whole Gloria Steinem superhero thing going on in the ’70s. Later, they put her in a movie. Her character tended to vary wildly under different writers, but at her best she was kickass.

3. Venus

This might be a weird one, but the original concept of this cool 1940s proto-Marvel series was this: Venus is a goddess who gets bored ruling her own planet, so she comes to Earth and gets a job at a fashion magazine — and hilarity ensues. Later they tried genre-bending horror/sci-fi/fantasy stuff, and it only lasted about 19 issues, but it was cool.

2. Big Barda, because

Big

Fcking

Barda!

1. Golden

Age

Wonder

Woman

As drawn by H.G. Peter, Golden Age Wonder Woman is a happy, jaunty, springing ball of energy who would not sit still for anything! Her earliest adventures are wildly imaginative and fun as hell. Giant outer-space traveling kangaroos, mental radios, purple healing rays, evolution-reversing machines — they’re all there.  And yes, her original creator William Moulton Marston had some weird bondage fetish (which I hope to deal with here when I find the time maybe?), but he was always empowering and respectful of women, and his Diana is just a firecracker delight. The point was pretty explicitly to make a role model for empowered girls and women — and in the 1940s, no less! — which has rarely been improved upon in comics.