DUNESTRUCK: WONDROUS, LURID AND APPALLING MEMORIES OF DR. MARSTON'S MARS!

By Edgar Miraculous Dyer

I am too long, from Mars. I want to go back.

I love George Perez, as an artist and a comic book legend, ..but, his post-Crisis, Diet Vader, Ares, just isn't doing it, for me, anymore, as a Number One Badguy (one of three) for Wonder Woman. I miss Mars. I want Mars, back.

There was a time, in the Forties, when Wonder Woman's most enduring enemy, the Greek god of war, went by his Roman name, Mars, ..and ran his divine business out of a network of smoke-ridden, fire-belching, metal fortresses, on the surface of the fabled Red Planet, named for him. His cosmic agents, his 'Court' of War - Duke of Deception, Earl of Greed, Lord Conquest and General Destruction - were little more, than armored buffoons, back then, and were never particularly awesome or terrifying, ..but, they were every bit, as ugly and weird, as the Joker. They existed in a fiery, steampunky world - an industrial hell, like Jack Kirby's Apokolips - blackened by the smoke of burning metals ..and of burning human souls, enslaved to Mars...

And Wonder Woman fans couldn't get enough.

Their sisters, Azzarello's gaunt, mischievous, world-weary Strife (Eris) ..and the original Silver Swan, a magically powered emissary of the war god, who regularly battled Wonder Woman to a stand-still, would come decades, later, ..but, like their older brothers, have yet to be developed into the enigmatic, iconic antagonists, they potentially could be.

Truthfully, I don't think any of them have been used, particularly well, since Wonder-creator Dr. William Moulton Marston's passing, in 1947. Looking back, however, we find they had artistic cousins, in popular science fiction films and in the superhero comics of the (then) near future, ..distinguishing his iconic vision of Mars, as well ahead of its time.

Cosmic Mars and his weird, nightmarish courtiers, creations of Marston and artist H. G. Peter, peaked in the Golden Age and have never been in better narrative form, than those first, sci-fi heavy stories. They were demonic beings in Roman-styled armor, with grotesquely grinning faces and bloated, distorted physiques, ..who traveled to Earth and back to their world, as phantasms ..or in futuristic rocket ships, like what we've seen, in Flash Gordon movie serials! They were cosmic beings, who stalked the Astral Plane and the unseen realms of our nightmares, waited on by half-naked slave girls, ..while acting out the war god's insidious plots, through the captive, unconscious minds of select, strategically valuable mortals! They were allegories for the excesses of classical times. So much of the vulgar, gritty luster of this place must be credited to the art of Dr. Marston's artist partner, H. G. Peter.

The Martian Fortress, as rendered by H. G. Peter, was an industrial horror of blackened metal and menacing rivets, everywhere - a colorfully hellish stage, upon which to unfold Marston's vision. You could almost smell Marston's court of Mars! Compared with director David Lynch's film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune (the one, with Kyle MacLachlan and Brad Dourif) ..the Martian players are marvelously well matched! Baron Harkonnen makes a superb proxy for old Mars, ..with bawdy, gluttonous Rabban and sleek, bloodthirsty Feyd standing in for his cruel, garishly armored loyalists - respectively, the Earl of Greed and, with Sting in mind, ..the Silver Swan! Being a fan of David Lynch's Dune, I can say that Peter's art brought this to life, such that I recall the 80s sci-fi classic film, whenever I think of his Mars...

And the 'Wonder Woman' comic has had nothing so quirky and idiosyncratic, since.

Marston's bloat, hideous Mars was so much more fun, than Mr. Perez's dreary, Reagan era proxy for Darth Vader. There really is no comparison, which favors the latter.

So, you see, ..I miss Mars, very, very much. Dr. Marston's dusty, fire-belching armed camp was a twisted, cosmic purgatory, without compare, anywhere in the DC comic book 'Universe'. The cosmic villainy of Mars, unlike with Ares, unfolded on a stage, with a complimentary cast of freaks, uniquely created to showcase the best and worst of him. I miss the imagination, and it is the raw, fiery, wild imagination of Marston and Peter that has been missing from the pages of Wonder Woman, for far too long.

Mars's creator, Dr. William Moulton Marston, who imagined his fiery, steampunky world, whose birthday we're celebrating, this week (May 9, 1893), ..died, before he could take his cosmic Mars or his Amazing Amazon to the next level of artistic evolution. For his Golden Age war god, might that have looked or read, something like ..an embryonic Darkseid? The unwrought potential, the gritty, industrial ore was there, in the Forties, to fully spawn a Darkseid, presiding over his own Dune'ish Apokolips! With arch-artist Jack 'King' Kirby's Fourth World - Darkseid, mother boxes, Parademons and the rest - hotter, than it's been in decades, and showing up in the Justice League blockbuster movie series...

Perhaps, it's time we took another look.

Note: This entry was previously titled "Before Darth Vader, Thanos And Darkseid Crushed It, ..There Was Mars!" and something worse, before that, that I can't remember. Anyway, ..it's a better read.

Mel Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.