No one ever says anything good about Kanigher/Andru/Esposito

[fly on the wall]

I always liked the Kanigher/Andru/Esposito Wonder Woman the best. It seemed the most coherent of the various permutations of our Amazon.

No one else has anything good to say about this silly silver age version of WW and I have to admit that after reading the showcase collection of WW, it wasn't as good as I remembered. There were constant attacks by one-shot aliens whenever Kanigher ran out of ideas, it was like he didn't care. Marvel was like that at first, one-shot aliens that never appeared again, but then they started having the same aliens come back for more than one visit. Eventually most of the one-shot aliens of Marvel got to come back more than once, and then they were not one-shot aliens anymore.

Getting back to WW and all her one-shot aliens, they were entertaining in their own right. But sometimes WW could exist in outer space without a space suit and sometimes she could not. Sometimes it seemed like Steve could exist in space without a spacesuit. In 2001 a space odyssey it was made clear that people die within 15 seconds of exposure to the vacuum of space. Did I spell vacuum, right?

It seems to me that any heroine that can survive the vacuum of space ought to be bullet-proof. Sometimes they called Mer-boy Renno, sometimes he was called Ronno.

Why did the elephants get kicked off the beach?
They were walking around with their trunks down.

[Gail Simone]

I have to admit, I have a hard time with them.

When I was a kid, I LOVED Kanigher's writing style, but the Wonder reprints I read left me cold. Reading them now, it's very dated and while I love the absurdity, I don't feel there's a central character there.

I might be wrong. I should give them another look.

Nice to have you here, fly!

[Robert M Sutton]

I have to admit, I have a hard time with them.

When I was a kid, I LOVED Kanigher's writing style, but the Wonder reprints I read left me cold. Reading them now, it's very dated and while I love the absurdity, I don't feel there's a central character there.

I might be wrong. I should give them another look.

Nice to have you here, fly!

I haven't read Kanigher's WW work, but I had been trying out his Silver Age war stuff recently but gave up on them because they were so repetitive. I don't think his stories were made to be read in one sitting; you start seeing his formula and it starts to become stale fast.

[JKCarrier]

I don't feel there's a central character there.

I was just looking at some old issues of Kanigher's METAL MEN, which I adore, and trying to figure out why I like it so much better than his Wonder Woman. Character has a lot to do with it -- ironically, the robots in MM have much more vivid and likeable personalities than Wonder Woman or Steve Trevor. (The MM tended to have better villains, too.)

I think it's safe to say that Kanigher wasn't particularly in tune with Marston's quirky philosophy, which is understandable. But he also failed to replace it with any meaningful point of view of his own. He moves the pieces around the chessboard, often with great skill, but the figures never quite come to life.

[Kurt Busiek]

I like Kanigher's ideas more than his actual writing -- I love his SGT. ROCK, but with WONDER WOMAN it's the daffy ideas and characters far more than the actual execution of the stories. But there's so many fun concepts in there.

I love Andru's art -- but I've never been fond of Esposito's inks. When Andru was inked by Romita or Giacoia on Spider-Man, the results were breathtaking -- lots of solidity and depth and momentum and a great sense of space -- but Esposito kind of flattened all that out. Giordano over Andru was a great combination, too.

kdb

[MinaRho1]

I haven't read Kanigher's WW work, but I had been trying out his Silver Age war stuff recently but gave up on them because they were so repetitive.

I wonder if fatigue had anything to do with it? I admit I'm not that familiar with the era, but haven't writers been overworked and exploited in the past?

So much so that The Hero Initiative was established to help out writers from the silver age who retired without pensions or benefits and need assistance?

[RayC]

I tried reading the recent Kanigher WW Showcase (was it a Showcase?) that was released. I got halfway through reading before I decided to stop looking at the words and just focus on the gorgeous Andru/Esposito art. Their early Wonder Woman, with the big tiara and angular bodice, was great!

[Evil Eleanor]

No, you don't often see people complimenting Kanigher's run.

I'm of the opinion that there's good reason for that.

Now, to be fair, Kanigher had to deal with the CCA when it was at its most sexist.

But the man worked on WW for nearly 30 years, tended to neglect huge parts of her established cast (exiling Etta and most of the villains into the void), while his own most memorable contributions were... creating Egg Fu and "creating" Donna Troy completely by accident.

Not good.

[JKCarrier]

"creating" Donna Troy completely by accident.

You can't really blame Kanigher for that one. It was the people working on Teen Titans who weren't paying attention, and assumed that Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl were separate characters.

[Evil Eleanor]

You can't really blame Kanigher for that one. It was the people working on Teen Titans who weren't paying attention, and assumed that Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl were separate characters.

That's my point though. He "sort of" created Donna Troy, by creating Wonder Girl, but even that was a complete accident.

[ChrisDonaghy]

No -- that "mistake" was all Bob Haney's fault -- as the man charged with making Teen Titans a regular series, the legend has it that he saw one of the "Wonder Family" Imaginary Tale covers and thought that WG was a separate character. Pressed for time, he went ahead and used her.

I'm hard-pressed to think of a single Kanigher story that deserves merit for anything other than meeting DC's contract with Marston to keep the character published. As much as Denny O'Neill's "de-powered" era is hated, it was probably the one thing that kept DC from letting go of the whole thing. Gloria Steinem certainly didn't raise a stink about the character who got thrashed by Gem Girl; she was wondering what happened to the Golden Age creation.

[CarolStrick]

OR... One could look at WW #123, where Wonder Girl is treated as a completely separate character from Diana and was so treated ever after that, and say:

Issue #123 was Donna Troy's first appearance.

Haney wasn't so dumb after all.

And I, for one, enjoyed the Wonder Family. Despised Wonder Woman and especially that awful Steve Trevor, but the rest of the Family were terrific!

It took Sekowsky to make me like Diana.

[Kurt Busiek]

OR... One could look at WW #123, where Wonder Girl is treated as a completely separate character from Diana and was so treated ever after that, and say:

Issue #123 was Donna Troy's first appearance.

"And was so treated ever after that" isn't really accurate, as #124 tells us, "Wonder Tot and Wonder Girl are merely Wonder Woman at different ages" and "I'm going to run off shots of you as Wonder Girl in the same place."

In #128, Wonder Woman looks at photos of Wonder Tot and Wonder Girl and says, "Those are sound pictures of me in the past," and Hippolyta confirms that she had "sound pictures made of you as Wonder Tot and Wonder Girl," and the WG flashback starts with Hippolyta saying, "you asked the same question when you had grown to teenage..."

#129 has Wonder Woman state that "It's impossible for me to appear in three different stages of my life -- as an infant! a teenager! and as an adult! But we've done it once before! And I guess we'll have to do it again!" Then they introduce Wonder Tot and Wonder Girl into the story with: "The mother-daughter team selects individual shots of Wonder Woman and her mother at different times," which includes the shot of Wonder Girl.

#132 has Wonder Girl state that she's "Wonder Tot grown to Wonder Girl" and has Wonder Woman state that she's "Wonder Girl grown to Wonder Woman!"

#133 says all three -- Tot, Girl and Woman -- are the same person.

#134 has a solo Wonder Girl story that introduces her as "Wonder Girl (Wonder Woman as a teenager)."

And so on.

It does seem pretty clear that just because #123 never explicitly says Wonder Girl is a younger Diana, Kanigher wasn't making a conscious choice that WG was in fact a separate character. The issue also never says she isn't the younger Diana, and previous and subsequent issues say explicitly that she is, so if that's what he meant, he forgot about it in a hurry.

kdb

[suedenim]

I wonder if fatigue had anything to do with it? I admit I'm not that familiar with the era, but haven't writers been overworked and exploited in the past?

So much so that The Hero Initiative was established to help out writers from the silver age who retired without pensions or benefits and need assistance?

I've only really read a few of the actual stories from this era, read excerpts and such, etc., so I could be wrong, but I get the impression that Wonder Woman was the title Kanigher didn't really care about. The one he was "stuck with," that took time away from things like Sgt. Rock that he genuinely liked.

[JKCarrier]

I could be wrong, but I get the impression that Wonder Woman was the title Kanigher didn't really care about. The one he was "stuck with," that took time away from things like Sgt. Rock that he genuinely liked.

It sure seems like it, doesn't it? And yet, he stayed on the title for decades. And he was his own editor, so you'd think he would've had a free hand to take it in whatever direction he liked. I don't know, maybe he just thought of it as easy money, and a steady gig. After all, it was the one title almost guaranteed never to be canceled (due to the rights deal with the Marston estate).

[Kurt Busiek]

It sure seems like it, doesn't it? And yet, he stayed on the title for decades. And he was his own editor, so you'd think he would've had a free hand to take it in whatever direction he liked. I don't know, maybe he just thought of it as easy money, and a steady gig. After all, it was the one title almost guaranteed never to be canceled (due to the rights deal with the Marston estate).

On the other hand, he was apparently upset when the book was taken away from him, and when he got it back, shortly after #200, he had the departing editor (Dorothy Woolfolk, as "Dottie Cottonman") shot by a sniper on the first page of his first issue back.

That seems like someone who cared.

kdb

[CarolStrick]

And so on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew I shouldn't have stated it that way. But for the most part, after #123 the three sisters were treated as if they were sisters, separate entities, and there were rarely "impossible story" stamps in sight, or if there were (that dinosaur story comes to mind), the "impossible" explanation really makes no sense at all. There were some stories, to be true, that were Diana taken to different ages, but in them we SAW her taken to those different ages, which just happened to look like WG and WT. So they were Diana. No argument there.

Wonder Girl became so popular she took over the book on two occasions, placing her own logo in prominence on the cover. Let's face it: there was no way that the vivacious Wonder Girl could have ever grown up to be that Stepford Wonder Woman whom Steve loved to verbally abuse!

[nightforce]

I like Kanigher for some reason. I don't love his work but I certainly appreciate it what he did for Wonder Woman. I have a few of his comic books

[Tom]

I have good things to say about that run. In fact, when you ignore the problematic aspects of it (which were legion, I admit), I think it stands as one of the most creative and energetic takes on the character. Almost none of it would work in the present day, but I think you could translate that tone in the modern era. I always said Diana works best when she's surrounded by total weirdness.

[Gothos]

I was just looking at some old issues of Kanigher's METAL MEN, which I adore, and trying to figure out why I like it so much better than his Wonder Woman. Character has a lot to do with it -- ironically, the robots in MM have much more vivid and likeable personalities than Wonder Woman or Steve Trevor. (The MM tended to have better villains, too.)

I think it's safe to say that Kanigher wasn't particularly in tune with Marston's quirky philosophy, which is understandable. But he also failed to replace it with any meaningful point of view of his own. He moves the pieces around the chessboard, often with great skill, but the figures never quite come to life.

I think you've hit it. Kanigher wasn't big on psychological depth but he related to some characters better than others. The "others" he just put through their paces.

That's probably why ENEMY ACE reads so much better than HAUNTED TANK: in the first the characters are broadly but effectively drawn, in the second they're stereotypic plot-functions.

[knowwonder]

I really enjoy the art of that era--but the stories are atrocious. Not that any stories of that era made much sense, but Wonder Woman seemed especially awful.

Thankfully, she never seemed to know it.

MO!

[Gothos]

No, you don't often see people complimenting Kanigher's run.

I'm of the opinion that there's good reason for that.

Now, to be fair, Kanigher had to deal with the CCA when it was at its most sexist.

But the man worked on WW for nearly 30 years, tended to neglect huge parts of her established cast (exiling Etta and most of the villains into the void), while his own most memorable contributions were... creating Egg Fu and "creating" Donna Troy completely by accident.

Not good.

In what ways was the CCA at its most sexist?

I thought their main thing re: sexism was preventing too much sexual allure: i.e. cutting down on bodices and leopardskin bikinis (so to speak).

[Gothos]

On the other hand, he was apparently upset when the book was taken away from him, and when he got it back, shortly after #200, he had the departing editor (Dorothy Woolfolk, as "Dottie Cottonman") shot by a sniper on the first page of his first issue back.

That seems like someone who cared.


kdb

But did he care about the concept of WONDER WOMAN--

Or was he just irked about losing an assignment with which he was comfortable, sort of the writers' equivalent of the "comfy chair?"

In the profound words of the Tootsie-Pop announcer,

"The world may never know."