Thursday, December 7, 2023

MYTHCOMICS: '["THE AMAZON QUEEN OF FEMALIA"] (SMASH COMICS #76, 1948)


 

Most Golden Age comics stories achieve high mythicity in an erratic fashion. All raconteurs, well or poorly educated, were required to turn out a high volume of material in order to make a living. Thus, even though the writer of WONDER WOMAN had attended Harvard, and though he'd constructed one of the more elaborate superhero concepts of the period, he didn't necessarily turn out more myth-stories than did raconteurs who never got past high school. All comics-creators had to generate ideas very quickly, and only on rare occasions did any of them bring all the symbolic elements together to create something like a discourse, intentionally or not.

Golden Age mythcomics about the topic of sexuality are even rarer, given the audience associations-- though it should be said that most media of the period weren't much more complex on that subject. There were plenty of narratives about "the war of the sexes," and a fair number dealt with fictional versions of the Greek Amazons. But often such Amazonian societies were conjured up just to banish the demonic forces they suggested. Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1924 novel TARZAN AND THE ANT MEN doesn't deal per se with an Amazon society, but does introduce a savage tribe in which the women are physically larger than the men. Tarzan influences the males to take control and return women to a subordinate position.

Various comics-creators used societies of strong women for analogous reasons, as did Jack Cole in a couple of PLASTIC MAN stories. Cole also created the character under discussion here, though by 1948 his only contribution to the feature was that raconteurs like Alex Kotzky-- the creator to whom I assign this story-- sometimes sought to draw like Cole.





The character Midnight was essentially what Will Eisner's SPIRIT would have been, had Eisner concentrated only on adventure with lots of goofy comedic content. Midnight is a guy in street clothes who dons a domino mask and uses a few gimmicks to fight crime. However, his support-cast is designed to be dominantly humorous. First, Midnight gained a sidekick, name of Gabby, who was a literal "monkey-boy:" a simian endowed with the ability to talk (not, as some references have claimed, a little Black kid). Then an aptly named mad scientist, Doc Wackey, joined the entourage. Later additions included a baby polar bear (apparently just a pet) and a bumbling detective, Sniffer. All of them are on display in the splash page above, decked out in feminine harem garments and dancing before the titular "amazon queen."





The story unwinds quickly, with a lot of use of coincidence. (I tend to think no comics-people loved overheard conversations more than did the Quality Comics crew.) Midnight, in his regular ID as a radio host, lets "the illustrious Professor Zogar" lecture Middle America about the archaic custom of matriarchal rule. The three sidekicks and their pet go for a walk, during which Doc is particularly voluble, claiming that "the dame doesn't live who can push me around." Quick as a bunny, two Amazonian females in archaic bikinis seize him, clobber his friends, and drag Doc off to their land of Femalia, under the belief that Doc is their long absent king.




Heroic Midnight then interviews Zogar about the society of Amazons in Femalia, and drags the reluctant scientist along for the ride when he and his crew mount a rescue mission. However, if any juvenile readers were expecting these brave males to put the matriarchy back in its place, those expectations get dashed when a single woman floors Midnight with an uppercut.




The captives are dragged through a city full of huge women and shrimpy men, not a little reminiscent of one of Al Capp's "Sadie Hawkins" celebrations. Queen Menna (seen in the splash with a big stogie in her mouth) sits her throne besides her crowned king Doc Wackey. Menna is just as convinced as her servants that Doc is her long lost husband, and she takes no backtalk from uppity males.






Midnight does manage to escape the palace with Doc, and as the group rushes back to the plane the hero makes a half-hearted effort to inspire the local males to rebellion. Then comes the "big reveal" that probably didn't fool all that many kid-readers in the day. Menna calls out to the man she thinks is her consort Ragoz, and Zogar (spell it backwards) responds with a beaten-down "Yes, dear." This prompts Midnight to make the amazing correlation that the expert on matriarchal societies is actually the guy who escaped Femalia, and this in turn causes Menna to admit that yes, this other shrimpy guy is her real hubby. She lets the Americans leave-- and heroic Midnight is only too glad to leave Zogar in the lurch so that he and his friends can return to the land where women aren't quite so dominant.

It would be silly to think that Kotzky sought to say anything profound here by leaving a gynocracy in charge of their own domain, as was *sometimes* the case when Marston wrote analogous stories. Kotzky's main purpose was probably the same as in any other MIDNIGHT story: to come up with a wild tale diverting enough to get kids to part with their coins. Nor can one place any deeper complexion on the kinky sounding dialogue in the next to last panel:

MENNA: Go easy on him, indeed! Well, perhaps I will, AFTER I've given him a daily beating for about three months!

ZOGAR: You are very kind to let me off so lightly, your majesty!

Actually, it might be a light sentence, if Zogar was away from Femalia for the years it would require for him to become an "illustrious professor." And he would've gotten away from the modern Amazons, if he'd just kept his mouth shut about them! Not that I'm claiming this fictional character had anything like an actual psychology, but his creator might have appreciated the irony that Zogar's big mouth led him back to the subservient fate he'd escaped-- and it's by no means certain that he's not okay with it.

I also don't want to make too much of the final exchange between the heroes as they run back to the U.S., tails between their legs, but I'll note it to wrap up.

GABBY: Poor Zogar! What a life he must lead!

DOC: Are you TELLING me or ASKING me?

It's an interesting exchange only because Doc has been in the custody of the Femaliens for what one must assume is only a few hours. Certainly he doesn't have the chance to get initiated into Femalian society, whatever that might entail. So why was he wondering if Gabby was "asking" him about the "life" Zogar now leads, the "life" Doc would've been forced to lead had his buddies abandoned him like they abandoned Zogar? Doc only had time to learn the same lesson the others did: that when men lose the advantage of sexual dimorphism, they can be easily changed from "men" into "mice."

ADDENDUM: The only element that moves "Queen" into the domain of the marvelous is Gabby the Talking Monkey.

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