Wonder Woman

I think a good direction to take Doctor Psycho is to make him a dark mirror of Marston. Go full "Dare you enter my magical realm?"

Sixties Dr. Psycho is easily updateable—make him a "men's rights activist" who believes he's being oppressed by feminism and that women looking up to Wonder Woman is leading them astray from doing what their natural instinct should be—kowtowing to him.

That's who he is already, actually. The problem is not that the character's motivations are unbelievable. It's the fact that the single most depraved member of her rogues gallery is the disabled guy.

edited 3rd Mar '15 6:27:43 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Delicious Flavor Aid.

Here's my idea; The Amazons have their history of being slaves but it doesn't have to be Heracles (you could substitute Achilles or Theseus if you want a Greek 'hero' attached to their history). They retreat to Themyscira were they are given protection and immortality in exchange for guarding a portal to Tartarus. They develop their skills in medicine, magic, fighting etc. Diana is still born of clay.

You could replace Dr. Psycho with a group of misogynists called the Sons of Heracles (Heracles as I mentioned would not be the despoiler of the Amazons in this continuity) who would see Diana and the Amazons as the murderous she beasts they were in some myths and set out to discredit Diana. You could also bring some Amazons who have been hiding in the outside world for some time and have more extreme views of feminism. The Themysciran Amazons would be portrayed as not liking the outside world but merely avoid it rather than declare war since they would be heavily outnumbered.

Theseus. Theseus is the one who raped (in one or both senses of the word) Hippolyta in the myths.

Also, if I were to do Wonder Woman I'd make the Amazons mortal (this isn't the same Hippolyta from Greek mythology) and give Themyscira a sister island populated by the Amazons' Spear Counterparts the Gargareans. Who knows, maybe even give Diana a male counterpart of her own, sent out into Woman's World?

edited 4th Mar '15 12:28:59 PM by Bonerfart

Yeah that's why I mentioned Theseus. Why make the Amazons mortal though?

Because every version of the myths have them as such.

Ambar, I think you need two up arrows.

Uh, no? I was responding to your comment about making him an MRA who thinks women should kowtow to him, and noting that there's already a dose of that in his characterization. My issue with Psycho isn't his motivations. It's that no matter how you slice it, a misogynistic dwarf is a very uncomfortable character. It carries a lot of baggage from the forties, and about the only way it could be worse, I suppose, would be if he were non-white.

I have no real issue with a villain being disabled, or a member of a minority, but when the characterization is stereotypical, that's when I find it problematic. A black carjacker who speaks in Jive Turkey? That's problematic. A disabled person who is angry because they cannot find a mate? That's problematic.

Though I suppose that honestly, the easiest solution would be to introduce a positive character with dwarfism, while leaving Psycho himself alone.

Has he appeared in the New 52? (I've missed some issues.)

The specific hatred of women or even of Wonder Woman hadn't been seen for a decade or so pre-Flashpoint; that Dr. Psycho was more of a general misanthrope who got off on having mind control powers, with a streak of sadistic gloating.

He appeared in Justice League post-Forever Evil

Having downloaded the entire Post-Crisis Wonder Woman run and read it in one go, I tend to forget where the dates are at in it. I think you're correct about the timeline though; Greg Rucka's the last author I can think of who used the straight-up woman hating variant of Psycho and that was indeed a decade ago.

Speaking of Psycho, for all that Odyssey was pretty awful, am I the only one who liked the somewhat more sympathetic version of him that appeared in there?

I didn't read all of Odyssey. Could you give more details please?

Basically Odyssey plays Psycho's Villainous Crush on Wonder Woman for sympathy instead of for disgust. When she's trapped in that screwed up alternate reality, he, with his psychic powers, is the one character who sees through it, and he ends up taking her on a walk through her psyche and through various alternate versions of herself, until she snaps back to who she's supposed to be. When she asks why he's doing this if they were enemies in her other life, he says it's because he'd rather be some part of her life than not at all.

Now some people take issue with that because it goes against his previous characterization of just wanting to control her. Others take issue with it because having a guy who was often portrayed as a rapist and misogynist be the one to help the feminist character out, is really problematic. I understand both those complaints and concur that within the overall context of the Post-Crisis universe, his being portrayed that way had some problems.

That said, if I was put in charge of a reboot or an adaptation, the characterisation from Odyssey is the one I'd run with.

If he defines himself as opposite Wonder Woman, then it does make sense for Dr. Psycho to want her around, even if only to crush her himself. And since he was the one controlling his projection, it's quite possible for him to come off as nicer than normal.

I think it's also worth noting that while Psycho isn't effected by the alternate timeline in the way that everybody else was (due to his ability to see the other timelines) that doesn't mean he wasn't effected at all. It's entirely possible that the changes to the timestream ended up creating a version of Psycho who, while he can see the original timeline in which he was a monster, is genuinely not nearly as bad as his usual self. In fact that would add something to the intense self-loathing he displays throughout the scene—he knows he's normally an utter bastard, and that when this is all over, she's going to hate him again and be entirely justified in doing so.

Regardless, it's a more nuanced characterisation than I've normally seen him get, and I would not mind at all if a later reboot, alternate universe story, or adaptation decided to run with it.

They could just make him not be a dwarf. I think the original idea was that he was just short and funny looking, and HG Peter's art took that to an extreme. Making him an actual dwarf came later.

That'd also be doable, though it wouldn't be my preferred option.

Since Wonder Woman is (among other things) a "mythic" hero, her villains can stand for concepts and movements.

Golden Age WW is trying to bring about peace, so her number one enemy is Mars/Ares, the personification of senseless war. WW stands for truth, the Duke of Deception is all about lies and illusions. Diana builds strong friendships with other women and helps them uplift themselves; so the Priscilla Rich Cheetah with her insane envy and jealousy of WW represents women who try to tear other women down to gain what power and position they can in a patriarchal system.

We've already discussed two different symbolisms for Doctor Psycho.

Bronze Age Silver Swan (an unattractive woman who is granted spellbinding beauty and superpowers by Mars) is a look at how the patriarchal system's promotion of women being only valuable if they fit a narrow spectrum of physical attractiveness damages women's self-esteem and men's ability to build meaningful relationships with women outside a sexual context.

Any thoughts on other Wonder Woman villains in that context?

Cheetah and Circe both make solid contrasts as feminist figures.

The Barbara Minerva Cheetah, at least Post-Crisis, is an example of a woman who thinks she's liberated, but really isn't. Originally repressed, she swung to far in the other direction, becoming somebody who doesn't give a damn about the hurt she inflicts on others. Throw in the fact that she's still dependent on the male Urtzkataga for power, and that he can freely screw her over at any time (as the Ballesteros situation demonstrates) and you've got a fairly strong contrast with the genuinely liberated, self-empowered Diana.

The Sebastien Ballesteros Cheetah, as I touched on in an earlier post, is male chauvinism given a face and a name. He hails from an incredibly macho society, he gained his powers by stealing them from a woman, he's drawn with a very lion-esque mane, and he treats women (most notably the Silver Swan) as property.

Circe, of course, is simply female empowerment gone too far, to the point where it becomes outright misandry. She's essentially one of those (thank fully rare) radical feminists who sits on A Room Of Our Own, or some such similar site, ranting about how all men should be castrated, but handed actual power.

I've been working on an idea that Diana's radical feminist antagonist would be some Amazons who broke off from the Themysciran tribe to take revenge on "Patriarch's World". They would ally themselves with Circe who at first appears sympathetic to their cause. However,she is actually just really power hungry and is using them for her own ends.

There's been a number of radical Amazons, though none that I remember being suicidal enough to align with Circe (not saying it hasn't happened, just that I don't recall it).

Know who I think would be a better fit for Circe's villain niche? Medea. She becomes a goddess in some fashion at the end of her story (except in the version where she dies, but hooks up with Achilles in the afterlife), so it'd make sense for her to be around and all, and it'd be very easy to make her a foil to Diana.

edited 7th Mar '15 12:10:12 PM by Bonerfart

I wouldn't want them to replace Circe. She's one of the few WW villains who can be consistently relied upon to give a good story. That said if they wanted to bring in Medea in addition to her, that would be great, for the reasons you just mentioned.

Continuing with the topic of villain thematics, I think that the Post-Crisis Dr. Poison had untapped potential. As an arcanobiologist, obsessed with studying and dissecting mythical creatures, I think there's a fair amount you could do with that. Make the character a walking aesop about how, when you take something wonderful apart it tends to stop being wonderful. And that's not getting into her connections to WWII Imperial Japan, which could be interesting in and of itself. There's a lot of Nazis in comics. There's not as many nationalist Japanese villains.

Speaking of Nazis, I also think you can do a lot more with Red Panzer, Gundra, and some of the other Nazi villains. Make them a reminder that no matter how thoroughly you stamp out a bad idea, pieces of it often survive. And that horrible atrocities and regimes have consequences that play out long after they themselves no longer exist.

edited 7th Mar '15 12:20:32 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar