Giant Heads and Enormous Bodies — Part One: Giant Heads
In the Silver Age and into the early Bronze Age, DC had several cover themes that helped to sell comics. Most people know about Gorilla covers (and I'll admit that I fall for them more often than not; I simply cannot resist a gorilla story). One of my favorite themes is outsized bodies. These usually manifest in either giant heads (to be more specific, hyper-intelligent brains) and enormous bodies (let's call it what it is: obesity). Whether they're super-smart or super-fat, the characters have different reactions to their anomalous enormity.
One would think that having a massive intellect would be a desirable thing. Unfortunately, in the DC Universe, you can't get hyper-intelligent without your head becoming an outsized, egg-shaped bald dome. Only a misshapen cranium can contain all that knowledge. Perhaps this visual cue was there to help the young reader follow the thread of the story. Or perhaps it was just an excuse to make the characters look so bizarre that it made an enticing cover (I am unaware of any gorillas with outsized, egg-shaped bald heads, but I may have missed them. Seems like a sure seller to me).
There were several characters who were blessed/cursed with the cranial deformity, such as Lois Lane (Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #27, August 1961), The Flash (Flash #177, March 1968, and a crossover with Green Lantern #13, June 1962), Jimmy Olsen (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #22, August 1957), and Superman's baby (Superman #224, February 1970). I've chosen to focus on Lois, Jimmy, and that precocious child.
The first thing that leaps out after reading the three stories is a gender gap as big as Lois's head. All three characters use their intelligence in different ways. Jimmy Olsen uses his to save the planet. Superman's baby uses his to try to take over the world. Lois uses hers to come up with ways to hide her giant head and therefore keep up the illusion of beauty (insert heavy sigh here for feminists everywhere).
In a way, it's pop culture rearing its giant head in the different approaches. Both of the male characters are enamored with their giant brains and use them for specific purposes.
Jimmy gets Superman to build an enormous crater in Antarctica and then fill it with a Himalayan mountain, a tropical island, sand from the Sahara, various metallic objects and some assorted meteorites. The purpose? Pure benevolence. Apparently, in 1000 years the unequal distribution of land mass (more land in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern) would make the world explode. Jimmy is also the only character who gets to have a wee bit of hair at the temples of his giant head because it just isn't Jimmy without his characteristic red hair. Once the whole saving the Earth thing is over, Jimmy reverts to normal (with his old hairdo mysteriously restored) and all is well with the world.
Superman's super-baby stars in an imaginary tale that has Superman married to Lois, who took a serum to protect her from his enemies. Unfortunately, while she's pregnant, some villains point a ray at their bedroom (it's the 70s, so it's okay to show the bedroom of a married couple especially since they have twin beds) and cause the baby to be born with an enormous brain and an evil streak a mile wide. At only one week old, the baby is already talking, snapping out put-downs of Superman (including possibly the only use of the word "sesquipedalian" in a comic book) and writing equations on a black board. Things go from bad to worse as the abusive child eventually leaves home and takes up with the villains who created his twisted evil genius. In the end, Superman saves the day and the baby reverts to a normal infant with an average-sized head.
Giant brain used to save the world versus giant brain used to destroy the world, but at least both brains were used for advanced thinking. Unfortunately, that can't be said for the female in our sample. 1961 was still mired in the thinking of the 50s where father knew best and women wore aprons, pearls, and high heels and wondered what was wrong with the Beaver.
Lois gets her giant brain by accident when she absorbs the mind power of all of Earth's great scientists. She is immediately appalled that a) her head is huge, misshapen, and ugly and b) she's lost her hair.
Despite her appearance, she must that brain for something, right? Does she save the world? Destroy it? Help in any way? Of course not. She uses it to think up crazy ways of hiding her head. She uses her own brain to hide in a hair dryer, but that pretty much exhausts her abilities. When asked to appear on Gary Moore's "I've Got a Secret" she uses the brain of an archaeologist to hide it in an Egyptian headdress. Her zoologist's brain has her burying her cranium in the sand, like an ostrich. A private investigator's brain helps her sneak around a Las Vegas showroom, stealing one of the elaborate headdresses. She then helps out an old friend by using her mathematician's brain to win at roulette.
Other events don't need disguises. She wins first place in a costume contest at a science fiction convention and is the recipient of a marriage proposal from a Bizarro Superman.
In the end, the brain transfer wears off and Superman shines some sort of ray on her to get her hair back (and in her original perm – that's some ray). The last panel would make nearly every modern female shudder as it espouses the view of the male comic book writer in 1961. "Any girl would prefer her own pretty face to having a super-brain... if she's really smart!"
Yes, the moral of the story is that pretty is the only goal for women. Leave the thinking to men. Happily, we've come a long way, baby, from 1961. This story could not have been written in today's world. Despite the depressing theme of the book, it's still vintage Lois Lane silliness and my own super-brain simply cannot resist it. Viva la giant heads!
Next month: Gorging on stories of enormous bodies.
A former writer for DC Comics and TV’s Weird Science, Joanna Sandsmark is also the author of The Wisdom of Yo Meow Ma, A Girl’s Best Friend, 10 Spiritual Lessons You Can Learn From Your Cat, 10 Spiritual Lessons You Can Learn From Your Dog, and Explore Your Destiny With Runes. If you'd like to learn more, including a detailed bio and more information about Joanna's books, please visit her Web site or visit her blog.
This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.
