Meeting Millie the Model

In one of her most reflective moments as Hellcat, Patsy Walker became reacquainted with Millie the Model (Defenders #65).

Patsy and her pals were still in high school when they met the celebrity model, who was visiting the town of Centerville (Patsy Walker #76). Later, Millie and her photographer boyfriend, Clicker Holbrook, were headed to a fashion event when they got a flat tire in front of Patsy's house. Patsy was leaving for a masquerade party at the time and happened to be dressed as Millie. The disguise was so convincing that Clicker couldn't tell the two women apart (#98).

Donning a blonde wig, Patsy may have resembled Millie but the two characters were very different. Patsy was inherently relatable, often daydreaming about the future long before becoming a superhero. Millie, in contrast, was already glamorous, cosmopolitan and comfortable in her own skin.

Revisiting Wertham

I recently reread Seduction of the Innocent, psychiatrist Fredric Wertham's infamous book taking aim at the comic book industry. This time around, I paid particular attention to arguments I didn't cover in my initial post about the 1954 publication. As one example, Wertham criticized Millie the Model and similar comic books for setting unrealistic beauty ideals for girls.

Among his other concerns, Wertham asserted that the visual storytelling of comic books caused children to develop poor reading habits, such as picture reading: reading only the title and maybe the text on those pages with particularly violent or sexually intriguing illustrations. To Wertham, even comic books stating that "crime doesn't pay" were harmful as they showed children how to become criminals.

In writing Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham acknowledged that some psychiatrists regarded his claims as overzealous. Wertham countered that such colleagues made the mistake of seeing juvenile delinquents as fundamentally flawed while ignoring the pernicious influence of comic books. In another generalization, Wertham characterized comic book writers as dissatisfied with their own work.

For clarity, Wertham distinguished comic books from the newspaper comic strips, which he described as intended for adults and subject to tighter publishing standards. Here, Wertham employed a double standard, dismissing Flash Gordon and other comic books derived from newspaper strips as mere caricatures of the originals. In short, even comic books of the highest quality were inherently tainted by virtue of being comic books.

Millie the Model #55 (August 1954) appeared in print the same year as Seduction of the Innocent. Decades later, Millie guest-starred in Defenders #65.

Flash Gordon was one of several Golden Age adventurers reintroduced in the Defenders of the Earth limited series published in 1987 under the Star Comics imprint of Marvel Comics.

Millie the Metaphor

Guest appearing in Defenders #65, Millie the Model caught up with Patsy Walker and offered her a chance to work at her modeling agency—seemingly oblivious to Patsy's costumed career as Hellcat.

In turning down Millie's job offer, Patsy figuratively gave up a chance to return to the relatively simple existence she once had in the world of of romance comics, where both women began as characters.

Remaining in the Defenders as Hellcat meant proceeding as a three-dimensional character, with all the personal turmoil that might entail.

Patsy Walker entered the world of superheroes innocently enough by observed the wedding of Reed Richards and Susan Storm in Fantastic Four Annual #3. Patsy's friend Hedy Wolfe suggested that Millie the Model was there as well.