Another "Wonder Woman" show now in early development

[Gaith]

Dream wrote:

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So if this show is being made, does this mean the WW movie is now dead?

The "WW movie", such as it is, has been dead for years; there is only the JLA movie in the foreseeable future. If it does huge business, there might be another (solo) WW movie attempt, but that's far from a given.

... It's entirely possible the reason this pitch sounds so un-WW-like is to avoid any perception of treading on the JLA project as far as Diana is concerned. But I'd still bet a hundred bucks against a return of fifty that this proposed series never makes it to air.

[Christopher]

I think it's worth pointing out that one of the least authentic superhero adaptations in history was the Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk series, which kept virtually nothing from the comics, not even the main character's first name. Indeed, its creator went to great lengths to make it as completely unlike the comics as he possibly could. And yet it's regarded today as one of the best and most beloved comic-book adaptations of all time. Conversely, you have something like the Green Lantern movie, which was obsessively faithful to the minutiae of the comics' history, but is regarded as a failure. If anything, its fidelity to the source was key to its failure, because it made the story too cluttered and unfocused. So what really matters isn't how faithful something is to the source, but how good a story it tells in its own right.

That said, I find it surprising that they would do such a revisionist take on Wonder Woman in this day and age, when comics adaptations as a rule are far closer to the source than ever before. Arrow has its revisionist elements, but it's very faithful to the Mike Grell era of the comic in many ways, and is bringing in a ton of characters and elements from the comics, even while putting new spins on them. True, it wasn't that long ago that we had the Human Target series that had absolutely nothing in common with the comic besides its title and the lead character's name. But that was a pretty obscure comic, and a challenging one to do faithfully (though I liked the previous, more authentic adaptation in the '90s from The Flash producers Danny Bilson & Paul DeMeo).

[Christopher]

Update: Apparently the "Iris" name in the casting sheets was just a code name to try to hide the fact that they were casting for Wonder Woman. But because the Internet exists, the fact that it was connected to the show got out anyway. Looks like she's still called Diana.

Otherwise, I think it's promising -- the description of the character's attitude and reaction to our world does remind me of elements of the post-Crisis Perez version. But the backstory is very revisionist -- from a land of constant warfare rather than a paradise of peace? Hmm. Well, what matters is how it serves the character. I'm a little unclear on how she can be so innocent and optimistic if she's lived through such violence. But maybe if the idea is that she's trying to find a better way, maybe there's something there -- although it runs the risk of being too Xena-like. At any rate, it seems like they're making a departure from the battle-of-the-sexes thing and Themyscira being all women. They're going for a different kind of alienness. Which might be a good idea in this day and age.

[Lapis Exilis]

Christopher wrote:

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That said, I find it surprising that they would do such a revisionist take on Wonder Woman in this day and age, when comics adaptations as a rule are far closer to the source than ever before.

Traditionally, people feel much freer to completely reimagine female superheroes - thus why WW has undergone so many different takes already.

However, the article lead says that "Iris" is merely a code name on the production's casting call in an attempt to avoid undue attention on the project in this early stage. That likely means that the casting call in general is coded to get only the main character points across - it says nothing of superpowers for instance but that may be a dodge to not give up the fact that it's WW being cast.

In other words, the whole thing may be much truer to comic book roots than the casting call appears. All it really says is that this character is a fierce warrior, a true romantic, and innocent of the modern world. Other than the vague "true romantic" label, it sounds not far from the JL cartoon version of WW in basic character beats.


More concerning is "she will fight to the death to make the world safe for innocents and true romantics everywhere.”

Which sounds like there could be episodes of WW intervening in tales of True Love. At this moment in time I wouldn't put it past anyone to try to sell a superheroine who makes the world safe for teenage girls and their vampire lovers to ride off into the sunset, if you get my drift.

Could be awful if they try to play that sort of thing too straight, could be the next Buffy if they can get some cleverness in there. Only time will tell.

[Mr. Adventure]

Instead of Iris they should do an update of Isis. As a little boy I watched both Wonder Woman and Isis on TV not to mention Hulk and Spider-Man. They may have been cheesy but you don't have that these days.

[Gaith]

Christopher wrote:

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the backstory is very revisionist -- from a land of constant warfare rather than a paradise of peace?

... I'm a little unclear on how she can be so innocent and optimistic if she's lived through such violence.

... it seems like they're making a departure from the battle-of-the-sexes thing and Themyscira being all women. They're going for a different kind of alienness.

Switch the female to male references and you just described Thor to a T.

[Greg Cox]

Christopher wrote:

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But maybe if the idea is that she's trying to find a better way, maybe there's something there -- although it runs the risk of being too Xena-like..

And that's a problem?

[Christopher]

Lapis Exilis wrote:

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Traditionally, people feel much freer to completely reimagine female superheroes...

That's quite a blanket assertion. Evidence, please? If anything, the '70s Wonder Woman series was much closer to the source than its male-led contemporaries The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Captain America pilot movies.

And really, how many live-action TV adaptations of female comic-book superheroines have there actually been? I can only think of three: the '70s Wonder Woman, the Yancy Butler Witchblade, Birds of Prey, and Painkiller Jane. The DC-based ones were relatively close to the source material -- the characters mostly had the same names, powers, and origins, with some modifications, and were recognizable as the characters they were based on. Witchblade was a departure mainly in that they had Sara Pezzini actually wear clothes when she fought crime, but that's an understandable change. The Painkiller Jane pilot movie with Emmanuelle Vaugier departed heavily from the comic, but the Kristanna Loken weekly series, a complete reboot, was closer. Otherwise the superheroines we've seen on TV have been members of team shows like The Middleman -- which was extremely close to the source, since its showrunner was the comic's creator, and the comic was based on a script he'd originally written as a TV pilot anyway.

There haven't been that many examples in feature films either -- Supergirl, Elektra, Catwoman, and heroines in team movies like X-Men, Fantastic Four, Watchmen, etc. The only real "reimagining" I can see in those examples is Catwoman -- but if you think about it, that film is really a sequel/retcon to Batman Returns, implicitly reinterpreting Michelle Pfeiffer's Selina as one member of a lineage of supernaturally endowed Catwomen and Halle Berry's Patience as her successor.

Maybe you're thinking of the Michelle Ryan Bionic Woman reboot as an example? I'd say that's matched by the Mark Valley Human Target -- both were shows that pretty much took only the title and the lead character's name and changed everything else, to such an extent that I wondered why they didn't just give them new titles and avoid paying royalties to the creators.

More concerning is "she will fight to the death to make the world safe for innocents and true romantics everywhere.”

Which sounds like there could be episodes of WW intervening in tales of True Love. At this moment in time I wouldn't put it past anyone to try to sell a superheroine who makes the world safe for teenage girls and their vampire lovers to ride off into the sunset, if you get my drift.

Well, keep in mind that "romantic" has other meanings than "concerned with love." A romantic is an idealist, a dreamer. It could be saying she's fighting on behalf of idealism and hope.

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Instead of Iris they should do an update of Isis. As a little boy I watched both Wonder Woman and Isis on TV not to mention Hulk and Spider-Man. They may have been cheesy but you don't have that these days.

I had the same thought when I re-watched Isis not too long ago -- that I'd like to see a new take on it, a version with better effects and fewer restraints on the action so we could see was Isis was really capable of. (Although she pretty much had godlike powers in the show. She could turn back time, transform anything into anything else, control plants and animals, suspend gravity, you name it. Actually a little scary if you think about it.)

[Greg Cox]

Christopher wrote:

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I had the same thought when I re-watched Isis not too long ago -- that I'd like to see a new take on it, a version with better effects and fewer restraints on the action so we could see was Isis was really capable of. (Although she pretty much had godlike powers in the show. She could turn back time, transform anything into anything else, control plants and animals, suspend gravity, you name it. Actually a little scary if you think about it.)

I had fun writing Isis in my 52 novelization, and, yeah, she could be pretty scary when provoked!

And I can't believe nobody is citing that classic comic book adaptation: Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson.

[Lapis Exilis]

Christopher wrote:

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That's quite a blanket assertion. Evidence, please? If anything, the '70s Wonder Woman series

I was speaking of comics history not adaptations. As for evidence - WW going from superpowered Amazon to non-powered kung fu fighter and back again, the many-more-than-nine-lives versions of Selina Kyle, and, Donna Troy anyone? Just to name a few.

Well, keep in mind that "romantic" has other meanings than "concerned with love." A romantic is an idealist, a dreamer. It could be saying she's fighting on behalf of idealism and hope.

Could be, but let's face it, there's a strong tendency to build a strong romance (genre) emphasis into a female superhero story, especially one for tv in the hopes that it will help crossover appeal to a female audience. The innocent romantic, as you say feels a little contradictory if the coming-from-a-war-torn country bit turns out to be an actual plot point. And it may not be - it may be more coded cover - the current version of Wonder Woman is a fierce and deadly fighter, even where her colleagues will not kill, depsite being from peaceful Themyscira. Though tough and deadly Amazons is built into the Perez reboot conception of the Amazon origin story. Diana's contradictory nature tends to spring from her being raised by a race of women who underwent cruel torture in their past, but which she herself never experienced.

[Christopher]

Lapis Exilis wrote:

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I was speaking of comics history not adaptations. As for evidence - WW going from superpowered Amazon to non-powered kung fu fighter and back again, the many-more-than-nine-lives versions of Selina Kyle, and, Donna Troy anyone? Just to name a few.

Okay, but your premise was that it happened more with female characters than male. It doesn't count as evidence if you only give female examples -- you need to prove they outnumber the male examples by a statistically significant margin. Green Arrow's been through a number of reinterpretations. Guy Gardner spent a few years as Warrior instead of Green Lantern, one of many ridiculous '90s retools of various superheroes. Superman split into Red and Blue halves with electric powers for a while. Spider-Man had his black costume period, and his period as an "out" hero and Tony Stark's protege. I think there was a time when Dr. Strange lost his Sorceror Supreme title, or at least became a more conventional superhero for a few years. Heroes of both sexes get retooled plenty.

[Mr. Adventure]

Greg Cox wrote:

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I had fun writing Isis in my 52 novelization, and, yeah, she could be pretty scary when provoked!

And I can't believe nobody is citing that classic comic book adaptation: Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson.

I've never read it but looking at a few images online that might have been one of the more faithful of the female comic book adapatations.

[Lapis Exilis]

Christopher wrote:

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Okay, but your premise was that it happened more with female characters than male. It doesn't count as evidence if you only give female examples -- you need to prove they outnumber the male examples by a statistically significant margin.

Actually, dear, I don't need to prove anything - this isn't an academic paper, it's an internet discussion board about minor pop culture topics that I visit for five minutes here and there for laughs. If you don't agree with me, I'm good with that.

But I will say, that it's certainly true that in the last 15-20 years, more and more characters have seen major and minor revisions as comic books have struggled and become more dependent on stunt storytelling that uses revisions and reimaginings as marketing campaigns. But as venerable anaylses of comics history like Women in Refrigerators and the "Are female characters really treated any differently from male characters?" response Dead Men Defrosting have indicated, there appears, across comics history, to be more of a tendency to alter female superheroes without returning them to their former heroic status quo than there is to do the same for male characters. However, given the sprawling history of supeheroes, it is difficult to make any comprehensive study without taking an inordinate amount of time to prove "statistically significant" arguments, which, I hate to break it to you, your few examples do not approach either, even while they do allow you to display your impressive knowledge of superheroes in their various versions.

[Christopher]

^Of course I'm not asking for scholarly precision. But you made a claim that you offered no support for, and when people do that, other people are entitled to ask what the basis for the claim is. You don't have to give exhaustive evidence, but you didn't give any evidence whatsoever. First you just made the assertion with zero support. Then when I asked for support, you only gave female examples and no male examples at all, which did nothing to support your claim that there was any difference. I'm just trying to gather more information here. If what you say is true, that's fine, but I'm not familiar with the basis for that argument and I'm interested to learn more if it is true. That's why we have conversations, isn't it? To learn from each other? How can I learn from what you say if you won't tell me what you know?

But if your response to being asked for more information is to get snide and defensive, then I have no reason to believe you're doing anything more than blowing smoke. So you're only hurting your own position by reacting that way.