Retro315
10-01-2009, 11:38 PM
This was going to be a quick reply in another thread, but I seem to have gone off in another direction entirely and there wasn't really another place to put it, but in the interest of the top notch discussions the Wonder Woman forum manifests, here we go:
Perhaps, apropos, WW also can't have family, it seems, in the way Bats or Supes can, without apparently distressing some readers. Her mother can never get on with her own thing, or Diana and Donna have a coffee, without someone finding a reason it's melodramatic or bleeding out the WW concept and franchise.
Without breaking from the point ...
There's absolutely NO reason in my mind why we can't have this. Wonder Woman spends a lot of time talking about "sisters" when pontificating about womankind everywhere, but she really doesn't spend much time with Donna or Cassie - the two people who are the closest thing she has to actual sisters.
That's not to say I want to see the title turn into "Sisterhood of the Traveling Star-Spangled Pants" anytime soon. But the other major heroes seem to find a good deal more time. Superman just turned up in Superboy, he's living on New Krypton with Kara, and his time away from Lois is a big deal. Batman ... when he was around ... always had Alfred there, saw Tim Drake, Damian and Dick pretty damn often. The list goes on.
But more than that - I think the reason why we don't get those kind of welcome, humanizing, grounding moments in Wonder Woman is actually more a result of the fact that Wonder Woman doesn't really have an "established place" to do it in, or a day-to-day routine.
Batman has a day-to-day routine. Sleep some of the day. Spend the rest actually living a day life (albeit furthering his own night-time activities while he does it). Nightfall comes, Batman comes out to kick ass. There's a time and a place for him to have "family" moments with Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Alfred, Damian, girlfriends, super-friends, Lucius Fox, and the like. That's the time. Gotham City is the place.
Superman has a day-to-day routine. Go to work. Get paid. Whenever there's a big problem, try to get out there fast as Superman, solve it, and get back in time that Clark Kent's cover isn't blown. Go home at night, go to bed with his lovely wife. Most of his friends are people he works with, and he's frigging Superman, so really he's available 24/7 if he really needs to be - but there isn't a world-ending crisis every day of the week. That's the time. Metropolis is the place.
Hal Jordan has a day-to-day routine (he's a total workaholic, though, and has a LOT of responsibility, so he's got built-in get out of work credit). He goes to the base, test pilots jets, goes back to his apartment, sleeps. He has barely had time for his normal Earth life lately, the GL world being the big threat in the DC Universe. But he still finds downtime to hang out with his brother, Cowgirl, John Stewart, Guy, Kyle, Ollie, Barry, to moonlight in a JLA adventure, and so forth. The place? Coast City.
Wonder Woman's day-to-day routine and "home base" of a place are not as clearly defined.
Am I suggesting Wonder Woman adopt a fictitious DC city of her own? Hell yeah! It hasn't stopped Superman from being all over the globe when he needs to be, and returning to Smallville for threats on the home front (IE: The role Themyscira would play, only it'd be Smallville, the Fortress, and Krypton all rolled into one).
Wonder Woman has adopted cities before. Gateway City, was at one point, famously her new digs. We've seen barely anything of Gateway City for a long time. I'm not that qualified to actually come up with the "perfect analogue for an American city for Diana to live in". But the name Gateway City is kind of clever, just in that Diana is "newer to the modern world" and so a lot of the time people and places are "gateways to the world" for her. Plus, it's currently the home of Wonder Girl, and it's not that far from San Francisco (supposedly it's California), home of her other sister, Donna Troy. And the Titans.
(Plus, the other Big Two - Batman and Superman are East Coast. Hal Jordan, arguably the fourth wheel in the so-called Trinity, is West Coast, and so "two on the east, two on the west, Flash in the middle" totally works).
I'm not sure that's the best solution to that, but it's where I'd probably start. Maybe Wonder Woman's day job could be "Professor of Archaeology" or "Professor of Greco-Roman Studies" at a prestigious West Coast college or something. It's kind of got a classic Silver Age "so absurd, but certainly appropriate". Berkeley or something ... maybe go fictitious again - Gateway University.
Wonder Woman is a proponent of peace and a teacher, right? What better way to show it then actually having her day job be that of a teacher? College association means it'd be easy to bring in "Women's Shelter" scenarios if need be, the compassion of like ... working with inner-city youths, and this crazy woman who's tough enough to hang downtown ... eventually giving Wondie the whole "coolest teacher ever" thing.
PLUS ... as a Professor, you've got the perfect excuse (bear with me - I know Indiana Jones already did that ... he already did the government spy thing, too ... and the "meet historical figures" thing ... the "unethical rivals (Cheetah, Giganta) keep showing up and screwing with him" thing ...) for her to go off on an adventure to far off places, run into Cheetah, accidentally awaken a deadly guardian of myth, battle it, and return.
Anyway, that's where my train of thought went.
Perhaps, apropos, WW also can't have family, it seems, in the way Bats or Supes can, without apparently distressing some readers. Her mother can never get on with her own thing, or Diana and Donna have a coffee, without someone finding a reason it's melodramatic or bleeding out the WW concept and franchise.
Without breaking from the point ...
There's absolutely NO reason in my mind why we can't have this. Wonder Woman spends a lot of time talking about "sisters" when pontificating about womankind everywhere, but she really doesn't spend much time with Donna or Cassie - the two people who are the closest thing she has to actual sisters.
That's not to say I want to see the title turn into "Sisterhood of the Traveling Star-Spangled Pants" anytime soon. But the other major heroes seem to find a good deal more time. Superman just turned up in Superboy, he's living on New Krypton with Kara, and his time away from Lois is a big deal. Batman ... when he was around ... always had Alfred there, saw Tim Drake, Damian and Dick pretty damn often. The list goes on.
But more than that - I think the reason why we don't get those kind of welcome, humanizing, grounding moments in Wonder Woman is actually more a result of the fact that Wonder Woman doesn't really have an "established place" to do it in, or a day-to-day routine.
Batman has a day-to-day routine. Sleep some of the day. Spend the rest actually living a day life (albeit furthering his own night-time activities while he does it). Nightfall comes, Batman comes out to kick ass. There's a time and a place for him to have "family" moments with Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Alfred, Damian, girlfriends, super-friends, Lucius Fox, and the like. That's the time. Gotham City is the place.
Superman has a day-to-day routine. Go to work. Get paid. Whenever there's a big problem, try to get out there fast as Superman, solve it, and get back in time that Clark Kent's cover isn't blown. Go home at night, go to bed with his lovely wife. Most of his friends are people he works with, and he's frigging Superman, so really he's available 24/7 if he really needs to be - but there isn't a world-ending crisis every day of the week. That's the time. Metropolis is the place.
Hal Jordan has a day-to-day routine (he's a total workaholic, though, and has a LOT of responsibility, so he's got built-in get out of work credit). He goes to the base, test pilots jets, goes back to his apartment, sleeps. He has barely had time for his normal Earth life lately, the GL world being the big threat in the DC Universe. But he still finds downtime to hang out with his brother, Cowgirl, John Stewart, Guy, Kyle, Ollie, Barry, to moonlight in a JLA adventure, and so forth. The place? Coast City.
Wonder Woman's day-to-day routine and "home base" of a place are not as clearly defined.
Am I suggesting Wonder Woman adopt a fictitious DC city of her own? Hell yeah! It hasn't stopped Superman from being all over the globe when he needs to be, and returning to Smallville for threats on the home front (IE: The role Themyscira would play, only it'd be Smallville, the Fortress, and Krypton all rolled into one).
Wonder Woman has adopted cities before. Gateway City, was at one point, famously her new digs. We've seen barely anything of Gateway City for a long time. I'm not that qualified to actually come up with the "perfect analogue for an American city for Diana to live in". But the name Gateway City is kind of clever, just in that Diana is "newer to the modern world" and so a lot of the time people and places are "gateways to the world" for her. Plus, it's currently the home of Wonder Girl, and it's not that far from San Francisco (supposedly it's California), home of her other sister, Donna Troy. And the Titans.
(Plus, the other Big Two - Batman and Superman are East Coast. Hal Jordan, arguably the fourth wheel in the so-called Trinity, is West Coast, and so "two on the east, two on the west, Flash in the middle" totally works).
I'm not sure that's the best solution to that, but it's where I'd probably start. Maybe Wonder Woman's day job could be "Professor of Archaeology" or "Professor of Greco-Roman Studies" at a prestigious West Coast college or something. It's kind of got a classic Silver Age "so absurd, but certainly appropriate". Berkeley or something ... maybe go fictitious again - Gateway University.
Wonder Woman is a proponent of peace and a teacher, right? What better way to show it then actually having her day job be that of a teacher? College association means it'd be easy to bring in "Women's Shelter" scenarios if need be, the compassion of like ... working with inner-city youths, and this crazy woman who's tough enough to hang downtown ... eventually giving Wondie the whole "coolest teacher ever" thing.
PLUS ... as a Professor, you've got the perfect excuse (bear with me - I know Indiana Jones already did that ... he already did the government spy thing, too ... and the "meet historical figures" thing ... the "unethical rivals (Cheetah, Giganta) keep showing up and screwing with him" thing ...) for her to go off on an adventure to far off places, run into Cheetah, accidentally awaken a deadly guardian of myth, battle it, and return.
Anyway, that's where my train of thought went.