Paula von Gunther

What are your thoughts on her? With how Dark Angel has been tied to her. Why not have her be a host for Dark Angel to get her daughter back? Should she stay a villain or turn good?

I like Paula but I don't really want her back. Her story has already been told very well by Marston and I don't see the need to rehash it (especially since Cale is pretty much modernised Paula). And the less said about Dark Angel the better.

Yeah, I dislike Dark Angel. Her design is generic comic book sorceress and she was never really inspired or interesting to begin with. She and Queen of Fables can both take a slow boat to China and leave more room for Circe.

Recently I was reading about A.R.G.U.S. and it's members and branches, Paula could easily be their scientific expert that also happens to be an undercover Amazon. Keep her reformed Nazi background the same but don't rehash it and we have a winner.

True. She could easily have that. She only became a Nazi because of her daughter. She could be a background character

Paula is a tough one.

Nazis are unforgivable, and also not very marketable.

Reformed Nazis (esp those gleefully and violently active during WWII) is a bridge too far for me.

Back to full-on unrepentant villainy for Paula and under a different guise than actual Nazism. (a DC version of Hydra with her as its undisputed head).

Paula should be a member of a small villainous cabal that have no secret identity, have vast fortunes and have no clear-cut superpowers (outside of longevity) who divvy up the world by territory.

Similar to The Light from the YOUNG JUSTICE cartoon, but this group longs to rid the planet of its "excessively superhuman" population (i.e. the more powerful superheroes and supervillains).

Membership is global:

Paula von Gunther: Europe
Ras al Ghul: Asia
Lex Luthor: North America
Vandal Savage: South America (since the end of WWII)
Slade Wilson: Oceania/Australia
???: Africa (does DC even have prominent Black villains?)
???: Antarctica (whomever gets this one is clearly in exile)

That's my vote, anyway.

[QUOTE=daBronzeBomma;4569347]
???: Africa (does DC even have prominent Black villains?)


[/QUOTE]

Yes, Black Manta. But he isn't African. There's Red Lion who was introduced in Priest's Deathtroke book however but he is very new and not quite popular. Still he could work.

I don’t know unlike Cheetah. I feel Paula could work with some of Diana’s lesser known villain.

Asia could be:Dr.Posion or Cyber
North America: Silver Swan
South America:Sebastian Ballesteros
Oceania/Australia:Queen Clea
Afria:Oscria
Antarctica: Blue Snowman

One interesting thing people like to gloss over, is that while the Nazis were in charge of Germany, not everyone in the military, or even civilian government positions was actually a Nazi. Also there were people who paid lip service to Nazi credos because they wanted actual Nazis to like them and give them a paid position. A lot of the time the only way to know for sure... would be to telepathically interrogate someone. Which is why WW2 war crimes tribunals stuck to punishing people for things they actually did, and didn't bother with guilt by association(which WAS used as a reason to bring someone before the tribunal, but was not considered evidence of wrongdoing).

Which makes for several options when telling stories. The only Nazis who are actually irredeemable are those who chose to commit atrocities. Which, realistically, was less than half of them.

So what would make the most sense for Paula von Gunther? She's not a secretary(or something similar) so you can't do the "I was never directly involved" route. But even as a superpowered member of the military you could say she was acting out of a sense of patriotism. IRL that was true of the majority of German officers. the Nazi leaders kept the atrocities secret from the German people, to include the military.

Not only that but her daughter was taken from her. Willing to do whatever. The Nazis did test on people. So how evil should Paula be? Another issue is due to being a nazi this can have any hero can also fight her but what makes her Diana’s for?

Let Paula von Gunther stay with the Second World War period (or possibly the First World War). Veronica Cale is her spiritual modern day successor, and much more relevant today than Paula von Gunther was even in the Second World War.

@marhawkman: The atrocities were well-known, they were simply not spoken of. I recently read Astrid Lindgren's war diaries, and even in 1940 she is writing about forced deportations of Jews and other people in Nazi Germany—at that time she was a normal citizen in Sweden. And a lot of the German records—public and private—were purged near the end of the war.

I recently skimmed a [URL="https://arkisto.fi/uploads/Julkaisut/sarjajulkaisut/SS-VOLUNTEERS_verkkoon.pdf"]report on Finnish SS volunteers[/URL], and it gives some hints that the atrocities were far from secret. Some quotes, like here from page 39:

[QUOTE]The spring of 1941 also saw the Generalquar*tiermeister of the Oberkommande des Heeres Generalmajor Eduard Wagner outlining the regu*lations that ensured that the German Army and the Einsatzgruppen would cooperate in the kill*ing of Soviet Jews.[/QUOTE]

The report also includes diary references to atrocities, usually witnessed or heard second-hand (but those latter could often be confirmed via other archives).

So there was nothing "secret" about the Holocaust.

Techically in Euope white supermacist is seeing a majority back come with xenoxiphia and white nationlist winning the elections.

[QUOTE=AmiMizuno;4572038]Techically in Euope white supermacist is seeing a majority back come with xenoxiphia and white nationlist winning the elections.[/QUOTE]

We're getting far off-topic there, but I'd say the problems with xenophobia and radical exclusionary nationalism are worse in the New World than in Europe. The USA is looking like it is in the midst of a fascist takeover right now, and Brazil seems to be set on catching up.

The various proportional election systems used in most of Europe means that far-right forces more easily become established political forces, but it also means that they are less likely to hijack major elements of the political system (like they have done in the USA and also to some degree in the UK), and that they can gain a little power and then start to squabble and split over it.

That's not to downplay that there are huge problems with these groups in Europe as well. Hungary is in a worse democratic state than the USA, and Poland likely not far behind. But Italy's far right groups (while ostensibly in power) are hamstrung by being extremely disunited and by a still somewhat functioning civil bureaucracy, and the conservatives of both Germany and France mostly keep a hard line towards the far right parties.

The real danger is when you see a political alliance between conservative and fascist forces. You have that in the USA, and to some degree the UK. You see relatively little of that in the rest of Europe, and usually the conservatives manage to keep the upper hand in these collaborations. Bad enough, but it's not an immediate breakdown of democracy.

OKay. Let's get back on topic so Paula is too outdated or could we turn her into somehting else? Than again why not keep her as a reformed woman who become Amazon.