Etta Candy returns to plus-size in Morrison's WONDER WOMAN

[Gaelforce]

I don't think obesity should be accepted without acknowledgment of its health risks. Obesity is a far more common problem in society than anorexia is.

Not every character has to be a role model though, and the argument could be made that superhero comics more than most other genres promote "ideal" body types. IMO, Etta should be a big girl because that's been her character's identity for decades. Just like others said, it's like making Amanda Waller skinny. It's taking away a trait that stands out and making the character more generic.

Being big doesn't have to mean being obese though. There are women with muscular or chunky builds. Women who like to eat and may be carrying a few pounds more than they have to, without being monstrously unhealthy. There's a lot of middle ground that the character could inhabit without being massively obese.

Yet there's nobody decrying the unhealthy lifestyle of the overly thin in comics...

[drreneninja]

I always thought the Golden Age Etta Candy was absolutely ridiculous, gorging on candy and saying idiotic things like Woop Woop.

Now granted, I think a thin Etta Candy is also ridiculous.

Personally, I like Etta Candy's appearance in Gail Simone's run. Instead of being stick-thin like a majority of comic book women, she actually looks like a real woman, and it seems plausible that she could work as a special agent with this kind of build:

[Boonciaver]

I always thought the Golden Age Etta Candy was absolutely ridiculous, gorging on candy and saying idiotic things like Woop Woop.

I thought it was "Woo! Woo!"?

And I always thought her little catchphrase was cute, just like the amazons with their "Hola!" catchphrase.

[brettc1]

The bigger crime being committed here is that someone, in the interest of progress, decided that the world doesn't need to see overweight, stocky or thickly made people represented in this comic. This was a TERRIBLE, nearly unforgivable decision, considering all of the problems our American girls (of every race, ethinicity, bla'bla-bla) with eating disorders and healthy body image.

Plucky, two-fisted Etta, fat and whatever race we can get her, is needed, today, more than ever. She, in ways we couldn't see before, is as much a symbol of women's liberation, as Wonder Woman - the freedom to be a woman, happy with whatever shape that Nature gave her. Should there be something wrong with being a short, stocky woman, who doesn't look like a Cosmo girl or some anoerexic model? Is that really what we want our little girls to believe?

Etta's problem wasn't her race ..or her size. She was just fine, as she was, ..and that is what we should be teaching every young, impressionable woman, who's reading WONDER WOMAN.

Yeah, I agree. They did the same thing to Amanda Waller, which I am sure has already been mentioned.

Jeez, check out the Warriors Three over in Thor. Who is the character they spend the most time on? Volstagg, and the guy is enormous! But if you are woman in a comic book then size 10 is clinically obese.

[brettc1]

this is essentially how I feel.

the emphasis on making her gigantic again doesn't resonate with me. Golden Age Etta was unhealthily large, she was more than just big or plus size. She doesn't need to have a super model figure I have no qualms really which ever way you take it, however, I'm not sure if I get the point of this small outcry. Why is it so important Etta be large or small or average etc.?

But end of the day I don't see why this is really even matters to the comic or the story. Etta's appearance doesn't really serve a strong purpose one way or another, and I think people are grasping for straws on this one. Additionally I prefer Steve as more of a Justice LEague liaison than Wonder Woman's lover

I'm not so sure it makes no difference. It's like snowflakes that build up on the side of a mountain.

The local radio show is doing its "Feel good for the woman that you are" bit at the moment, and they took the size 22 girl shopping this week to find something that she could wear to work and then wear out afterwards. They went to thirty shops, most of which only had her size stocked in the back corner and the dresses seemed to consist mostly of either black or prints with flowers the size of tea saucers. You could hear in her voice in the interviews whe was getting annoyed and despondent. They eventually found her a dress that was good - over three hours and many failed attempts later.

[nightrider]

I'm fine with an averaged sized or overweight woman. I'm not sure how immense is immense, but I don't see a need to make her morbidly obese.
I'm sure anorexia and bulimia is an increasing problem amongst Americans. But might I point out that obesity is becoming the #1 cause of death in america. Being drawn to look overweight would just be depicting an average person in comics. However being Obese is a whole other matter.

[Flâneur]

I liked Etta just FINE as a big, fat, white girl from a Texas (I think) rancher family.

Furthermore, I don't appreciate the political position it puts us traditionalists in, with new, ethnicized Etta in JLA comic, that we'd be okay with plain, old WHITE ETTA. We didn't ask for the character to be turned into a skinny or black woman, and I don't recall anyone ever identifying Etta Candy's race as the primary problem with the character. Again, nobody asked for any of this, but voicing indifference to Etta's present ethnicization unfairly makes us sound like racists.

Don't appreciate the position we're put in, here.

If creators/editors wanted, for no other reason than politics, to make Etta more thnically diverse, couldn't they have just added to what was there? Is there some reason that Etta Candy couldn't be, like Lynda Carter, a Caucasian woman with a mixed race background? Is there some reason Etta couldn't be a pudgy, sassy Latina, with a Mexican mama and a white dad?

Or a white woman, like Carol Channing, with an African American parent.

Bryan Azzarello's characterization of Zola is proof that all Etta Candy needed was a good writer, who believed in her and how much fun the WW comic could be with her in it.

I like the first sentence but the rest of the post is just so messed up ... the fans are oppressed because they don't want to feel racist for pushing back to the racist status quo of Wonder Woman's creation? That people can be diverse as long as they look white enough?

I tend to think that the POC who don't get to see themselves represented in most mainstream entertainment media outside of racist stereotypes are are a bit more hard done by than a fan who is concerned about the vague possibility of looking racist.

[Boonciaver]

I like the first sentence but the rest of the post is just so messed up ... the fans are oppressed because they don't want to feel racist for pushing back to the racist status quo of Wonder Woman's creation? That people can be diverse as long as they look white enough?

I tend to think that the POC who don't get to see themselves represented in most mainstream entertainment media outside of racist stereotypes are are a bit more hard done by than a fan who is concerned about the vague possibility of looking racist.

I agree. If people can accept Eartha Kitt as Catwoman just fine, then what's wrong with accepting the new Etta?

[blackphoenix]

How has this thread gone three pages without a pick of Old School Etta?



As to the New 52 Etta:I say if they wanted to introduce a black female character into Wonder Woman, why not just invent one out of whole cloth instead of turning Etta black?

[Nyssane]

Zola could've been black.

[blackphoenix]

Zola could've been black.

Yup.

______________

[nepenthes]

An interesting descriptor from Grant, "immense", ha. sounds good. I just hope she's sexy and fun and figures in a bondage scene or two, that panel in the BC article is just fantastic.

[psyshot]

I would not be OK if this version of Etta is as big than the one one in his "7 soldiers of Victory". I may be remembering wrong but she was really huge and I don't see how she could help WW. If she is like her golden age version or like Pre-flashpoint Amanda Waller, I have no problem with it. I'm all for more diversity in comics, including belly-size.

[jsrichardson1]

KATHY BRIER (Marcy, One Life To Live) will always be the ultimate Etta Candy, for my money. She's a pretty girl with a big mouth and a bigger personality - what an Etta, she'd be! Kathy's the perfect example of a lady, who makes big look good.

Anyway, young women, who are all shapes and sizes, need to see a character like Etta kicking ass with the heroes and getting a little glory. If Etta had returned to us a pudgy Black American girl or Chinese girl, I probably wouldn't be typing this, because what Etta represented, the everywoman, would be in-play. Mo'Nique and Margaret Cho are both great models for Etta Candy, as both women are or have been (at one time) these bombastic, exasperating, BIG, beautiful women. No reason Etta can't be a big, beautiful AND fit girl, and we need to see that represented now, as much as we did in 1942.

Making Etta a non-white character doesn't change that, and I feel a little manipulated by DC's changes to this great supporting character.

This has always been my vote for the actress to play this character as well!!

[fanboiii]

I would not be OK if this version of Etta is as big than the one one in his "7 soldiers of Victory". I may be remembering wrong but she was really huge and I don't see how she could help WW. If she is like her golden age version or like Pre-flashpoint Amanda Waller, I have no problem with it. I'm all for more diversity in comics, including belly-size.

Agreed, I'm all for body-shape diversity as long as we're not talking about unhealthy obesity. There are big people that are actually physical and athletic. Sumos for example are technically obese, but their weight/fat is quite different. And yes, there are female sumo wrestlers :)

Science of Obesity - Sumo Wrestlers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSSeRp6Dtn0#t=1m38s