Alan Kistler on Wonder Woman in Media

THIS PAGE IS UNDER REVISION AND WILL BE UPDATED SOON.

This is part of my Wonder Woman files, focusing on Diana's portrayal in television.

WONDER WOMAN IN MEDIA

Bear with me here, people. Some of this yer not gonna like.

With the success of the Batman & Robin live-action show starring Adam West and Burt Ward, DC decided to translate Wonder Woman to the screen. Like the Batman series, this would be a comedic/camp take on the character. The show was called Who's Afraid of Diana Prince?

In the pilot, we met a young girl named Diana Prince who was played by Ellie Wood Walker. Diana was a very awkward and plain girl who was crazy in love with Steve Trevor, a pilot who worked at the Air Force base that Diana lived nearby. Diana lived with her mom, a mortal woman who constantly lectured her on how important it was that she find a man.

Annoyed by her mother and determined to at least have an active fantasy life, Diana dressed up in a sexy star-spangled  outfit and admired herself in the mirror. While dressed like this, she had incredible powers. Along with this, she believed that wearing the costume also made her glamorous and beautiful. Looking in the mirror, she saw a heroic beauty reflecting back (played by Linda Harrison, who would later play the girl Nova in Planet of the Apes). However, her mother and the viewers could see that she was still her plain, awkward self, so the girl was either quite imaginative or downright delusional.

Diana then giggled to herself as she leaped out the window and flew away to find Steve. She obviously traveled in this fashion regularly, since her mother didn't freak out but only reminded her to visit a relative as long as she was heading out.

So the whole gimmick was to make Diana a female version of Don Quixote, where only she wasn’t aware of the truth of her own situation. Although never seen in the pilot (which was only a few minutes long), it seems that the show might’ve revolved around Steve Trevor constantly avoiding Diana’s advances since she was, you know, weird and a little nuts.

You’d think that the fact this pilot was utter crap would’ve been the reason for not pursuing it. But in fact, the reason why it wasn’t picked up was because the production wasn’t very enthusiastic about having a female-centric show in general (as explained by writer Stanley Ross years later).

Wonder Girl appeared in a few cartoon shorts of "Teen Titans" during the Superman/Aquaman Hour. Later, Wonder Woman herself showed up in the Brady Kids cartoon in a 1972 episode entitled “It’s All Greek To Me” (for you folks who weren’t around back then, Brady Kids was a cartoon spin-off of The Brady Bunch). In that episode, the Brady Kids were accidentally transported back in time to the Trojan War and Diana had to come to their rescue. Stop friggin’ laughing, I’m not making this up.

Diana also was one of several DC heroes to guest-star in the Scooby-Doo cartoon. Finally, she joined the cast of the SuperFriends and was also a star in the follow up Legendary Super-Powers cartoon.

But back to the live-action stuff. In 1974, ABC made a live-action TV-pilot starring the blonde Cathy Lee Crosby as Wonder Woman. Sadly, this movie was inspired by the “I-Ching Era” and featured a character who had no powers and only a brief mention of having come from an island full of Greek women. Cathy Lee was an intelligence agent who wore normal clothes and went to combat the evil Ricardo Montalban (“KHAN!”). Only in the final act of the movie did this version of Diana don a costume, one which seemed like an Emma Peel jumpsuit rather than her outfit from the comics. She also carried a firearm rather than any magical sort of weapon (because who needs a lasso of truth when you have a gun, right?).

Audiences didn’t care much for it so instead of being a pilot, it became a stand-alone movie. But ABC still figured there was potential in having Wonder Woman on TV. Stanley Ralph Ross (writer of Who's Afraid of Diana Prince?) was called back for writing duties but was now told to be faithful to the comic book (an amazing bit of advice, wouldn’t you say?).

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Alan Kistler's History of the Martian Manhunter

OUR HERO IN A NUTSHELL

J'onn J'onzz was born thousands of years ago on the planet Ma’lecaandra, a world that Earth people would later call "Mars." He was a member of the race of Green Martians, a family man, a philosopher, and an agent of his planet's police force, the Manhunters of Mars. After watching his entire civilization (including his wife and child) die from a telepathic plague, J'onn wandered the planet alone until many years later when, in 1956, the experiment of a human scientist named Erdel accidentally transported the Martian to Earth.

Still a peace officer in his heart, J'onn couldn't help but do his best to protect his new home from evil forces. Thanks to his Martian heritage, he is gifted with incredible strength, speed, flight, telepathy, optic force blasts (called "Martian vision") and complete control over his body's physical state (allowing him to shape-shift and become intangible or invisible). After decades of operating in secret, the debut and public acceptance of Superman convinced J'onn that Earth was ready to know about aliens and so he went public.

Along with his solo career, J'onn was seen as a cornerstone of the famous Justice League of America, since he not only helped found the team but was a member of nearly every incarnation of the group. An often stoic detective with a dry wit, J'onn was a noble spirit and an example that people of different heritages have much to offer each other. Centuries old and a philosopher at heart, he helped train and guide many younger heroes. Superman and Batman often deferred to his finely-tuned mind and keen insight. His only weaknesses were fire, his own sense of compassion, and his deep-seated love for Oreo cookies.

Recently, it appears that J'onn has been killed, murdered by a collection of villains during the recent Final Crisis crossover. Though his body has been put to rest and his passing has been mourned, Superman, and all of us, are hoping for a resurrection of some sort in the future. For J'onn's life has often seemed to be a complete defiance of death itself.

Whatever the case may be, let's look back on the history of the Martian Manhunter, a character who has quite simply refused to ever be forgotten or cast aside as a second-stringer.

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Kistler's Thoughts On Life and Stress

A lot of my friends recently have been feeling out of sorts or pressured or really unsure of what to do. They've been confused about themselves and others and where everything is supposed to fit in their lives.

I think about this sometimes too. Some nights it seems to consume me. And then I realize, wait ... what does worrying do to enhance my situation in life?

Nothing.

So chill out. Everyone, seriously, just relax. There is a difference between examining things and taking everything way too seriously. And as I told one of you just last week, there's a difference between being cautious and letting fear control you. This is why I occasionally kidnap some friends of mine and force them to do silly things with me such as dancing in the rain or driving to Philly at midnight just to eat cheese steaks and then drive back or whatever it is I think about at the time.

A while back, I had a girlfriend who was very cynical about people and life. I'm cynical at times too, don't get me wrong. When you grow up in the D.C. area and then live in New York, yeah, you're going to pick up cynicism and sarcasm pretty easily. But this girl, it was as if she would look for reasons to be angry sometimes. When she didn't like a person, she would look for MORE reasons not to like them or more examples of what they did that annoyed her.

And God help me, I started doing the same thing. But that's no way to live life. I'm not saying you aren't allowed to find   people annoying. Go ahead. But in the end, ask yourself, how much does this person honestly affect my life? If it's a co-worker and their attitude or idiocy is directly interfering with your job, then do something about it, by all means. But if it's just a classmate or some jerk at the bar, who cares? Four years from now, you won't know them. Why give them so much power? There's so much more on this planet to pay attention to.

If a person is discriminating against you, feel free tell them to screw off and show them why they're petty. But don't be so eager for a fight, for a chance to prove your worth, that you make things more dramatic and emotionally draining than they need to be. Take a step back from your situation, from your life and look at it from afar. Look at the whole picture. And if this person is honestly not worth the bother, then to Hell with it.

I occasionally get hate mail from people who think I'm an arrogant jerk (which is only half true) and resent the fact that I've been on a couple of DVDs and they haven't, despite the fact that they may know as much or more than me about comics. I read these letters and then I delete them and return to my life. There will always be people who don't like you, there will always be people you don't understand, there will always be situations you don't enjoy. And in some cases, you just have to shrug it off and move on. Believe me, moving on can be far more relaxing and pleasing to your mind and spirit than holding a grudge or thinking about all the ways you can somehow make that enemy realize you're better than them.

Yes, I know, that doesn't necessarily help against that feeling of floundering, of being lost. I know, some of you find yourselves thinking "Oh my God, I've graduated from college and I don't know what I want to do with my life." Well, okay. So while you're doing your temp job or whatever it is you have to do to stay fed and housed, make sure to take a few minutes every day to think about what you would like to do later on. What makes you happy?

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Kistler's Illustrated Guides to Comics

Sometimes, I like to explain things through a cartoon version of myself. It's just fun.

Countdown Breakdown - A quick run-through (and criticism) of DC's year-long series that was supposed to lead-in to Final Crisis.

Guide to the New Gods - Confused about Jack Kirby's creation the New Gods? Don't know what the Fourth World is? Look no further.

Alan Kistler's History of the Eighth Doctor - Part 2

This is continued from Part 1 of the History of the Eighth Doctor. It is part of my collection of essays on the In-Depth History of Doctor Who.

PLEASE NOTE: This section contains spoilers concerning the events of the Eighth Doctor's adventures in the comic strips and in the audio plays. If you want to enjoy these adventures for yourself and only want to know in what order you should read/listen to them, then go on to my List of the Eighth Doctor's Adventures in Chronological Order.

THE COMIC STRIPS

Another thing that continued the Eighth Doctor's were the comic strips printed in Doctor Who Magazine and Radio Times. The RT strips featured the Doctor with a girl named Stacy Townsend and an Ice Warrior named Ssard. These were not read by many and have never been referenced since.

Later, the DW Magazine Eighth Doctor strips started. In the first adventures, the Eighth Doctor fought against the Celestial Toymaker, an enemy he'd faced on TV when he was still in his first life.

During this story, the Doctor was joined by a young woman Izzy. "Izzy" was actually Isabelle Sinclair. She was a sci-fi fangirl who desperately wanted to find adventure like those she's read about and seen on TV. As an orphan who felt out of place, she was guided not only by a sense of adventure, but by a desire to find where she belonged.

Symbolizing her desire to find her true parents and identity, she never called herself Izzy Sinclair but rather "Izzy S.", as in "Izzy Somebody."

Izzy joined the Doctor for many adventures and was intended to basically answer the question "what if a Doctor Who (or general sci-fi fan) joined the Doctor on his adventures?" In exploring the wonders of the universe, she often made references to when things were similar to Star Trek or Star Wars and the like. She was a fun-loving adventuress and also quite progressive when readers realized that she was gay.

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