13 January 2012
"The Old Maid of Smallville"
From SUPERBOY #83. God help you in the 50s and 60s if you didn't look like Marilyn Monroe, according to DC.
For its weirdness and pure cruel sexist evil--which, by the way, even Lana gets in on--few DC stories top this one.
Why exactly did DC push marriage so much back in the 50s? You don't see it nearly as much in other companies' comics of the time, to my knowledge. But DC couldn't shut up about it throughout the 50s and 60s.
Personally, I always thought Miss Finch was kinda hot. What's interesting here is that Superboy doesn't attack the kids for their stupidity(and what does it matter what her STUDENTS think of her hotness? That's...a little suspect), but assumes that Miss Finch isn't happy how she is and forces a makeover on her. Which results, by the way, in her getting married and giving up her career. As DC believed one should. Great message for the kids there, Weisinger.
And I love how Superboy takes moon rock, turns it into contact lenses, and places the no doubt dusty and certainly dry things in her eyes without even knowing her prescription. Even when I was 6 and first read this(as a reprint), I knew there had to be something iffy about that. Not to mention that his shattering her glasses could have blinded her with the fragments. Superboy is a dick.
And you just know that they didn't give that a second thought and probably wrote it after a drunken spat with a girlfriend or wife. Sigh. Gotta love that Silver Age.
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¶ Friday, January 13, 2012 
From SUPERBOY #83. God help you in the 50s and 60s if you didn't look like Marilyn Monroe, according to DC.
For its weirdness and pure cruel sexist evil--which, by the way, even Lana gets in on--few DC stories top this one.Why exactly did DC push marriage so much back in the 50s? You don't see it nearly as much in other companies' comics of the time, to my knowledge. But DC couldn't shut up about it throughout the 50s and 60s.
Personally, I always thought Miss Finch was kinda hot. What's interesting here is that Superboy doesn't attack the kids for their stupidity(and what does it matter what her STUDENTS think of her hotness? That's...a little suspect), but assumes that Miss Finch isn't happy how she is and forces a makeover on her. Which results, by the way, in her getting married and giving up her career. As DC believed one should. Great message for the kids there, Weisinger.
And I love how Superboy takes moon rock, turns it into contact lenses, and places the no doubt dusty and certainly dry things in her eyes without even knowing her prescription. Even when I was 6 and first read this(as a reprint), I knew there had to be something iffy about that. Not to mention that his shattering her glasses could have blinded her with the fragments. Superboy is a dick.And you just know that they didn't give that a second thought and probably wrote it after a drunken spat with a girlfriend or wife. Sigh. Gotta love that Silver Age.
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¶ Friday, January 13, 2012
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