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William Moulton Marston

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Dr. William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947) was a psychologist, feminist theorist, and comic book writer / co-creator of the "Wonder Woman" character with his wife Elizabeth (Sadie) Holloway Marston.

Contents

Background

Born in Cliftondale, Massachusetts, William Marston received his B.A. from Harvard University in 1915, his L.L.B. from Harvard in 1918, and Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard in 1921. After teaching at American University in Washington D.C. and Tufts University in Medford MA, Marston traveled to Universal Studios in California in 1929, where he spent a year as Director of Public Services.

Marston is credited as the creator of the systolic blood-pressure test used to detect deception, which became one component of the modern polygraph. From this work, Marston had been convinced that women were more honest and reliable than men, and could work faster and more accurately. During his lifetime, Marston championed the causes of women of the day.

Marston was also a writer of essays in popular psychology.

In 1928 he published his book "Emotions of Normal People" which became a classic for the DISC-Theory later developed further by John G. Geier. He viewed people behaving along two axis with their attention being either passive or active, depending on the individual's perception of his or her environment as either favourable or antagonistic. By placing the axis at right angles, four quadrants form with each describing a behavioral pattern:

His best known theory was that there is a male notion of freedom that is inherently anarchic and violent, and an opposing female notion based on "Love Allure" which leads to an ideal state of submission to loving authority. His concerns about the effects of gender stereotyping in popular culture were expressed in a 1944 article published in "The American Scholar":

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power... The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman (Marston, 1944, p. 42–43)".

Development of Wonder Woman

In an October 25, 1940 interview conducted by his partner and former student Olive Byrne (who used the pseudonym 'Olive Richard') and published in Family Circle, titled "Don't Laugh at the Comics", Marston described what he saw as the great educational potential of comic books. This article caught the attention of comics publisher Max Gaines, who hired Marston as an educational consultant for Detective Comics (now DC Comics).

Indeed, Marston saw that the DC line was filled with images of super men such as Green Lantern, Batman, and their flagship character Superman. Seeing all these male heroes, Marston was left wondering why there was not a female hero.

Thus inspired, Marston developed the character of Wonder Woman with his wife Elizabeth, who served as the partial model for this unconventional and liberated woman. The other inspiration was found in Olive, an equally unconventional individual, who lived with the couple in a polyamorous relationship.

Marston then introduced the idea to Max Gaines (then head of DC Comics) who was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he could create the female comic book hero—a Wonder Woman. Marston did that, using a pen name that combined his own middle name with the middle name of Gaines: Charles Moulton.

Marston's intentions for the character, "Suprema", were plain: he planned to introduce a character who would be "tender, submissive, peaceloving as good women are," combining "all the strength of a Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman." His character was a native of an all-female utopia who became a crime-fighting U.S. government agent, using her superhuman strength and agility, and her ability to force villains to tell the truth by binding them with her magic lasso. Her appearance, including her heavy silver bracelets (which she used to deflect bullets), was based somewhat on Byrne.

Comics editor Sheldon Mayer cut the name "Suprema", sticking with "Wonder Woman" as the name of the feature and title character instead. In December 1941, Wonder Woman made her debut in All Star Comics #8. The character's next appearance was in Sensation Comics #1 (January 1942), and six months later the character's eponymous comic book began publication. Wonder Woman has been in print ever since. The stories were initially written by Marston (under the pseudonym Charles Moulton) and illustrated by newspaper artist Harry Peter. During his life Marston had written many articles and books on psychological topics, but his last six years of writing were devoted to his comics creation.

Marston's Wonder Woman is often cited as an early example of bondage themes entering popular culture: physical submission appears again and again throughout Marston's comics work, with Wonder Woman and her criminal opponents frequently being tied up or otherwise restrained, and her Amazonian friends engaging in frequent wrestling and bondage play (possibly based on Marston's earlier research studies on sorority initiations). These elements were softened by later writers of the series. Though Marston had described female nature as submissive, in his other writings and interviews he referred to submission to women as a noble and potentially world-saving practice, leading ideally to the establishment of a matriarchy, and did not shy away from the sexual implications of this:

The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound ... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society. ... Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element.
About male readers, he later wrote: "Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!"

William Moulton Marston died of cancer on May 2, 1947 in Rye, New York. After his death, Elizabeth and Olive continued to live together until Olive's death in the late 1980s; Elizabeth died in 1993, aged 100.

Wonder Woman ownership rights

A popular urban myth holds that due to shrewd contract negotiations, Marston may be the first comic book creator to have gained significant royalty rights from a major comic book publisher. (It took a highly publicized lawsuit in 1975 for Siegel and Shuster to gain creator rights to Superman from DC Comics.) Negotiated before his death in 1947, his heirs retain small royalties from all Wonder Woman related creations and merchandise.

There once also existed a clause stipulating that if that DC failed to publish at least four issues a year with "Wonder Woman" as the banner lead feature, the rights would revert back to the Marston estate. (For this reason, DC published the Legend of Wonder Woman mini-series by Kurt Busiek and Trina Robbins between the time the original series ended and the Post-Crisis first issue was published.) This clause is no longer in force.

Bibliography

Ph.D. Thesis (1921) Systolic blood pressure symptoms of deception and constituent mental states. Harvard University.

Books

Journal Articles

References

External links

 

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