Amazons, Childbearing

[MinaRho1]

In JSA and various other places its been suggested that in order for Diana to have children or find love she'll have to give up her immortality.

Does anyone else find this concept utterly ridiculous and insulting?

[DeltaBadhand]

Hadn't read that, but if anything it makes no sense-- especially the child bearing. Honestly, I am not even sure if she's immortal anymore. Anybody able to cite anything to clear these two things up?

[Wonder Watcher]

In JSA and various other places its been suggested that in order for Diana to have children or find love she'll have to give up her immortality.

Does anyone else find this concept utterly ridiculous and insulting?

I've not seen the reference in JSA but it was shown in JLA#0 as a 'possible future' and quite frankly yes, ridiculous. But also an understandable riff off Tolkein who himself riffed it off Greek legends I'm not educated enough to name off the top of my head.

As for immortality AFAIK she's actually now mortal anyway. She used to me immortal when on Themyscira like all the other Amazons but Zeus fixed that for all of them.

Personally I think she should just be immortal and be done with it, with or without love, marriage or kids.

[JKCarrier]

The writers have gone back and forth about Diana's immortality over the years. I think the original version was that the Amazons were immortal, but only as long as they stayed on the island. Thus, Diana was making a great sacrifice when she went to live in the outside world, and that was one of the reasons Hippolyta tried to forbid her from doing it.

I hadn't heard about the childbirth thing. Kind of an academic point, if there are no men on the island anyway. I suppose it makes sense that whatever mechanism prolongs their life might also suspend the reproductive cycle. If it doesn't, after centuries of periods, everyone but Diana is probably running low on eggs anyway...

[MinaRho1]

I've not seen the reference in JSA but it was shown in JLA#0 as a 'possible future' and quite frankly yes, ridiculous. But also an understandable riff off Tolkein who himself riffed it off Greek legends I'm not educated enough to name off the top of my head.

As for immortality AFAIK she's actually now mortal anyway. She used to me immortal when on Themyscira like all the other Amazons but Zeus fixed that for all of them.

Personally I think she should just be immortal and be done with it, with or without love, marriage or kids.

I have no problem with her losing her immortality by some divine law, or leaving the island, or even getting sick somehow. That's fine with me. Its the "giving up" immortality in order to get married and make babies thing. That irks me.

In one specific story she loses her immortality to marry some unidentified man. In JSA when superman goes back to where he left off in Kingdom Come he has lots of kids with Diana and she eventually dies (with Clark outliving her until hundreds of years in the future).

There are other sources. I vividly remember a Silver Age example of this when Diana meets another Diana and then meets Pre-Crisis Lyta Trevor, and they discuss Wonder Woman's eventual death because she decided to settle down.

If anyone else has other examples, please share!

[FeminineMystique]

In JSA and various other places its been suggested that in order for Diana to have children or find love she'll have to give up her immortality.

Does anyone else find this concept utterly ridiculous and insulting?

One of the stupider ideas DC have come out with. There's no reason Diana's immortality should prevent her from either. It seems like more "Wonder Woman should get back in the kitchen where she belongs" garbage that DC, intentionally or unitentionally, comes out with sometimes

[Lorendiac]

Here are some stray thoughts about Diana, immortality, romance, and child-bearing which have been running through my mind lately -- mostly in regard to animated versions of Wonder Woman, but they might be interesting to the other fans in this thread! (Anything's possible!)

Earlier this year I was watching the "Justice League Unlimited" episode "This Little Piggy." It was the one where Wonder Woman first made it crystal-clear to us (unless I'm forgetting something) that she felt powerfully attracted to Batman, but he was giving her the cold shoulder. Early on in that episode, they are up on a roof together (he's watching for something-or-other) and one of his expressed reasons for thinking it would be a bad idea for them to become a romantic couple is: "You're a princess from a race of immortal warriors; I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues."

Until then, I had never really bothered to worry about whether or not the Wonder Woman of the DCAU was still "immortal." It seems that she is -- or at least Bruce apparently thinks she is, just like all the Amazons back home on Themyscira, and she doesn't say anything to contradict that notion. A few weeks ago I finally got around to watching the recent animated movie about Wonder Woman, and offhand I don't recall her mom or anyone else saying that her Amazonian immortality would fade away if she became a fulltime resident of the outside world (although I may have forgotten some line of dialogue).

So even before I saw this thread just now, in recent months I have found myself wondering (mainly re: the DCAU version of Wonder Woman): "What would happen in the long run if Diana actually married Bruce and settled down to have children with him? Fifty years from now, I guess Bruce would be geriatric -- more or less as seen in 'Batman Beyond' -- and Diana would still be young and beautiful -- and their kids would be . . . um . . . say, what would they be, exactly? Immortals who seemed stuck around their early twenties as far as physical appearance went? Or just middle-aged mortals who might have inherited some of mommy's super-strength? Or what?"

(Same questions apply to an immortal Wonder Woman falling in love with any other "mortal man," of course.)

For that matter, it even occurred to me that if Diana stayed eternally young and fit, she and Bruce might keep having babies at regular intervals for as long as they were still married and living together. That could create a rather odd family tree . . . imagine their first-born child saying to a visitor, many decades from now, "Yes, I'm Bruce Junior, and that little girl playing in the sandbox is my youngest sister! No, she isn't my half-sister by the same father and a different mother; my biological parents are still happily married. No, she isn't adopted, either. Why do you ask? What's so odd about having a sister who just happens to be fifty years younger than I am?"

[MinaRho1]

Lorendiac, I saw that episode and loved it!

you reminded me of an issue of JLA:Classified I think? Basically Diana and Bruce have been flirting back and forth for who knows how long. They kiss at a crucial moment and then do some soul searching as to whether a relationship is an option for them.

Diana asks for J'onn's help and with the use of an immersion tank type device she sorts out different possible futures for the two of them-- on of them being that Bruce will eventually grow old and die, while Diana is still young. She keeps pleading for "one more day" with him and he indulges her.

The scenario you described... I don't know if I find it humorous, touching or horrifying. Maybe all of them at once!

Not that I ship Bruce/Diana -- or anyone specifically, but I thought it pairing fueled some interesting ideas while it lasted.

[Lorendiac]

Lorendiac, I saw that episode and loved it!

you reminded me of an issue of JLA:Classified I think? Basically Diana and Bruce have been flirting back and forth for who knows how long. They kiss at a crucial moment and then do some soul searching as to whether a relationship is an option for them.

Diana asks for J'onn's help and with the use of an immersion tank type device she sorts out different possible futures for the two of them-- on of them being that Bruce will eventually grow old and die, while Diana is still young. She keeps pleading for "one more day" with him and he indulges her.

The scenario you described... I don't know if I find it humorous, touching or horrifying. Maybe all of them at once!

Not that I ship Bruce/Diana -- or anyone specifically, but I thought it pairing fueled some interesting ideas while it lasted.

I haven't read the comic book you mention; I admit it sounds interesting. I have read an awful lot of fantasy and science fiction stories which dealt with immortal (or at least "very, very, very slowly-aging") characters, and so I've seen the question come up before -- how will it affect a marriage if, decades after two lovebirds tied the knot, one of them is still fresh as a daisy and the other is gray-haired and wrinkled and so forth? I am prepared to believe that a sufficiently strong love could overcome this so that the aging spouse wasn't consumed with jealousy, and so that the ageless spouse wasn't filing for divorce so that she (or he) could start over fresh with a much younger and prettier member of the opposite sex, but I can see how the situation could get very, very awkward.

I've also seen some fantasy fiction where it was stated or implied that a certain character probably had many centuries of life ahead of him (or her), but the question of how this would affect the stability of the character's marriage, in the years and decades after the book or series ended, was largely ignored by the author!

So I suppose I was thinking that if the Greek Gods -- or someone -- insisted upon making Diana become a "mortal woman" when she got married to a normally aging mortal man, there might be some very good reasons for it. Perhaps feeling that having the marriage start out on a more "equal" basis might be better, emotionally, for all concerned?

[UsagiTsukino]

What if she marriage a mortal woman. I mean would it still apply. To me the Goddess were doing that since she marriage a mortal man not not a mortal woman and that if she marriage a woman, the woman is grant immortal. As for kids magic or Artemis.

[Outside_85]

There was that JLA issue with Diana walking through a number of possible scenario's regarding her relationship with Batman, one of them was practically a utopian world where Bruce accepted that the Gods had forbidden Diana having children and that they would just have to consider the world their children instead.

But then again, the same issue had this pair appear:

[Rob_Olivera]

The writers have gone back and forth about Diana's immortality over the years. I think the original version was that the Amazons were immortal, but only as long as they stayed on the island. Thus, Diana was making a great sacrifice when she went to live in the outside world, and that was one of the reasons Hippolyta tried to forbid her from doing it.

I hadn't heard about the childbirth thing. Kind of an academic point, if there are no men on the island anyway. I suppose it makes sense that whatever mechanism prolongs their life might also suspend the reproductive cycle. If it doesn't, after centuries of periods, everyone but Diana is probably running low on eggs anyway...

I've heard several versions of the immortality issue over the years:

1. She was immortal and gave up that right when she left Paradise Island.
2. She would need to come back to the island and drink from the fountain of youth to remain so.
3. She is immortal as long as she doesn't fall in love.

I'm sure there are other variations. But as far as I can tell, none of the versions I've heard have her being immortal since she left the island.

All of these raise a question for me. If Amazons are immortal how did they get to the point where they look in their 20's? It also brings up the question of "immortal" vs. "ageless", where they won't age, but CAN be killed. Some things are best left alone.

[Outside_85]

All of these raise a question for me. If Amazons are immortal how did they get to the point where they look in their 20's? It also brings up the question of "immortal" vs. "ageless", where they won't age, but CAN be killed. Some things are best left alone.

Think we've argued about this before, but for me:

Immortal: An individual who cannot die or be permanently removed unless higher beings are involved. (Ex. Phantom Stranger)
Ageless: An individual who ages to a certain degree then simply stops, the individual can be killed but will never die from old age. (Amazons)

Then there are the last kind that I call Ageless Mortals; because they use trinkets, chemicals and so forth to prolong their lives but as to redo the ritual, bathing and such eventually before age catches up them again. (Ra's al Ghul)

[Burning Manazon]

In comics (and most media, I think), immortal has become synonymous with ageless. In fact, I haven't heard that distinction made outside a message board since my high school English class. That isn't to say the distinction isn't there, just that most people today don't recognize it... immortal vampires, etc.

I rather like the idea that Diana having a child is an offering up of her immortality, as was suggested in Kingdom Come. If I were writing the story, I would establish that her immortality is transferred to her child. I don't like the idea of Diana having children she would be destined to witness age and die while she stayed eternally young and beautiful. And I dislike even more the idea that she could populate the entire Universe with immortal kids. And somehow her becoming mortal to have a mortal baby just doesn't feel right.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

If it doesn't, after centuries of periods, everyone but Diana is probably running low on eggs anyway...

Nit.
Women are born with 2 million eggs.
Even if the amazons had regular monthly periods, it would take more than 3,000 years for them to run out of.

On the topic of immortality, I´ve learned to accept the notion that she´s only immortal as long as she´s on the island.
I imagina themy as something similar to the island of Lost, filled with mystical-magical properties and I like that.
But her losing her immortality (as was suggested in Kingdom Come where she started developping white hairs upon pregnancy), sorry but I hate it.