Re: Black Widow and Joss Whedon

[Red Mask]

Not going to happen. I would like it to happen, but its not going to happen any time in the near future & if it does, its probably going to flop, due to the inability of WB to make a real superhero movie that appeals to both a comic book audience & the general public.

I have no expectations or hope of Warner Bros. ever making a superheroine film, including Wonder Woman. They're unreliable. To still believe Joss Whedon can still do his Wonder Woman film is just screwy.

[Red Mask]

She can´t be worse than Salt, Hannah or Haywire.

Hanah was a great film. Haven't seen Haywire yet, but I don't care for Salt.

[americanwonder]

No, I am pretty sure I loved it. I guess I will just have to watch it again to be certain. :)

lol. I hope you love it again. :)

Gwen is not old enough to have watched all the movies, and anyway at the moment she is perfectly content with the Wonder Woman tv show.

She has good taste. :)

Having seen it I am happy to take Xander and we will watch it on the weekend. I have bought him an Iron Man electronic mask, and explained to him that it is in case his head explodes with excitment. I will be taking along my battle blast Mjolnir, naturally

(not quite ) Mighty Thor and Iron Lad watching their grand adventure together - Hope you have a great time. :)

[brettc1]

Its not that she's imperfect, its that she is perfectly human, with all the foibles & hopes that includes. Its that she is not some sort of ideal, some concept made flesh who is constantly spouting off soundbites from that ideal. Look at the young justice version of Wonder Woman for instance... The first time she opens her mouth to say something (as far as i can remember) was episode 22, Agendas. An almost the first thing out of her mouth? An appeal to affirmative action.

Its a case of being the personification of an ideal, versus just being a person. An thats been WW's biggest flaw in essentially any and all mediums, including comics. Because if your character is nothing but a very thinly veiled analogue for a political movement or an ideal, then anything negative that happens to that character is taken in the same way. Or to put it more clearly: Superman is killed & everyone was like "Oh my god, they can't do that to Superman... I must read more." If you did that to Wonder Woman the WW Fandom would be all "DC just killed Feminism. This is WiR to the max, because DC is sexist: Lets all burn Didio in effigy & write articles about how its all indicative of the patriachal standards at DC & how this is a rape on all women."

Thats what he means by making her imperfect. Possibly a poor choice of words, as its not that she's any more imperfect then before, its just that when she fails its not suddenly a national tradegy for 50% of the worlds population... Or so the fandom would have us believe. The character can move forward as a CHARACTER, rather then as a personification of an ideal. If the character has a romantic attatchment, thats not some sort of hidden message trying to co-opt female agency, it'd just be a writer writing an interesting narrative.

Thats what the difference is. Its not imperfections, its just the difference between being a fully realised character & being a thinly veiled stand in/personification of a pet ideal.

An since this is about the Avengers, i just watched it today. Black Widow is a great character, but i doubt she's a strong enough character to have her own solo movie either. I say bring on She-Hulk.

Couldnt have said it better myself.

Perhaps not, but I would have argue that Gail Simone, Phil Jimenez, Loebs, Allan Luke and Greg Rucka all did very good jobs of showing us exactly that.

As for the Widow - folks would have said the same thing about Thor getting his own movie not so long ago. Not to mention Ghost Rider, who will soon have two.

[brettc1]

Its not that she's imperfect, its that she is perfectly human, with all the foibles & hopes that includes. Its that she is not some sort of ideal, some concept made flesh who is constantly spouting off soundbites from that ideal. Look at the young justice version of Wonder Woman for instance... The first time she opens her mouth to say something (as far as i can remember) was episode 22, Agendas. An almost the first thing out of her mouth? An appeal to affirmative action.

Its a case of being the personification of an ideal, versus just being a person. An thats been WW's biggest flaw in essentially any and all mediums, including comics. Because if your character is nothing but a very thinly veiled analogue for a political movement or an ideal, then anything negative that happens to that character is taken in the same way. Or to put it more clearly: Superman is killed & everyone was like "Oh my god, they can't do that to Superman... I must read more." If you did that to Wonder Woman the WW Fandom would be all "DC just killed Feminism. This is WiR to the max, because DC is sexist: Lets all burn Didio in effigy & write articles about how its all indicative of the patriachal standards at DC & how this is a rape on all women."

Thats what he means by making her imperfect. Possibly a poor choice of words, as its not that she's any more imperfect then before, its just that when she fails its not suddenly a national tradegy for 50% of the worlds population... Or so the fandom would have us believe. The character can move forward as a CHARACTER, rather then as a personification of an ideal. If the character has a romantic attatchment, thats not some sort of hidden message trying to co-opt female agency, it'd just be a writer writing an interesting narrative.

Thats what the difference is. Its not imperfections, its just the difference between being a fully realised character & being a thinly veiled stand in/personification of a pet ideal.

An since this is about the Avengers, i just watched it today. Black Widow is a great character, but i doubt she's a strong enough character to have her own solo movie either. I say bring on She-Hulk.

I don't follow you guys. I haven't seen the episode you're talking about, but in the comics, I remember her being imperfect pre-flashpoint (like losing her temper, etc...). I also don't remember her giving speeches all the time (could you point me to such a speech? maybe I didn't notice it before). So how is she different now?

I completely agree. The only time I remember Diana giving a speech was when she was standing behind a lecturn - giving a speech!

Green Arrow was more likely to break into a polictical rant than Diana.

[americanwonder]

As for the Widow - folks would have said the same thing about Thor getting his own movie not so long ago. Not to mention Ghost Rider, who will soon have two.

Ghost Rider already has two - has he not made it to Australia, yet?

btw - I just love when you say nice things about A League of One.

[brettc1]

Ghost Rider already has two - has he not made it to Australia, yet?

btw - I just love when you say nice things about A League of One.

Yes - its a shame I cant say more of them about it.

And no, we decided to let you guys have Ghost Rider first while we took the Avengers. You are welcome.

[americanwonder]

Yes - its a shame I cant say more of them about it.

And no, we decided to let you guys have Ghost Rider first while we took the Avengers. You are welcome.

lol, that doesn't seem like a fair deal on this end. :(

[Ontir]

I'd be interested to see what Whedon, who has been to TV what Claremont has been to Comics, in terms of writing strong, well-realized women, would do with her in a feature.

I think, however, that his take on Wonder Woman was too revisionist and not really anything I'd want to see.
That said, nothing in the current comic is anything I'd want to see, either.

[DarkKnghtJared]

If Black Widow gets a movie before Wonder Woman its going to be because of the success across the board at Marvel in regards to their handling of movie franchises, not so much Joss Whedon himself. I like the guy but let's face it, in the feature film arena his track record doesn't exactly demand the adulation his hardcore fanbase gives him. The Avengers was and is a guaranteed success regardless who got the director's chair.

Financially? Yeah, it's very probable it would have at least gotten it's budget back. Critically? From what I'm hearing, Whedon's writing and directing skills are probably fairly strong components in not only the early critical praise, but the movie having a longer success period than initial opening weekend.

She does indeed get a scene early on where she is in femme fatale mode but aside from that she is a hero, not a girl-hero.

If this were a Justice League movie and Wonder Woman got scenes this good this forum would be going nuts!

Like someone said earlier, I don't want Diana to literally EMBODY concepts like feminism and girl power or whatever, but I do think part of what makes her interesting is her feminity and all that. Outside of that, I agree.

And honestly, at this point, I kinda hope they don't do a Justice League movie with this caliber--'cause I'm already insanely hyped for Avengers, which I never was a HUGE fan of. If they did a JL movie as good as this, I don't think I'd be able to see it in the theater without getting arrested for indecent exposure.

Second, his Firefly movie was bad.

DAMN. May I inquire as to why you didn't like it?

Its not that she's imperfect, its that she is perfectly human, with all the foibles & hopes that includes. Its that she is not some sort of ideal, some concept made flesh who is constantly spouting off soundbites from that ideal. Look at the young justice version of Wonder Woman for instance... The first time she opens her mouth to say something (as far as i can remember) was episode 22, Agendas. An almost the first thing out of her mouth? An appeal to affirmative action.

Its a case of being the personification of an ideal, versus just being a person. An thats been WW's biggest flaw in essentially any and all mediums, including comics. Because if your character is nothing but a very thinly veiled analogue for a political movement or an ideal, then anything negative that happens to that character is taken in the same way. Or to put it more clearly: Superman is killed & everyone was like "Oh my god, they can't do that to Superman... I must read more." If you did that to Wonder Woman the WW Fandom would be all "DC just killed Feminism. This is WiR to the max, because DC is sexist: Lets all burn Didio in effigy & write articles about how its all indicative of the patriachal standards at DC & how this is a rape on all women."

Thats what he means by making her imperfect. Possibly a poor choice of words, as its not that she's any more imperfect then before, its just that when she fails its not suddenly a national tradegy for 50% of the worlds population... Or so the fandom would have us believe. The character can move forward as a CHARACTER, rather then as a personification of an ideal. If the character has a romantic attatchment, thats not some sort of hidden message trying to co-opt female agency, it'd just be a writer writing an interesting narrative.

Thats what the difference is. Its not imperfections, its just the difference between being a fully realised character & being a thinly veiled stand in/personification of a pet ideal.

An since this is about the Avengers, i just watched it today. Black Widow is a great character, but i doubt she's a strong enough character to have her own solo movie either. I say bring on She-Hulk.

Pretty much agreed on this. Not to mention She-Hulk--I recently just read through Slott's run on the book and I'm now definitely a big fan of her.

[americanwonder]

DAMN. May I inquire as to why you didn't like it?

Hello DarkKnghtJared - yes, you many inquire. ;) But I don't really have an answer. I don't have specific complaints (and it's been a few years, so I don't remember much about it); it just didn't click for me, and I didn't think it was particularly well done.

[EricAD]

Well, I'm one of those annoying feminist fans who highly dislikes the changes made to the Amazons for example, but I'm also a HUGE Whedon fan who desperately wanted to see his take on Diana. I think Brett is right, judging from the nearly overwhelmingly positive response Avengers is getting from fanboy and critic alike, Warners dropping the ball on Whedon's take on Wonder Woman is going to make them look all the more stupid. I have zero problems with Diana having foibles and faults, and a learning curve as a human being. I know a lot of Wonder Woman fans want her to be perfect from the get go, but I've never been one of them.

And I don't see why so many people keep saying he would have completely changed her. I've read every inteview Joss Whedon has done in regards to Wonder Woman since it was announced ( She is my favorite comic character, and Whedon is easily one of my favorite creators ever ) As far as I can tell, his version of Wonder Woman was going to be Princess Diana of the Amazons, who rescues Steve Trevor after crashing onto Paradise Island and taking him back to the outside world. She would have the bracelets, the tiara, the lasso, the only thing he was going to change were the panties, probably to be replaced by a battle skirt. ( Something that any future WW movie will probably do anyways, no matter who makes it ) This would have been a version of WW we know and love, not a top to bottom reinvention like the Halle Berry Catwoman movie. Her villains might not have been Ares or Circe, but they WERE going to be based on Greek Mythology, something the classic WW tv show never bothered to do. And yet because he was going to change her panties she was going to be "completely different". Certainly the changes he would have made to her would have been far less than anything Azzarello has done. While I haven't read his script, I highly doubt uber feminist Whedon would have made the Amazons cold blooded killers or child slave traders for example. And yet there is this notion that he was going to "change everything about her", just because the origin of how she discovered the use of Bullets and Bracelets was different than the comics.

Not long ago I read the comments a few well known creators have said about Joss Whedon's script, and it just reinforces my notion that Warners simply has zero faith in any WW project, and are very willing to let it die.Maybe the critical and (no doubt) eventual commercial success of Avengers will change their minds, but who knows really.

This is what Mark Millar recently said about it...not that he's my favorite creator, but still...interesting to read.

Q: Are there any other superhero franchises you’d like to re-cook if you had the time…? Wonder Woman could use a hand…

Actually, no. I think if you’d asked me a few years ago I’d say yeah, but to me I really like working in comics; so many of my friends who work in movies just tell me horror stories. You’ve got to look at Joss Whedon as the perfect example. Joss is one of the best writers on the planet. Brilliant guy, great writer, excellent director, white hot - and they brought him on to Wonder Woman. And they just wasted two years of his life. He didn’t have time to do anything else. He handed in a really good Wonder Woman script that just really got picked apart and ended up just not happening. And you never get those two years back.

And this is what Bruce Timm said about Whedon's WW script around the time the animated movie was coming out:

Q: Will we ever see a Wonder Woman feature film?

TIMM: She's been a notoriously tough nut to crack in coming up with a movie story for her. Joss Whedon did a version that I actually really liked, but that didn't get the greenlight for whatever reason. There was another script that was fast-tracked for awhile, but has since been put on the back-burner. It's difficult to say

[Eliseu Gouveia]

People´s high expectations of WW make her toxic.

So I say... bring in that Supergirl movie I´ve been waiting for for so long.

[americanwonder]

If Mark Millar approves, it couldn't have been good.

[Red Mask]

I'm so sick of fans mentioning the Greek myths as material for Wonder Woman's enemies. We need modern supervillains. The army can kill a hydra with napalm, just like they killed that giant tarantula in the horror film "Tarantula!".