They are women, hear them roar – Adventure Comics #368

This one seems like an example of comics writers working out some sexual kinks in their craft and trying to masquerade it as a parody of feminism run amok.

“The Mutiny of the Super-Heroines!” is written by the Legion’s own Jim Shooter — he also did the breakdowns, with the great Curt Swan handling the finished art. And it’s a Neal Adams cover, for all you Adams-ites out there.

The action ramps up as the Legion rushes to the site of an alien spaceship’s crash landing — it turns out the spaceship is extra important because it’s carrying a new ambassador. When they find the legate they make what’s for them a shocking discovery:

The ambassadoress soon puts her cards on the table:

Uh oh. Here we go. And, not to nitpick, but the anonymous Legion voice that says that Earth believes in gender equality… really? A second ago they were all literally gasping at the ambassador being a woman.

Just saying.

To drive home the point that Earthwomen are all girly and stuff, we’re soon given a few panels where the gals flop around their shared digs doing housewifey things:

No word yet on whether their menstrual cycles are synced at this point.

Soon the alien ambassador (Thora is her name) goes all uber-Gloria Steinem and uses an irradiated bracelet and voodoo dolls to amplify the powers of the female members of the Legion and in so doing hopefully start a new matriarchy. We’re then treated to a seemingly endless run of scenes of the women saving, trouncing and in general totally emasculating their Y-chromosomed counterparts. Here’s one, just to give you a taste:

I think you get the picture.

Thora soon starts to fiddle with the ladies’ minds, but Supergirl’s love for Brainiac 5 is enough for her to overcome her conditioning and sabotage the radiation-bracelet. This dooms the ambassador and returns everything to normal:

Take that, feminazi! Everything is once again right with the universe! The men are back in charge! The women can go back to making curtains for their dorm!

Well.

I enjoyed reading this issue — Shooter and Swan both knew how to handle the Legion — but a lot of my enjoyment was of the head-shaking, eye-rolling variety. I have to think that there are more than a few people out there that would, how shall I say, get off on this one. I mean, all the bits with the girls roughing up the boys, binding them up, tossing them around… It’s a bit much. It’s not up to an R. Crumb level, but it’s something.

Then again, so much of superhero comics is sexual in nature. Everybody knows that. We’re talking about beefy guys in tights and women with ever-increasing breast sizes. Sometimes the sexuality is buried deep, sometimes it’s close to the surface, sometimes it’s pretty straightforward, sometimes it’s crazy out there stuff. I guess whatever sexual subtext there is here lies somewhere in that admittedly broad range.

“*Gasp!* The ambassaodor … a woman!”