Warrior Women #1

[Jun 1982]. Cover price 40p.
52 pages. B&W contents.
Marvel Comics Ltd.

Edited by Alan McKenzie.

Cover by Paul Neary.

Contents:

 2 Warrior Women Bonus Pin-Up Poster Photographs of Caroline Munro in At the Earth's Core, Magda Konopka, Victoria Vetri & Imogen Hassall in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Victoria Vetri in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and Dana Gillespie in The People That Time Forgot, text by Alan McKenzie(?).

Note: Continues on inside rear cover.

 3 Warrior Women Contents / Credits / Indicia

 4 Shanna the She-Devil The Wrath of Raga-Shah! w: Steve Gerber; a: Tony DeZuniga, lettering by Jim Novak.

r: Rampaging Hulk (Marvel Comics) #09 (Jun 1978).

22 Shanna the She-Devil - a Portfolio by Tony De Zuniga text by Anthony Kraft.

r: Rampaging Hulk (Marvel Comics) #09 (Jun 1978).

27 In Every Issue of Rampage Magazine (half page) in-house advertisement. / From Out of the Depths of the Hyborian Age (half page) in-house advertisement for The Savage Sword of Conan.

28 Fury of the Femizons w: Stan Lee; a: John Romita, lettering by Sam Rosen.

r: Savage Tales (Marvel Comics) #01 (May 1971).

38 Warrior Women of the Movies Raquel Welch photograph pin-up.

39 Warrior Women of the Movies photographs of Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman (uncredited) and Shih Szu in Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, text by Alan McKenzie (?).

40 Warrior Women of the Movies photographs of Jane Fonda in Barbarella, Julie Ege in Creatures the World Forgot, and Dana Gillespie in The People That Time Forgot.

41 Warrior Women of the Movies photographs of Jane Seymour in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Ursula Andress in She, and Barbera Carrera in The Island of Doctor Moreau.

42 Warrior Women of the Movies photographs of Caroline Munro in At the Earth's Core and Jane Fonda in Barbarella.

43 Starburst in-house advertisement.

44 A Tale of the Hyborian Age The Woman from Khitai w: Don Glut; p: Gary Brodsky, i: Tony DeZuniga.

r: The Savage Sword of Conan (Marvel Comics) #49 (Feb 1980).

52 The Marvel Summer Specials Are Here! in-house advertisement for Western Gunfighters, Captain Britain, Warrior Women and Young Romance specials.

Warrior Women poses a problematic title in Marvel UK's history. Addressed at face value it is an open celebration of T&A, yet can (with ample justification) be framed as a celebration of strong female characters. As the title never led anywhere, nor influenced the direction of other titles, it has to be taken at face value. Some degree of lenience must be given in addressing its portrayal of women - this was released when Benny Hill was a major television draw, so some areas (if not getting a pass) can at least be understood.

Paul Neary's cover isn't bad, but emphasizes Shanna's assets in a manner which probably split the audience for this issue - I can't be alone in wondering what a random stripper is doing gracing the cover of a Marvel title. Her appearance inside the issue, taken from the magazine-format line of comics, answers at least one question: this title doesn't exist to highlight strong, intelligent women capable of kicking ass - this is strictly cheesecake territory, with no attempt to disguise the fact.

The jungle is more than a place -- it;s a psychology, predicated on the principle that only the strong survive. Thus, there are asphalt jungles, blackboard jungles, corporate jungles... Which no civilized human being can tolerate for long. Not even Shanna the She-Devil!.

After two years roaming the plains of Dahomey and the steamy rain forests of India... After two years in pursuit of the Raga-Shah, high priest of the murder cult of Kali... Shanna O'Hara has come home, to the serene predictability of San Pedro, California, south of Los Angeles. It was that, or allow her rage to consume her sanity.

Staying in a small cottage, Shanna has been tending her garden, taking refresher courses in veterinary medicine, and seeing a psychiatrist for her anxiety issues. Pushing down her fears and coping with boredom, Shanna embraces the dangers to be found in her private recreation of the jungle, replete with a deadly python she has named Ananta after the multi-headed Hindu serpent of eternity. Ananta obliges her, and the two engage in mock combat.

Which feels, somehow, more than mere combat training, which she recognises to a degree.

Having satisfied herself for a while, Shanna heads out to the home of Madeline Wickes, from where they have arranged to visit the Taj Mahal Mall. While walking through the mall, Shanna encounters the high priest of the Cult of Kali, Raga-Shah. Attempting to obtain her vengeance on him, for the murder of Central Park Zoo's leopards in 1972, she is restrained by the mall's security - and informed that Raga-Shah owns the mall. Shanna tells her psychiatrist of the incident, but finds skepticism in her words.

Exiting the building, Shanna runs into Raga-Shah's assassins, who didn't expect her to be done for another half hour. Taking the fight out into the open streets, Shanna is soon incapacitated by a drugged blade plunged into her shoulder. When she finally awakes, Shanna finds herself on an alter upon which Raga-Shah intends to make her a sacrifice to Kali. As the priest expands on his motivations, Shanna attempts to free herself - unable to break free, and unwilling to scream for assistance, she contemplates her fate.

Finally shattering the bonds which hold her, Shanna takes on the amassed force of the cult members. When only Raga-Shah remains standing, Shanna informs him that his fate has already been decided.

Despite a small mountain of problematic elements, which would take far too much space to cover in detail, this isn't an awful story. The presentation of Shanna in highly-sexualised poses is uncomfortable, but no more fetishistic than contorted, overly-muscled images of Spider-Man. What stands out, amid everything else, is the sense that Shanna is somehow not in control of events until the final, decisive battle turns in her favour. Without having a definite agenda, aside from seeking the death of Raga-Shah, she is left to react to the world around her.

Shanna's relationship with her snake is eyebrow-raising, in all the wrong ways, and Raga-Shah choosing to cut her leg with a knife is slightly too on-the-nose. The story almost demands an intense discussion. It is, nevertheless, a bold story, with some interesting angles to its worldview - accepting that Shanna is suffering from her adventures, and seeking help for her psychological issues, makes for a very different narrative than is usually seen in Marvel strips. The flashback (for once) actually has a purpose, and the art...

DeZuniga is a master of picking moments out of the script, though he overdoes the "gentleman's magazine" poses. Switching between a more standard style and rough, realistic images, he evokes the world which Shanna inhabits beautifully. The lettering, however, is atrocious in places - largely working in sync with the art, it sometimes obscures where it should be invisible. When lettering is really noticed, as here, it is rarely for good reasons.

The (brief) portfolio of Shanna sketches has the air of Comics Interview about it, though the larger pages allow for more detail than similar material. It does highlight a couple of artistic choices which don't quite gel for me - Shanna's upper arms aren't as developed as I might have expected, and her shoes don't look particularly effective for a jungle-based character. Given that her costume is basically a fur swimsuit, perhaps functionality isn't quite as important for Shanna...

The Fury of the Femizons is, even by Stan Lee standards, a hokey and cartoonish tale of a future American society ruled by women, where all are birthed by sperm vials rather than traditional means. To add to the mix, it is a society ruled over by a queen. Princess Lyra bests another woman in combat, earning herself a male slave to do with as she pleases - yet he is more than another slave, and has arranged to be taken as Lyra's slave in order to get his hands on brain tapes, forbidden technology which reveals the entire history of the human race. Men outside the city have reverted to bestial forms, crafting axes with which to attack the women of the cities.

Overwhelmed by its flimsy basis, the story never feels remotely real, and the characters are given roles to perform rather than personalities which drive their actions - at least Romita is on strong form, even if he does take more than a smidgeon of costume inspiration from Thor comics. It is precisely the kind of story which shouldn't have found a home here, and explains (in some small way) why there was never a regular Warrior Women series.

There are, in addition to the inside covers, five pages containing (monochrome, naturally) photographs of women culled from various and sundry feature films of (questionable) note, the introduction of which is further migraine-inducing icing on the cake:

As a special added bonus we've gathered together a selection of photos of the lovely actresses who had achieved fame by playing barbarous, savage or warrior women in the field of fantasy cinema. And if, after perusing this feature, you'd like to see more of this type of article, why not latch on to our sister publication, Starburst, which focuses on the world of tv, cinema science fantasy.

"Lovely ladies"? "Peruse"? This isn't a top-shelf magazine, and I would rather read the opinions of the ladies in question than have (some extremely) scantily clad photographs filling the pages of a comic magazine. The terminology aside, black and white photographs only work to their full advantage when printed on high quality paper, and this is far from such a publication - a horrid blob of ink marring Jane Seymour's face on my copy attests to the lack of care in bringing together the issue. And I don't remember Starburst routinely running photographs of women solely for their perceived attractiveness, though, on occasion, there were features of this kind.

It needs to be noted that the lack of imagination in selecting strong female characters is a hindrance to the feature's effectiveness. Nowhere is Ika from the recent Quest for Fire seen, nor mention made of real-life heroines such as Mariya Oktyabrskaya, or the role of women in the military in general. I would have expected at least passing mention of Joan of Arc, given the title of the magazine, for which enough material exists to run a monthly feature indefinitely without duplication of facts.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko's spirit weeps at the contents of this issue.

Because Marvel had an obsession with the world of Conan, there is (depressingly) yet another Hyborian outing here, though opening with a scene apparently set in a harem does not inspire confidence in whatever meagre remnants of the main objective of the title remains. The focus on female characters physical attributes throughout (albeit beautifully rendered depictions) brings me to the conclusion that a female readership was far from the concern of Alan McKenzie (or Marvel at large) when this was being compiled.

But wait... Before everyone agrees that this is a relic of a bygone age, writing off the notion of a title focused on women warriors as a horrid notion which ought to be consigned to history, there is some seed of genius here - a notion which even Titan's Xena - Warrior Princess magazine didn't exploit to any degree. By bringing together a translation of Yū Koyama's Azumi, features on films such as Kill Bill or The Professional, as well as some historical information, this might actually have a place in modern publishing.

There are no bad ideas, only poor implementations of ideas.

A rather undistinguished title, with problematic content, though highlighting an (overall) underdeveloped area which (specifically) British comics had thus far largely neglected, this ought to be better remembered - if only to avoid the obvious pitfalls, and serve as a guide to future endeavours in the same vein. And no, neither Vampirella nor Xena's appearances in British publications makes up for this.