Wonder Woman Archives - Neighborhood View

Comics Writer, Polyamorous, Feminist: William Moulton Marston

September 4, 2020 Sky Malerba 3

By Sky Malerba William Moulton Marston, a psychologist partially responsible for the invention of the polygraph, is most famous for the creation of the DC superhero Wonder Woman. He introduced his heroine in 1941 in the issue All-Star Comics #8 and its 2nd part, Sensation Comics #1, the next year. This week, William Moulton Marston is the subject for Malden Arts Mondays, a two-month long celebration of artists and figures associated with Malden. Born in the Cliftondale section of Saugus, Marston attended high school in Malden (MHS Class of 1911), graduated from Harvard University and was a professor at Tufts University. Marston, a self proclaimed political historian, was interested in the women’s suffrage movement of the 1920s, as well as activism of women’s rights and advocacy of birth control. Marston had a clear understanding of women’s position in society and wanted to create a strong role model for young girls as he believed they were the stronger sex, and their capacity for love was part of that strength. In the magazine The American Scholar in 1943, he writes, “Women’s strong qualities have become […]

Movie Review: The Malden man and his Wonder Women

October 29, 2017 jlynnmcclain 0

Film Review: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, starring Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall and Bella Heathcote; directed by Angela Robinson By Jennifer McClain In 1948, a German born psychiatrist named Fredric Wertham began his crusade against comic books. While treating juvenile delinquents, he found them reading comic books and decided that comic books caused delinquency. This was a typical, correlation implies causation argument, proven false years later by Carol Tilley. However, a number of community leaders did rally against comic books, gathering them up in wagons, and burning them in huge pyres. A scene of this destruction opens the recently released Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a cinematic romp into the man who inspired the heroine featured in this summer’s blockbuster, Wonder Woman. The camera then zooms in on a man looking sadly at a burning Wonder Woman comic — this is the subject of the movie, William Moulton Marston, the creator of Wonder Woman and a graduate of Malden High School as well as the inventor of the lie detector. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t depict Martson’s […]

Wonder where she came from?

August 17, 2017 jlynnmcclain 3

By Jennifer McClain She has one foot in the past and one foot in the future. Her past is a combination of Greek myth and Amazon speculation. Her future is traveling three thousand per hour on an invisible plane, wielding a “magic lasso” that non-violently compels obedience and she uses science for medical healing. Wonder who she is? Wonder Woman — the super heroine who debuted in DC Comics in 1941, who had her own TV show from 1975-1979, and who took theaters by storm this summer in a blockbuster movie. But who was her creator? He was also a man with one foot in the past and one foot in the future. His past was as a student of the Malden High School. Did he possibly study mythology in one of his classes? His future was “to fight for liberty & freedom for all women kind” through Wonder Woman. He watched the suffragists and used their imagery in his stories. He knew Margaret Sanger when she was a proponent of birth control and still […]