#Olive Marston

[theparadiseproject]

A note from Pete’s brother Byrne in his official obituary offers an inside peek at Pete’s role in early Wonder Woman comics:

My brother Pete was always a man of enormous imagination. As a kid, he was a dreamer. When we were teenagers our dad, who was often under pressure to produce scripts for his Wonder Woman superheroine, offered $100 to anyone writing a usable scenario for a Wonder Woman episode. Though $100 was a fortune at that time, Pete was the only one of us who could dream them up.

Pete seemed to have had a good relationship with his father. On top of pitching plots for Wonder Woman, Pete also left Harvard in the mid-1940s to return home and help care for his father. William Moulton Marston had polio and cancer, and passed away in 1947. It’s lovely that Pete created such a testament to his father’s creation with his Wonder Woman Museum. The museum is also a testament to the women who raised him; Pete’s mother, Elizabeth, gave Marston the idea to create a female superhero, and the Marstons lived in a polyamorous relationship with Olive Byrne, who raised the kids (Marston had two with each woman) and also inspired key elements of Wonder Woman’s look and personality.

Regrettably, I never got the chance to interact with Pete directly, though his daughter Christie was a great help when I was researching Wonder Woman Unbound and I know that Pete had a big hand in the materials that she sent me and the recollections that she was able to share. By all accounts, he was a kind and warm man; everyone who visited the museum (a guest list that included Lynda Carter herself!) seemed to come away with an appreciation and affection not just for its myriad wonderful items but also for the man who assembled it all.

-January 19, 2017

[caughtinred]

various rdr

[tiefy]

"Our love is illegal."

Louise Barnes as Miranda Hamilton in Black Sails (2014-2017) / Rebecca Hall as Elizabeth Marston in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017).

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Wonder Woman's bracelets were inspired by those worn by Olive Byrne, who the character was primarily based on. Byrne was in a polyamorous relationship with William and Elizabeth Marston and is said to have worn the bracelets to represent their unofficial marriage in lieu of wedding rings.

[musicallisto]

i will be reading your fic when i finish catching up on dracula daily but while we're waiting!!!!

🥰😊🤭😇🤩😴🌞🧸🤠 (this one specifically for rdr, how did i never know you were also a john marston apologist, this changes everything) 🧠📜🎤🥂🚓😘💝👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩💍💀

🥰 I love your blog 😊 I'm so glad I follow you 🤭 You make me laugh 😇 You're one of the kindest people on this site 🤩 I admire you 😴 You should sleep more 🌞 You brighten up the dash 🧸 Soft vibes 🤠 Yeehaw vibes 🧠 You're so big brained 📜 Your fics are top tier 🎤 You have an amazing voice 🥂 I would get drunk with you 🚓 I would lie to the police for you 😘 Kissing you on the forehead 💝 I love you (platonic) 💍 I would marry you if you asked 💀 I would help you hide a body

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ultimate ask game♡

[maxwellshimbo]

Happy Birthday Elizabeth Holloway Marston 🎂 co creator of Wonder Woman, feminist, kinky polyam icon 🙌

This is her official Wikipedia picture and I love it.

[magentacat]

Golden Age Wonder Woman always goes hard.

[daryldixonsjizzrag]

John and Abigail's relationship is a prime example of the olive theory let's not lie here

[ad-j]

WATCHLIST 2023: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

[comicsart3]

Wonder Woman is perhaps the iconic superheroine. With her godlike powers, lasso of truth and Amazon heritage, Princess Diana of Themyscira is understandably looked on as one of the clearest manifestations of female power in the comic book universe. There is of course a backstory to WW’s dominant appearance and that lies with the attitude and views of her creators, writer William Moulton Marston and illustrator Harry G Peter. Marston in particular was heavily influenced by his feminist wife, Elizabeth who wanted her husband to create a powerful female hero, physically superior to men, and equal to them intellectually to demonstrate women’s potential to challenge the restrictive gender roles of the early 1940s. The Marstons lived an unconventional lifestyle, establishing a ménage a trois with the beautiful dark haired Olive Byrne, who Peter allegedly used as his inspiration for Diana’s appearance. William Marston’s liberal and pro-feminist views were real enough, but he also had a deep fascination with the bondage fetish and his Golden Age stories are filled with imagery of Wonder Woman being tied up, chained up and generally held captive by any number of male and female villains. It was therefore no accident that Diana’s principal weapon is not her super strength or robot plane, but her golden lasso - a lariat that compels anyone caught in it to tell the truth, but which is also a super tough rope very useful for restraining enemies who did not wish to be captured by the Amazon.

As can be seen from the page above, the bondage in Marston’s and Hay’s work was not confined to Wonder Woman herself. Her college sidekicks, the Holliday Girls led by the overweight but irrepressibly cheery Etta, were frequently bound and gagged and requiring Amazonian rescue, but were more than capable of dishing out the bondage themselves when the occasion arose. As the relative comics artistic freedoms of the wartime years were pulled back in the 1950s, and the portrayal of Wonder Woman passed to other illustrators, the fetish imagery associated with the character was considerably reduced. However, Wonder Woman has remained a favourite comic book character, female role model and feminist icon ever since. The groundbreaking Marstons would be proud.

Source: Wonder Woman: the Golden Age Omnibus Vol 1 (2023)

[orlissa]

I was at a book launch with a friend last night--the book itself was a richly illustrated album containing biographies of women from history wo, for different reasons - forward in romance, having power, demanding recognition - were labelled a whore during their lifetime. It was written by two very sweet women, and whole launch was just lovely.

The friend bought the book and some of their earlier stuff (the yhave written several similar books on women's history before, and one of them also has several historical novels published), and we remained behind to have them signed and to have a few words with the authors - and I mentioned them that they would surely find William Moulton Marston's story fascinating with his "pro-women" crusade and two wives who pretty much enabled his carreer (the authors were fascinated, made a note of it, and thanked me for the tip).

And then somebody behind my back just yelled in "akshually, the two women were in love with each other, not with Marston."

First of all, RUDE. Second of all, you have seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, have you? Bless your heart.

I hate that movie. Okay, I have a love-hate relationship with it, because it does a good job at explaining Martson theory. But all the historical bits are basically bullshit, and let's be clear here: the movie was written and directed by a lesbian woman, and she pretty much pushed the envelope on the clear lesbian angle.

The truth is... we will problaly never know the whole story. But the facts: 1, Marston brough Olive into the relationship, and pretty much said that Elizabeth either accepts her, or he is choosing Olive. Elizabeth wasn't present for the beginning of the relationship. 2, Marston did have this idea that a woman who has sexual relations with another woman will be a better lover for her man 3, The children (both Elizabeth and Olive had two kids from Marston) didn't know that they were biologically half-siblings, or that Olive and Marston were lovers. Olive An, Elizabeth's daughter, still said, as late as in 1999, that Olive was their housekeeper. 4, After Marston's death in 1947, Olive and Elizabeth lived together for the rest of their lives, altough Marston's biographer, Jill Lepore, puts it down firmly that they had seperate bedrooms (which the other end of the envelope pushing, imho).

So it's likely that there was something between Elizabeth and Olive, but it's clearly Marston who was the center of this relationship-universe. To say that the primary relationship was between Elizabeth and Olive is inaccurate.

...And to yell it from behind my back while I'm talking to the authors is rude.

[caughtinred]

lovedrunk idiot

[doctorkinktraveller]

[tiefy]

what we want can never happen.

- why?

because the world won't let it.

- the world can't stop us.

[reddeadclown]

Dutch bough 400 Olive Garden breadsticks for the gang… Sean and Jack (yes, the child) teamed up to eat half of them before passing out.

[queersintherain]

Other relevant media on these folks: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, the incredible movie directed by Angela Robinson (who was also behind D.E.B.S.).

Nerdy Fact #1434: Wonder Woman was originally based on two women: the wife of creator William Marston and one of his former students that both he and his wife had sexual encounters with. 

(Source.)