Wonder Woman hard to write?

[kjn]

Why was Azzarello's run so influential? He had a clean canvas because of the new 52 and wrote a strong narrative. He had a clear vision for Wonder Woman and for the story he wanted to tell.

But Azzarello also removed Wonder Woman from her origins and her ideals. The Zeus origin opened up the door to Jason and making Wonder Woman all about the men around her. She is not Hippolyta's daughter anymore; she is Zeus's daughter. She is mentored not by Philippus or Antiope or Menalippe, but by Ares.

And then we have what he did to the Amazons, which was arguably even worse. I can understand not depecting Themyscira as a super-science utopia. I can see it with lots of magitech, or like in the movie. But it should always be depicted as a peaceful and benevolent society.

And once the movement away from her core concepts started, every move to fix it has been moving her further away from that core.

[jump]

Despite having so many different fans what are the most important things that should be kept the same? What should be expanded upon?

Rather than what they should focus on I'd prefer it when they don't include two of her traits of being perfect and her naivety, particularly when she was made to be naive as that really puts me off the character completely.

[kjn]

Rather than what they should focus on I'd prefer it when they don't include two of her traits of being perfect and her naivety, particularly when she was made to be naive as that really puts me off the character completely.

I think the naïveté is needed for her origin story. The problem might be that Wonder Woman has been stuck into origin stories for a while now.

[JKtheMac]

I think the naïveté is needed for her origin story. The problem might be that Wonder Woman has been stuck into origin stories for a while now.

This is also strange to me. Why the need to rewrite her origin? It seems pretty straightforward as originally written.

[SiegePerilous02]

It's because Marston and his co-creators (Peters, his wives, Joye Murchison, and even Kanigher early on) put so much of Marston's philosophies into his creation that she was more fully formed as a concept and character than Batman or Superman were early on. Thus, while they were able to evolve and become stronger characters as time went on, Diana seemed to become hollow after her creators were gradually removed from the equation. It was a double edged sword of her being so radical and layered in the original stories. Nobody else could replicate it, and she's struggled off and on ever since with few heights.

Part of his was the original stories didn't play it safe and were controversial because they were flat out bizarre, and depicted a strong woman as a superhero with barely subtextual Sapphic undertones. In the 1940s. They didn't care who they offended. Now, people walk on eggshells with Diana. Giving her a father, regardless of how it is executed, is seen as sacrilegious. Her mischievous, snarky sides as well as her love for competition is not as pronounced because she has to be truthful and pure at all times. She cannot be kinky, because women don't have sexual desires they wish to express in safe, consenting environments or something. When she's allowed to have sex, be it with Steve or Kasia, the psychology behind it isn't explored at all and it just comes across as vanilla. It could be executed badly, but the need to avoid risk means nothing interesting happens.

The Greek mythology and writers who know how to utilize it (Rucka is great with Greek tragedy stuff like in the Hikiteia or Godwatch) is appealing to me, as well as the franchise being comprised largely of women in varied roles and personas. So a few modern runs have been able to grab me based on the strengths of that. But without the psychology and sexual topics (in a time where we can be much more frank about it), along with the occasional sense of whimsy and garish female supervillains, things seem to be missing. It's not the whole package.

And that is why love is bad motivation for Diana and why Aphrodite sucks as a patron. Well that and Aphrodite more embodies lust than love.

Aphrodite was more the patron Goddess of the Amazons in general, with Athena as the secondary patron, so any areas where Aphrodite is lacking Athena can pick up the slack (and vice versa). She works fine as a patron, because Diana doesn't have to share all her personality traits or representations. Aphrodite can embody love, and Diana can as well but also compassion and other things. Marston basically wanted to strip the benevolent deity of the Amazons and her opposing force to their bare essentials: Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, femininity vs. toxic masculinity, love and sexual desire/procreation vs. hate, violence and destruction, etc. It's raw archetypes and they work in their simplicity, it's never really been able to be replicated without being a jumbled, confused mess. Adding in other patrons along with Aphrodite and Athena just creates redundancy; why have six patron deities when two cover all the bases?

Aphrodite embodying lust as well goes along with Wonder Woman being an advocate for embracing and expressing sexual desires as long as it is safe and between consenting adults, even the ones that are deemed "taboo" by society. She's a layered woman with kinks of her own, and doesn't kink shame. If DC/Marston's Aphrodite is depicted as being more than her mythological counterpart, that's fine as they are not obligated to be completely accurate. By turning the Amazon myth on its head by making them benevolent, they are already eschewing accurate depictions of Greek myth.

This is also strange to me. Why the need to rewrite her origin? It seems pretty straightforward as originally written.

They never really change the bare essentials of the origin, it just gets tweaked due constant reboots and sliding timescales. The original origin took place during WWII and they want Diana to be a modern day superhero, so the time period has to change. Every super hero gets tweaks and re-tellings of their origins, Superman is just as bad in this regard. Where the problem lies is that Wonder Woman's reboot often change too much, like the Amazons no longer having technological advancements (Perez, Azzarello), the attitudes of the Amazons (Azzarello), or the circumstances of her birth (Azzarello again), and the new supporting casts thrown her way. She originally had Steve, Etta, Phil Darnell, the Holliday Girls and Mala as her original suporting cast. Then Perez ditched all Amazons save Hippolyta, changed Steve and Etta and put them on the back burner, and then introduced a whole slew of new civilian characters (the Kapatelis women, Myndi Mayer, Ed Indelicato) to interact with instead, and moving her to Boston. Then when Azzarello rebooted, he again ditched all familiar Amazons save Hippolyta and didn't use anyone else beyond his own cast of new creations, though he still left Steve in her origin and honored the vague 5 year window that could have allowed the existence of Etta, the Holliday Girls, Darnell and the villains to still exist, so he was better than Perez in that regard.

There is much less of a "through line" with her mythos than the others, even Superman. The broad strokes remain the same, but the details of her starting points and the characters within it keep getting altered. It's frustrating and pretty needless. Beyond updating for a sliding time scale and modern values (chiefly the racism) there really isn't anything from the 1940s stories that render them bad as a foundation.

[The Dying Detective]

It's because Marston and his co-creators (Peters, his wives, Joye Murchison, and even Kanigher early on) put so much of Marston's philosophies into his creation that she was more fully formed as a concept and character than Batman or Superman were early on. Thus, while they were able to evolve and become stronger characters as time went on, Diana seemed to become hollow after her creators were gradually removed from the equation. It was a double edged sword of her being so radical and layered in the original stories. Nobody else could replicate it, and she's struggled off and on ever since with few heights.

Part of his was the original stories didn't play it safe and were controversial because they were flat out bizarre, and depicted a strong woman as a superhero with barely subtextual Sapphic undertones. In the 1940s. They didn't care who they offended. Now, people walk on eggshells with Diana. Giving her a father, regardless of how it is executed, is seen as sacrilegious. Her mischievous, snarky sides as well as her love for competition is not as pronounced because she has to be truthful and pure at all times. She cannot be kinky, because women don't have sexual desires they wish to express in safe, consenting environments or something. When she's allowed to have sex, be it with Steve or Kasia, the psychology behind it isn't explored at all and it just comes across as vanilla. It could be executed badly, but the need to avoid risk means nothing interesting happens.

The Greek mythology and writers who know how to utilize it (Rucka is great with Greek tragedy stuff like in the Hikiteia or Godwatch) is appealing to me, as well as the franchise being comprised largely of women in varied roles and personas. So a few modern runs have been able to grab me based on the strengths of that. But without the psychology and sexual topics (in a time where we can be much more frank about it), along with the occasional sense of whimsy and garish female supervillains, things seem to be missing. It's not the whole package.



Aphrodite was more the patron Goddess of the Amazons in general, with Athena as the secondary patron, so any areas where Aphrodite is lacking Athena can pick up the slack (and vice versa). She works fine as a patron, because Diana doesn't have to share all her personality traits or representations. Aphrodite can embody love, and Diana can as well but also compassion and other things. Marston basically wanted to strip the benevolent deity of the Amazons and her opposing force to their bare essentials: Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars, femininity vs. toxic masculinity, love and sexual desire/procreation vs. hate, violence and destruction, etc. It's raw archetypes and they work in their simplicity, it's never really been able to be replicated without being a jumbled, confused mess. Adding in other patrons along with Aphrodite and Athena just creates redundancy; why have six patron deities when two cover all the bases?

Aphrodite embodying lust as well goes along with Wonder Woman being an advocate for embracing and expressing sexual desires as long as it is safe and between consenting adults, even the ones that are deemed "taboo" by society. She's a layered woman with kinks of her own, and doesn't kink shame. If DC/Marston's Aphrodite is depicted as being more than her mythological counterpart, that's fine as they are not obligated to be completely accurate. By turning the Amazon myth on its head by making them benevolent, they are already eschewing accurate depictions of Greek myth.



They never really change the bare essentials of the origin, it just gets tweaked due constant reboots and sliding timescales. The original origin took place during WWII and they want Diana to be a modern day superhero, so the time period has to change. Every super hero gets tweaks and re-tellings of their origins, Superman is just as bad in this regard. Where the problem lies is that Wonder Woman's reboot often change too much, like the Amazons no longer having technological advancements (Perez, Azzarello), the attitudes of the Amazons (Azzarello), or the circumstances of her birth (Azzarello again), and the new supporting casts thrown her way. She originally had Steve, Etta, Phil Darnell, the Holliday Girls and Mala as her original suporting cast. Then Perez ditched all Amazons save Hippolyta, changed Steve and Etta and put them on the back burner, and then introduced a whole slew of new civilian characters (the Kapatelis women, Myndi Mayer, Ed Indelicato) to interact with instead, and moving her to Boston. Then when Azzarello rebooted, he again ditched all familiar Amazons save Hippolyta and didn't use anyone else beyond his own cast of new creations, though he still left Steve in her origin and honored the vague 5 year window that could have allowed the existence of Etta, the Holliday Girls, Darnell and the villains to still exist, so he was better than Perez in that regard.

There is much less of a "through line" with her mythos than the others, even Superman. The broad strokes remain the same, but the details of her starting points and the characters within it keep getting altered. It's frustrating and pretty needless. Beyond updating for a sliding time scale and modern values (chiefly the racism) there really isn't anything from the 1940s stories that render them bad as a foundation.

Then explain how safe should she be just so they don't offend people then? While at the same time realising Wonder Woman's full potential as a character?

[kjn]

This is also strange to me. Why the need to rewrite her origin? It seems pretty straightforward as originally written.

I think the issue is that the New 52 crapped all over the "default" origin story, and Rucka's attempt to paper it over didn't do a good enough job (for various reasons).

For myself, I think both Rebirth, Legend of Wonder Woman, and Wonder Woman Earth One provide good retellings of Wonder Woman's origin story (just as Perez did), emphasising different aspects of Diana's character and the Amazons. (Even if I find both Rebirth and Earth One flawed as stories in different ways.) But we still have pieces of New 52 remaining with us, and Robinson's run is doubling down on making Diana's story all about the men and about mythology.

I do think Rucka's Rebirth run did provide a decent core for her character (even if I dislike soldier!Steve in the modern age and Zeus being her father): Heart of the Amazon was a decent story of Diana in Man's World. But Robinson brought all the men all the time back.

So all the decent Wonder Woman stories of late have been the origin ones, partly I think in reaction to earlier DC-wide reboots and partly because her core continuity has treated her badly.

[SiegePerilous02]

Then explain how safe should she be just so they don't offend people then? While at the same time realising Wonder Woman's full potential as a character?

That's hard to do, because people have different definitions of safe or offensive. Just having her express a taboo sexual desire may be deemed offensive by some people, regardless of the context, because all they see is the potential for it to go wrong. It can be blamed on perverted male writers projecting their fantasies onto a female character, despite the fact that Elizabeth Marston and Olive Byrne had input into her creation, and Joyce Murchison wrote several of the Golden Age scripts. There are degrees to which these things can be done, but I feel approaching the topic in any capacity will get certain parts of the fandom angry.

The problem is without all the unique elements from the 1940s stories, she ends up becoming a generic super heroine extolling female empowerment, which can get real boring on its own real fast. She has to represent all of womanhood and thus ends up not representing anything. As a woman, she doesn't always feel fully formed with different facets to herself.

[The Dying Detective]

That's hard to do, because people have different definitions of safe or offensive. Just having her express a taboo sexual desire may be deemed offensive by some people, regardless of the context, because all they see is the potential for it to go wrong. It can be blamed on perverted male writers projecting their fantasies onto a female character, despite the fact that Elizabeth Marston and Olive Byrne had input into her creation, and Joyce Murchison wrote several of the Golden Age scripts. There are degrees to which these things can be done, but I feel approaching the topic in any capacity will get certain parts of the fandom angry.

The problem is without all the unique elements from the 1940s stories, she ends up becoming a generic super heroine extolling female empowerment, which can get real boring on its own real fast. She has to represent all of womanhood and thus ends up not representing anything. As a woman, she doesn't always feel fully formed with different facets to herself.

Well if Marston's wives had input regarding whether it was okay to use those elements I think they technically did support their husband's fantasies considering their unconventional home life. Well there is the option of trying to update her message more for the current day issues of women and how well she can tackle a world where despite the problems that currently exist women have indeed risen to the top of the ladder of society. How do you fit Wonder Woman into that type of world one must ask.

[AmiMizuno]

One of the main problems with new 52 is it became more important with Zeus bring her father instead of balancing it out. I mean shouldn’t her Amazon heritage be important too? Instead hey focused too much on her being the daughter of Zeus. And the amazons being terrible.

I rather Hippoltya have a normal relationship with a man that wasn’t a god if they are going to focus too much on Zeus.

What elements should be kept from the original run

[Joao]

But Azzarello also removed Wonder Woman from her origins and her ideals. The Zeus origin opened up the door to Jason and making Wonder Woman all about the men around her. She is not Hippolyta's daughter anymore; she is Zeus's daughter. She is mentored not by Philippus or Antiope or Menalippe, but by Ares.

And then we have what he did to the Amazons, which was arguably even worse. I can understand not depecting Themyscira as a super-science utopia. I can see it with lots of magitech, or like in the movie. But it should always be depicted as a peaceful and benevolent society.

And once the movement away from her core concepts started, every move to fix it has been moving her further away from that core.

For sure! I didn't mean his vision was good. My point is: Azzarello's run was good writer + good story + wrong title. The first two items make people forget the third. That's why we have a lot of aspects of his version in the movie and in Robinson's run (even if he could go another route after Rucka, since he didn't specify whether she was the daughter of Zeus or not).

It's exactly his damage that makes stories starring her such a mess. Sometimes the main writer (i.e. Rucka) tries to fix it and his version is ignored but all the other titles and media, cause they seem to prefer the daughter of Zeus angle.

If I was an editor I would tell ALL the writers not to talk about the father Zeus thing. It is NOT needed to tell a story. Explain her powers through the patrons cause they are cannon again. Make the amazons her mentors. And wait. Just wait until it fades.

But because of the movie and all of the other titles, I don't think DC is willing to do that like Rucka was.

[SiegePerilous02]

It's exactly his damage that makes stories starring her such a mess. Sometimes the main writer (i.e. Rucka) tries to fix it and his version is ignored but all the other titles and media, cause they seem to prefer the daughter of Zeus angle.

I'd lay the blame for her being a mess at the feet of Perez and Crisis before I would Azzarello. She wasn't in good shape before the New 52 because writers wanted to reference prior continuity that couldn't exist in post-Crisis canon, but did so anyway. Rebooting her history established the precedent that it's ok to hit the big red reboot button whenever things get tough and to radically alter the roles and identities of supporting characters and/or ditch them and create new ones, and DC in general lacked the foresight to see that editorial enforcement to prevent referencing the prior versions could not be sustained forever and the problem would just be compounded. Without the precedent set by Perez, Azzarello's reboot (and the New 52 in general) may not have come into existence. Or at least the revelation of her being Zeus's daughter could have been done in a more natural way that didn't throw out the past and give us bronze age Amazons.

Rucka's vision is being honored by other titles that I can see. He didn't firmly establish that her clay origin was intact, just that the demigod origin can be used without being the focus of everything. Bringing the men back into too much focus in Robinson's run is bad, but also not something that contradicts anything in Rucka's run, and is something that is easily fixable. Orlando seems set to do that by putting the focus on other women like Mayfly, Artemis, Aztek and whoever the lost Amazon is. Other media uses the daughter of Zeus angle, but the movie also borrows from other eras and invents its own stuff.

[Agent Z]

I'd lay the blame for her being a mess at the feet of Perez and Crisis before I would Azzarello. She wasn't in good shape before the New 52 because writers wanted to reference prior continuity that couldn't exist in post-Crisis canon, but did so anyway. Rebooting her history established the precedent that it's ok to hit the big red reboot button whenever things get tough and to radically alter the roles and identities of supporting characters and/or ditch them and create new ones, and DC in general lacked the foresight to see that editorial enforcement to prevent referencing the prior versions could not be sustained forever and the problem would just be compounded. Without the precedent set by Perez, Azzarello's reboot (and the New 52 in general) may not have come into existence. Or at least the revelation of her being Zeus's daughter could have been done in a more natural way that didn't throw out the past and give us bronze age Amazons.

Rucka's vision is being honored by other titles that I can see. He didn't firmly establish that her clay origin was intact, just that the demigod origin can be used without being the focus of everything. Bringing the men back into too much focus in Robinson's run is bad, but also not something that contradicts anything in Rucka's run, and is something that is easily fixable. Orlando seems set to do that by putting the focus on other women like Mayfly, Artemis, Aztek and whoever the lost Amazon is. Other media uses the daughter of Zeus angle, but the movie also borrows from other eras and invents its own stuff.

Is that Perez's fault though? If writers tried to reference continuity that didn't make sense that isn't on Perez. Hell, Perez wanted to set his run in the past. Also Crisis wasn't his idea.

[SiegePerilous02]

Is that Perez's fault though? If writers tried to reference continuity that didn't make sense that isn't on Perez. Hell, Perez wanted to set his run in the past. Also Crisis wasn't his idea.

That's why I said him and Crisis in general. He wanted to set it in the past so stuff like her losing her founding JL status and Donna getting screwed up are not his fault, but what about ditching the Amazonian technology, changing Steve and Etta to be unrecognizable, moving her from D.C to Boston, changing the identities and origins of the Cheetah and Silver Swan, etc? All of which contributed to her mythos being inconsistent. He could have kept Priscilla Rich and Helen Alexandros in the history and just upgraded them.

The mythos can move forward without erasing or altering the past, because that just makes a mess. Maybe the future writers shouldn't have referenced or used older continuity that contradicted Perez's foundation, but honestly DC shouldn't have created a mess that made it impossible to do to begin with. If a common criticism of the New 52 is that reboots don't solve anything, we need to apply it even earlier on as well.

[kjn]

Having read up a little more, it seems that the New 52 Wonder Woman was a mess, with Geoff Johns and Azzarello more or less splitting up the character's world in two in different titles, never the twain to meet. (Source. No idea about its veracity, though.)

That still doesn't excuse what Azzarello did to the Amazons; that has to be all on him.

Personally, I hope that with Justice League Dark the main title will go back to focusing on adventures in Man's World with Steve and Etta as sidekicks, while the mythological and supernatural aspects are left to JLD. Have her fight some of her old rogue's gallery, give her some slice-of-life stuff, present her as an inspirational leader, play up her connection to nature and animals. I'd also try to get the writers to do lots more short stuff, for one to four issues.