[BlackKusanagi]

Wow… 😯

[10-4]

Nifty.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Awesome find – it’s a shame that she didn’t get some more coverage.

[David C. Matthews]

Actually not, ERB's Dejah Thoris was the ORIGINAL red Amazon chick . . .  8)

Long black hair, ultra tall, buffed bod and skimply clad – the wondrous woman of Barsoom, what more could you ask for . . .  8)

"Buffed"? Depends on who's drawing her (as with She-Hulk)… I seem to remember a respectable rendition of Dejah by Frank Cho.

It's been several years since I've read the novels, but given the times ERB wrote the stories in, and Burrough's'  own attitudes vis-a-vis relations between men and women, I doubt that "buffed" was part of ERB's original concept.

[AlexG]

You raise some very valid points and in general, I would agree with you – we're all products of the time, place and culture that we're born into and ERB was no exception.  However, his female characters, particularly in the Mars series were far from cowering wall flowers in need of male rescue – if necessary they could stick the shiv in, swing sword or use a radium blaster to deadly effect.  Granted a modern interpretation, my own, would include a far greater femuscular build – to one degree or another – then even he would have allowed for in his physical descriptions (pre-1950).  Even so, I think EBR would agree that a people, including females, raised in what are essentially martial cultures (Helium, Thark, et al) would have matching athletic builds to go along with all the sword training or physical what not that they had to routinely endure.  The subsequent paperback cover artwork, over time, has only confirmed this view to my satisfaction – same could be said of the Marvel Comics run (1978-80) – or in other words, my use of the word buffed = athletic.

I hope that this better clarifies from whence I was speaking.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Author]

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