Chapter 16 | Page 2b: Advance notice

Catnip is miffed that she’s going to lose her commission due to Cassie Cruz’s new policy. To make matters worse, the superheroes seem to have had advance notice on a number of Evil Inc schemes. Evil Inc has a mole. But who…?

Transcript

Evil Inc – January 30, 2025
by Brad J. Guigar

Panel 1:
(Setting: The Evil Inc breakroom where several villains are gathered. Catnip, a blonde woman in a blue catsuit, stands with her hands on her hips. Miss Match, a red-haired woman in red and orange, is making coffee; Lightning Lady, a blonde in a blue costume; Desdemona, a red-skinned woman in a black and red outfit; Giant Tess, a woman in a green and orange suit; and Count Spurlock, a green-skinned man in a vest.)

Catnip: "Think about it! To be inside the building, Captain Heroic had to know about the Mime’s plans in advance!"

Lightning Lady: "That’s odd. When Dreadshade cracked the safe at Fairmount Bank, he got glitter-bombed!"

Count Spurlock: "I saw. The guy looked like he went down on Shirley Eaton.*"

Caption (bottom): "*You’ve got Google. Look it up."

Panel 2:
Catnip: "And don’t forget what happened when Dr. Patchwork heisted that shipment of arms…"

(Dr. Patchwork stands in front of a group of zombie henchmen with no arms. He opens a crate of weapons.)

Dr. Patchwork: "Damn it! These are just guns!"

Panel 3:
(Catnip raises a finger, looking serious.)

Catnip: "Face it. Someone is leaking information about our clients’ schemes to the superheroes."

Panel 4:
(A flashback scene shows Cassie Cruz, a brunette in glasses and a white blouse, packing up her office at the “Silver Agency,” a superhero placement agency that is now closed.)

Narration box: "And it’s been happening ever since 'Little Miss Silver Agency' took over."

Panel 5:
(Catnip clenches her fist, her expression determined.)

Catnip: "The answer is clear… WE NEED TO GET RID OF CASSIE CRUZ."

Oh... and this is Shirley Eaton.

William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston


Remember when I complained that a story about the history of Wonder Woman in the The Philadelphia Daily News lacked any mention of the pervading themes of bondage?

Check out this fascinating piece by Charles Lyons, contributing writer for ComicBookResources:

She wasn’t jettisoned from a doomed planet, she didn’t witness the brutal murder of her parents, and she was never injected with radioactive venom, but the true story of Wonder Woman’s origin is one of the strangest and most fascinating of any superhero…

…Wonder Woman’s creator was William Moulton Marston, a Harvard-educated psychologist, lawyer and provocateur who invented a precursor of the modern polygraph (the likely inspiration for Wonder Woman’s lie-detecting lasso)…

As he told interviewer Olive Richard in the August 14, 1942 “Family Circle,” “Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaborately disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them.”

But Marston was intent on more than merely fulfilling the fantasies of his male readers. In a letter to comics historian Coulton Waugh, he wrote, “Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world.” Marston believed that submission to “loving authority” was the key to overcoming mankind’s violent urges, and that strong, self-realized women were the hope for a better future. Wonder Woman was very consciously Marston’s means of spreading these notions to impressionable young minds.

With this unusual brand of feminism as his stated aim, Marston filled his stories with bondage (both male and female), spanking, sorority initiation rituals, cross-dressing, infantilism, and playful domination. Armies of slave girls were everywhere, and hardly an issue went by without a full-body panel of Wonder Woman bound from head to toe. In “Sensation Comics” #35 (November 1944) Wonder Woman even lets slip that rope bondage was a popular pastime back home.


Read more.

The excerpts don’t do it justice. This is one engaging, well-written piece on a fascinating subject.