Line #20 Headscratchers/WonderWoman


1	* If the Invisible Jet is ''invisible'', how does she find it?
2	** She keeps hitting the "Unlock" button on her alarm fob.
3	** Holy FridgeBrilliance! I think that you solved the mystery!
4	** She's very careful to [[Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome remember where she parked]].
5	** In ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942,'' before her telepathic powers were jettisoned, she had a telepathic link with it via the "mental radio" telepathic communications system the Amazons developed.
6	* Why in the hell was she made a Star Sapphire in ''Blackest Night''? Star Sapphires are basically Green Lanterns, but in regards to love, not willpower. I'm asking this because of her attitude towards Nemesis. So, he loved her, she loved him, but not enough to care about him any more than having kids? And she's made a Star Sapphire?!
7	** I don't know nothin' about no Nemesis (isn't that the name of a goddess?!?!) but the reason she was made a Star Sapphire was explained in ComicBook/BlackestNight. Apparently she loves the entire world more than anyone else...or something. Bugger me if it makes any sense but there you have it.
8	*** The Nemesis in question is Tom Tresser (Diana's love interest during Gail Simone's [[ComicBook/WonderWoman2006 run]]). He and Diana became partners working at the Department of metahuman affairs in Allan Heinberg's story "Who is Wonder Woman."
9	*** Given that all of the individuals chosen to represent those Corps were nearby -- and given how many people the Black Lanterns have killed -- all it would take would be for Wonder Woman to love the entire world more than anyone else ''available nearby''.
10	* I think somewhere in BN it was said that "no one loves Earth more than Wonder Woman", so her love is for the entire world, not just one person. As for the "loss" part of the requirement, well, she did spend a year or so with most of Earth's public opinion against her (because of the whole Max Lord fiasco).
11	** Just how is that supposed to be the same love as what powers the Star Sapphires? "Loving Earth" seems too platonic...
12	*** While I agree that it was stretch of logic done only because they wanted her to get the ring, not because it actually made sense (especially because the ring had to bring her back from being a Black Lantern to do it!) that much at least can be explained (whether it jibes with what the writers would say or is strictly fanwanking, though, I can't say). The Violet Rings are attuned to love in general; it's the Star Sapphire Corps that chooses to recruit based only on romantic love. When the rings were looking for bearers in ''Blackest Night'', they were acting independently of their Corps, so the Violet Ring just looked for love, not romantic love. By the same token, the Indigo Ring looked for someone compassionate even though the Indigo Tribe specifically recruits people who ''lack'' compassion and let the ring force it on them. And the Orange Ring sought out a bearer even though Larfleeze forbids Orange Lantern Corps rings from doing that. Atrocitus actually mentions being upset that the Red Ring was allowed to find a bearer without his input because that meant it would just search out someone filled with rage while he only recruits people whose rage is directed at someone who's done them injustice, but once he meets Mera, he approves of her. Presumably, if Ganthet hadn't claimed the Green Ring, it might have sought the nearest person with great willpower even if they didn't necessarily have "the ability to overcome great fear", like someone with a really strong work ethic, or even someone like Deathstroke or Ra's Al Ghul.
13	*** In ComicBook/PostCrisis continuity, she was given the beauty of a loving heart by Aphrodite. Thus, Wonder Woman has a superhuman ability to love.
14	* The excessive violence in the Wonder Woman film raised a question for this Troper. Didn't Wonder Woman have a no-kill code? Or is that only in some incarnations? Because I was under the impression that her murder of Max Lord in the Comics was so huge BECAUSE she'd never done it before.
15	** Apparently, the idea was to make her distinct from the other big two superheroes (Superman and Batman) in that she can and will kill if absolutely necessary (the one time the Post-Crisis Superman consciously killed someone - when he executed the three pocket universe Kryptonian supervillains - it was ''huge deal'' to him and haunted him for a long time afterwards, which doesn't seem to be the case with Wonder Woman). Even if this was a RetCon, it kinda makes sense, as (unlike Superman and Batman), WW was raised in a [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy warrior culture]]. During Gail Simone's run, WW explicitly states that she can kill to save innocent lives, but not for selfish reasons, such as revenge.
16	** George Perez made it explicit very early in his post-Crisis reboot of the character that she will kill, without remorse or self-recrimination, if the situation requires it, though she can usually manage to find less drastic solutions. The problem with Max Lord, for the fans, was that the situation was nowhere close to requiring it. In-universe, the problem was the wide-spread belief that superheroes [[ThouShaltNotKill never kill]].
17	*** Nowhere close? The creative team powered up a telepath to create a rampaging mind-controlled Kryptonian situation, with the threat of recurrence if the telepath lived. However much one may want Diana to be so overpowered she can work around that, that's still pretty close.
18	*** She could just knock out Max and maybe mind wipe his knowledge on how to control people,or use the Lasso of Truth to show wiping out all superheroes will allow guys like Darkseid to wipe out or conquer mankind. There were other options (not to mention that Max seems like a WellIntentionedExtremist in that book), which is why fans are angry about it.
19	*** "Wipe his knowledge?" How? I don't recall Diana having mind erase powers. And if you say Zatanna or Martian Manhunter, I'll point you to ''ComicBook/IdentityCrisis2004'', a series that (whether is succeeded or not) showed that mind-raping supervillains into forgetting things is a very grey & unreliable area. Besides, at that point, Max was sure that Checkmate & the OMAC army he created could handle any alien invasion off, New God or not. There may have been options (though I've been remiss to see any that actually could have held water) but Diana didn't have time since she was in a room with a mind-controlled Superman who was in danger of attacking her again.
20	*** Furthermore, Maxwell Lord was, and is, a monster. While Zatanna got vetoed and banned from mindwiping anyone because, last time she did, she turned Doctor Light into "Rapist [=McRape=], the Rapist Therapist", Maxwell Lord proved during the ComicBook/BrightestDay storyline to be not above killing superpowered children, getting Magog explode in a crowded city just to get a ComicBook/KingdomCome thrown at the JLI and sending his creations to get some petty revenge over Franchise/WonderWoman herself while claiming to be the world's savior. Basically, he was in Diana's eyes a deeply disturbed man handling the most powerful humanoid on Earth. And she doesn't seem pained by killing him, but rather by the realization that Brother Eye, broadcasting her actions without relaying the context, actually turned her mission to spread peace in the Patriarch World into an instant failure.
21	*** An important and often overlooked factor here is that she used the Lasso of Truth - the thing that makes it literally impossible to lie - on Maxwell Lord and asked him how to free Superman from his control (after Max had forced Superman to beat Batman to a pulp and told Wonder Woman that he planned to use Superman to kill his enemies) and Max's response was [[http://league.jmkprime.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/max21-e1274448357871.jpg "Kill me."]] Max point blank told her that the ''only'' way to save release Superman from a life as Max's personal assassin was to kill him, and the lasso guaranteed that he wasn't lying (it's possible there was some way to do it that Max was unaware of - like powerful magic - but clearly just knocking Max out wasn't enough). As mentioned, the reason it was controversial was that footage of her snapping Max's neck while Max was tied up was broadcast out of context, making her look like a murderer.
22	*** People can't consciously lie while under the lasso's influence, yes, but their responses will still be colored by their prejudices and personalities. The kind of personality that Max had (at the time), it's not exactly surprising that he went for the most bloodthirsty option first. Then, if I recall correctly, Diana snapped his neck before he had a chance to say anything else.
23	*** No, the lasso works on the concept of truth itself, people can't even lie to themselves while within its coil. So Maxwell's answer was the absolute truth no matter what his prejudices and personality would have him think otherwise.
24	*** Lots of people bring up alternatives to killing Max Lord, but consider the information Diana had access to: there was one person who knew more about how Lord's powers worked than anyone else, and who, as head of Checkmate, had extensive knowledge of unconventional methods of containing metahumans, who was very, very motivated to think of a non-lethal method to stop Lord, and who was divinely compelled to speak the truth: Max Lord himself. And the only thing he could come up with that was certain to work was was "kill me," much to his own obvious horror.
25	*** I'm not so sure that Max ''was'' motivated to think of a non-lethal method to stop himself - ''if'' he had lived through that incident and been fed to the justice system/the media, his entire movement would've been (correctly) tarred as a bunch of murderous hypocrites who only ever cared about making superheroes look bad. Making himself a heat-of-the-moment martyr was probably the best move he had. (Speaking of which: what ''does'' the Lasso to do those who already have a DeathWish?)
26	*** Max didn't have a death wish and wasn't trying to make a martyr out of himself. Brother Eye did edit the footage of her killing Max to make it look like she murdered a defenseless, innocent man but that wasn't Max's intention.
27	** She usually doesn't kill, she just doesn't adhere to her code as strongly as Superman or Batman.
28
29	* Aquaman exists in the same universe as Wonder Woman, right? So where does Poseidon fit into all this?
30	** In regards to the comics - first of all, he rarely appears. You'd think that Posiedon would take on the Atlanteans as his patron people, but actually he's a huge dick who sees them as upstarts who step on his toes. Ocean Master, Aquaman, and he basically have a constant rivalry to each gain control of his Trident. In his first appearance, he basically tried to rape Mera. So, yeah.
31	** Atlantis doesn't generally worship the Greek gods in the DC franchise, they have their own deities.
32
33	* Cheetah's BarbieDollAnatomy. Her fur is thin enough to look like skin, but thick enough to cover her naughty bits. ([[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120415213240/marvel_dc/images/4/46/Cheetah_012.jpg Which she does have]]) What's up with that?
34	** The fact that she's a character in a largely PG-13 rated universe. It's a fudge to keep her from flashing her naughty bits to impressionable young readers while still maintaining her as a 'wild' character. Maybe not the most creative or exciting answer, but there it is.
35
36	* I haven't been keeping up lately, but I know the ComicBook/New52 says that Barbara Minerva was a criminal even before she became the Cheetah. But I can't find anything that says what specific crimes she committed.
37	** She was convicted of Murder.
38
39	* Does Athena exist in the ComicBook/New52? Given how she was Wonder Woman's patron pre-reboot, the fact that her responsibilities and personality are very similar to Wonder Woman's, and how Wonder Woman's now part of the Olympian family, her absence from the story (based on the first two trade paperbacks, this headscratcher may be out of date) is kind of jarring.
40
41	* How the heck was the classic Cheetah, Priscilla Rich, able to go toe to toe against Wonder Woman back in the 1940's? The golden age was weird. In present time, I can't picture a powerless woman in a cheetah costume beating our amazon heroine no matter how crazy, rich, and skilled she is.
42	** Wonder Woman herself was also less powerful back then. What I want to know is how she made the tail in hr costume move.
43
44	* Here's a literal headscratcher inspired by the events of "The Circle". If Alkyone was locked away all those years (however old Diana is supposed to be) without any blades, how was she able to keep her head shaved?
45	** She might not grow hair. Female baldness is less common than male baldness, but it still occurs.
46
47	* Does anyone know why the DC Amazons worship Athena when mythology states that Ares was their patron deity? And why was Ares made a villain when Athena's record of doing terrible things is just as bad, if not way worse, than his?
48	** Probably because the people at DC decided it made more sense for a tribe of warrior women to worship a warrior goddess than a warrior god.
49	** Also, Athena is goddess of the more positive aspects of war, not to mention wisdom, crafts, occasionally justice depending on the myth, and was patron of a city. Ares is god of the bloodthirsty aspects of war, the slaughter and chaos and pain and fear, and (unless you're a Roman and talking about Mars) god of not really much else. Before the ComicBook/New52 made the Amazons into StrawFeminist assholes, Athena was a much more sensible choice for a society based around ideals of peace, justice, equality, etc to worship. (Also, in the Post-Crisis era, she was one of their patrons and creators, so there was a fair bit of gratitude involved as well.)
50	** It is adressed InUniverse, Perez made it so that Amazons worshipping Ares was propaganda made by their enemies. It's part of DC's Amazons meaning to be reclamation of the original myth (which was basically a strawman StayInTheKitchen argument) as a FeministFantasy.
51
52	* I don't know a lot about Wonder Woman, but I know she has this rope which when tied around people makes them tell the truth. My question is, what if a kid gets lied to that their parents died in a car crash when really they got eaten by wolves. If Wonder Woman questions the kid, he/she is going to say "My folks died in a car crash", because that was the lie he/she was told. But if Wonder Woman ties her rope around him/her is the kid still going to say "My folks were killed in a car crash" or is he going to say "They got eaten by a wolf"?
53	** I'm guessing that it makes them tell what they think is true.
54	** In the movie, she used it on Steve, which made him say that their current plan was horrible and that they were all going to die. It varies DependingOnTheWriter, but it's safe to say it doesn't grant one knowledge that they wouldn't otherwise have, and their responses are still colored by opinions and emotions, but they'll at least be honest about those.
55	** The kid would say "I was told that my folks died in a car crash", which is true.
56	*** OP here. Say you make a phone call at 5pm, but you somehow misremember it happening at 4pm. If Wonder Woman ties the rope of truth around you, are you going to say 4pm or 5pm?
57	*** It says [[http://wonder-woman.wikia.com/wiki/Lasso_of_Truth here]] that the Lasso of Truth can "restore people's lost memories" so I would say that, by that logic, I would say 5pm, because the lasso forces me to remember the truth.
58	** The lasso regularly shows people truths they were not aware of, it's how she breaks mindcontrol and illusions on others, can tell if she's been lied to by using it on herself, and her most often used method for reforming her villains is by showing them the truth about their motivations or the end result of their plans should they succeed. It normally does ''not'' cause physical pain like it does in [[Film/WonderWoman2017 the movie]], but the truth itself can hurt and some of her villains [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone commit suicide]] after having it used on them.
59	** The Lasso of Truth is literally magic, so it presumably is capable of informing the person what the actual truth is and then guiding them to say it.
60
61	* So in the Azzarello/Chiang run, it's a plot point that Wonder Woman is literally an AllLovingHero, so much so that getting shot with Eros' gun has absolutely no effect on her. Pre-New 52, this was a gift of Aphrodite, but where does being literally-as-loving-as-a-love-god's-power come from now that she's just a daughter of Zeus?
62	** Herself.
63	** The new version is a goddess of war instead of truth, and got a yellow ring instead of a sapphire one, I don't think she's an all loving hero anymore.
64
65	* Is Wonder Woman bullet proof? If you shoot her in the back multiple times, would she die?
66	** Yes, she is and no, she would not.
67	** If she is, then that brings us to the obvious question: what does she need the bracelets for and why does she bother blocking bullets with them?
68	*** To protect other people. A lot of the time (at least, in bulletproof versions) when Wonder Woman plays "bullets and bracelets", she's standing in front of someone who ''isn't'' bulletproof and deflecting the fire away from them.
69	*** Why would she need to use her bracelets for that? If she's really bulletproof, then she could just stand in front of whoever she's protecting and let the bullets bounce off of her, like Superman does.
70	*** Because (a) she's not as large as Superman, meaning that there's more chance that she might not be able to block the person she's in front of, (b) she presumably decides she'd rather deflect the bullets away from the person she's protecting rather than risk any getting past her and (c) it looks cool and it's a comic.
71	** Originally in New Earth continuity, she wasn't bullet proof. Then she died, became a goddess of truth, and was kicked out of Olympus for interfering too much, but kept the base perks of having a body that's literally divine, like being bullet proof.
72
73	* Does Wonder Woman have an archenemy? Superman has Lex Luthor and Batman has The Joker, so who does Wonder Woman have? Is she like Spider-Man, who's got three different archenemies, or what?
74	** Yes, it's Cheetah.
75	** Or Circe, or Ares. I'd say that well-rounded Circe is her Lex Luthor, super-dangerous grand-scheming Ares is her Darksied, and highly physical and combative Cheetah is her Metallo.
76	* Since Wonder Woman doesn't wear gloves as part of her costume (like Superman), wouldn't it be fairly easy to collect fingerprint samples from both her and Diana Prince and deduce they are one in the same?
77	** For the record, current Wonder Woman has no longer secret identity. But for the time she had; finger prints are not that easy to collect, they require a lot of special handling and lab work, and even if you get WW’s finger prints, you would compare them to who exactly? You’ll have to suspect she’s Diana Prince and compare them in the first place, otherwise then you’ll have to use WW’s finger prints and run them into the system and only if Prince has her prints registered for some reason would be a match. Besides, for the time WW has a secret identity I think the technology for running finger prints on a national-level register was no yet available.
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79	* Helen Alexandros the original Silver Swan in her mortal form is described as hideous but her picture is actually rather cute, sure she had freckles and was no Wonder Woman but she was hardly ugly to the point of saying "I hate men".
80	** HollywoodHomely
81	** While there is almost certainly some truth to the HollywoodHomely explanation, Helen's plight wasn't so much that she was genuinely ugly, but more that she was ''plain''. In other words, her problem was precisely that she was, as you put it, "no Wonder Woman." She's only described as being ugly because she's being compared to actual prima ballerinas... by men, which explains her hatred of them.
82	** Also, Helen's self-image issues are at least partially an expression of her own deeply ingrained insecurities and self-loathing. One does not need to be a literal ogre to ''feel'' as if one is ugly.
83
84	* If Wonder Woman is an Amazon with deep ties to Greek culture, her native language is Greek and she moves among Greek gods and godesses; then why does she have a Latin name? She's called Diana... the actual Greek equivalent would be Artemis.
85	** Ultimately it's probably down to whim of the creator. When she was first created, while she was obviously influenced by her stories weren't as heavily built around or focussed on Greek mythology as they became when George Perez started writing her in the 1980s, so it was most likely because William Moulton Marston simply preferred the name Diana and wasn't as interested in strict adherence to Greek myth or language. However, intentionally or not, it does serve a few purposes:
86	*** It makes it less confusing if the actual goddess Artemis shows up at any point (which, given how the Greek Gods still play a part in things, isn't unlikely).
87	*** For her early years with a secret identity, it makes it easier to conceal who she is. Diana Prince sounds less like someone who might be a superheroine given life by the Greek Gods than Artemis Prince.
88	*** Thematically, it distinguishes her from the rest of the Amazons, both in her origins (unlike them she is a statue given life by the Gods / an actual daughter of Zeus, depending on which origin you go with), and in the fact that she is the one who is chosen to become Wonder Woman.
89	* it's been claimed that Superman represents the farmlands of America's heartlands and Batman the great urban cities. What does that make Wondy represent as a place?
90	** Women. Wonder Woman represents the strength and virtues of women as a collective. There's a reason she's been widely considered and used as a feminist icon, after all.
91	** True, but I meant in location of America.

Context Headscratchers / WonderWoman