Wonder Woman: Yay or Nay

[TheArsenal]

I find her Warrior/Peace Bearer stance a contradictory and clumsy mix.

This is another thing that has been completely misread about the character ever since Kingdom Come's hamfisted take. There is nothing whatsoever contradictory about that, any more than a cop or a UN peacekeeper carrying a gun. Creating a peaceful world means dealing with warmongers.

You are correct. It is not contradictory. It often takes force to keep the peace. Both elements can successfully exist in a character at once - no one has any doubt Superman has both - but they have to exist in balance. Wonder Woman as written has no balance. She stridently, constantly, preaches peace while enthusiastically embracing the warrior. One of those elements needs to be dialed back for readers to get a firm grasp on the character.

The only media she's gotten since has been in the more limited realm of animation from Bruce Timm, a man who couldn't write a proper Wonder Woman to save his goddamn life;

Timm's was my favorite version to date.

On Cheetah: the one thing Cheetah has in her favor is Gail Simone is writing her along with Wonder Woman's villains. Simone excels at making lesser known villains into fully realized characters. So, there's some hope there.

 

[Praetor]

When Wonder Woman is done right, with the ambassador/warrior balance, she's great. When she's not, it's a debacle that feels like a bad Xena ripoff.

 

[ancient]

She certainly lacks the standard superhero tragic/epic past. Batman is a billionare whose parents were killed, Superman's planet blew up. WW...is...pseudo Greek God. No strong motivation or personality. She comes from a magic island with very warped, unearthly, god-driven organization whose entire way of existing is impossible for the rest of the world, and yet she is also somehow supposed to be a diplomat. Of course, diplomacy isn't nearly as exciting as punching things.

One of the biggest problems you can have with a comic is for the character to be needlessly complicated. You can explain Bats, Supes, Flash, or most characters in two sentences, but it always seems like WW requires a small essay to explain and is still confusing afterwards.

Bruce Timm's version was pretty good, though her whole conflict with Hawkgirl seemed a bit forced since she was usually much more compassionate before that. She went a little wacky after the Hawk people invaded.

 

[Unicron]

As far as adversaries go, I think enemies that are the complete opposite of the character work best. I can see a supepowered male chauvinst pig with a grudge against woman as a perfect foil for Wonder Woman. Or a twisted version of Amazons who hates the world of man and considers Wonder Woman a traitor to Amazons everywhere as another potential adversary for her. -- RR

Did she have a Ferengi helmet?

 

[coolghoul]

Nay. Robin/Nightwing or The Flash has more cred as a member of The Big Three then Wonder Woman... And very few can even name a Wonder Woman villain. Much less a supporting character.

And they can for the Flash?

Are you kidding? Until recently The Flash was notorious for his lame, cheesy, dated bad guy guys. Which is the difference between WW and Flash. Both have lame bad guys but people have actually heard of The Flash's.

If you're going by man on the street? No. But every average comic fan has at least heard of Zoom/Reverse Flash and are some what aware of why he's a villain. They even did a Robot Chicken skit on him. The same cannot be said of Cheetah.

I'll echo the nice avatar comment, Thrall.

And just to prove that I'm the exception to the rule, I actually have heard of Cheetah, Ares etc but have never heard/read Zoom and Reverse Flash. I have read a few Flash books, probably the same amount as I have read slightly more of WW-solo. And have read more JLA type books where they both are present than solo books for these two.

I said Yay and I'm a male. What's not to like with that costume?!! Tho' I like the Alex Ross version of the costume with the skirt with slits best of all. It's ideals like these that help the teenage males grow up!

 

[hyzmarca]

One of the biggest problems you can have with a comic is for the character to be needlessly complicated. You can explain Bats, Supes, Flash, or most characters in two sentences, but it always seems like WW requires a small essay to explain and is still confusing afterwards.

She's a member of a tribe of Greek Amazons that gave up war in favor of compassionate semi-pacifism and spend their days in seclusion on a hidden island training like Shaolin monks who is chosen to leave her home and spread their peaceful philosophy when World War II knocks on their door.
At her core, she's basically Kwai Chang Caine with boobs and superpowers. She could be played by David Carradine in drag. She should be played by David Carradine in drag.

It's hard to get more simple that that. The problem isn't that she's complicated, but that some writers have needlessly complicated her.

 

[ancient]

Uh...I'm not familiar to those comparisons. Based on her concept the closest I can think of is maybe Gandalf. He's this travelling diplomat/advisor person who is essentially a minor god and kicks some butt with vague magic powers. Of course, that character exists more easily in a sword-and-stone setting. And he's not the main character.

 

[hyzmarca]

It's why the original is better.

Original: Not a god or a demi-god or an immortal, just a normal human being with superpowers acquired from intense physical training, a living monastic lifestyle on a mystical island, superior metallurgy, and a magic lasso that's the only really magical thing about her.

A US Army Air Corps pilot named Steve Trevor crashes on their secluded island by accident, the Amazons nurse him back to health, and he tells them about World War II. They don't want to end their lifestyle by joining the conflict, but Diana volunteers to go out into the world and make it a more peaceful place, by kicking Nazi ass and by spreading the concept of loving submission to each other and to the ideals of civilization, and some lesbian bondage.

Of course, they completely screwed up when they actually did make Wonder Woman into Kwai Chang Caine with boobs, but forgot about the peaceful philosophy and avoidance of violence.

As I said, the character hasn't been written correctly since Marston died. The core ideals that made her unique were lost on subsequent writers.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Marston's version is extremely interesting, but I don't think it's a workable one in a modern context; the '87 reboot did a great job of taking the best parts of the original and updating it into a more modern and serious context.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

the Amazons were ciphers, and not depicted properly as a superior civilization

They never HAVE been "a superior civilization". They're the epitome of victims stuck in their process of recovery.

her villains were either dull (Ares) or not even connected to her anymore (Cheetah, Giganta) (the exception would be Circe, who I thought was hilarious, but even then, Diana didn't fight her).

Granted. WW never has had a truly strong rogues gallery...

That ain't a successful adaptation of Wonder Woman. That's a generic warrior chick.

Only if you insist on WW as some sort of metaphor for some strange psycho-sexual-social theory or another.

WW works just fine based off of three simple tropes:

1) Anachronistic warrior

2) Feminism in conflict with itself

3) Greek mythology (for flavor)

 

[CaptainCanada]

They never HAVE been "a superior civilization".

No, that's wrong. Superior civilization bringing light to the world has been the premise of the character since her first appearance in Sensation Comics (though in Marston's time the particular message was a bit more exotic).

Only if you insist on WW as some sort of metaphor for some strange psycho-sexual-social theory or another.

She's the emissary of enlightenment; Timm doesn't get that. Nor is his Wonder Woman a graceful diplomat; she's just angry and resorts to violence at the first opportunity.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

They never HAVE been "a superior civilization".

No, that's wrong. Superior civilization bringing light to the world has been the premise of the character since her first appearance in Sensation Comics

Perhaps in their own minds, but never in reality.

She's the emissary of enlightenment; Timm doesn't get that. Nor is his Wonder Woman a graceful diplomat; she's just angry and resorts to violence at the first opportunity.

No, she's a princess of a warrior culture out of step with modern times and mores and awash with it's own internal conflicts (feminism vs femininity).

No weird "superiority" or kinky bdsm concepts necessary.

 

[YLu]

The Wonder Woman concept, at its core, is no more complicated than and just as potent as Green Lantern's. They're two versions of the same idea, one given a mythofantasy gloss, the other a sci-fi one.

Green Lantern: Person sent to fight evil by a benevolent society of Others (composed entirely of men)

Wonder Woman: Person sent to fight evil by a benevolent society of Others (composed entirely of women)

I know that's a simplification, as there are some important differences (such as the fact that Wonder Woman's from the alien society, while Green Lantern's one of us), but I think the underlying point stands.

 

[Praetor]

^That's actually an interesting comparison.

It's why the original is better.

Original: Not a god or a demi-god or an immortal, just a normal human being with superpowers acquired from intense physical training, a living monastic lifestyle on a mystical island, superior metallurgy, and a magic lasso that's the only really magical thing about her.

A US Army Air Corps pilot named Steve Trevor crashes on their secluded island by accident, the Amazons nurse him back to health, and he tells them about World War II. They don't want to end their lifestyle by joining the conflict, but Diana volunteers to go out into the world and make it a more peaceful place, by kicking Nazi ass and by spreading the concept of loving submission to each other and to the ideals of civilization, and some lesbian bondage.

Of course, they completely screwed up when they actually did make Wonder Woman into Kwai Chang Caine with boobs, but forgot about the peaceful philosophy and avoidance of violence.

As I said, the character hasn't been written correctly since Marston died. The core ideals that made her unique were lost on subsequent writers.

I actually tend to agree, particularly with the last statement. No one but Marston really seems to have a grasp on who she was intended to be as a character, and for whatever reason most other versions feel like a letdown. Perez's reboot was okay, but seemed to lack focus, IMO. From what I have learned about Marston, he wanted Diana to be first and foremost a woman, and an uncompromising embodiment of femininity. A lot of latter-day writers resort into just making her a stereotypical 'tough chick' without really thinking about what that means. At what point does a woman stop behaving like a woman and end up just being a male character disguised as a female? The temptation of late has clearly been, in making her Superman's equal, to make Wonder Woman entirely too much like Superman, sans reluctance to kill.

I particularly think that elements of her origin have been lost and have contributed to making Wonder Woman seem like a generic anti-male warrior chick - particularly, the idea of Diana as a mortal woman whose powers derive from the Amazon science (gift of the Gods if you like, and IMO not irreconcilable) and the Amazons as, essentially, female monks. Somehow this idea in particular is lost in translation.

 

[bychance]

Female - Nay. I find the character extremely dull.

At the end of the day, a Wonder Woman [live action] movie is just never going to happen. I know, 'never say never' but it looks like its never going to get off the ground. Shouldn't have let go Whedon. When he was signed on, things were looking like they were coming into frutation (sp?). Now all there is are a bunch of push backs. The movie was originally supposed to be out in early 2009.

No, she isn't. At all. The characters are nothing alike. Xena is a barbarian warrior like Conan; Diana is a noble diplomat and peacemaker. People comparing to Xena has done the character immense damage.

Exactly (except for the last part, not sure if you meant that as an insult to Xena or not). Finally, someone understands this. People claim Xena was a 'Wonder Woman rip off'. What remote similarities do they have besides superficial ones -- ancient Greek decent, blue eyes and black hair? (Its like saying Batman is a rip off of Superman because they both have '-man' in their alias and both have a cape). Xena is a mortal; XENA CAN'T FLY.

 

[Gatekeeper]

I am male and am undecided when it comes to Wonder Woman.

While the concept of and mythology surrounding the Amazon Nation has fascinated me for some years now — it's speculated that there might really have been female-dominant tribes in the Black Sea region thousands of years ago — I think that if anything involving Amazons comes to the big screen, it should be a film adaptation of Steven Pressfield's "Last of the Amazons."

Gatekeeper

 

[CaptainCanada]

Exactly (except for the last part, not sure if you meant that as an insult to Xena or not).

I like Xena fine; but she's nothing like Wonder Woman.

 

[bychance]

Exactly (except for the last part, not sure if you meant that as an insult to Xena or not).

I like Xena fine; but she's nothing like Wonder Woman.

Oh okay