I read a story about a team of scientists bringing the 20-years-dead Superman actor George Reeves back to life in a Frankenstein-like fashion and giving him the powers his character possessed on-screen. While it has been some time since Reeves' death in 1959, I still thought the concept was pretty insensitive and perhaps cruel, which is fitting for an underground comic. We see Reeves' nude body as he's revived and he is promptly dressed in his old Superman costume, which is a little rude since he'd ceased to enjoy playing the character as he aged. However, I can't fault the art style as being unattractive, as it displays good use of pen and ink techniques and gives an unmistakable likeness of Reeves.
The other underground comic I read was Trina Robbins' Girl Fight, which was a feminist counterpoint to contemporary artists' work such as Robert Crumb's. Piggybacking off of iconic figures like Catwoman and Wonder Woman, Robbins portrays her heroines as powerful but intensely sexual vigilantes which team up with feminist groups and stab their male abusers as they get in their way. I thought this comic was fascinating, especially since it dared to show things like lesbian sex in both glamorized and humble, domesticated ways. Robbins' characters seem to me like an important stepping stone in the early LGBT movement, although I wouldn't call them extraordinarily feminist now. There is some unfair stereotypical treatment of the character Fox as she fights crime and returns to her jungle home wearing a leopard skin bikini, showing proof of first wave feminism's lack of intersectionality. However, I still found the themes displayed to be important amidst common ignorance of feminine sexuality, especially that of lesbian sexuality.
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