Review – Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948 by Noah Berlatsky

It’s always a little bit odd to read someone else’s book about Wonder Woman when you’ve written one of your own, and there have been a few of them as of late so it’s been a particularly weird time for me. The latest, Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948 by Noah Berlatsky was an enjoyable read all around, though. My full review of the book went up yesterday at The Comics Journal.

Berlatsky’s book is quite different from mine, which made it especially fun to read. Whereas I come at Wonder Woman from a fairly straight forward historical perspective, Berlatsky has more of a theoretical approach. For example, the majority of his first chapter is a close reading of Wonder Woman #16 through the lens of earlier Freudian theories on incest, which is quite fascinating.

As a historian, I tend to put more of a focus on intent than interpretation, so the theoretical approach has certain limits for me, but Berlatsky does a great job combining both approaches in his final chapter. It’s a queer reading of the Golden Age Wonder Woman via modern theories on camp and closeting (among many other interesting ideas, including a comparison of Dr. Psycho and James Bond).  Berlatsky brings in a lot of Marston’s psychological work and prose fiction in a way that sets up a solid foundation for his analysis and bridges the gap between theory and history. While the whole book is quite good, his final chapter is a really impressive piece of comics scholarship.

Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948 is available in stores and online today, and for more of my thoughts on the book be sure to pop by The Comics Journal.