Monday, May 15, 2023

Heroines, Abandoned!

 

Wow! It's been 7½ years since we looked in on these ladies:


Launched in late 1972 to coincide with the women's liberation movement, widow Greer Grant, former animal specialist Shanna O'Hara, and nurses Linda Carter, Georgia Jenkins, and Christine Palmer hit the comic book spinner rack starring in, respectively, The Claws of the Cat, Shanna the She-Devil, and Night Nurse--and to further entice female comics readers, all were staffed at least in part with female creative talent.

Immediately assigned to bimonthly publication, however, all three books had only a brief run of 4-5 issues, their final covers pictured above. But how did they fare in quality and interest? Did these titles show any promise? And did they end on a high note, or simply run out of steam? Let's look back some fifty years to those issues for the answers.


Claws of the Cat #4 - June, 1973
Writer: Linda Fite
Artists: Jim Starlin, Alan Weiss
Inks: Frank McLaughlin
Letterer: Denise Wohl (as Denise Vladimer)

With this title's third issue taking three months to get to press, each issue having a different inker, and cycling through four pencillers after Marie Severin left with issue 2, the writing was practically on the wall for the Cat with issue #4. While Ms. Fite had seen it through to the end, the script in this issue is an uncomfortable read, lacking polish throughout and giving the impression that Editor Roy Thomas was unavailable when its pages were dropped on his desk. Its villain, the Man-Bull, runs into Greer Grant and her friend Sally in a tavern while in his human form--rebuffed when neither woman wants anything to do with him and being subsequently soundly thrashed when the male patrons take offense at his behavior. In retaliation, he changes to his more brutal form and takes his revenge on the bar and everyone in it.




When the fight breaks out into the street, there's a running battle between himself and the Cat that also involves (as if on cue) a stampeding herd of wild steers. But in the end, the Man-Bull is handed his horns--and despite how we got here, this 15-page story concludes with a job-well-done vibe, as well as a sign-off that all but telegraphs the book's cancellation.


Shanna the She-Devil #5 - August 1973
Script: Steve Gerber
Pencils: Ross Andru
Inks: Vince Colletta
Letterer: Jean Simek (as Jean Izzo)

Series writer Carole Seuling's departure following the title's third issue opened the door for Steve Gerber (who provided additional dialog for Seuling in issue #1) to return and script its last two--with penciller Ross Andru finishing out the series after replacing George Tuska starting with the second issue. We don't really get cracking on the issue's story until eight pages in, where Shanna and her friend Patrick McShane are brought to a S.H.I.E.L.D. carrier by agent Jakuna Singh to be warned of mutant activity in her neck of the woods jungle, a warning delivered in part by you-know-who.



Aside from an awkwardly delivered plug for the X-Men book (on hiatus at this point in time) and misnaming our friend Fred Duncan, the scene is a solid segment that segues to the introduction of this story's villain--Nekra, who has come to seek revenge on Shanna for the capture of the Mandrill. Following that, we're given an interesting series of panels that have Shanna reassessing her life in the wild. Regardless of the status of the book's future, Andru appears to have been a good choice for the lead character and her adventures.




As for her inevitable clash with Nekra, Shanna is appropriately outmatched in terms of strength and invulnerability, but resourceful in methods of defense and attack--and at the story's conclusion, though couched in a focus on Nekra, we have yet another question mark as to what lies ahead for our she-devil.




Night Nurse #4 - May, 1973
Writers: Jean Thomas and Linda Fite
Artist: Winslow Mortimer
Letterer: Charlotte Jetter
Colorist: Andrea Hunt

As we see, writer Jean Thomas, who flew solo on scripting issues 1-3, is now joined by Claws of the Cat writer Linda Fite. Whether that's as co-scripter or as someone pitching in to complete the story is unclear--yet in the story's attempts to plant red herrings, it seems at times that there was no meeting of the minds between the two until the time arrives to reveal this story's villain. As for our night nurse this issue, elbowing her way past Linda Carter to come to the fore is Christine Palmer, accepting a position near Boston in a forbidding manor off the sea, in an opening segment which establishes the story's cast sufficiently enough to have us intrigued with how the story will play out.




Almost immediately we're provided with a well-balanced assortment of characters for a mystery that takes place on a dark and stormy night: The elderly and kind Edna Porter; the brusque and off-putting butler, Harold; Edna's paraplegic and curt nephew, Derek (who has "love interest" practically stenciled on his forehead); and Christine herself, an innocent who probably feels at this point that she's walking on egg shells.

As the story progresses, we never know what to think of Edna and Harold, who seem to be both at odds with each other yet concealing the same secret(s). And there's Sea-Cliff Manor itself, with its own potential danger to offer--by way of strange activity on its grounds, or even its own aging edifice.


It isn't the first instance of tense moments between Harold and Edna, so our sympathies have naturally gravitated toward the growing trust between Derek and Christine. But when Christine continues to encounter more signs of an unknown intruder on the grounds--well, yikes, did we misjudge the situation.




You would think Edna would swiftly be taking steps to recover her nephew's body (at the very least if only to ascertain that he hadn't survived), rather than assuming the worst and solemnly returning to the manor as if there was nothing more to be done. And in that, she and Harold appear to be of like mind.

Though there have certainly been lead female characters since this experiment of Marvel's (if that's what we're calling it) folded, to the best of my knowledge the effort to attach distaff writing talent to the company's stable of books hasn't been repeated; in fact, I don't think that I could name at least five female Marvel writers off the top of my head who worked on Marvel's books between, say, 1970-2010. (I get as far as Louise Simonson and Ann Nocenti, but that's about it. Oh, and Jo Duffy, slipping my mind only because I didn't read most of the books she handled.) A curious statistic for the House of Ideas.


12 comments:

  1. Call me naive but, with the exception of Night Nurse, it wouldn't have occurred to me that these characters were meant for girls. What about She-Hulk, Ms Marvel, Spider-Woman, Dazzler and Red Sonja? Were they meant for girls too because I've read all those comics and enjoyed them!

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  2. It was no accident that both DC and Marvel gave their female characters to Vince Colletta. If anyone could make Andru's or Kirby's women look beautiful, it was Vinnie.

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  3. I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of Marvel's Night Nurse reprint from 2015 with all four issues (plus a somewhat linked Daredevil tale from 2006) and found the stories enjoyable. While unsophisticated by modern standards, Jean Thomas (and Linda Fite in #4) does a good job of establishing characters and creating different backgrounds for the three central nurses and, over the course of the run, we have romance, family expectations, the threat of criminal activity and a surgeon whose drug addiction begins affecting his work. #4 interestingly follows up on an earlier subplot too so Thomas had a sense of broader storytelling than just the "General Hospital" situations one might have expected. This issue ties into the Gothic elements (perhaps noveau-Gothic is more accurate) which were popular in the late 1960s/early 1970s thanks to the success of "Dark Shadows"; DC was move invested in this though with deliberately Gothic titles like Dark Mansion Of Forbidden Love and The Sinister House Of Secret Love, and even their long-running supernatural titles like House Of Mystery changed their cover design to more closely match the Gothic look, such as employing an oval to encompass the image. Reading "Night Nurse" also gave me an appreciation for Win Mortimer's work, an artist I was aware of but whose art I'd never looked at closely. And I second ten-cent media's comment about Vince Colletta, whose inks I've seen panned as same-same and uninspiring - I find his work smooth and consistent and he had the ability to give female characters a youthful beauty which always grabbed my attention.
    Finally, a suggestion for a future piece: Marvel's humour titles from this era such as Aargh! and the colour Crazy comic.
    Finally, I have a vague memory of a birth announcement in a Marvel Bullpen page that Linda Fite and Herb Trimpe were blessed with a new daughter, does anyone else recall this?

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  4. Colin, the target demographic of these three characters vs. other heroic women characters is a fair question to broach--indeed, the subject of their cross-appeal is a point I was quick to raise in the previous post. I would say the travails of Shanna, Greer, and our nurses served to pave the way for women like Ms. Marvel (who had a senior position at Jonah Jameson's "Woman" magazine), She-Hulk (who had a shaky beginning but grew into her own), Dazzler (an entertainer whose act floored the nightclub crowds, male and female alike), Spider-Woman (who ran the gamut from Hydra pawn to bounty hunter to private investigator), and Red Sonja (whose sword was an equalizer to say the least), who went on to have series of their own and weren't necessarily beholden to the women's lib movement. It also bears mentioning that no one scrambled to find female creative talent to shepherd them.

    charliedogg, as always your perspective on the subject is a breath of fresh air and an intriguing read. As for those wacky humor titles, we've touched on them here and there (e.g., Not Brand Echh, Arrgh!, and Crazy Magazine), so rounding them all up at some point might prove, dare I say, enjoyable. :D

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  5. The characters may have been intended for female readers (or so it was claimed), but surely the 'good girl' art was designed to appeal to male readers?

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  6. Yeah, a character like Shanna in particular - a woman running around the jungle not wearing much - seems more designed to appeal to what might be called 'the male gaze' than, say, Night Nurse.

    And you have to wonder how much effort was put into finding female writers anyway, given that Herb Trimpe and Roy Thomas' other halves got the work.
    Not saying they did a bad job - having only read the first issue of Night Nurse and none of The Cat I'm not in a position to judge (and as it happens I liked Carole Seuling's Shanna #3 more than the following two issues by Gerber) - but as far as I'm aware none of them were assigned to other comics afterwards, which does suggest pretty half-hearted tokenism.

    The editorial thinking behind all three titles seems to have been quite confused.

    -sean

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  7. PS So are you going to do any posts on Marvel romance comics then, Comicsfan?

    -sean

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  8. Gee, Sean, I dunno--wasn't the whole Reed-Sue breakup/reconciliation saga more than enough romance drama to go around? :D

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  9. The Cat was a typical concept for the superhero genre. While female main characters are enjoyed by some boys, I do think their intended audience is girls. Both boys and girls enjoy comics and enjoy superhero comics. But I know when I looked through my older sister's comic books one thing stood out to me: almost all had female characters displayed prominently on the covers. There were of course the solo female superhero titles - Wonder Woman, Dazzler, She-Hulk, and Spider-Woman. Then there were the team titles that had prominent female members - Fantastic Four, Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League. Even when she had solo title male superheroes - Superman, Flash - there was always a prominent female superhero guest star or villain on the cover. She didn't buy Flash comics, she bought Golden Glider appearances in the Flash. So I definitely believe the idea behind the Cat was to attract more girl readers.

    It's also important to note at this time period, these comics were definitely targeted to kids. Kids 8-16 were probably the typical audience.

    Chris

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  10. Shanna She-Devil is a more bizarre experiment because "jungle girl" is really its own genre, although here the superhero genre has a large influence. So it is a mix of the two. But even by the seventies the "jungle girl" genre was distinctly past its prime. This was not something that filling an unfulfilled market niche.

    I've always liked Shanna the She-Devil as a character, but I must admit it is mostly because of the beauty of the character. She's obvious cheesecake. Of all three books, I think this one would have had the hardest time attracting a large audience.

    I think it's telling that Shanna is probably best known now as Ka-Zar's wife. Moving her from Africa to the Savage Land made sense. But it also diminished the character to simply being a supporting cast member of another character's title. While giving her some place to be in the greater Marvel Universe, it essentially abandoned her as her own character.

    Chris

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  11. Night Nurse was an obvious intent for Marvel develop its own line of romance comics which were once very popular (and almost exclusively for girls). DC has some great success in the seventies with books in the narrower gothic romance genre which was incredibly huge at the time.

    However, while Marvel was great at superhero comics, it often seemed to both other genres. It would have popular western and war comics at times, but never seemed to adequately support them. So despite their being a huge audience for them, Marvel always seemed to fail. Their attempts to reproduce DC's success in horror comics at this time all failed as well.

    Marvel only seemed to be able to make Conan and Star Wars work as titles belonging to different genres. And eventually Marvel would have some success in the eighties with war comics like GI Joe and the Nam. But there is no reason why they couldn't have revitalized their western and earlier war comics, which were still being published in the seventies albeit solely as reprints.

    I think this concept could have been very successful in the right hands and the right support. I think it - and many other genre comics - didn't because the Marvel staff at this time actually was not very interested in these genres.

    Chris

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  12. Your impression of female readers in regard to having a preference for stories/titles with a prominent female presence is probably a valid one, Chris. It's often difficult to gauge the extent of such interest, unless one tracks response ratios in feedback venues such as fan letters or online forums--which Marvel may well have engaged in, given that it would be a customer base worth keeping an eye on on a regular basis. As a reader, I don't recall a great deal of girl/women feedback in letters columns, while I can say the same for the online forums I've visited, though that doesn't necessarily mean that female readership is low--it may be as simple as there being not enough female representation in quality roles to warrant their participation in such forums. (I imagine cinematic characters such as Captain Marvel, the Dora Milaje, the Scarlet Witch, et al., e.g. moved the needle a bit in that regard.)

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