By Edgar Miraculous Dyer
Mala is Wonder Woman’s first, bestest Amazon girlfriend.
Having been with the Amazing Amazon, since the World War II era comics, Mala understands things about the leading lady and where she comes from, that almost no one else could. Think of Mala, as a totable Paradise Island...Themyscira-in-a-bag. Including her in the regular cast and moving her to Man's World is a way of keeping Wonder Woman's background in the foreground, without having to constantly write visits to the Island, into a story. Keeping Diana's Amazon past, out front, subtly keeps her superheroics, in context...making sense.
That's a useful thing. It’s not just about girl-power. Girlfriends for Wonder Woman have a role to play in moving a story forward, in the smoothest, least clunky fashion, possible.
While I’ve found Wonder Woman’s frequent visits with Queen Hippolyta, on Paradise Island, great escapist entertainment, I also realize that's not always easy to do, in the middle of a story. Showing Diana at home, being advised or aided by Mala, whose mere presence in the comic represents Diana's Amazon past, spares the writer having to work a five or six-panel, Invisible Jet trip ..to Paradise Island. While Batman-writers can accomplish the same thing, by just writing Alfred into a Batcave scene, with Bruce, ..Wonder Woman writers have to figure out a way to get Diana to Paradise Island, sitting in front of a Magic Sphere or ..having a cliched, giant-face-in-cloud visitation, from the gods.
Worst, Wonder-writers constantly beat us over the head, with lines like, "I am Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and slayer of the Kraken...fanus of Yannis...stretcha' of the Girdle of Gaia..."
It seems some writers feel compelled to bury us, in silly crypticisms, ..to remind us of the Amazon thing. [Snor-rre]
Mala, dressed in toga-like chiton and making cryptic references to a shared history with Wonder Woman, reminds readers, new and old, that the colorfully attired superheroine is the daughter of classical superwomen (Amazons), who freed themselves from oppression and injustice, ..and how important that is to Diana. One scene with Mala - at most, two or three panels - in present-day Man's World, solves that problem.
With Wonder Woman #770, brought to us, by a stable of whimsical creators, headlined by Michael W. (Doom Patrol) Conrad and Becky (Batman) Cloonan, ..Diana gets a new travel companion, who similarly addresses the same problems - Sigfried, adventure hero of Germanic myth! Looking like a Greg Araki sex-odyssey hero, Siggy, with his colorful, myth-inspired capes, tightest tights, Eastern beauty and cryptic references, ..tells readers, in a glance, that he is from out of town! As much, he teases that his leading lady's tastes, in men, tends toward the bizarre and exotic - that Cloonrad Wonder Woman, like Carroll's Alice, is an adventurer, ..in every way, conceivable! Comparatively, this is something that the presence of Colonel Steve Trevor, in his postwar narrative-stagnation - we know, as little about him, today, as in World War II - presently cannot accomplish.
With exotic Mala or Siggy, we are invited to ask, "What are they doing, here, in this story?" See how that works?
As I see it, Diana's primary driving motivation is to fight for the freedom of mankind...of all sentient things, as her Amazon sisters championed oppressed women, in the ancient world. Diana, being younger than the rest, didn't get to earn her stripes, with the others - didn't get to be a real Amazon, in that sense. Using her awesome powers to protect Man's World, from the war and conquest, ..is how she accomplishes that. I think it is useful, having a regular character, like Mala, in the on-going story, who reminds us, very simply...
Why the super-lady is on the job!
At the risk of being panned for some politically incorrect attack on superheroine housekeeping, ..I might have done better to entitle this article 'Wonder Woman Ain't Got No Alfred!' Diana really does need an Alfred - a resident character, who, no matter where a story takes her, keeps her Amazon origins, on the front line, and her motivations, in context, ..in the same way, Alfred the Butler constantly reminds readers that Batman is a rich, white fellow, in a Halloween costume. I think Diana's Alfred should be a woman...
And for my money, it's Mala.
Note: This entry was previously titled "Wonder Woman Ain't Got No Gfs, Yallz (Or The Case For Mala)" and likely something worse, before that, that I can't remember. Also, new content has been added.
Edgar Miraculous (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.
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