Mindy Newell: Wonder Woman? Okay, I’ll Chime In!

Mindy Newell

These days Mindy Newell knows that if she could do it all over again she’d have gone to college for screenwriting and film editing. Instead she became a nurse to please her parents and pleasing your parents was what it was all about for nice Jewish girls who graduated from high school in 1971. But the creative larva was in her soul, and when the cocoon broke and the butterfly emerged, it flew to DC’s New Talent Showcase program. Under the auspices of legendary editors Karen Berger, Len Wein, Julius Schwartz, Paul Levitz, and ComicMix’s own Robert Greenberger, Mindy learned the craft and art of writing comics, including Tales Of The Legion, V, Legionnaires 3, Amethyst, Lois Lane: When It Rains God Is Crying, and numerous other comics, including a Superman story based on a dream Mindy had as a child. She also worked on Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! and other independent comics. All this time Mindy continued to work as a nurse while being a single mom to her daughter Alixandra, until the late and dear Mark Gruenwald hired her as an assistant editor at Marvel, while writing stories of the Black Widow and Daredevil. She edited NFL Pro Action, a licensed kid’s magazine about football with the NFL until Marvel imploded in 1996. Returning to full-time nursing, she she also co-wrote a story for 2000 A.D. with her then-husband, British artist John Higgins. A few years ago Mike Gold called and asked her to join the team of columnists here at ComicMix, where her topics freely range from comics to pop culture to politics; she even wrote a piece about the great American thoroughbred Secretariat, which caused editor Mike to tell her that she had won the prize for the most off-topic column ever written ComicMix.

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1 Response

  1. George Haberberger says:

    I loved the Wonder Woman movie and Gal Gadot’s performance. I thought of you Mindy, during the scene in London when Diana becomes distracted by a baby. Implying, I believe, that someone who never sees babies would be Pro-Life as you wrote once even though you yourself are Pro-Choice.

    I have to take issue with your position that the interest in Ms. Gadot’s ethnicity is something characteristic of the Age of Trump. Trump’s son-in-law is Jewish and his daughter converted to Judaism. You can criticize Trump for a myriad of things, but being anti-semetic is not one of them. Just ask Benjamin Netanyahu. Most stories from the right that I’ve read appreciate Gal Gadot’s service in the IDF. In fact, I have seen a lot of stories from left-leaning new organizations that have something about the movie to criticize, mostly that it is not feminist enough.

    Slate
    I Wish Wonder Woman Were as Feminist as It Thinks It Is

    Salon
    The confused, confusing nationalism behind “Wonder Woman”: On the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, “Wonder Woman” becomes a new battlefield for Israel and Lebanon
    Superhero films are bad for democracy: The movie genre epitomizes the right-wing idea that we need elites to save us

    The Guardian   
    Wonder Woman review – glass ceiling still intact as Gal Gadot reduced to weaponised Smurfette

    New Republic
    Wonder Woman Is Propaganda: Why debating the “feminist” stakes of a movie about American military ideology is a laughable prospect.