Enough hand-wringing. On to irrelevance!
At first blush, Adventure Comics #421 (1972) is less than exceptional. Plotted by Marv Wolfman, the story pits our favorite Maid of Might against her own inner evil - which just happens to be embodied by an ultra-vixen called Nightflame.
Helpless within her own consciousness, Kara is saved by the unshakable faith of a good, strong man sporting an oh-so-Seventies patch of facial hair. It’s practically a dry run for Terry Long’s creepy courtship of Donna Troy a few years later.
Artist Mike Sekowsky and Inker Bob Oksner had different ideas, however, and added an element Wolfman probably didn’t anticipate …
That’s right! Sexual imagery!!
Of course, a few cheesecake shots here and there don’t create a comic-book legend. Let’s hear the rest of the story from scripter Steve Skeates, excerpted from an interview by the mighty Back Issue magazine:
By the time I got the finished art and was asked to add in the dialogue, things were already pretty much sexed up. I could see, at that point, no recourse but to go with where Mike had gone, to further emphasize the sexuality.
Thus, cheered on - or should I say ‘egged on’? - by Cary Bates … I played up Sekowsky’s sexual themes to the point where the explosion on the bottom of page 15 became a way-too-obvious veritable orgasm. And the last page … was pretty damn sexy too!
And to further *ahem* hammer the point home, here are the aforementioned scenes …
And to prove that, yes, it was good for Kara …
So there you have it Fortress Fans! Are you wondering why the Comics Code Authority let this story pass? They were probably too busy taking a cold shower after reading these pages to raise much of an objection.
Now, if you’ll excuse the Keeper, we are suddenly in the mood to listen to a Sade album …
