Wonder Woman

In the versions of the myths we have Aries is essentially the god of the brutality of war, while Athena is the goddess of the tactics and strategy of war. Keep in mind most of the myths past down to us are the Athenian versions, who hated the Spartans and their patron god Aries.

Azz's Author Avatar seems jaded with his aspect in the whole world and wants to pass his mantle to someone else.

Diana was unfit, and with nobody else as good for her, he spent 10 years wondering from war-torn country to war-torn country.

Donate money to Skullgirls, get a sweet poster.

i find that this would be an interesting history for her to have

Heracles is Wonder Woman’s father https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/WonderWoman

Referring to a post from earlier, regarding the Pre52 Wonder Woman. Hippolyta wasn't some "random mortal" she was Zeus' grandaughter. And while family ties don't hold as much weight to the Greek Gods as they do to us, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Hippolyta would be allowed a blessing.

That is completely inaccurate. In the versions of the myths we have, Aries is a goat. (and apparently, the greatest man who ever lived)

Anyway, I think this entire thread has already been concluded by Tiggers Are Great.

I mean, what do you say to that? I know you all have ideas of what could be done with Wonder Woman or hopes for her New 52 series but in both cases, history is utterly against you.

I prefer George Perez's history of the Amazons and Wonder Woman. Amazons are reincarnated souls from women who were killed by abusive men. Hippolyte was pregnant at the time she was killed, so that extra soul remains un-reincarnated until Hippolyta feels she needs the daughter she never had.

I think it should be noted that that story arc wasn't making fun of the idea of having a Wonder Woman movie, it was satirizing the Hollywood machine that would make such a movie suck and has been responsible for said movie not materializing until 2017.

I think Draco was just misspelling "Ares." "Ares" is the Greek god of war, corresponding to the Roman Mars (who wasn't portrayed as nearly as much of an ass). "Aries" is a ram (in the Zodiac, anyhow). They are pronounced exactly the same, at least in English. Substitute "Ares" for "Aries" and everything he said is accurate.

edited 19th Jan '15 11:59:24 AM by Robbery

Hey guys, I'm new here and this is my first post. I've been a WW fan since about 2007 and have read the Perez, Rucka, Simone and Azzarello runs. I'd say the first two are the best and would fuel a movie or at least a tv series (actually I think a tv series would be better grounds to explore her mythos). I think there are some good things in the Azzarello run but it's not my cup of tea. I like the clay origin because it isn't just Diana's story. it is the story of Hippolyta and her people and how Diana was a source of joy to the Amazons after the pain and suffering they'd dealt with from the outside world. The Perez run also shows that the Amazons weren't perfect but did at least have somewhat sympathetic reasons for not trusting men.

George Perez is my favorite.

John Byrne's run was... fetishistic. He was trying to turn WW into Babe. Seriously, just without the multiple personalities.

So, does anybody else find the character of Dr. Psycho to be a deeply uncomfortable one? And not in the way he's intended to be, but in an Unfortunate Implications sort of way? I mean, it's one thing for Wonder Woman to fight a character who is a rapist, misogynist, and all around woman-hating bastard. That makes total sense, particularly given WW's origins as a feminist character. But to have the misogynist and rapist in question be a dwarf? And one of the few dwarfs in comics at that? That smacks of some very unpleasant things to me.

Speaking of Wonder Woman villains, I think one of the issues the franchise has is that each author who writes WW seems to invent a whole bunch of new antagonists for her to fight, who are then promptly forgotten by the next author. Only a very few—Circe, Ares, and Cheetah most commonly—manage to recur. I'd love to see some authors go back through her Golden Age Rogues Gallery and revive some of those characters. Personally, if I were going to pick one, I'd go with Gundra. Because an evil Valkyrie who sided with the Nazis is, at least to me, a far more interesting Evil Counterpart for Diana than most the evil Amazons we've had over the years.

edited 10th Feb '15 10:14:57 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Yeah I've never liked Dr. Psycho myself and honestly wouldn't mind him being removed from the books. I have wondered how modern audiences would react to Heracles (or any other Greek hero) being a villain though. Maybe with Maleficent they might try reexamining them in a different light.

Growing up I was a fan of superheroes but I didn’t really know comics existed I just new of them from the cartoons I didn’t find out about comics until later. but I really liked Wonder woman, from Justice League and even the old show. However one I got into comics and got origin story of the DC Amazons I realized how utterly stupid it was. I put this in unfortunate implications but one of the reasons I liked Wonder Woman is that I am a huge fan of Greek Mythology but DC totally ruined it.

Everything about Wonder Woman falls apart when you get to DC’s version of Heracles the most famous classical hero journey to get the Golden Girdle of Gaea. In fact retrieving the Girdle was one of the twelve labors he was forced to do to atone for killing his family in a Hera-induced rage and was given to him willingly. In DC on behalf of Ares Heracles drugged and raped the Amazons after being defeated the stole the Golden Girdle of Gaea. While Heracles wasn't exactly a paragon of heroic virtue having killed more than one innocent person simply for being too close when his temper got the better of him. He was an honorable man who went to great lengths to help his friends, and while violent was by no way a rapist. Yet DC portrays him as the Dumb Muscle for Ares as well as a bit of a dirty coward. Furthermore it replaces all of the female villains with men. Depending of the what version you read Eurystheus’s wife demanded the girdle and Hera spread rumors that he wanted Hippolyta for a bride so they attacked the ship causing Heracles to take the belt and flee. While they say he was still effected by the rage of Hera when he went to Themyscira he went on behalf of Ares to god who gave Hippolyta the girdle in the first place and he was completely coherent not a mindless berserker.

And its not just men woman are insulted as well the Amazons of greek myth were the equivalent of mythical dragons they were once nomadic society whose men were killed off in a war the woman were force to come together and organize themselves into an army which eventually grew into the Amazonian kingdom. However in DC Zues one day decides to resurrect all the woman ever killed by men. So that is Wonder Woman’s origin story Batman had his parents killed in front of him, Superman is the Last survivor of a dieing planet, Wonder Woman had everything handed to her because misogynistic Zues decided to do so one day on a whim.

And that’s the thing they are only considered the world finest Warriors in DC because Zues said so. In the original Hercules went to the Amazon island asked for the girdle Hippolyta became infatuated with him and gave it too him. Hera deciding that that was to easy appears before the amazons and rallies them against him. Haracles thinking he was betrayed took the belt and ran. Some legends say he killed her others don’t. in DC he went to the island on behalf of Ares demanded the belt got beat up then tricked, drugged and raped her before taking it. In the first Herakles even though he got a few hits in was forced to flee the might of the Amazon nation. While in DC even though Hippolyta defeated him when she actually needed to she was reduced to victim.

DC eliminated all the wars that prove their combat superiority. Every Demi god or person who was empowered by the gods all proved there superiority even if they lost

Achilles Perceus, ect all fought in a war or completed some quest DC’s amazons never did any of that yes there are vague mentioning of Bellerophon and Pethesilea’s fall to Achilles, though she later turned up alive. However the battle with Thebes never happened because Hippolyta wanted peace and the Amazon’s who weren’t okay with being betrayed and raped became the “EVIL” Bana. They did this so that storylines like Amazons Attack, Flashpoint and the video game make sense but it still takes away from their title as the worlds finest warriors because one again they didn’t earn it. Finally the labors of Heracles was a redemption story that now never happened because he was transformed into a colossal stone pilar and forced to support Themyscira's weight for several millennia. That’s right Zues punished his son because he attacked his pet project. Which means other aspects of greek mythology have to be eliminated. It also effects actual history because the kingdoms that were inspired by Herecles either never came to power or were drastically different.

So Wonder Woman a character inspired by greek mythology basically insults and eliminated huge portions of it. This is one of the reasons I believe Wonder Woman is so hard to transfer over to live action because once you did deep enough you see how stupid origins is. After finding out the amazon origins I can only really read Wonder Woman by completely ignoring it and cutting out all the cave man stuff and replacing it with a mixture of marvels the original woman where led by five sister goddesses one of which was Hippolyta and the original legend. Instead of clay I also pretend that Heracles is Diane’s biological and the clay rape thing was just a lie told to her by her mother to explain where she came from. The new 52 fixed a lot of what I didn’t like about Wonder Woman but went to far in the other direction. Having the Themyscira work because then you open up the opportunity of Wonder Woman finding other Lost tribes that aren’t immortal. Furthermore the Amazon’s were never depicted as savages they bedded willing men kept the female born and either get the males to Hephaestus or nearby tribes. Its said that the ancient greeks were able to betray men and woman better the DC. Bottom line greek mythology doesn’t seem to work with DC’S notion that heroes need to be seen as symbols mentality. The story is there and isn’t really that hard to modern times yet DC makes it harder then it needs to be and that is why its hard to write Wonder Woman.

Well I'm going to call BS on most of this. That DC failed to be true to the Greek myth is certainly a reality, and there's a number of things about its portrayal of the mythos that annoy me (oh look, another setting that conflates Hades with evil). That said, claiming that the Wonder Woman comics are somehow more sexist than Greek myth is hilarious.

Greek myth isn't one body of information. There's dozens of versions of each myth out there, and they all have varying portrayals of the "heroes". In some Heracles is a rapist (Hell, in the Argonautica he's got a thing for teenaged boys). In others he isn't. For the comics to role with one of those interpretations over the others isn't insulting to the myths. Not to mention that, when written as a superhero, the Greek myth angle shouldn't matter all that much anyway.

The New 52 "fixed" exactly nothing by reinventing the character again and making her Zeus' daughter. Your bit about pretending her mother's rape never happened in the Post-Crisis is also a pretty uncomfortable comment, to say the least.

i never said that it was more sexist then greek mythology sorry if it seemed like that as that was far from the case. what i meant was that DC accidentally went horribly right when they attempted the strong female hero. i also said abolutely nothing about pretending rape never happened. My major beef was the adaptational villainy which is something i really don't like personally (i didn't like it in the legendary hercules movie) when it wasn't needed. the Amazon's were created to show the dangers of woman in leadership but the themselves have gone through adaptational heroism. my point was that the original myth gives a much better picture of heroic strong woman then what DC. Yes Herakles is a dark character by modern standards. but what sounds better the myth version running from his life from hords of angry or the dumb muscle DC version taking over and them doing nothing to stop it.

like i said the Amazon's are my favorite part of greek mythology a villiage of woman who lost everything but instead of giving up they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps trained and gained strength. in the entirety of greek mythology they were only reported to have lost 3 times and all against the very best of warriors.

even in the two war they fought they were long and drawn out not the onesided one usually depicted by the greeks. but in dc zues just decides to make woman the strongest warriors no trails no tribulations it reminds me of thr simpsons episode Girls Just Want to Have Sums . they don't fight they just sit around asking how does fighting make them feel.

to me it just seems that the DC amazons to be far less two dimensional then the original simply because they were given everything.

and like i said i don't like anything about amazon origins say what you will about the new 52 they at least got the gods right.

with men they were dumb down and vilified for no reason Hipolyta defeating herekles would have been awesome if it wasn't so one sided because all of his good point were taken away it would also explain why she was attracted to him instead of just because.

this also leads to some other confusion about the DC Universe the twelve labors never happened and he was turned to stone after this so what about Alexander the great and the spartens and all the other people who claim to be his decendants because he still killed his wife and children. so what about Captain Marvel Herakles only claim to fame in DC is that he was one of Jason's argonotes so the mind of solomon the power of zues and the strength of a random member of jason's argonotes.

the woman who were understandably pissed at being betrayed and raped had their skin darkened because they didn't except the gods wisdom.

edited 12th Feb '15 12:07:40 PM by monique.mudie

After years of being bothered by this sort of thing, my present philosophy is that it's all made up anyway, so why get in a twist about it?

I remember getting upset back during Xena: Warrior Princess, in that they apparently couldn't let any other hero be heroic without her help. Seriously, Odysseus apparently needed her help to draw his own bow. I saw that as diminishing and kinda stupid, too. Anyhow, I understand the irritation, but I assure you that the original stories will survive.

Funny, that's what people keep telling WW fans everytime their's a retcon or reboot.

In that case the problem is not so much that "they changed things" as it is that they change things so often that it's hard to keep track of what is going on, or what personalities people are supposed to have.

Personally, I'd like it if they kept WW away from mythology. It's fine to have it there in her origin story, and I like the presence of Ares and Circe in her rogues gallery, but I'd like it if she fought more supervillains and fewer gods.

Also, in rather sad news, I got DC's Supervillain Encyclopedia from my birthday. A grand total of four WW villains were in it—Cheetah, Ares, Dr. Psycho, and Giganta. Circe didn't even make the cut. Conversely, every Batman villain, however minor, got an entry.

In an earlier post above I noted that I wish writers would go back through her Golden Age, Silver Age, and Bronze Age rogues and give some of them a modern makeover. Quite a few of those characters appeared as cameos in Circe's big supervillain collective in the one story, so the precedent is there—just give them some actual personality and separate storylines. I mentioned before that I'd like to see Gundra get a revival. I'd also love to see more of Dr. Cyber, Dr. Poison, Osira, Clea, etc, etc. I know that most of them have made one or two appearances, but I'd like to see them all play a bigger role. One of the reasons that the likes of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man get a lot of television, video game, and film adaptations is because there's a large supporting cast of antagonists. Popular perception seems to be that Wonder Woman doesn't have that, and I think it's something that hurts her.

edited 15th Feb '15 2:24:00 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Has there ever been a story featuring a Doctor Psycho/Doctor Poison/Doctor Cyber teamup?

Not that I'm aware of. Poison was a member of Villainy Incorporated alongside Clea and a couple of others, and they were all members of Cersei's giant collective of Wonder Woman villains, but there's never been one that had the three of them choosing to work together.

With good reason too—Psycho's too misogynistic and too toxic for any female supervillain to feel really comfortable working with him. That's not to say that such a team-up wouldn't be interesting, of course. If anything all the building tension and machinations would probably make for great reading.

Another villain I quite liked, by the way? The third Red Panzer. A self-loathing white supremacist who feels tainted by African-American blood? That's a character you can do a lot with. Really, the only way it would have been better, given the character's Nazi origins, would be to have made him a full blown Neo-Nazi with a Jewish grandparent.

Speaking of Red Panzer, anybody else notice the similarities between him and Iron Man villain the Crimson Dynamo? You've got a red suit of Powered Armour associated with a particular ideology that gets passed down from one legacy character to the next.

I always enjoyed the Cheetah stories under George Perez. They were really edged and brutal, especially contrasted with the then-young and naive Diana.

I think it's a shame that they haven't really maintained Cheetah's personality. I swear that every writer I see tries to give her a new persona.

Speaking of Cheetah, am I the only one who liked Sebastien Ballesteros? I mean, I understand why fans didn't want him to be the Cheetah, but Ballesteros himself was a character who I think they could have gotten more mileage out of. A chauvinistic macho corporate raider from a culture that's renowned for an overabundance of machismo? That's a guy you could do a lot with in a WW story. I've often thought that rather than having Barbara Minerva kill him they should have had her take back the powers, leaving Ballesteros to become a different villain.

edited 17th Feb '15 1:08:20 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

How about having both and having Wondy be in the middle of a gender war? No, I don't mean Amazons Attack, I just mean two Cheetahs, male and female, who are enemies. And no Foe Yay.

edited 26th Feb '15 5:14:08 AM by AnotherGuy

While I think you could have a lot of fun with a permanent Ballesteros/Minerva rivalry, I think it would be better if he wasn't The Cheetah—though he could still be a former holder of the title who resented have lost it. Actually, given that he was a chauvinistic bastard obsessed with machismo, and that his Cheetah form had a mane anyway, it might make sense to have his supervillain identity be The Lion, or something similar. Because seriously, what animal better symbolizes a male dominated society than a lion?

Reading the 1960s reintroduction of Dr. Psycho, I was struck by the contrasting approaches to the character.

The 1940s version is an abusive husband, but instead of using physical force, he uses emotional abuse and manipulation (represented in the narrative by hypnotic powers) to control his wife and exploit her talents to advance his own career. (See also Walter Keane.) His dwarfism is meant to contrast him to the large muscular bullies that Wonder Woman often dealt with.

The 1960s version (even though he's introduced in a flashback to the 1940s) strips off the psychic powers and his marriage. This version is a "forever alone" misogynist who hates women for treating him badly because of his appearance. And he has a bit of a point in-story—when Dr. Psycho suddenly shows off Wonder Woman-like strength and speed, the female audience's reaction isn't "maybe we underestimated this guy" but "wow, if even this ugly, pathetic loser can have superpowers, maybe Wonder Woman isn't as special as we thought."

However, it's become a chicken and egg issue, because he has such a toxic mindset that when WW shows him genuine compassion, Psycho is unable to process it as anything but a "feminine trick" to get him to lower his guard for further humiliation. Towards the end of their first encounter, Dr. Psycho is having just a tiny crack in his defenses; maybe, just maybe Wonder Woman is telling the truth. Then Diana's tall,handsome and rather thick boyfriend Steve Trevor randomly shows up, WW calls him "darling", and Psycho decides he was right all along.

edited 1st Mar '15 6:26:50 AM by SKJAM