Martha Thomases: Don’t Try To Dig What We All Say

Martha Thomases

Martha Thomases brought more comics to the attention of more people than anyone else in the industry. Her work promoting The Death of Superman made an entire nation share in the tragedy of one of our most iconic American heroes. As a freelance journalist, she has been published in the Village Voice, High Times, Spy, the National Lampoon, Metropolitan Home, and more. For Marvel comics she created the series Dakota North. Martha worked as a researcher and assistant for the author Norman Mailer on several of his books, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Executioner's Song, On Women and Their Elegance, Ancient Evenings, and Harlot's Ghost.

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11 Responses

  1. The Other Frank Miller says:

    You had me until you got to the guy who gave us the Civil Wars, a maxi-series that started out written by Joe Welch and ended up written by Joe McCarthy (and I will not apologize for the outdated boomer reference).

    • Martha Thomases says:

      You don’t have to like him. I do, for the most part (but then, I don’t read much Marvel). However, I really admire his overreaching ambition. He’s so entertaining about it.

  2. George Haberberger says:

    But weren’t your mother and high school English teacher right? My high school English teacher, Sister Mary Michael, had us read Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. I am a richer person for having read those books.

    And I’m sorry but Superman DOES have to love Lois Lane. That love is as much a part of his identity as flying and bending steel in his bare hands. I suspect the storyline with Wonder Women will last about a year and then things will return to the Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and God want it.

    • Mike Gold says:

      George, I’m trying to figure out what to get John Ostrander for Christmas. Did Sister Mary Michael have an audiobook on Catcher in the Rye?

    • Mindy Newell says:

      George, we agree totally! (Is that a first time? LOL!)

      • George Haberberger says:

        Mindy, no this is not the first time and I hope this isn’t the last.
        I remember liking your idea about a Wonder Woman story in your column “The Enemy Within” back in January. And I’m sure there were others.

  3. John Ostrander says:

    I grok you, Martha. Great column.

  4. mike weber says:

    Yep. But what bugs me about reboots is that they invalidate the previous reboot that was so much better than the originals i remember from the 1960s and 70s.

    Specifics:

    Stephanie Brown replacing Cassandra Cain … and then dragging Barbara Gordon out of her hole to shove Stephanie off the pages. Cass was more fun as Batgirl than Babs ever was (well, except in “Batgirl: Year One”), and watching Spoiler learn the Bat-ropes was a lot of fun and had a lot more potential than it ever got to show.

    And, of course, ditching Peter David’s brilliant Supergirl for … whatever that was we got.

    (And, i’m old enough to remember the robot in the tree and other such stuff that seemed silly to me even then…)

    • Martha Thomases says:

      Sorry to be a downer, but I resented Peter David’s Supergirl because it wasn’t MY Supergirl. And, as this column points out, I should get over myself.

  5. Mindy Newell says:

    Regarding the lousy movies, Martha–I don’t think it’s a symptom of Boomerhood obnoxiousness. I think it’s a symptom of no creative thinking and desperate need to get a movie, ANY movie, out to the theatres.