At age 6, my only problem with Mlle. Marie was that I had no idea how to pronounce her name.
“Mlle.?” What might that mean and how do you say it? “Milly,” I guessed.
With her pencil skirt, beret, submachine gun and inability to pronounce the word “the,” Mlle. Marie was a breath of perfumed Parisian air in DC’s male-dominated war comics.
Created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Jerry Grandenetti for Star Spangled War Stories 84 (Aug. 1959), this French Resistance “Battle Doll” veered as close to romance as any war comic dared.
But she apparently survived to have a daughter with Alfred Pennyworth (!).
In 1959, she seemed an odd choice for a comic genre read almost exclusively by boys.
“However, Kanigher was also writing and editing Wonder Woman, and had created Black Canary (1947) and Wonder Girl (1958) before Mlle. Marie, so he was also well aware of the potential of female heroes,” observed popular culture historian Ensley F. Guffey.
“(W)hile Marie’s wasn’t quite the first of DC’s war series to be introduced (that would be Sgt. Rock, who had started four months earlier, followed by Gunner & Sarge a month after that), it was the first dropped,” noted comics historian Don Markstein. “Star Spangled 90 introduced The War that Time Forgot, and that was the beginning of the end. Before long, the visceral thrill of pitting World War II soldiers against dinosaurs crowded Marie completely out.”
She returned as an occasional guest star in other war features like Haunted Tank.
Knut Robert Knutsen:
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. Mademoiselle Marie. What a woman. 😉
Art Cloos:
ReplyDeleteGood one as always
Robert Ortega:
ReplyDeleteIt should be noted that in the limited series "Legacies", it is established that by the year 1976, Marie has an adult son serving in the US armed forces, who just happens to be a dead ringer for sergeant Rock. "Gentlemen, here's to the Rock of Easy!"
Ed Wilson:
ReplyDeleteMy initial experience of Mlle. Marie as a kid in the '60s was her reprints in 80-page-giant issues of OUR ARMY AT WAR. Eventually, I saw a couple of STAR SPANGLED issues with her.
I, too, had no idea what "Mlle." was or had any idea of how to pronounce it. I realized that it was some kind of honourific, but I didn't even have a guess as to what it actually was. Eventually, I realized, probably just by virtue of becoming older and simply knowing more, that it was "mademoiselle". Looking at comics.org, I see that at least one STAR SPANGLED cover has "mademoiselle" spelled out in full, but I never saw that issue when I was a kid.
Among DC war comics series, Mlle. Marie was the "failure" that never went away.
In 1959, DC had five war titles, all of them being interchangeable anthologies. Now that I'm looking for issues from that period, it's interesting to me to see how they were feeling around for regular series to feature in each title.
"Haunted Tank" wasn't the first series in G.I. COMBAT. That honour goes to "The T.N.T. Trio", starring Little Al, Big Al, and Charlie Cigar, three Marines who traded quips and bullets with the Japanese on a Pacific island. It only lasted three issues, probably because it was too much like "Gunner and Sarge".
"Tank Killer", about a new replacement being mentored by a grizzled veteran on the finer points of blowing up enemy tanks, had five scattered stories.
"The Minute Commandos" were soldiers who were reduced in size to about six inches tall by a German shrink ray. At the end of the first story, a caption asks the readers to write in if they want to see more, but there was only the one story.
No one remembers any of those stories now. (Except me.)
But, Mlle. Marie never went away. Even though her series lasted only 8 issues, and she's not even on the cover of the 8th issue, DC wouldn't let her go -- or maybe it was specifically Robert Kanigher who wouldn't let her go. She appeared sporadically all through the '60s, with the Haunted Tank a couple of times, with Hunter's Hellcats once (Anyone remember Hunter's Hellcats?), and in other places.
Marie made a comeback in the '70s, appearing every so often in Sgt. Rock stories and having a love affair with Sgt. Rock, and in Unknown Soldier stories where she and Unknown Soldier became enemies.
And, she's still showing up in stories published in the 21st Century, starring in a STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES one-shot in 2010.
Ron Pehr:
ReplyDeleteWhenever I first saw a comic with her in it I didn't realize what "Mllle" meant and thought her name was Milly Marie.
I replied:
So I wasn't alone!
Jim Kosmicki:
ReplyDeleteIt always felt to me like Ona in The Losers was really supposed to be Mlle. Marie.
Erich Christiansen:
ReplyDeletePronouncing her name was a point of disagreement as a kid. I had just enough familiarity with French to know how to say is, but I couldn't get my buddy to stop calling her "Mile Mary."
Paul Zuckerman::
ReplyDeleteAh! Mlle. Marie! Sigh!
I was introduced to Marie in the Brave and Bold issue featuring Three Battle Heroes! She is (spoiler warning!) encased in an iron suit till near the end of the story. No one realized that she was a woman even though she spoke to Johnny Cloud and Jeb Stuart. When Sgt. Rock shows up, they open up the suit. Marie had met Rock before apparently. It was a while before I knew that she had had her own series. Heck, I would have read it. I was just getting interested in girls and would have been quite happy to read about her adventures! A few of the tales were later reprinted.
The Alfred connection was - well, weird. Alfred had somehow developed a backstory of being in the British military or as a spy. Ironically, of course, that when Alfred was introduced was doing WW II - but he remained forever young. Still, he was depicted old enough in the early 70s that it would fit for him to have been a young man in WW II. However, that became less and less realistic as the decades went on. Biggest mistake in comics has been to tie certain characters to historic events. It only works for someone like Capt America, whose ice sleep can be for however long they want it. Even Sub-Mariner's slow aging has become somewhat doubtful by now. And don't get me started on the JSA.
Oh, Marie, We hardly knew ye!
Burns Duncan:
ReplyDeleteWhen I took over another fan's collection at the end of 1970, the day for war comics was about over. He started buying Sgt, Fury a few months before he learned that Captain America would appear. Then he kept that going. He started buying the DC war titles only when all of them had continuing characters, each of whom was almost superheroic (although he did resent the 'filler" stories in the back). I think I have one comic with Mlle. Marie, a reprint in a giant comic. I wish there had been more stories about her. It seems that the best war characters appeared only sporadically.
Johnny Williams:
ReplyDeleteDan, I myself was quite fond of the ‘Petite Partisan’ (my own created appellation for her) and regularly looked forward to her adventures.
I have come to theorize over time that being raised in an environment of strong, capable, wise, competent females provided me with a sensibility that was probably much more amenable to female empowerment than many if not most males of the time. That might in part explain why I was so powerfully drawn to ‘Supergirl’ from her first appearance forward, and yes Wonder Woman, even her often hokey early Silver Age stories (Egg Fu - need I say more?), Wonder Girl (the early Teen Titans version is Still my favorite and I loved the original origin they gave her along with a name finally - Donna Troy), Black Canary, Hawkgirl, Zatanna, and of course Mlle. Marie. Vixen would later join my list of favored DC Femmes.
So, I was naturally drawn to Marie, and why not? I mean what’s hotter than a pretty girl machine gunning nazi’s, I ask you? 😉
Btw Dan, I knew what Mlle. meant and how to pronounce it because back in my first grade class we were learning and being taught French (yes, Chicago public schools on the Black South Side ‘Were’ THAT good back then). So, I naturally read her name, in my mind as ‘Mademoiselle Marie’.
That her and Alfred angle above Really threw me! So, who in DC is their daughter, and we’re talking about the Earth-2 Alfred, no?
Bob Bailey:
ReplyDeleteGreat post Dan. I love Marie in both her Grandenetti version and her next Mort Drucker version. Both were excellent but very different artists.
Chris Lindhardt:
ReplyDeleteMy schoolyard friends and I agreed with this. We called her Millie Marie. She was also very popular with us. 🙂