Making Love to Captain Marvel...

[alschroeder3]

A reminder how words and phrases change over time.

From WHIZ COMICS #32. Her father, Sivana built a huge machine for the express purpose of destroying Captain Marvel. Yet the machine didn't make him one-tenth as uncomfortable as his beauitful daughter, Beautia Sivana, who crushed on Cap badly, did.

In the thirties and forties, a lot of heroes were oblivious or disdainful of women's attractions without being gay. Doc Savage comes to mind. To a certain extent Superman, at least as Superman. As Clark Kent he desired Lois, but seemingly not as Superman.

Yet Captain Marvel, being simultaneously a physical adult and yet really a ten-year-old boy in personality, had the most extreme reaction.

Back then, "making love" didn't necessarily mean sex--it often meant just kissing or hugging, or in this case, simply being affectionate.

Sivana knew that Captain Marvel was also Billy. So did Beautia's younger siblings, Sivana Jr. and Georgia. Yet to the best of my knowledge, Beautia---former Emperor of Venus, later Presidential candidate that almost won because of her entrancing beauty--never found out. One wonders how she would have reacted, knowing how close she came to doing something inappropriate with a minor.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

My immediate thought: that outfit has absolutely no room to hide a Marvel-sized erection.

[kamino_neko]

My favourite 'uh...' moment due to the old definition of 'making love' is from one of the Narnia books, The Silver Chair. One of the kids, Jill (a schoolmate of Eustace), is described as 'making love to the giants' - Narnian giants being just a little short of Brobdignagian. :O

[zenfrodo]

Yeah. Reading those books as a teenager (and not knowing about the shift in meaning) had my jaw dropping.

Then, as an adult, I was outright in hysterics when my fundie brother banned his kids from reading Harry Potter, but allowed Narnia. It was so obvious that my idiot brother had never read any of the books in question -- despite the blatant Jesus metaphor, Narnia has always been far more Pagan-friendly than Potter, for me.

[deh_tommy]

Not knowing ejaculation had any other connotation than sexual, I was really confused to see how that was used in the Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes stories.

[lieut_kettch]

Billy's inner monologue:

Solomon: show her how smart you are! Girls love smart guys!

Zeus: Naaah, just turn into a swan or a golden shower. Not an eagle though! We use eagles are for dudes.

[tcampbell1000]

Another phrase whose meaning has changed over time:: "Captain Marvel."

[miramira]

Yeah, for a second I thought the blonde was Carol and this was a crossover.

[alschroeder3]

Point.

[skjam]

In "The New Adventures of Ellery Queen", there are several stories where Mr. Queen teams up with gossip columnist Paula Paris (based loosely on Hedda Hopper.) Each of them mentions how he cured her "homophobia" by "making love to her". Homophobia in this case meaning "fear of personal interaction with other humans."

[bruinsfan]

"Sufferin' Sappho, after that the idea of switching to the ladies doesn't seem so bad!"

[onsokumaru]

What' s happening here?
Did the transformation magic reflect the beam right back at the canon?

[alschroeder3]

That would make more sense than the explanation given by Captain Marvel. :"The machine had to exterminate something, so it exterminated itself!"

[shakalooloo]

They really didn't think about the placement of the thought balloon when drawing that second panel, did they? I think that's the first time I've seem the little cloud link pass under both another speech bubble and another character!