Does Wonder Woman deserve her reputation?

OT, but of that grouping of deities, Athena and Aphrodite were on opposite side during the Trojan War (Aphrodite supported the Trojans, specifically Paris and Athena supported the Greeks, specifically Odysseus).

Sacrilegious was the wrong word. Its more that outside of the biblical context (or tales of the Golem), I find it difficult to take seriously the idea of a person made from clay- it doesn't seem like a necessary part of her origin that she is sort of an Artificial Human.

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Okay, you win Aphrodite and Athena were against each other. Aphrodite was so petty anyways and Hestia already covered love, I still think making Cottus the father solves it all.

We can even get a tender scene where Diana and Hyppolyta have a fight, causing Diana to run away, with Cottus needing to retrieve her, after which little Diana asks him to tell her about her mommy, her real mommy. We get to see the hundred handed one reminiscence on the mortal he fell in love with, all her ups and downs, how he convinced his brothers to take up his shift to meet her, how he wished they could have spent more time before she passed on to the Elysian Fields because of Ares, then getting the idea that as an underworld cthunic immortal the least he could do is try to organize a meeting between mother and daughter. (I'm guessing her mom could be Atalanta, if we are not going with an original character)

And after some father daughter hijinks they eventually summon mommy's shade, who is so proud of what Diana has grown into and while insisting she return to Amazon territory, assures her it will not be forever. So Cottus finally gets to returning her to RussiaParadise Island only to find it under attack. Father and daughter can be Big Damn Heroes and despite their earlier fight, seeing her foster mother take action makes Diana think Hypollyta is not so bad after all.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

The antagonism between Amazons and Ares as well as the discrepancy between their behavior in the myths and the comics is easily fixed and worked into the backstory. Make it so that Ares is indeed the father of the Amazons and abandoned them for a while where they acted like they did in the myth. Then Have Ares come back and enslave them only for the Amazons to rebel and imprison Ares. The Gods then charge the Amazons with guarding Ares cell and bring Diana to life and empower her as payment.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins

To the threads question? No, she owes most of that reputation to Lynda Carter. Really, Batman managed to move beyond Adam West but she is still stuck with the TV show.

Browsing through some "golden age" stuff reminded me of this topic. Most of her "classic" elements make more sense with the golden age character than the "Earth One", "Post Crisis", "New Fifty Two" or any of the other upteen reboots. (notably her last real popular outing, the 70s show, ignored most of them).

That Wonder Woman did not have any powers granted from the gods other than immortality-and she quickly gives it up. She is just an exceptional amazon and the amazon nation as a whole are simply what women become without the "corrupt influences of men". All women can become as strong and advanced as the amazons if they just "believe in themselves".

So that is how a sheltered socialite in a cat suit (which does not even have claws or anything at this point) challenges this woman as strong as Superman (who if you remember, was only strong because of adapting to high gravity-ala Princess Of Mars), the alter ego gave her the confidence to. Why does Wonder Woman need the jet? Because she originally did not fly, just jumped around.

The "Silver Age Earth One" is where she explicitly gets her superpowers from the gods, and she gets a lot more of them. The Amazons are still advanced but they are leagues behind her now. The new elements, which go with this slightly less bastardized use Greek stories are just fine. (Minor gods, demigods and monsters to annoy the god empowered woman) but the old stuff not so much. The jet is not really upgraded, Cheetah is still just a crazy lady in a catsuit, Giganta is more powerful now but how? (Doctor Psycho was okay)

Grant Morrison claims the early issues sold better because of the "sex" and that removing this core part of her character is why she floundered, which may be true, but I think there is a little bit more to it. Author Tract or not, the golden age version just seems better put together than most of its revamps. (I say most be because I am still only vaguely familiar with what DC has been doing lately).

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

You know, there's been some discussion in this forum about how to a great extent, Superman, Batman, and even Captain America also made a lot more sense and had more solid identities back in the golden age.

Take Superman. During the Great Depression, it was unfortunately common for people to just flat-out abandon babies they couldn't afford to keep, records weren't as good, and adoption standards weren't as stringent. Hence, Jonathan and Martha Kent finding a baby by the roadside and adopting him was plausible back then, but stretches credibility today. (Plus, as Alan Moore observed, we now had radar when Kal-L arrived on Earth.)

30s Superman was a revolutionary socialist. The notion that he was to be humanity's guiding light was a far way off from actually being expressed, yet he took this task far more explicitly and prominently, proactively going after criminals, corrupt politicians, and anti-union factory owners who were causing the sort of problems his readers actually experienced, and making a proactive effort to improving the world rather than just reacting to whatever Lex Luthor dreams up (with often insane results).

Or Batman. Again, Great Depression. A time when the cops couldn't touch the mob, and the law was a lot more lax, meaning that a dude would dress up as a bat and make a difference. Try that today, and you'll find yourself in jail.

How about Captain America? Back in the 40s, Rogers wasn't some abstract symbol of all that is great about America - he was a special agent tasked with ferreting out Nazi spies who had infiltrated the US Army. Having an alter ego was thus a logical consequence of his job, as secret operations mandate a secret identity.

Hmm. Perhaps all those old characters were created by people with specific visions, but were long ago handed off to others who only saw the more superficial aspects, the stuff that actually appears on the page. Not having the creators' vision, they try their best to write something true to the series, but ultimately, they can only infer what the characters would do, and can't truly know them as the creators do.

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Man screw all the terrible reboot turds doing everything exactly the same except slightly more soulless, I want socialist Superman. That's be great.

"Truth, Justice, and Solidarity!"

It'd give Luthor a real reason to fear and hate him.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

I would say, however, that while Cap's original "Nazi Hunter" purpose isn't relevant anymore, he sort of took up the whole "reminder that America can be great" persona since then.

Superman, too, moved on in this way. He never stopped being a tireless paragon of all that's good, it's just that Siegel and Shuster disagreed with later creative teams on what was good. You wouldn't have seen 50s Mc Carthy-era Superman dispensing proactive socialist justice.

The very best, like no one ever was. Check out my Spider-Man fanfic here! [1]

Superman should strive to be above personal politics. He should by all means stumble every now and again but he should at least try to avoid becoming a rally point for one political movement or another.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins

Why should he strive to be above a political movement when he can use his power to lead one? It is not like a little division of trusts, protection of organized workers, safer streets and improved living conditions are petty stances. Superman's methods to achieve these probably left a lot to be desired on his benefactors but the benefited none the less.

But I like golden age Superman, a lot more than most later versions. Golden age Wonder Woman, I do not care as much for. I either would have cut back on the mythology elements (especially the amazon's depiction as an ideal nation) or have moved the mythological theme closer to their classical depictions (which they ultimately did, I just think it could have been done better)

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

I'm really not a fan of Superman-as-alien-spacegod, so I think he should hold political positions. Hell, he already does this by stopping bank robbers or protecting the President of the USA (as I'm sure he does). There's fundamentally no difference between Lex Luthor killing dozens of people in one of his nefarious super-schemes and Coca-Cola doing so by massacring trade unionists in Chile or selling toxic waste as fertiliser in India.

On-topic, I think that Wonder Woman should be explicitly feminist...
Hrrm...

Actually, I'd quite like a comic with a cast of properly counter-cultural, progressive superheroes. If you're going to have space Jesus then he really should have a message more meaningful than 'OK don't commit crimes.'

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

My priorities would be more related to smaller details that always bugged me. For starters, why is Hippolyta still alive? It is clear from the involvement of Heracles that she is meant to be the same one. For that matter, why the demonization of Heracles and the glorification of Hera? Hippolyta sympathized with Heracles because of what his mother did to him and willingly gave up her girdle for his labour. It was then Hera's continued deceptions that stirred up the rest of the amazon nation which ultimately resulted in Hippolyta's death.

So, soul of a dead girl put into a clay body animated by the gods? (Post crisis origin) Who is to say Wonder Woman was the first to person to undergo this procedure? Why not Hippolyta? It could be a gesture to pacify an angry war god who lost his daughter due to the petty manipulations of his matriarch (again, good father is Ares's only redeeming quality). Thus it would be all the more appropriate when Hippolyta, having gone through the procedure herself, uses it to save Ares from the fury of Cottus.

I would also want to explore her childhood in the amazon state a little and the reactions of war god Ares and the Amazons to world war II. Superman grows up in modern society so we can jump into his function in it a lot quicker. Wonder Woman grew up in a society that sees nothing wrong with making war for the purpose of gaining prisoners to make babies with and then disposing of the males. I think that bares some looking into. Its not even as if they hate men, evidenced by their queens favorable reaction to Heracles, it is just what they do.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

No offense, but you don't seem like someone who would read Superman if it carried even a slightly radical standpoint that wasn't similar to the one you hold.

Am I a good man or a bad man?

That depends on what you mean exactly.

I mean if he was espousing some kind of Objectivist or Fascist creed, then no I wouldn't, unless it was for the lulz. Throw an example at me of what you mean.

Also it's pretty funny that the Wonder Woman thread has been derailed by talk of a more popular character.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

You seem to be having difficulty with the fact that the writers have selectively chosen which parts of the mythology to invoke and interpreted it as they like - as is their prerogative.

While I think some of your ideas are interesting (I always enjoy well-thought-out blue and orange psychology and anthropology), I don't know that that background would make Diana a particularly compelling hero.

edited 16th Oct '13 11:45:40 AM by Noaqiyeum

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

The continuity issues and contradictions do allow malleability but there is plenty enough that remains consistent in Greek myth and the events usually have the same theme behind them.

And even when things are vastly removed from the origin I sometimes enjoy them anyway (Kid Icarus or Artemis Fowl) but Wonder Woman is a case where I think being truer the source would have made been more interesting, silver age on. In the golden age's case, the Greek stuff just seemed odd and superfluous. Many other aesthetics, such as neighboring ancient Libya, would have made a lot more sense for the overall women superior, man infectious theme in my opinion. Not that it would be inconceivable to use Greek mythology to strengthen the premise but it did not as used, thus superfluous use.

As for compelling heroism, initially I would not be portraying her as the hero so much as the protagonist. The general conflict would be with the amazons and young Diana doing their best to coexist given the circumstances that put them together. Hero stuff would come with early adulthood and world war II if the story lasted long enough.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Well.

:D

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

How I wish that I could get my hands on a digital copy of that.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

You do realize that there's nothing immutable about mythology, right? Different people tell the same stories in slightly different ways. In this case, the whole concept of Amazons int he first place isn't rooted in any kind of actual belief, but they were merely presented as an allegory by a Greek philosopher to prove that women were too irrational and savage to run their own society. It was presented as a terrible place full of terrible people because it was someone's political treatise. The fact that a 20th century feminist decided to subvert that and portray the opposite is exactly as valid and exactly in line with proper mythbuilding.

IIRC, later depictions of the Amazons were less negative about them, thus implying that the original Greco-Roman myths were made from a rather misogynist/male-chauvinist POV.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Depending on which Greek you asked though, the amazon nation, even at its most "negative" would not have been such a horrible place. Keep in mind that by modern standards, the nicest Greek heroes were Heracles and Perseus, and while Heracles has always been pretty popular, many other Greek heroes such as Agamemnon inspire much more negative feelings in modern audiences, or even Roman audiences, without changing anything about the story at all.

The mere suggestion to portray amazons as simply having different cultural practices rather than completely unreasonable savages would have gone along with the progression in the tales anyway and I will add that having them overcome their societal problems on their own would have been much more in line with modern attitude (which is much less fatalist) than simply adapting them out.

It is the author's right to do whatever with the mythology he wants. At some level something is going to be changed anyway since continuity was pretty weak to begin with. He had as much right to ignore or directly defy the few things that do remain consistent between the stories. But has the end result been particularly entertaining? Not so much, it has me thinking about all the things ignored in the source material that could have lead to far more interesting things or were conveniently ignored to tell a story a certain way rather than take a logical route to arrive at those circumstances. More often, I feel these would have worked better as their own thing, but I suppose mythopoeia is hard or something.

Honestly, I think Xena did a better job all around and deserves a reputation far better than Wonder Woman's. (Which is to say, the reputation Xena already has, it is Wonder Woman's who is regarded much better than she should be)

edited 4th Jan '14 12:54:38 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

... Uh, the mythological Amazons at said "most negative" were more or less murderous man-haters who only consort with them for reproductive purposes, and go as far as to kill any and all male offspring that they give birth to. I don't see how that isn't a horrible place for men and for women who like men.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

As opposed to a state founded on the idea of having a large slave population that it can regularly wage war against? A state that throws both male and female babies off of cliffs for perceived imperfections and then drowns the ones they decide to keep around in alcohol to ensure they are strong enough to survive? Sparta, after one of its kings got the brilliant idea to turn the city into a literal war machine? How would any of them (post war machine era anyway) honestly think the amazon nation was especially horrible, even at its worst? How would any Greek state think such when they had a neighbor where everyone was literally trained to be a soldier, even women not expected to see combat, or a slave those soldiers could kill with impunity and regularly would in mass?

Keep in mind many of the then ideal Greek heroes followed the Rape Pillage Burn model for living and even the God Of Law, protector of sacred hospitality, was a rapist. Keep in mind their pantheon included the God of the Vine, whose worship perennially involved mobs of women rampaging across the peninsula, ripping everything moving creature they could find to shreds (suddenly the Wild Hunt does not seem so strange). That the general attitude was "allowing his worship to continue is for the best". Even if we ignore stories where the heroes make casual entry and conversation into Amazon territory (yes, they usually ended up fighting with or fleeing from the Amazons before it was over but that came off more as Rule of Drama than the rule in general), it still does not seem like something they would find particularly bad.

All that compared to the Amazon's "Kill on Sight" thing still would make your average Greek dude take his chances with Sparta or fickle gods.