Wednesday, October 2, 2019

MYTHCOMICS: ["IN PLUTO'S KINGDOM"] (WONDER WOMAN #16, 1946)

[The feature story in this issue is in three chapters and thus has three separate chapter-titles, but IMO none of these titles capture the story as well as "In Pluto's Kingdom," the title given on the cover.]




"Surely, O goddess, that [story of Pluto abducting Persephone] is but a myth..."-- Wonder Woman speaking to her own goddess, Aphrodite.



It's odd for Wonder Woman, at any time in her varied history, to dismiss a story from archaic Greece as a myth, and it's particularly odd for her to be doing so when she's standing there talking to a literal goddess. Since this is one of the late tales written by William Marston's secretary Joye Murchison, I was tempted to wonder if the writer was simply not that familiar with the character and her mythos. However, having heard how intensely Marston protected his creation, I think it's likely that he kept close tabs on whatever Murchison wrote. Further, Marston frequently rewrote archaic Greek myths to fit his vision, so it's likely he was OK with the line, since it served to set up a re-interpretation of the Pluto-Persephone story.

"Kingdom" starts with the main heroine's regular supporting chorus, the Holliday Girls, commiserating with Lorrie, one of their number, who's apparently had a terrible nightmare of being attacked by a "black monster." The other girls disregard Lorrie's fears, but the next morning Lorrie's absent from her room, which shows evidence of a terrific struggle. The ladies also find that Lorrie's attacker was apparently so busy subduing her that he dropped a telltale item: a huge black two-pronged fork (apparently accurate to some artistic representations of Hades/Pluto), The ladies call in Wonder Woman, who heads off to Paradise Island to get the straight dope from Aphrodite. It's at this point that Wonder Woman makes her peculiar "but a myth" remark, after which it's revealed not only that Lorrie was abducted by King Pluto, but also that he's taken her to his true refuge, which is not an underworld domain but the actual planet Pluto.


The reinvention of Pluto's domain isn't the most interesting aspect of the Murchison tale. Though references to sex in the Marston-verse appear in covert form, Murchison re-interprets the Greek myth to elide the idea that Pluto stole Persephone in order to marry her. Rather, in a flashback to Persephone's abduction, Pluto says to the maiden, "You shall bring light to dark Hades." This is clearly a rejection of the sexual aspects of the "abducted maiden" trope, making it possible for Murchison to instill in King Pluto a desire for luminescence in place of that of carnal pleasures. (Why he particularly wants beautiful young girls for his living lamps is not explained.)



Before Wonder Woman can figure out how to get to the far-distant planet, the Holliday Girls seek out Steve Trevor. He shows them a special army project, a spaceship that just happens to be capable of reaching "the farthest planet in the universe." The girls, not content to wait for their heroine, hijack the ship and head for Pluto. Wonder Woman spies the takeoff and manages to go along. As soon as the whole contingent arrives on Pluto, the ground opens up and sucks them in. Then, rather than being ravished, the ladies suffer a fundamental body-soul division. Their flesh-and-blood bodies disappear into Pluto's realm, but their souls take on the form of "color bodies" of varying hues. The color bodies of the heroines are taken by black-cloaked minions to the court of King Pluto, who reveals that he's done this division thing many times before. He uses the color-bodies of other mortals to light his dark halls, and their flesh-bodies become his slaves.



Wonder Woman and the Hollidays fight back, but the ensuing struggles are something of a seesaw affair, since Pluto has custody of the women's bodies. Finally the Amazon makes possible the re-union of her and her friends with their normal forms, but King Pluto escapes in a sky-chariot. The Amazon cant' get the space-rocket started again, so she takes possession of one of the monarch's horses, with which she's able to return to Earth by herself. She obtains a handy dynamo from a scientist-Amazon and then journeys back to Pluto, intending to use the dynamo to re-start the ship and get the Hollidays back home. However, during this time King Pluto has also been busy on Earth, taking Steve prisoner. Wonder Woman, upon returning to the dark planet, is forced to do the King's bidding to save Steve's life. In addition, Pluto takes possession of the dynamo, and once he finds he can use it to light his kingdom, he wants to be rid of all of his "color guards" as well as the mortals from Earth. The Amazon manages to release the slaves who still have color bodies, and uses the king's own chariot to get everyone back to Earth. King Pluto loses most of his slaves (except the ones that are implicitly nothing but dead bodies), but he gets to keep the dynamo, which more or less ensures that he won't need to come raiding for living souls again. Apparently no one recompenses Earth for losing an expensive spaceship, though.



The division of mortal bodies into "dark" and "light" forms more or less corresponds with certain archaic Greek views of the afterlife, at least those that imagined a "celestial" Heracles living on Olympus while a "chthonic" version of the same hero continued to exist in the underworld. "In Pluto's Kingdom" fits in with Marston's favorite trope-- that of the liberation of slaves from bondage-- though there's nothing here about the peculiar attractiveness of bondage, under the right conditions. Maybe there's no discussion of such pleasures, or any other similar stimulation, because King Pluto is a rather unattractive fellow. (It;s possible all of his masculinity is in that big fork he leaves behind rather easily-- and, significantly, Wonder Woman's still holding his fork by the story's conclusion.) But even though this version of Pluto isn't precisely the lord of a death-realm, it's interesting that the hero does have to give him something in compensation for freeing his servants-- a pertinent example of what one might call "better living through electricity."

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