Wonder Woman.
Everyone signed off of Y!M, and now I'm lonely.
So I was reading this excerpt from an old Wonder Woman comic on scans_daily, on one of those off days when someone posts something that isn't gay porn, and it got me to thinking. Several things are weird about this comic. Wonder Woman gets captured and tied up like she usually did back in the 40's, which is weird in itself, and she makes a few cracks at the expense of men, which is sort of her gig, but the new thing I've discovered is that if you remove her bracelets that she uses to deflect bullets, she just goes beserk. As she explains it, Wonder Woman's powers are too strong, so the magic bracelets restrict them to only good applications. Remove them, and she loses control and becomes "free to destroy like a man." She then rampages around whacking people with a giant log until one of her friends manages to calm her down with the magic lasso. I assume everyone knows the deal with her magic lasso, how when she ties you up with it, you're compelled to tell the truth, but when you tie HER up with it, she has to do whatever you say. The guy who created Wonder Woman was a freaky-deaky nut, incidentally.
Still, it just reinforces a nagging suspicion I've had about the character for a while now: Wonder Woman just don't make no sense. Don't get me wrong, I like the character. Hell when I was seven I loved the character. That was the ex-future Mrs. Mike Smith you'd have been talking about. This was back when Wonder Woman just looked like Mary Tyler Moore with super powers, before I found out she was a mere fashion accessory away from pounding me to death with a tree.
For example, DC recently relaunched her comic book, and as part of the buildup to the first storyline, Wonder Woman's been out of action for a year, so her sidekick Donna Troy has taken up the mantle, adoping her own version of the costume. Paul O'Brien reviewed the new #1 a while back, and he praised the new suit because it didn't have any of the American Flag motif on it, which he never understood since Wonder Woman never really had anything to do with the U.S. to begin with. O'Brien's not an American or a WW continuity buff, so he probably doesn't fully appreciate the story of how the Amazons designed the costume using the flags on Steve Trevor's Air Force uniform, as a sign of goodwill and friendship for when they sent Diana as their ambassador. Even so, he's kind of right. In recent years, Wonder Woman has become more of a goodwill ambassador to the entire world, so it doesn't seem to make sense to adopt the colors of any one country, especially one as controversial as the United States can be. But that's the basic design she's always worn, so it stuck. That Donna Troy changed it at all just goes to show how temporary her run as Wonder Woman is supposed to be.
A more glaring discrepancy is Wonder Woman's mission. The character was created to serve as a feminine role model to counterbalance the male-dominated field of superheroes in the Golden Age. This purpose was twofold, in that it presented a strong female character for girls to look up to, and it offered a constant reminder that a woman could solve problems just as effectively as a man, if not moreso. The thing I never understood is that Wonder Woman was born and raised in an all-female society, so how could she preach about gender equality when her whole society only had one gender? At least, you would think that any cultural exchange between Wonder Woman and "Man's World" (read: us) would have to be two-way. As I commented on scans_daily, Wonder Woman thinks that losing her bracelets leaves her unrestrained and destructive, like a man, but I've never met a man who went on a tear like that, shouting "KILL! DESTROY!" and "I'll brown HIS hash!" You'd think that part of her story would involve learning just what the hell a man is. She'd probably still be unimpressed to find out, but I never got how she could hold such a firm opinion about men given her background.
Modern writers have since expanded Wonder Woman's mission to include broader social ideals, such as vegetarianism, human rights, peaceful resolution of disputes, etc. on top of the matter of women's rights. Again, all well and good, but it seems kind of strange for her to hold up her society as a model for our society to emulate. Thanks to the Greek Gods, the Amazons are immortal, living isolated from the rest of the world on their island nation of Themiscyra. When they get injured, they use a magic purple ray to heal themselves. I read a novel once that suggested that some side-effect of their immortality dampens parts of the Amazons' minds, so that they don't get bored with being immortal, or grow weary of living without the company of men. On the other hand, others have suggested that the Amazons are all just lesbians, which seems like a cop-out to me. In any case, the utopia they enjoy seems to be largely the product of their devotion to their gods, who magically keep them from dying, going hungry, or getting entangled in romantic misadventures, so it doesn't make much sense that Wonder Woman would promote her culture as a solution to the world's problems. Logically, I would almost assume she would have us all worship the Olympian Pantheon, so that she'd turn everyone else into an immortal, too. But she never actually suggests this, probably because that'd make the comic completely unrealistic, and it'd turn Wonder Woman from a crusading feminist into a pagan evangelical. And of course, Wonder Woman is doubtlessly a proponent of religious freedom and tolerance, but that kind of sidesteps the fact that her gods seem to exist and act in a different context from everyone else's. When Superman says "Great Rao!", Rao doesn't answer back. She never questions this.
And in fleshing out all these aspects of Wonder Woman's personality, I think some of her original feminist appeal is lost. George Perez got the ball rolling on this about twenty years ago, I think. Since Wonder Woman was an Amazon, then she's speak Ancient Greek and she and her people would conduct themselves like Ancient Greek people. If she got her powers from Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Athena, then she shouldn't just talk about them, she should pray to them. If Wonder Woman can talk to animals, then it stands to reason she wouldn't want to eat meat. And if the Amazons were a mythological race of warrior women, then Wonder Woman should be this asskicking, nametaking tomboy who doesn't take crap from anyone, ever. Somewhere during Greg Rucka's run, when she was fighting a resurrected Medusa on behalf of Athena, and back at her U.N. embassy the Minotaur chef is reminding us he uses tofu in everything, I started to wonder if women could really relate to her at all. Themiscyran politics and divine power struggles seem pretty far removed from the issues regular women deal with. Of course, superheroes are supposed to get into absurd situations like this, and she can't just be a cipher for people to project their own personalities upon. But lately, Wonder Woman feels more like Greek Legend Lady, bitten by a radioactive copy of Bullfinch's Mythology. She seems to have more to do with "Clash of the Titans" than Susan B. Anthony these days.
I don't know if that's a problem or not. We live in an age when women superheroes are prevalent. 20th Century Fox can cram them into movies three at a time. Maybe it's not the kind of burning issue you need a gaudily clad character to handle. Still, that was the foundation of the character in this case (that and kinky bondage situations, but let's ignore that for the moment), and I wonder if DC might be missing the boat by just turning her into yet another mythology-themed heroine. I almost want to write a mock-proposal for the book, just to see if I could come up with any answers.
But for the time being, that's all I got to say about it.
So I was reading this excerpt from an old Wonder Woman comic on scans_daily, on one of those off days when someone posts something that isn't gay porn, and it got me to thinking. Several things are weird about this comic. Wonder Woman gets captured and tied up like she usually did back in the 40's, which is weird in itself, and she makes a few cracks at the expense of men, which is sort of her gig, but the new thing I've discovered is that if you remove her bracelets that she uses to deflect bullets, she just goes beserk. As she explains it, Wonder Woman's powers are too strong, so the magic bracelets restrict them to only good applications. Remove them, and she loses control and becomes "free to destroy like a man." She then rampages around whacking people with a giant log until one of her friends manages to calm her down with the magic lasso. I assume everyone knows the deal with her magic lasso, how when she ties you up with it, you're compelled to tell the truth, but when you tie HER up with it, she has to do whatever you say. The guy who created Wonder Woman was a freaky-deaky nut, incidentally.
Still, it just reinforces a nagging suspicion I've had about the character for a while now: Wonder Woman just don't make no sense. Don't get me wrong, I like the character. Hell when I was seven I loved the character. That was the ex-future Mrs. Mike Smith you'd have been talking about. This was back when Wonder Woman just looked like Mary Tyler Moore with super powers, before I found out she was a mere fashion accessory away from pounding me to death with a tree.
For example, DC recently relaunched her comic book, and as part of the buildup to the first storyline, Wonder Woman's been out of action for a year, so her sidekick Donna Troy has taken up the mantle, adoping her own version of the costume. Paul O'Brien reviewed the new #1 a while back, and he praised the new suit because it didn't have any of the American Flag motif on it, which he never understood since Wonder Woman never really had anything to do with the U.S. to begin with. O'Brien's not an American or a WW continuity buff, so he probably doesn't fully appreciate the story of how the Amazons designed the costume using the flags on Steve Trevor's Air Force uniform, as a sign of goodwill and friendship for when they sent Diana as their ambassador. Even so, he's kind of right. In recent years, Wonder Woman has become more of a goodwill ambassador to the entire world, so it doesn't seem to make sense to adopt the colors of any one country, especially one as controversial as the United States can be. But that's the basic design she's always worn, so it stuck. That Donna Troy changed it at all just goes to show how temporary her run as Wonder Woman is supposed to be.
A more glaring discrepancy is Wonder Woman's mission. The character was created to serve as a feminine role model to counterbalance the male-dominated field of superheroes in the Golden Age. This purpose was twofold, in that it presented a strong female character for girls to look up to, and it offered a constant reminder that a woman could solve problems just as effectively as a man, if not moreso. The thing I never understood is that Wonder Woman was born and raised in an all-female society, so how could she preach about gender equality when her whole society only had one gender? At least, you would think that any cultural exchange between Wonder Woman and "Man's World" (read: us) would have to be two-way. As I commented on scans_daily, Wonder Woman thinks that losing her bracelets leaves her unrestrained and destructive, like a man, but I've never met a man who went on a tear like that, shouting "KILL! DESTROY!" and "I'll brown HIS hash!" You'd think that part of her story would involve learning just what the hell a man is. She'd probably still be unimpressed to find out, but I never got how she could hold such a firm opinion about men given her background.
Modern writers have since expanded Wonder Woman's mission to include broader social ideals, such as vegetarianism, human rights, peaceful resolution of disputes, etc. on top of the matter of women's rights. Again, all well and good, but it seems kind of strange for her to hold up her society as a model for our society to emulate. Thanks to the Greek Gods, the Amazons are immortal, living isolated from the rest of the world on their island nation of Themiscyra. When they get injured, they use a magic purple ray to heal themselves. I read a novel once that suggested that some side-effect of their immortality dampens parts of the Amazons' minds, so that they don't get bored with being immortal, or grow weary of living without the company of men. On the other hand, others have suggested that the Amazons are all just lesbians, which seems like a cop-out to me. In any case, the utopia they enjoy seems to be largely the product of their devotion to their gods, who magically keep them from dying, going hungry, or getting entangled in romantic misadventures, so it doesn't make much sense that Wonder Woman would promote her culture as a solution to the world's problems. Logically, I would almost assume she would have us all worship the Olympian Pantheon, so that she'd turn everyone else into an immortal, too. But she never actually suggests this, probably because that'd make the comic completely unrealistic, and it'd turn Wonder Woman from a crusading feminist into a pagan evangelical. And of course, Wonder Woman is doubtlessly a proponent of religious freedom and tolerance, but that kind of sidesteps the fact that her gods seem to exist and act in a different context from everyone else's. When Superman says "Great Rao!", Rao doesn't answer back. She never questions this.
And in fleshing out all these aspects of Wonder Woman's personality, I think some of her original feminist appeal is lost. George Perez got the ball rolling on this about twenty years ago, I think. Since Wonder Woman was an Amazon, then she's speak Ancient Greek and she and her people would conduct themselves like Ancient Greek people. If she got her powers from Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Athena, then she shouldn't just talk about them, she should pray to them. If Wonder Woman can talk to animals, then it stands to reason she wouldn't want to eat meat. And if the Amazons were a mythological race of warrior women, then Wonder Woman should be this asskicking, nametaking tomboy who doesn't take crap from anyone, ever. Somewhere during Greg Rucka's run, when she was fighting a resurrected Medusa on behalf of Athena, and back at her U.N. embassy the Minotaur chef is reminding us he uses tofu in everything, I started to wonder if women could really relate to her at all. Themiscyran politics and divine power struggles seem pretty far removed from the issues regular women deal with. Of course, superheroes are supposed to get into absurd situations like this, and she can't just be a cipher for people to project their own personalities upon. But lately, Wonder Woman feels more like Greek Legend Lady, bitten by a radioactive copy of Bullfinch's Mythology. She seems to have more to do with "Clash of the Titans" than Susan B. Anthony these days.
I don't know if that's a problem or not. We live in an age when women superheroes are prevalent. 20th Century Fox can cram them into movies three at a time. Maybe it's not the kind of burning issue you need a gaudily clad character to handle. Still, that was the foundation of the character in this case (that and kinky bondage situations, but let's ignore that for the moment), and I wonder if DC might be missing the boat by just turning her into yet another mythology-themed heroine. I almost want to write a mock-proposal for the book, just to see if I could come up with any answers.
But for the time being, that's all I got to say about it.