Mike Madrid is an author who has written several books (all of which are on my TBR) about women in Golden Age Comics. Let me tell you, there were a lot of Smart Bitches in those early comics, and this particular book, about Golden Age villainesses, tells you all about them.

The Golden Age of Comics doesn’t have definitive beginning and ending dates, but it more or less began in 1938 when Superman made his first appearance, and it more or less ended in 1954 with the establishment of the Comics Code Authority. The Comics Code Authority was created to monitor the content of comic books and ensure that they weren’t warping young minds, and it ushered in huge changes for the industry, which Madrid discusses in this book.

Superhero comics were huge, especially during WWII, but so were a lot of other genres, including crime, humor, horror, Western, Disney, and of course romance (for more on romance, check out my review of Young Romance Vol. 2). During this period, comics could be sweet, silly, or lurid, and villainesses stalked through their pages in stiletto heels and low cut, midriff-baring, slit-skirted gowns.

“Starting right now, I’m your new boss, see?” declares Madam Muscle, as she seizes leadership of a criminal gang. Villainesses ruled over male and female minions with absolute confidence and absolute power, victorious over everybody and everything except that one darn hero or heroine. They were smart in a comic book way, meaning that they were described as brilliant but were never smart enough to avoid revealing their evil plan to the hero instead of shooting him in the head. They were brave, resourceful, and ruthless. They used seduction as a weapon but also used guns, poison, furniture, and the occasional meat cleaver (and a lot of whips). They were badass.

While nothing can match the bizzaro-land antics of Silver Age comics for sheer insanity, Golden Age Comics had a flair for “Go big or go home” plotting. Madame Butterfly has a team of fighters working for her who are named The Caterpillar Legion. I can honestly say that not once in my life have I quailed in panic at the words, “Look out! A legion of caterpillars!” But if your name is Madame Butterfly then damn it your minions are going to be called The Caterpillar Legion and if you don’t like it she will damn well kill you by causing you to suffocate in her deadly cocoon (not a euphemism).

Texa flies around in a giant zeppelin and uses her flock of giant pterodactyls “supposed to have been extinct for thousands of years” to capture The Scarlet Avengers’ rocket. “My paralysis ray doesn’t have any effect on them at all!” cries The Scarlet Avenger.

At one point, in “Merlin the Magician,” a giant spider “plunges to his doom in the octopus tank.” Yes, that is a thing I read today, and my world is better for it.

 

Another things these comics have going for them, if this is your cup of tea, is lots and lots of bondage. Wonder Woman wasn’t the only one getting tied to stuff back in the day. Red-Haired Kate is furious when one of her henchman shoots a good-looking guy, declaring, “I didn’t want him killed, you fool! I wanted to whip him!” Idaho ties Quicksilver up and then makes out with him. Sometimes women get tied up, just to make things even. In a remarkably violent and lurid issue of “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” the scantily clad evil Queen Tuana ties up Sheena, who always wears a fur bikini, and there’s a lot of writhing. There’s also ants, rats, and a volcano – that issue really packs in a lot of drama.

This book introduces each section with an essay about some aspect of villainous women in comics and then shows some issues as an example of what these people were up to. One thing it points out is that villainesses were free in a way that superheroines were not – no secret identities, no social conformities, and no limits.

The book also discusses the role that the Comics Code Authority had on female characters. The Comics Code said that villains couldn’t be portrayed in a sympathetic light – so a character like Madam Muscle and Mable Reine wouldn’t have been possible (they both have sympathetic backstories). Comics couldn’t have too much sex or violence, so villainesses had to tone down their two favorite things. Above all, villainy couldn’t be portrayed as glamorous – and if these women have one definitive trait other than ambition, it’s glamour.

Another change brought on by the Code was that the Code, to its credit, said that minorities could not be drawn or written in a racist way. I am sad to tell you that this did not launch a glorious progressive new age – it just meant that people of color, who had formerly been presented as stereotypes, stopped appearing at all. This book has a section on some villainesses of color. Despite the racism of the stories, the villainesses have motives that are often highly sympathetic. The hero’s sidekicks, on the other hand, are simply unbearable. Weirdly, after the Comics Code, similar sidekicks remained, but the villanesses with their sympathetic motives disappeared.

The biggest change brought on by the Comics Code, according to Madrid, is that because villainy couldn’t be sympathetic or glamorous, the motives of the villainesses changed. Golden Age villainesses chose villainy of their own free will, because it gave them power and freedom. The Comics Code changed this: “Under the Comics Code, evil was no longer a choice that women consciously made. Now something else was just making them bad.” Even iconic villainesses like Black Widow and Catwoman turned out to have been manipulated into villainy, and became either heroic or ambiguous. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that women regained their villainous power in comics.

I love these older comics because the over-the-top insanity is so much fun. You never just have a giant spider – you have a giant spider that falls into a pit. And not any old pit!  Oh no! An octopus pit! Because if you are going to go through all the trouble to draw a pit, honestly, why not put an octopus in it? Carpe Diem! YOLO! Go for the gusto!

I also love these older comics because they tell us that social and personal relationships between men and women and other women have always been complex. It’s easy to picture social history as a clear, progressive, straight line, going from a repression of sexuality and female autonomy to Sex and the City, but actually it’s a tangled up, curvy, twisty line. These women do awful things. They are criminals and murderesses. But it’s impossible not to take some delight in their utter refusal to be anything other than themselves and their refusal to bow to the will of any man. In fiction, if not in life, it’s good to be bad.