How Mars Ravelo Came Up with Suprema

In a 1977 magazine interview,1 Mars Ravelo admitted copying Wonder Woman and remodeling her into Darna for Philippine audiences.  Even then, Ravelo already made a memory slip.  He also credited Supergirl who happened to appear years later after Darna.

The prototype Supergirl first appeared in 1958.  The canonical Kara, cousin of Superman, appeared in 1959.  Darna predates either one.

In Ravelo’s later interviews (1985-1986), the idea that William Moulton Marston came to the Philippines and ripped off Darna was pitched.  Suprema was Ravelo’s initial name for Darna according to the interviews.

For a list of Mars Ravelo’s false memories and confabulations (unintentional lies) and the Supergirl publication history, please see “Heroes and Memories.”2  For the 1928/1932 Diana/Wonder Woman prototype and William Moulton Marston’s whereabouts in the 1930s and 1940s, kindly read “Latin, Law, Suprema, inter Alia.”3  You can verify the data in each article by checking the provided list of references.

The TV series Wonder Woman began in 1975.  It was a hit.  When Mars Ravelo was interviewed in 1977, Wonder Woman was still on the air and doing very well.

It is common knowledge for comic book fans that Wonder Woman was initially named Suprema, the Wonder Woman, by creator William Moulton Marston, and that Suprema was removed by then editor Sheldon Mayer.

This was not common knowledge before 1975.  

In the 1975 DC Convention, Sheldon Mayer sat on the Wonder Woman panel and revealed to the world for the first time that Marston submitted “Suprema, the Wonder Woman,” as the original name, and that he nixed Suprema.4  The word about Suprema got out to the public, in fanzines and niche comic book clubs.  I will not underestimate Mars Ravelo’s fanzine savviness and ear for superhero gossip.

It is only in 1995 that the Suprema bit got into mainstream documentation with the appearance of Les Daniels’ book DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes,5 which was sold locally at National Book Store (where I got my copy).

Five years later, Daniels would publish Wonder Woman: The Complete History6 and would mention Sheldon Mayer again.

Jill Lepore’s comprehensive The Secret History of Wonder Woman quotes Les Daniels on page 392, note 17 (of the 2015 edition).7  Lepore cites “Daniels, DC Comics, 58-59.”  Pages 58 to 59 refer to Daniels’ DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes, not the 1975 DC Convention Archives.  Why did Lepore lump Daniels’ book and the Archives together in a single note?  Because Daniels personally interviewed Sheldon Mayer, and the Archives and Daniels reveal Mayer’s involvement with Suprema.

With the Suprema news and Wonder Woman’s popularity in the 1970s, Mars Ravelo kept his ears wide open.  He wouldn’t credit Wonder Woman in the 1977 interview if he didn’t.

Our memories are not set in stone.  A little bit of information here and there mix with our ardent desires and frustrations, especially in our twilight years.  I listed a number of sources you can read about false memories and confabulation in Heroes and Memories, or you can simply search the Net and your friendly neighborhood library.

When Ravelo still had relatively good memory, he was comfortable if people thought his superhero works came from Western ideas.  According to Boboy Yonzon, in the book The First One Hundred Years of Philippine Komiks and Cartoons, Ravelo’s contemporary Pablo Gomez inferred that “the Ravelo superheroes were quite not original.”8

Notice how Ravelo’s memories become more and more vividly detailed every time previously unreleased information is uploaded to the Internet.  Interesting, isn’t it?  I have quoted Elizabeth Loftus regarding false memories and confabulations in Heroes and Memories.  This time, I would like to quote renowned artist Salvador Dali:

“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”9

So, that’s how Ravelo came up with Suprema.  But, there’s more.

Mayer – Redondo – Ravelo – Suprema – mixing of real and made-up memories

In 1975, DC Comics produced an illustrated version of the Bible.10  This was penned by Sheldon Mayer and illustrated by Nestor Redondo, the very first artist of Darna.  Joe Kubert was also credited as artist, but looking at the artwork, that’s all Redondo.

The Bible by Mayer and Redondo is a masterpiece.  Nestor Redondo is one of the greatest artists to walk the earth, and it is fitting that he was chosen by DC Comics to illustrate a timeless classic.  Look at Redondo’s Darna, available via search engines, and you will know how great art contributed to the popularity of Darna.

Sheldon Mayer spilled the beans on Suprema, and Nestor Redondo happened to be the original visual creator of Darna.  Is that fate or what?  It feels like an inescapable artistic collaboration between Wonder Woman and Darna.

Mars Ravelo was already a man of means when Nestor Redondo worked for DC Comics.  It is not hard to think communications, however intermittent, between Darna writer and artist continued through the years.

Postscripts

Historically, Filipinos were exposed to American superhero comics in the 1940s through soldiers stationed in the Philippines (we were exposed to American comics before then especially comic newspaper strips, but not superhero comics).  The superhero genre, brought about by the appearance of Superman in 1938, was relatively young then.  After World War II, leftover superhero comics by American military personnel11 became accessible to, and massively popular with, the masses which led to the creation of our own superheroes.  Because Superman was virtually unheard of by regular folks in the Philippines pre-1940s, only rich collectors could afford a Superman comic book in 1939, if they’d already (possibly) heard of superheroes by 1939, that is.  Mars Ravelo was cash-strapped at the time.  The young noble heart of Ravelo would not allow his family to go hungry just to get his hands on an expensive superhero comic book, not the Ravelo I know of.

The Internet is now peppered with the false notion that Darna was conceptualized and created in 1939.  Darna first appeared in 1950.  Her predecessor Varga first appeared in 1947.  Even if Darna were indeed conceptualized in 1939, she would still never predate Wonder Woman.

Let me remind you that in the 1932 novel Venus with Us12 by Marston, the prototypical Diana and Wonder Woman characters were already present, and Marston repurposed names from the novel into the Wonder Woman comics of the 1940s (see Latin, Law, Suprema, inter Alia).  Also, Venus with Us is based on Marston’s psychological framework published in 1928.13  Wonder Woman was already Diana in 1937, according to archival work by Trina Robbins.14

How can 1939 predate 1928, 1932, or 1937?  It does if we are still in the BC (before Christ) era.  But as reality stands, Darna’s timeline begins with Varga in 1947 AD – there is no independently corroborable evidence to prove otherwise.

People readily believe what confirms their biases. I do not see why we should not be proud of a copy when it is as good, if not better, than the original.

National pride should not get in the way of the truth, and the truth is:

Mars Ravelo did not give Wonder Woman a template.

William Moulton Marston had twirled Wonder Woman’s core concepts and psychological themes12, 13 into action long before the appearance of Darna, and well before the phenomenal success of Superman that birthed the modern superhero genre.

NOTES

1Bill Davidson.  “Mass Culture.”  TV Times 13-19 Mar. 1977.  Excerpt rpt. in @ffv.  “In Appreciation of Mars Ravelo.”  Star For All Seasons.  WordPress.com, 9 Oct. 2013.  Web.  6 Aug. 2026.  <https://starforallseasons.com/2013/10/09/in-appreciation-of-mars-ravelo/>.

In “Heroes and Memories,” I originally cited this as:

Bill Davidson.  “Mass Culture.”  TV Times 13-19 Mar. 1977.  Excerpt rpt. in Star For All Seasons.  Web.  20 July 2016.  <starforallseasons.com/tag/ging-1964/>.

2Robert Baytan.  “Heroes and Memories.”  4 Aug. 2016.  Web.  <https://robertbaytan.blogspot.com/2016/08/heroes-and-memories.html>.

3Robert Baytan.  “Latin, Law, Suprema, inter Alia.”  15 April 2021.  Web. <https://robertbaytan.blogspot.com/2021/04/latin-law-suprema-inter-alia.html>.

4Sheldon Mayer.  “Wonder Woman Panel.”  1975 DC Convention.  DC Comics Archives, New York.  Transcript.

5Les Daniels.  DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes.  New York: Bulfinch Press, 1995.

6Les Daniels.  Wonder Woman: The Complete History, the Life and Times of the Amazon Princess.  San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000.

7Jill Lepore.  The Secret History of Wonder Woman.  New York: Vintage Books, 2015.

8John A. Lent, Boboy Yonzon, et al.  The First One Hundred Years of Philippine Komiks and Cartoons.  Tagaytay City: Yonzon Associates, 2009.  p. 110.

9Salvador Dali.  The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.  Trans. Haakon M. Chevalier.  1942.  New York: Dover Publications, 1993.  p. 38.

10Sheldon Mayer.  The Bible.  Illus. Nestor Redondo and Joe Kubert.  New York: DC Comics, 2012.  Rpt. of Sheldon Mayer.  The Bible.  Illus. Nestor Redondo and Joe Kubert.  New York: DC Comics, 1975.  Limited Collectors’ Edition C-36.

11John A. Lent.  “Introduction.”  Transnationalism in East and Southeast Asian Comics Art.  Ed. John A. Lent, Wendy Siuyi Wong, and Benjamin Wai-ming Ng.  Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.  p. 3.

12William Marston.  The Private Life of Julius Caesar (Venus with Us).  New York: Universal Publishing, 1953.  Rpt. of Venus with Us: A Tale of the Caesar.  New York: Sears Publishing Co., 1932.

13William Moulton Marston.  Emotions of Normal People.  New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928.

14Trina Robbins.  The Great Women Superheroes.  Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press, 1996.  pp. 3-4.

Vicente Alvarez Dizon Bested Salvador Dali

Ask an educated Filipino who the most famous Filipino painter is, and you get either Juan Luna or Fernando Amorsolo.

Ask if Salvador Dali is more famous than either one of them, and you get a reluctant “yes.”  Ask who the greatest is among the three, and you get “art is subjective” – true.

One’s greatness is not diminished by another’s greater fame.

Dali lost in a contest to an artist whose stardom is dwarfed by Dali’s own, as well as by that of the two Filipino titans.

Salvador Dali lost to Vicente Alvarez Dizon, a Filipino, in the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition sponsored by IBM held in San Francisco.  Fernando Amorsolo won in the counterpart competition, also sponsored by IBM, held at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

I do not recall my grade or high school teachers talking about Dizon.  Luna and Amorsolo are household names, especially since there are roads named after them.  Juan Luna Street leads to the famous bargain hub Divisoria, flocked by people any time of the year but most especially during the Christmas season for offering budget-friendly decor and gift selection.

Learning about Dizon years later gives me a certain sense of national pride.

The participation of Vicenter Alvarez Dizon and Fernando Amorsolo is documented in two catalogs of the same title, Contemporary Art of 79 Countries.  The catalog is not paginated but is instead arranged by country name alphabetically.  The Philippines is referred to as Philippine Islands.  Each participating country gets a two-page spread with the artwork and the photo of the artist.

The dual victories, and Dali’s second place, are documented in The Art News and elsewhere.

from Contemporary Art of 79 Countries
featured for educational purposes under principle of fair use

from Contemporary Art of 79 Countries
featured for educational purposes under principle of fair use

References

Dizon, Vicente Alvarez.  “Philippine Islands.”  Contemporary Art of 79 Countries.  Golden Gate International Exposition.  New York: International Business Machines Corporation, 1939.  N. pag.

Amorsolo, Fernando.  “Philippine Islands.”  Contemporary Art of 79 Countries.  New York World’s Fair.  New York: International Business Machines Corporation, 1939.  N. pag.

“Art Throughout America: New York and San Francisco Popular Awards to Contemporary Art.”  The Art News 4 Nov. 1939.  15.

Wonder Woman’s Original Source of Strength

In Wonder Woman’s current iteration, her powers are bestowed by the gods of Olympus.  That was not the case originally.

Wonder Woman’s original source of strength is brain power, and the direct declaration from Wonder Woman that her strength comes from the brain (in the 1940s) is from this strip published in 1944.

In the first panel, Wonder Woman declares to an audience, “I’m often asked the secret of Amazon strength. It’s this – the human brain contains enough energy to blow up mountains.  Amazon girls are trained to direct their brain power into their muscles!”

Look carefully at the last panel and you’ll see “12-8” under H.G. Peter (artist).  That is the intended date of publication – December 8, 1944.  The intended date is not always the actual date of publication.

This Wonder Woman strip was published on December 29, 1944, three weeks after the date written on the last panel.  This strip is found on page 19 of New York Journal-American (see photo below).

Wonder Woman comic strips were distributed across the United States in newspapers that licensed King Features Syndicate content, and the date of publication for any newspaper that featured the 12-8 strip is the same.  King Features Syndicate and New York Journal-American are owned by the Hearst media empire.  New York Journal-American “ceased publication in 1966” (New York Journal-American Photographic Morgue).  King Features Syndicate still operates today.

This strip is from page 73 of the compilation Wonder Woman: The Complete Newspaper Strip, 1944-1945, and has a clearer printed 12-8 (longer panels too – more space under 12-8 making the numbers clearer – than the original New York Journal-American print).

The original newspaper strip has the title Wonder Woman and author Charles Moulton.  The compilation did away with title and author and simply stacked strips on top of each other.

Brain power was implied, if not directly declared, through Amazon training when William Moulton Marston (Charles Moulton) was the writer.

In Sensation Comics #58 (Oct. 1946), Wonder Woman brings Olive Norton, a girl, to Paradise Island to train her. On page 5, Wonder Woman tells Olive, "Feel yourself holding the bat. Your brain will give your muscles all the strength you call for!" On the next page, Wonder Woman declares, "I knew Olive could be a real athlete. All she needed was our Amazon training." Olive demonstrates feats of strength in the pages that followed.

The closest to this is possibly Wonder Woman #28 (Mar.-Apr. 1948) where Irene says, “What good is my Amazon training if I can’t break little ropes like these?  I will break them!”  Irene then proceeds to bend and destroy prison bars with bare hands.  Compare Wonder Woman’s words with Irene’s in panel 4 of the 12-8 strip: “My Amazon training sends brain power to my hands and – hola!”

Wonder Woman directly atttributes brain power in the 1973 cartoon Super Friends.  In the episode “The Power Pirate,”  Wonder Woman tells Aquaman, “The only thing that can surpass super strength is the power of the brain.”

Recap

Wonder Woman’s original source of strength is brain power.  This was directly declared by Wonder Woman in the comic strip published on December 29, 1944 (not December 8) by New York Journal-American and other newspapers published across the United States.

References

Moulton, Charles.  “Wonder Woman.”  Illus. H.G. Peter. New York Journal-American 29 Dec. 1944: p. 19.

New York Journal-American Photographic Morgue.  Harry Ransom Center,  University of Texas at Austin, n.d.  Web.  27 July 2026.  <https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/nyjadc/history.cfm>.

Moulton, Charles.  Wonder Woman: The Complete Newspaper Strip, 1944-1945.  Illus. H.G. Peter.  Ed. Dean Mullaney.  San Diego: IDW Publishing, 2014.  p. 73.

Moulton, Charles (w), Harry G. Peter (a). Sensation Comics #58 (Oct. 1946), J.R. Publishing Co. [DC Comics]. pp. 5-6.

Moulton, Charles (w), Harry G. Peter (a).  Wonder Woman #28 (Mar.-Apr. 1948), National Comics Publications, Inc. [DC Comics].  p. 5-B.

“The Power Pirate.”  Super Friends.  ABC.  8 Sep. 1973.  Television.

===

from Wonder Woman #117 (Oct. 1960)
featured for educational purposes under principle of fair use

In the photograph of the letter (above), Matthew Tristani asks, "How did Wonder Woman get her powers?" Wonder Woman replies, "I keep in shape with intensive Amazon training."

"Wonder Woman's Clubhouse" [letters page]. Robert Kanigher (w), Ross Andru (p), Mike Esposito (i). Wonder Woman #117 (Oct. 1960), National Comics Publications, Inc. [DC Comics]. N. pag.

===

updated August 5, 2026

I'm Where I Belong

A Pilot, a Bird, and a Gay Doctor in His 50s

Tom Cruise plays Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the 1986 film Top Gun.  I was in college when the film was shown here in the Philippines.  I had a big crush on Tom Cruise at the time.

Many years later, I was already openly gay then, I learned that Tom Cruise sued the people who questioned his sexuality.  Such homophobia didn’t sit well with me, so I stopped watching films he starred in.  I never saw any one of his Mission Impossible films even though he had Henry Cavill (Superman) in one of them.

I took exception with Top Gun: Maverick, the 2022 sequel to Top Gun.  It didn’t matter to me that I do not like Tom Cruise now.  What matters is for me to see how life has been for the character Maverick through the decades.  In 1986, I saw Maverick through the lens of a virgin on the cusp of discovering his true identity.  In 2022, I see Maverick through the eyes of a person who has made choices as Maverick has.

In Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick is still a captain when he’s supposed to be an admiral already like his contemporaries.  When asked by his superior why that is, he responds, “I’m where I belong.”  Being a captain allows Maverick to fly planes.  Being an admiral would see him do administrative work and that is not his cup of tea.

I have taken care of flyers through the years.  Flyers as in flying birds.  My pets.  Not pilots.  I do not recall having had sex with a pilot, although I wouldn’t be surprised if I had considering the hundreds of men I went to bed with.

Pets generally do not live as long as we do, and I’ve seen many of them pass away.

As of this writing, I have a dying pet bird I named Arcana.  Arcana is male by physical features, but since his breed (white-breasted woodswallow) is monomorphic the only way to definitely determine his sex is through DNA testing which Arcana never had.  I name my pets before acquiring them.  I have a male zebra finch I named Samantha (after Samantha Jones of the series Sex and the City).

I give my pet birds out-of-cage time regularly, so Arcana got to mingle with the crested mynas who attacked him.  You see, Arcana was already blind as a baby when I acquired him, so he couldn’t fend off the attack easily.  Arcana seemed comatose for 2 days until I treated him.  He recovered for around a week but went back to being lethargic later.  I gave away the crested mynas which I also handraised like Arcana.

During feeding time these days, Arcana would refuse to eat and would just stay perched on my left hand, mostly on the index finger, and would keep his head in either his left or right wing.  I would sing to him “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” the song interpreted by Carly Simon for the film Sleepless in Seattle.  Arcana would make noises and cry if I moved him away from my hand or if he thought I was away.  He would stay silently perched on my hand, seemingly content, as if saying, “I’m where I belong.”

Arcana is not the first bird to show such behavior.  I’ve had hundreds of flying birds as well.  My resume is filled not only with hundreds of spitting birds.

Seeing Arcana in his last moments reminds me of human patients dying as I declare their time of death.  Dying is an intimate moment reserved for loved ones, and it is a privilege for a doctor or a nurse to be part of such a remarkably terminal event.  As I stand aside while family members and friends grieve, I remind myself, “I’m where I belong.”

I didn’t do badly as a student.  I was the no. 1 in physics in my first semester of college (in Mapua, no less).  I was the no. 1 in biochemistry in medical school (that’s accidental, not intentional).  My classmates thought I would be someone big in the field of infectious diseases after graduation.  They also thought I would contract HIV and die from AIDS-related complications.  I never met their expectations.

I learned Classical Latin, Attic Greek and Biblical Hebrew on my own.  I can barely read an alphabet of Greek or Hebrew these days, but I still remember much of basic Latin, probably because much of English is derived from Latin.

I have classmates and friends who have IQs below sea level but who are now successful financially.  I have no wealth to speak of.  I just have hundreds of scale model cars, DVDs, and thousands upon thousands of books, and a “few” phones.  I haven’t seen a mobile phone I didn’t like – imagine Smeagol saying, “My precious.”

I didn’t become rich.  That’s by chance, a statistical probability.  I didn’t become a specialist.  That’s by choice, a statistical certainty.  I now practise medicine in a quaint little clinic in Quezon City where we see lots of patients every duty.  I do not own the clinic.  I’m just a reliever.

I had my own clinic from 2011 to 2016.  The government opened a free clinic that competed against mine.  I shut down my business while I could still laugh my way to the bank.

Maverick made tough choices along the way.  In the end, he got back with the love of his life, Penny Benjamin, and stayed where he belonged.  Penny never appears but is mentioned twice in Top Gun.

I’ve made my choices, too.  I got my heart broken, while breaking hearts (and crushing a few endowed men’s innocence) along the way.  I’ve made friends and enemies, possibly frenemies too.

Apparently, Top Gun: Maverick made me look back.  The film asks a question for us middle-aged and aged folks: How has life been?  I’d say life has been swell, for the most part.  However, I don’t see much of a future for me.  I think I’ll just be enjoying my golden years and beyond with what I have.

For now, as with Maverick and Arcana, “I’m where I belong.”

===

originally posted in a slightly different form on my Facebook wall in August 2022

Arcana passed away around a week after posting

Toys for Keeps

Adult content.  Please enjoy, and please be guided accordingly.

Lazada seems to be on sale for sex toys.  I’ve never seen dildoes (toy penises) priced at such a low price, possibly because the winter solstice is a season of food and getting heart attacks from eating too much.  In medical practice, though, we see more women giving birth in September and -ber months, indicating that December and cold winter months are conducive to sex.  We do see more heart attack cases in December and January due to unchecked diets.

Dildoes may be made of metal, rubber, etc.   A dildo and a vibrator are almost the same except a dildo is manually operated.  A vibrator is a battery- or electrically operated artificial penis.

I ordered a couple of dildoes from Lazada recently and realized I now have a collection of over 10 (collected over the years), some of which are gifts from friends.

Once I receive a dildo or brought home one, I’ll just use it once or twice, and it will likely stay in a box for a long time before being used or displayed again.

A sexually active (formerly sexually active, that is, because the pandemic made me pause) man like me practically has no need for dildoes since I get the real stuff when I’m on the prowl, unless I’m using one to play with my partner (and that rarely happens).  I do handcuff a partner now and then; handcuffs are a different set of toys (“behave if you don’t wanna get spanked” kind of toy).

I think a collector like me shall never stop collecting stuff I don’t need.  Because I’m a collector.  My thousands of books, hundreds of DVDs, hundreds of scale model cars, etc., tend to prove that.  Well, the books I need to learn and review stuff from.

My favorite dildo is a candle in the shape of a penis.  It’s my favorite because it was given to me by a dear friend over a decade ago, and that friend of mine died of a heart attack last year.  I shall always keep that penis with me (not inside me, of course).

In a lifetime of collecting, I think the best collections are the ones given by friends or the ones purchased with them.

Bananas

I was given loads (kilos and kilos) of bananas, apart from other gifts, by patients on my duty (December 21, 2022).

With the pandemic waning, I imagine seeing a different kind of banana, the kind that stands to attention when held, the kind that spits when angry.  It’s the kind we call “maginoo pero bastos” (gentlemanly but brash).

There will come soft tumescence and milky showers.  Soon.

 

 

Do You Remember Your First Time?

Adult content.  Please enjoy, and please be guided accordingly.

First Ferris wheel ride.  First kiss.  First b***job.

I can not remember any of these clearly, but I remember a particular fellatio I performed that made me acknowledge a medical condition I have: asthma.

Around a decade ago, I was giving head to a guy with an average dick but with a particularly rock hard tumescence any gay man would want to sink his teeth into (a hard man is good to find).

Such size was not in any way challenging to me, but I noticed coming up for air and gasping for breath.  I paused and observed my breathing.  I had been feeling uncomfortable days before then, but that was the only time I took a pause to really assess myself.  Auscultation revealed wheezes.  I was already in my 40s then.

My professor in pediatric pulmonology told the class that he developed asthma when he was already a lung specialist.  Aging really gives us unwelcome gifts sometimes.

Oh well, you know what they say: All great beauties must sacrifice.  My tongue and fingers and years of experience still rule, but I have to limit their power to make a man forget his name.

I miss giving head, and getting one.  I miss Big Bert and Little John and volting in.  Oh I wish for this pandemic to be over soon.

==

originally published on my Facebook wall in September 2022