Once again I’m looking at women appearing in comics, DC Comics specifically. Some of these stories from 1969 are good, some dreadful, one a major event.
First, the good one. Following Supergirl taking over Adventure Comics from the Legion of Super-Heroes, Cary Bates has settled in as the regular writer. The format is standardized too: one relatively serious story, one cute and light-hearted. The backup in #384 (cover by Curt Swan), for instance, has Supergirl taunted by someone who figures out her identity. Finally she realizes she’s taunting herself under the influence of red kryptonite.
The cover story by Bates and J. Winslow Mortimer, “The Heroine Haters,” has Linda Danvers checking out computer dating (computer dating services had become a thing only four years earlier). She realizes ordinary services can’t help her because she can’t tell them she’s Supergirl. She turns, instead, to Superman’s computer in the Fortress of Solitude, which steers her to Volar, hero of the planet Torma.
(In case you’re wondering about her Earth boyfriend, Dick Malverne, he disappeared without explanation about two years earlier. He gets one more appearance in 1970, then he’s gone until the 1980s).
When Supergirl meets Volar it looks like he’s a guy strong enough and heroic enough to hold his own with her. However his world is a sexist mess: centuries ago, alien misogynists turned the women of Torma into docile, submissive sheeple. While the effect didn’t carry over to their daughters, the men of Torma liked it enough that women have been trained that way ever since. They are not happy to have a female superhero showing up and saving their lives.
Finally we get the big reveal: Volar’s a woman, wearing a disguise so that she can help her people without enduring their sexism. Future dating is out of the question so Supergirl leaves. She inspires Volar, however, to show her true self to her world and begin changing minds about women’s roles.
Next up, Frank Robbins and Irv Novick give us the dreadful “Batman’s Marriage Trap” in Batman #214 (cover by Novick). We open with Batman squiring the winner of a 
beauty contest around town (without even the usual excuse of a fat donation to charity), which crime boss Strack turns to his advantage. As Batman’s evening is planned in advance, he commits robberies wherever Bats isn’t.
Inspired by his success, Strack then works with an advertising agency to whip up Gotham’s women. Batman is the most unattainable, commitment-phobic man in the city, right? So if some lucky woman can snag him, every reluctant bachelor will be inspired to do the same and all the women will become happy housewives or something. Suddenly every time Batman and Robin try to bust Strack’s mob, they’re besieged by protesting women getting in the line of fire.
I’ve written previously about how Robbins’ stories often departed from the usual Bat-style of the time and this is no exception. It feels like it might have worked as a mystery/rom-com from the 1930s with a notorious playboy and a madcap socialite as the protagonists. Written for Batman, it doesn’t work at all. If it’s any comfort, Batgirl isn’t succumbing to the ads despite the cover. She’s simply playing along to figure out what’s behind it all (she shows more brains than Batman in this one).
Next up, “The City That Died” in Green Lantern #71 by John Broome and Gil Kane. As I recounted previously, Hal Jordan has ditched his job as an insurance adjuster in favor of toy salesman, He’s also passed up a chance to return to Coast City and reunite with Carol Ferris; his current girlfriend Eve has, like Dick Malverne, been Chuck Cunningham-ed. In #71 we meet the new love interest, rival toy saleswoman Olivia Reynolds.
As you can see, Olivia’s a little different from either of her predecessors. While positioned in this issue as an antagonist, she shows up in Flash #191 as a blind date Iris Allen arranged for Hal during a visit to Central City. Much to his surprise, Hal finds away from the job, Olivia’s much more appealing. He also learns she has a latent kind of power cosmic, the U-Mind, buried deep inside her without her knowing it, which becomes vital to the adventure he and Flash undertake.
All in all, a more interesting new girlfriend than I expected.
Last but very far from least, we have Justice League of America #74, by Denny O’Neil and Dick Dillin (cover by Neal Adams). Following Red Tornado’s arrival on Earth-One a couple of issues earlier and the League’s idiotic refusal to listen to him, the team finally sits down and asks why he’s there. They learn Earth-Two has been destroyed by the living star Aquarius, except for a handful of the JSA. When they arrive in the parallel dimension, Aquarius sets the Society members attacking their counterparts.
(While O’Neil has Superman battle Superman, Batman goes up against Dr. Midnite, whom O’Neil identifies as his counterpart, a creature of darkness who relies on physical skills rather than powers.)
As usual, it’s a clunky story but it proved a major turning point for Black Canary. To save her from Aquarius’ rolling ball of death, her husband Larry Lance sacrifices his life by leeting the doom-ball hit him instead. In the aftermath, Dinah decides she can’t go on.
Reading now, with more experience of grief, this seems like a really odd decision. She’s not going to stay for Larry’s funeral? She has no close friends she wants to lean on? It seems like a decision she’d regret and take back before the year was up. Did I mention I hate O’Neil’s writing?
That said, while his characterization work on the League was awful, the changes he wrought were successful. Martian Manhunter gone. In a few issues, Snapper Carr leaves and the League moves into the Satellite Sanctuary it would use for more than a decade. Black Canary would go on to acquire her Canary cry, become Green Arrow’s long-time love interest, a post-Crisis founding member of the Justice League and a bigger star than she’d ever been before. Plausible or not, it was a good call on O’Neil’s part.
