Wonder Woman

Fine. Someone else could do the art for the psychosexual (and surprisingly often socio◊political◊) fever dreams Balent would put Diana in. Preferably someone who can draw women with breasts smaller than their heads.

edited 8th Mar '15 1:23:45 PM by Bonerfart

I remember both those characters you've just mentioned as All-Star Squadron villains. I don't remember them ever running into Diana on her own. Not saying it didn't happen; just that I don't recall it. Dr. Poison's the only one of the Japanese villains I recall tangling with her solo; she's definitely the only one to have done so recently.

Kang (and probably Sumo) were from the brief WWII flashback run inspired by the first season of the Lynda Carter TV show. They never appeared during the actual Golden Age. Naturally, Roy Thomas didn't let that stop him when he needed Golden Age villains for All-Star.

Any ideas for flaws to Amazonian civilization that aren't shameful secret sex-and-murder expeditions? C'mon, they're an isolationist, misandrist absolute monarchy that hasn't interacted with the rest of the world since the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age, there's no way they're gonna be even remotely utopian.

edited 9th Mar '15 12:01:02 AM by Bonerfart

You could make it so that their hatred leads to them being less willing to trust outsiders and be easily manipulated. Also keep in mind that while their views are *wrong*, it is based on the traumas they endured in the past.

I don't think the Amazons need to have any internal flaws. Let the society be perfect, when dealing with its own issues. Where the problems should come in is when it comes to dealing with the outside world, which, depending on canon, they haven't interacted with since the days of Homeric Greece. They're going to make a Hell of a lot of assumptions about how modern society works, most of which are entirely wrong, and that is in and of itself a conflict generator.

Every society has internal flaws. Why should theirs be any different?

Because it was designed to be a utopia? Personally, I think Wonder Woman's story works better if she comes from a society that really is better than ours. Not to mention that writers—and comic book writers in general—aren't very good at envisioning societal flaws that are different from ours (at least not without building a full blown dystopia). That said, if they must have a flaw, I'd make it a failure to interact with the rest of the world effectively. Make them a perfectly equal society...that is completely void of modern technology or advancements (no more purple healing rays), and where traditional ways of doing things are slowly strangling any sense of intellectual curiosity.

In any case, I actually wish they had Diana spend more time away from Themyscara, because there is no good way to use the island in the comics, I find. Either we get Amazons lecturing us on how terrible "man's world" is, and how there way of doing things is so much better (which, even if true, gets really annoying and really preachy really fast), or authorial attempts to explore their flaws result in their being a society so damaged that it's amazing they produced somebody as sane as Diana. Utopia is boring, but seeing said utopia get deconstructed again and again is just as dull.

It was designed to be a utopia because Marston thought his fetish was a roadmap to world peace.

As I recall, they didn't have a Purple Healing Ray in the Golden Age until Paula reformed and was able to combine her modern scientific knowledge with the ancient Amazon magical knowledge.

Oh, I was reminded yesterday of an old Spider-Woman villain that would have been appropriate for Wonder Woman—the Hangman, who was determined to protect pure, frail women from evil men by a) killing the evil men and b) locking the women away from the world so nothing could get at them. He also apparently had some skill with bondage techniques, based on the scans.

That wouldn't be a bad characterization for a WW villain at all.

Speaking of which, I have this terrible desire to see somebody redo the ridiculousness that was the Blue Snowman as the tragic-story of a gender confused person working their issues out through supervillainy.

Got any links to the Blue Snowman stuff? I'm morbidly curious.

I'm amazed they don't connect Darkseid to Wonder Woman like they do with Darkseid and Superman. As Marston (and now Azzarello) wrote her, she's basically his antithesis. Could use him to explore Marston's theme of the different types of bondage and/or servitude.

edited 9th Mar '15 6:38:39 PM by Bonerfart

This◊ is the Blue Snowman. There is a woman under that outfit. If a writer really wanted to, I'm sure they could do something with that.

As for Darkseid...I once saw a blog suggesting that Vandal Savage ought to be shifted into Diana's rogues for similar reasons, seeing as his immortal monster who views women as breeding stock. Personally, I don't think her Rogues Gallery actually needs to move anyone new into it, it just needs to make better use of the ones it's got.

edited 9th Mar '15 6:55:40 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Vandal Savage as the Ur-Shitlord Oppressor? Really? As opposed to someone who's pure hate and treachery and paranoia going up against someone who (under her best writers) is defined by love and trust?

And re: how you'd do the Blue Snowman, that'd never fly. Ft M transexuals are traitors who want to join the Patriarchy, don'cha know.

edited 9th Mar '15 7:21:22 PM by Bonerfart

I didn't say I agree with it, I said somebody posted it, and made an alright argument for it. Here's the post in question.

Only the truly crazy radical feminist fringe actually believes that.

edited 9th Mar '15 7:20:31 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Never said you did, just that the Patriarchy angle is tired and that I think Darkseid would be a stronger foil even if it wasn't.

edited 9th Mar '15 7:34:29 PM by Bonerfart

He would be, but they'd have to seriously water down his power level. We are talking about a guy who can throw down with the JLA. Though a few writers have essentially used Ares as Darkseid-lite.

As to the patriarchy angle being played out, I don't know. They certainly talk about it a lot, but none of her major enemies actually represent it very well. Not even Psycho, honestly.

edited 9th Mar '15 7:39:15 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Or maybe just have agents of his oppose her, a la Intergang or the Deep Six.

She disgusts him, with her love, but deep down... she makes him sad. Because he can never experience love or trust or happiness, and she embodies them. He is missing something vital in his life, and Diana's existence reminds him of that.

edited 9th Mar '15 7:46:50 PM by Bonerfart

That'd probably be better.

That second point referring to what I said about Psycho, or are you still talking about Darkseid?

edited 9th Mar '15 7:46:29 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Still talking about Darkseid.

Anyone remember how on the old Super Powers cartoon from the '80's, Darkseid was hot for Wonder Woman?

What abilities and resources should the Amazons have?

Depends on the continuity. At a baseline, they should at least be well trained in Bronze Age combat skills, and may have picked up newer stuff from shipwrecks and the female survivors of same. Their resources should be fairly limited—they live on an island, after all. Probably most of the diet is fish and Mediterranean-appropriate vegetation with mammal meat as a special treat for festivals.

However, they are the special favorites of certain gods, so they may have other goodies you wouldn't expect.

Abilities? None normal humans don't have. I'd go back to Marston's version where Diana, as their paragon, has Charles Atlas Superpowers. Maybe give the rest of them peak human (woman) strength and speed and the like, as befits descendants of Ares.
Resources? If you mean technological resources, what you'd expect a culture that last contacted the outside world in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age to have, a la all those isolated Stone Age cultures that still exist in the present. With some developments from up to the end of The Low Middle Ages that they developed independently.

Idea: as a culture that has been isolated such, the Amazons (and in my take the Gargareans, but that's besides the point) maintain the typical Greco-Roman understanding of sex: that it is about a dominant partner asserting their authority over a subordinate partner. Diana, with her widely known (on Themyscira) view that sex should be about affection, is considered a degenerate and even manages to embarrass her mother a little.

edited 14th Mar '15 10:55:31 PM by Bonerfart

Was that the typical greco-roman view of sex? Their poetry and literature would seem to indicate differently...