Profile: Mary James-Pratt

Mary James-Pratt
First appearance: All-American Comics #19, October 1940
Creators: Bill O'Connor, Ben Flinton

History: Mary James was the girlfriend/wife of the Golden Age Atom Al Pratt, and the godmother of Nuklon/Al Rothstein of Infinity Inc. She'd eventually been told who the Atom was and married him, though in later years, it was established they'd been estranged/divorced, not unlike the Silver Age Atom and Jean Loring, another couple who'd been wronged by successive editorial boards.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: around the time of the 1994 Zero Hour crossover, it was written that she was kidnapped by Vandal Savage while pregnant, and her unborn child (Grant Emerson) was altered in the womb and then, when Mary bore him, the son was taken away and she was murdered circa the publication of Damage #12 in 1995.

What's wrong with how this was done? There seem to have been quite a few very badly arranged "replacement setups" for established characters, Al Pratt being one of them, during Zero Hour, and Mary was just one of the biggest victims at the time, of a shoddy cliche that was particularly disastrous for the DCU. What can I say? Even Damage's premise was alarmingly poor, and 3 decades later, it's clear nobody was interested in his series or later appearances in JSA, because of how badly the setup for his "ascension" as an heir to the Golden Age Atom was handled.

Mary James did not need to be turned into a sacrifical lamb any more than any other veteran character in the DCU, civilian or otherwise.

Record: Scott Lobdell

Some may know writer Scott Lobdell for his writing assignments on the X-Men franchise in the 1990s, though he hasn't had much to do with it in a quarter century, if at all. Lobdell began his career at Marvel in the late 1980s, with one of his first stories published in the 1988-95 Marvel Comics Presents anthology, and the most significant contribution he made to the X-franchise was the 1994-2001 Generation X series. In the late 2000s/early 2010s, he wrote for DC, long past a time it could've mattered. Some of his stories are in very questionable taste, and what's really troubling since was the discovery he'd committed sexual harrassment against an artist named MariNaomi at a Prism Comics panel at the Long Beach Comicon, and isn't that odd indeed he'd do that at a panel dedicated to LGBT propaganda?!? Well anyway, here's at least a handful of examples from his stories of the past near-4 decades that might even explain what's wrong with his stances on women.

• If we take the Rogue/Gambit relationship in X-Men as an example, there were at least a few parts in the X-Men where Rogue was shunning Gambit's advances because she didn't want guilt on her conscience of injuring somebody with her siphoning powers. That she'd be scared of causing hurt and injury in itself may be an understandable position, but under Lobdell, any story he wrote where that could occur may be looked upon now somewhat differently, as the guy could be portrayed running the gauntlet of sexual harrassment and intimidation of the lady.
• As some may know, Lobdell wrote several issues of Alpha Flight, the superhero series set in Canada, and the story in issue #106 where Northstar was first telling vocally that he's homosexual. But perhaps lesser known is that traces of Lobdell's regrettable contempt for women may have appeared in said 1983-94 series too, as under Lobdell's pen, Northstar's sister, Aurora, was reverted back to her odd split personality depiction from early in the series, conceived by her creator John Byrne. There was even a story by Lobdell in issue #105 where Aurora and the other team women got arrested for getting drunk and causing damage in a male strip bar while battling the crooked Pink Pearl. Lobdell's characterization of Northstar - and the guest character Major Maple Leaf - was alarmingly heavy-handed, and simultaneously, his characterization of Aurora was too. It was certainly very poor. Lobdell wrote at least 7 issues, and in the long run, none of which did Alpha Flight any favors.
• Years later, when Lobdell was assigned to write Red Hood and the Outlaws, which came at a time when DC pointlessly tried to retcon away prior continuity under the awful Dan DiDio's shoddy management, Lobdell portrayed Starfire as some kind of absurd airhead, who asks Roy Harper/Arsenal (changed to Red Arrow at the time, IIRC) if he'd like to have sex with her, and when Roy asks if there's anything to know about why Tamaraneans like her are interested in sex, she replies that "just that love has nothing to do with it". It was embarrassingly bad and atrocious how a lady who was depicted being as intelligent as she was sexy was reduced to a brainless lemming who seemed to be trying to absurdly submit to almost any man she meets for his sake, but not hers. For all we know, Lobdell may have to shoulder some of the blame for how DC watered down Starfire's sex appeal for the sake of a woke agenda in the 2010s. And he probably doesn't give a damn at this point.

Since the turn of the decade, Lobdell's been mostly retired from comics writing. He may not have been the worst of his kind when it comes to personality and/or behavior, but he certainly alienated quite a few women years back with his rude attitude. Did he support LGBT ideology as much as he did years back to serve as a cover for his downside with the fairer sex? Questions like those are what some undoubtably are asking now.

If Lobdell's retired from comics writing for good, it's surely for the best at this point. From what's listed on his IMDB page, he might still have worked a bit in the film industry, and even contributed to one of the Batman productions of recent on TV. Whatever, his past resume, which includes at least a few horror-themed films, does nothing to improve perceptions of his mindset. It's obviously a shame he had to be as crude as he was in the past, and lead to a situation where one would have to separate the art from the artist, with his work on the aforementioned Generation X being one of the few comics he wrote that had any value to it. We can only hope he's learned some lessons by now, and that perhaps he'll be willing to practice being more of a gentleman, and show more serious remorse for his past mistakes involving women. But only time will truly tell.

Profile: Inza Cramer Nelson

Inza Cramer Nelson
First appearance: More Fun Comics #55, May 1940
Creators: Gardner Fox, Howard Sherman

History: Inza Cramer is the girlfriend/wife of Kent Nelson, alias Dr. Fate, the sorceror who debuted in his role during the Golden Age, and she assisted him in his various adventures. She was written as being a university archaeology student, and a descendant of a ship captain named Ezra Hawkins from New England. After the Fate stories ended in 1944, they both went into limbo for 2 decades, and Inza reappeared around the mid-60s, now established as Kent's wife. She'd also make appearances in All-Star Squadron. Thanks to the magics of Fate and what she herself could learn, she remained youthful for a time. And she took up the costumed role herself at least once.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: during the long notorious Zero Hour crossover, Extant forcibly turns both Inza and Kent aged, and senile, and they were among those knocked off into the afterlife at the time.

What's wrong with how this was done? A lady character with potential, as much as her magical husband, was thrown to the winds for the sake of a PC direction that went nowhere, and all for the sake of introducing another protagonist, Jared Stevens, who took the Fate role in the mid-90s, yet was wiped out himself in the equally pretentious 1999-2006 JSA series written by awful scribes like James Robinson, David Goyer and Geoff Johns.

(Earlier, in the late 1980s, Kent and Inza were put in death limbo for a few years to be replaced by Eric & Linda Strauss - who took up their roles in the 1988-92 ongoing Doctor Fate series for half its run before being wiped out as well - then returned, but both characters were shoved into the afterlife yet again by editorial mandate of the aforementioned crossover, in a precursor to what Johns did with Hector Hall/Silver Scarab and Lyta Trevor Hall/Fury in JSA the following decade.)

Some of the worst story ideas and ingredients at DC in the 90s came as a result of the crossovers they vehemently refused to stop relying upon so heavily. Inza was but one of the biggest victims.

Profile: Dian Belmont

Dian Belmont
First appearance: Adventure Comics #47, February 1940
Creators: Gardner Fox, Ogden Whitney

History: Dian was a girlfriend to Golden Age Sandman Wesley Dodds (who to me is the only true Sandman character in the DCU, and NOT the one concocted by the disgraced Neil Gaiman, which was supposedly based on Greek mythology's Morpheus). She was portrayed as a socialite and freelance investigator, the daughter of a district attorney named Lawrence Belmont, but Dian vanished from the Sandman strip after about a year. Sandy Hawkins, later established as a nephew of hers, replaced her in the strip, and IIRC, was created by Mort Weisinger, though Jack Kirby and Joe Simon took over the writing for the remainder of its run. (And during their run, the concept of Wesley using sleeping gas pistols was curiously abandoned in favor of grappling hook tools.)

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: in All-Star Squadron, written mainly by Roy Thomas, it was established in the 18th issue that Dian was murdered by National Socialist agents while wearing a Sandman disguise during WW2, and they mistook her for Wesley.

What's wrong with how this was done? Fortunately, little, since it was self-contained, not written in gruesome shock tactic terms like much of what came down the pike in the early 2000s, and Thomas was a talented writer who did have a good enough idea how to handle such a storyline in a way that could be used to provide Sandy with some motivation.

Was there anything good to come out of this? The aforementioned motivation provided for Sandy the Golden Boy, which was handled organically enough back in the Bronze Age when they did it. However, much as I'd like to think the later Sandman Mystery Theater series from the mid-1990s Vertigo imprint was a great way to rework her background in a tale that might've been an alternate continuity, I will decidedly recommend avoiding that series altogether, because it appears to have some connections to Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, and based on what was discovered about him and even his writings, that's why, if Sandman Mystery Theater drew inspiration from Gaiman's atrocity, it's best forgotten.