Yet another "I don't get Wonder Woman" article online...

[EricAD]

Although he is more respectful than some other recent "I don't get Wonder Woman and think she's lame" articles, I still gave him an earful (umm, so to speak)

Since I already gave him MY Wonder Woman lovin' two cents worth....anyone else wanna go represent??

Here's the link:
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansit.../news/?a=11178

[Flying Saucers Over Oz]

The comments after the article are scary...

[BnL]

I think I'll save myself the frustration and skip that article.

[galactica]

Can't expect everyone to like what you like.

[Leto]

The comments after the article are scary...

The picture in that "motivational poster" is a bit silly, the message written on it is pretty vile.

When it comes to "outsider" fans of Wonder Woman, the two quickest replies are that 1. She's outdated and everything about her should be changed or 2. She should be killed off and forgotten or "reborn."

Really, Wonder Woman's iconic status can hurt her because so many people know of her, but not anything more about her.

At least one of the repliers had read the Hiketeia.

[Fake Shemp]

Wow, is this guy serious?

Is she an ambassador of peace or is she a warrior princess? Is she here to learn or to teach? She’s an experienced fighter, but a virgin (loaded word, that) in human interactions?

Yeah, because CLEARLY, she can't be all of these things. You have to pick one because everyone knows that GOOD characters can be completely summed up in half a sentence. *eye roll*

Assigned to Superman? Make it like Siegel and Shuster, filtered through Weisinger/Binder.

Batman? Kane/Finger/Robinson, seen through the lens of O'Neill/Adams.

Golden Age Superman was a jerk who couldn't get the girl (who, by the way, couldn't fly) and Silver Age Superman was an ever BIGGER jerk (superdickery.com, anyone?) who constantly had to stop said girl's insane rues to get him to marry her. People got over it.

Golden Age Batman carried around a gun and killed people. Got over that one, too.

Golden Age Wonder Woman was based around Marston's strange ideals about women and fixation with bondage. But for some reason, everyone thinks it's weird that she's moved away from that and uses that as a reason for not "getting" her. Okay, whatever.

If you don't like or "get" Wonder Woman (even though she really is NOT all that hard to get), it's fine. No one's asking you to. But why do people go on pointless and often stupid rants about how she should be killed or retconned into a one-note character? I don't like Superman, but you don't see me writing articles and really vile, unnecessary comments about how lame and boring he is.

[Black Atom]

I think it's a respectful and well-thought-out article, actually. What's odd to me is that WW fans so casually dismiss arguments like these, even though there's serious disagreement among the fanbase over the various aspects of the character. I find the point about the inherent conflict in the character especially resonant. Despite fans trying to handwave this for years, the fact is it's hugely probelmatic. Mostly because the contradiction wasn't really something devised naturally as a way to make the character deeper, but something that came about unnaturally as a result of various creators trying to turn the character into a concept they liked. Modern creators are left trying to fit all the varying, conflicting pieces together into a whole that makes sense, almost like a mini-Crisis.

[coveredinbees]

She would be an interesting villain.

I agree completely with Black Atom and also with the article writer. I'm having a lot of trouble getting into Wonder Woman and understanding her decently as well.

[Mr Prince]

I can't tell if this is someone who has read a lot of WONDER WOMAN or just knows some of the paths writers have taken her down.

I don't find Diana's deal and reason for being all that more complex than Superman or Batman's. She can be summed up just as succinctly. It's more about whether people find it interesting or compelling, and I find there's lots of baggage that people bring when contemplating Wonder Woman, her character and stories.

It's interesting that as an Amazon fan, I've always believed in my "idea" of Wonder Woman, regardless of my subjective view of whether or not I liked her portrayal in a run. So my belief in Wonder Woman kind of outweighs the story to a degree. I find it either on/off character and then move on, but I always read it. It must be vastly different to approach her from less devotion and possibly just by the merits-of-the-story pov.

What's valuable about this article is that I can see it reflecting the attitudes and perceptions of many comic and "civilian" fans. It'll be interesting to see how it gets handled once the movie franchise gets off the ground.

All the best...

Scott

[jelebino]

Atom, Sijo, hi.

Let me put it this way. You don't often see Superman halting the action to say, "Hold on. There must be a non-violent way to resolve this situation." He could, and you know he would, but the point of a typical Superman story is the power, powers in conflict.

You don't see Batman trying for the non-violent, negotiated solution first, either. The kind of enemies he has, the idea is laughable.

There are exceptions to the rule, and it varies with other heroes.

But with Wonder Woman, and a writer who gets her, you can just about depend on it that (1) she will confront the real enemies, and try to convert them; (2) she will attend to the victims, and try to empower them. Wonder Woman is the one who will always try to change the rules of the game in moral terms.

Any number of writers can give us villains who work by corruption and deceit. It's a well-proven way to motivate the action. Once they have their claws into the situation, the heroes only need to react, using whatever trump cards they hold.

To repeat, they only need to react.

The thing about Wonder Woman, though, when appropriately written, is that she is the exact opposite of those villains. They corrupt; Diana recalls people to their conscience, their ideals, their real stature. The villains deceive; Diana makes deceived and deceivers alike acknowledge the truth.

That is, when the writer allows her to. Faced with Genocide (Incarnate), then okay, it's time to unleash the dogs. But such conflicts are written specifically to put Diana's fundamental preference for peaceful settlements through the wringer.

If you're expecting to see a flat-out superpowered battle, it will seem irrelevant to the issue that Diana wastes valuable page space worrying that she's losing touch with her better nature. But if the story is well written, it will make you care for the morally better way that Diana wishes she could find.

Some WW writers aren't that good at it; but a surprising number are. For instance, I think Messner-Loebs' saga of Diana's rise from prison-camp inmate to galactic revolutionary is full of the Real Wonder Woman Stuff. She bears the burdens of the downtrodden; she secretly revives their courage; she respects the renegades plotting against her, even as she shows she's seeing right through them, and gains their respect in turn; and so she recruits the allies who take her through to the heart of oppression, where (perhaps a little too neatly), she exposes the one big lie that sustaining the whole house-of-cards empire.

Gail begins her run by having Diana fight a lot of barbarians. She doesn't despise them, in fact gets on well with them, being something of a barbarian herself. And she alters these moral situations for the better: the Grodd Squad gain a leader who isn't a mere exploiter, the Khund gain an apprentice Green Lantern of their own kind.

Stories like this aren't unfamiliar: I could come up with a dozen recent movies set in high schools, prisons, dance schools, etc, which follow those patterns. If these are the kind of stories you like, but you still don't get Diana, I have to put it down to inadequate writing; although possibly, it's your expectations of a straight-out battle that are getting in the way.

Therefore, to me the question becomes: What are the ground-rules for writing Diana so that readers can't fail to get her peace-making nature?

[jason_w]

There's a lot of characters I just don't "get" or understand the appeal:

Lobo
Deadpool
Spider-Man

I could go on and on, but it's not a big deal. I don't expect everyone to love or even like the same things I do.

[4PointOh]

Jelebino, I LOVE your post!

What I want--more than anything in the world--is for Mars to go to that blog and respond in her classic, genius way.

[Leto]

There's a lot of characters I just don't "get" or understand the appeal:

Lobo
Deadpool
Spider-Man

Lobo is an over-the-top macho character.

Deadpool is a motormouth immortal assassin who "just won't die." He's plucky and people like the metahumor.

Spider-Man originally was a young kid who had to balance the demands of his superhero persona with real world problems.

The appeal is simple.

[Bullets& Bracelets]

I think it's a respectful and well-thought-out article, actually. What's odd to me is that WW fans so casually dismiss arguments like these, even though there's serious disagreement among the fanbase over the various aspects of the character. I find the point about the inherent conflict in the character especially resonant. Despite fans trying to handwave this for years, the fact is it's hugely probelmatic. Mostly because the contradiction wasn't really something devised naturally as a way to make the character deeper, but something that came about unnaturally as a result of various creators trying to turn the character into a concept they liked. Modern creators are left trying to fit all the varying, conflicting pieces together into a whole that makes sense, almost like a mini-Crisis.

I agree. There's obvious, glaring problems with the character, her revolving door of supporting characters, her thematics, and her two-dimensional villains.

But putting our hands over ears and trying to drown out the legitimate arguments about WW's flaws doesn't help the character nor does it help her fanbase.

It's why she's never given respect by non-WW readers, writers and creators.

Until her problems are addressed, WW will continue to remain a small niche comic for few dedicated fans.

[jelebino]

All right, Bullets&Bracelets. I think the problem is,

(1) that Diana's motives in any given story are a shade more subtle than those of your average champion of the good, facing your average evil;

(2) the better WW writers, who see how Diana should work, are also ethically ambitious writers, who want to see her basic confidence in goodness and justice put under extreme pressure;

(3) and furthermore, these are also ambitious storytellers, who expect a story will be more interesting if it has a slow, intriguing build-up, characters bouncing off each other in unexpected ways, and a denouement which gathers up all the threads from twelve issues past.

Pity. I love stories like that.

But if I were the new WW writer, picking up where Gail leaves off, and instructed to rebuild the fanbase, here's what I would do.

I would throttle back on the clever plotting, the clues, the dangling threads which tie brilliantly into the finale. It can be argued that Gail has overdone this.

Arcs would be short and focussed, generally completed in three issues. A reader who picks up just one issue will very quickly be clued into what's at stake. The covers especially will advertise exactly what kind of confrontation you will find inside.

Diana would be thinking her way through the situation, and her thoughts would be the major exposition of the action so far.

The stories would be relatively simple, decompressed in a sense. But the decompression would be to allow space for each of the main characters to account for themselves, and show how each of them thinks it's their story.

And overall, it would be the story of the villains and victims as much as the heroine. There would in fact be no villains in convenient black hats -- just powerful personalities following their own clear motives to the brink of tragedy, unless Diana can pull them up. The spotlight on the villain would be sustained until the reader gained a sense of him or her as a rounded person.

I would try to write so that the reader is in no doubt of the sort of story they're reading, and will leave wanting to read more.

All this at the expense, if necessary, of the snappy elliptical Gail Simone plot-development which I so enjoy, where you never know which much-loved character will show up next, to get a bit of the action and a few dead-on lines. Also at the expense of Greg Rucka's moral questioning and deep background. But I would also be watching for when the fanbase, now recovered, gets a little bored with the obvious three-issue plots, and wants to dig a bit deeper into things; and then I'd bring that good stuff back again.