Sunday, February 14, 2016

Reading Room SAVAGE TALES "Fury of the Femizons"

Consider, on Valentine's Day, what the world might be like if the "fairer sex" ran the whole planet...
...as portrayed in this Women's Lib-era story from the b/w magazine Savage Tales #1 (1971)!
(Was it really 45 years ago?)
Written by Stan Lee and illustrated by John Romita, Sr,  this tale had an unusual genesis, as detailed on the editorial page...
Women's liberation.
It's all around us, be we male or female.
marches, intellectual treatises, picketing, bra-burning, some four-letter forensics, and more burnings–not always of bras.
"Women are the equals of men every day, in every way!'
Men are beginning to believe it.
Women always knew it.
So what happens if maybe we come the full circle in, say the next hundred years or so?
What if women turn the rascals out–and we do mean out!
What would we have then?
A better world? Perhaps.
A gentler world? Could be.
A different world? Believe it.
Stan Lee got to wondering-and, by and by, he set imaginative artist Johnny Romita to wondering along with him.
The result is, perhaps, something just a wee bit new under the sun.
Not quite sword-and-sorcery–certainly not science-fiction–and not exactly a political polemic.
Robin Morgan clobbers Buck Rogers in the 25th century!
Kate Millett zaps both Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless–then takes over Mongo for good measure!
The hand that rocks the cradle really rules the world!
A Valentine's Day look at a possible future...as seen from the non-so distant past.  ;-)

4 comments:

  1. must...... get....... this......... comic.........

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    1. Savage Tales #1 (1971) is pricy, but the story's been reprinted a couple of times.
      The Superhero Women (Fireside Books, 1977)
      Savage Tales #3 (1974)
      There may also be digital versions of the complete issue available.

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  2. do you happen to have Charlton's Space War #16?

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Thanx for posting!