Wonder Woman Controversial Opinions Part 2

[phonogram12]

Yeah as someone who finds Donna redundant I’d say there’s only three sidekicks Batman actually “needs”: Dick, Jason, and Damian. Everyone else could be deleted without much loss (and I love Oracle, Cass, like Kate, Jace, Steph, and can see the “importance” of Duke and Tim).

While I enjoy most of them, I'd honestly say I'm not even really sure we need Jason or Damian, either.

[DochaDocha]

WW as Kara's mentor was a great idea that Loeb simply couldn't plot for. It should've been something that happened organically, like Kara's being bored by Kal's overprotectiveness and not having any real peers. But no, there had to be a cliffhanger and plot twist, so the fake kidnapping happened and all of the adults had to act like jerks.

EDIT: Loeb also shouldn't have portrayed Superman and Batman being on Themyscira...

I think having laundry lists of sidekicks is fine because there's an audience for it, but for me most of the supporting cast is superfluous and boring. Better to have one or two really interesting sidekicks.

[SiegePerilous02]

I only really care about Dicks generation of sidekicks, so my preference would be for Donna to be the only Wonder Girl. With her origin being as close to pre-Crisis as possible.

I don't know if I would say any large supporting cast of sidekicks has inherent/constant redundancies. It's just we have all these characters around at once with fans wanting them around, but writers not always having specific uses for them. It doesn't mean any character is without value, but until we get a good take it can feel like there is bloat

[Gaius]

Her friendship with Zatanna is what they should focus on, make that the equivalent to the Superman/Batman World’s Finest Dynamic. If they do more WW minis I’d love a WW/Zatanna team up book.

Yeah as someone who finds Donna redundant I’d say there’s only three sidekicks Batman actually “needs”: Dick, Jason, and Damian. Everyone else could be deleted without much loss (and I love Oracle, Cass, like Kate, Jace, Steph, and can see the “importance” of Duke and Tim).

Yeah, that's an opinion I've had. Mainly because also pairing her with a Super or Bat just seems lazy and just trying to re-create that with Diana in whoever's position depending if it's a Bat or Super character.

WW as Kara's mentor was a great idea that Loeb simply couldn't plot for. It should've been something that happened organically, like Kara's being bored by Kal's overprotectiveness and not having any real peers. But no, there had to be a cliffhanger and plot twist, so the fake kidnapping happened and all of the adults had to act like jerks.

EDIT: Loeb also shouldn't have portrayed Superman and Batman being on Themyscira...

Hmm, yeah. Think that came from a story I don't think is good is probably something to do with it.

Didn't like Loeb having Supes and Bats on Themyscira also but that's just his style of "run through as much of the DC Universe as I can".

[John Venus]

Yeah as someone who finds Donna redundant I’d say there’s only three sidekicks Batman actually “needs”: Dick, Jason, and Damian. Everyone else could be deleted without much loss (and I love Oracle, Cass, like Kate, Jace, Steph, and can see the “importance” of Duke and Tim).

While I enjoy most of them, I'd honestly say I'm not even really sure we need Jason or Damian, either.

I'm firmly in the 'Jason should have stayed dead and Tim should have been the forever Robin' camp but I think getting rid of them now would be a bad idea both from a creative and financial standpoint. They're popular, they have fan bases and it would just be in bad taste. Getting rid of characters because one personally feels they are redundant is kind of Didio-ish.

I think WW Family is about the right size, they all have something unique going on with them and it never feels crowded or that characters are vying for space. Even though they're pushing Yara as *the* Wonder Girl right now, she is still a distinct character compared to Cassie and Donna. Plus the Wonder Fam always have the perfect excuse for not being around and their absence can be handwaved away as 'oh they were too busy with something at Themyscira/Bana Migdhall/the Titans/etc'.

[marhawkman]

I'm firmly in the 'Jason should have stayed dead and Tim should have been the forever Robin' camp but I think getting rid of them now would be a bad idea both from a creative and financial standpoint. They're popular, they have fan bases and it would just be in bad taste. Getting rid of characters because one personally feels they are redundant is kind of Didio-ish.

I think WW Family is about the right size, they all have something unique going on with them and it never feels crowded or that characters are vying for space. Even though they're pushing Yara as *the* Wonder Girl right now, she is still a distinct character compared to Cassie and Donna. Plus the Wonder Fam always have the perfect excuse for not being around and their absence can be handwaved away as 'oh they were too busy with something at Themyscira/Bana Migdhall/the Titans/etc'.

Also New Cronus.

[achilles]

No one else seems to want this, but I'd like a Wonder Woman/Power Girl team book similar to World's Finest. You've got the probably older, more experienced and skilled WW, the possibly more powerful, worse at fighting, but still good enough to impress Diana herself. You've got wildly different personalities. You've got one who is all about magic and knows that stuff, and one who's all about science and tech, and knows that stuff. You could have them get to know each other as near peers, with each able to learn something from the other.

It would be a different dynamic than with Supergirl, as PG is much more experienced than SG, and more of a peer to Diana. SG will get there one day, but it just wouldn't work as well, especially since there's much more potential for personality clashes with Diana and PG than with Diana and SG. You could have them start with mutual respect, but not much in the way of friendship, which would slowly build as they get to know each other better. This was an actual stated issue by Diana in an issue of Brave and the Bold, (and I have no idea which character was which).

[Gaius]

Here's one, Donna Troy is actually kind of redundant in the Wondy mythos. A cheap bargain-bin version of Diana, who has frankly overstayed her welcome in my book. DC barely does anything with her, every new idea they come up with for her origin is either boring or forgotten the next year. Its far beyond the point of cute parody for me. She's constantly in this weird gray zone when it comes to her lineage to the amazons and being Diana's sister. She varies between regular amazon or somewhat as powerful as Diana. The same is said for her personality, she isn't as headstrong or inquisitive as Cassie, as regal or diplomatic as Nubia, or anything like Diana. And now with Yara getting the push, what is Donna's purpose? She is now the lost middle child wandering the vast universe with little guidance, which sounds like a solid building block to a story. If there is anyone in dire need of a solo title to "find themselves" in the wondyfam its not Artemis, its Donna. But as I said it never lasts for more than a year. So, me, I'd done with Donna.

Kind of have realized I have the same opinion of this but for Cassie, if I'm being honest. Maybe it's because she was introduced as a Vanessa rip-off and her main thing over most of her existence has been being Superboy's, or Robin's, Girlfriend . As someone who thinks there needs to be less, not more, Super and Bat content interacting with WW's world I can't really see what this leaves Cassie with imo.

Guess there was the Daddy Zeus origin she originally had but after New 52 that origin for any Wonder character has got to go-go-go.

[Stanlos]

I was kind of thrilled with her original origin that she impressed Zeus with her boldness and that was why she got her powers. Plus because they and by they I really mean Johns wanted her to be "the Girlfriend" suddenly they pretended she wasn't a bonafied DemiGoddess and got kicked around by stuff that even clone Superboy could engage. Of course that has less to do with origin details and more to do with silly tropes people would rather repeat than tell new stories. But I digress.

[BiteTheBullet]

No one else seems to want this, but I'd like a Wonder Woman/Power Girl team book similar to World's Finest. You've got the probably older, more experienced and skilled WW, the possibly more powerful, worse at fighting, but still good enough to impress Diana herself. You've got wildly different personalities. You've got one who is all about magic and knows that stuff, and one who's all about science and tech, and knows that stuff. You could have them get to know each other as near peers, with each able to learn something from the other.

It would be a different dynamic than with Supergirl, as PG is much more experienced than SG, and more of a peer to Diana. SG will get there one day, but it just wouldn't work as well, especially since there's much more potential for personality clashes with Diana and PG than with Diana and SG. You could have them start with mutual respect, but not much in the way of friendship, which would slowly build as they get to know each other better. This was an actual stated issue by Diana in an issue of Brave and the Bold, (and I have no idea which character was which).

I like this except for the possibility that you are implying she is more powerful than Diana. I would accept 'equal' in power with Diana having an edge in experience and fighting abilities.

Otherwise, who is to say with a month of training that Powergirl is suddenly unstoppable like Mary Marvel was against Diana in DCeased (I think). And I think that was just the authors bias on who is more powerful, Diana or a member of the Shazam family. Same way I think it would go for anyone in the Super family against Diana.

Otherwise, I would love a series with Karen and Diana.

[VonHammersmark]

This gimmick of using Wonder Woman to "spotlight" female artists strikes me as an excuse to cheap out on Wonder Woman actually. Hit me up when Marguerite Sauvage gets a crack at Batman

[skyvolt2000]

This gimmick of using Wonder Woman to "spotlight" female artists strikes me as an excuse to cheap out on Wonder Woman actually. Hit me up when Marguerite Sauvage gets a crack at Batman

She probably has. It's more likely we have not seen it get used in a project. Sometimes artists get hired to just draw and get paid for it.

Some images become variant covers and others pin ups. I know this happened to Larry Stroman with a pic he did that became a variant that he did not know about. Same with Vixen's Truth and Justice issue-the writer did not know that there was a variant cover.

[Primal Slayer]

This gimmick of using Wonder Woman to "spotlight" female artists strikes me as an excuse to cheap out on Wonder Woman actually. Hit me up when Marguerite Sauvage gets a crack at Batman

I agree. Same with only females directing female heroes.

[bardkeep]

This gimmick of using Wonder Woman to "spotlight" female artists strikes me as an excuse to cheap out on Wonder Woman actually. Hit me up when Marguerite Sauvage gets a crack at Batman

See I actually love that so many female, queer, and nonbinary creatives are getting the spotlight in WW’s books. Especially love that Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala are playing such huge roles in shaping that world. You can see how Themyscira is changing with the times - the Amazons are way more diverse now than ever and we finally get to see overt queer representation after so many years of telling without showing.

And historically, WW’s books have always hugely benefitted when women were involved in the creative process. Marston’s partners were huge driving forces through the creation of the character (hell, the character was going to be a man before his wife insisted otherwise). Greg Potter’s apparently terrible post-Crisis plan for WW was only nixed because there were enough women in the room who pushed back. George Perez attributed a ton of his success on the character to Karen Berger’s work as editor. (I will carve out an exception for Greg Rucka but like…I give him honorary girlie status and in his Rebirth run he had Nicola Scott and Bilquis Evely). Frankly I think underrepresentation of women in the creative process was a huge force behind the character’s unfortunate Xena-fication.

The problem isn’t that they’re putting underrepresented creators on WW books; it’s that (a) they’re not being paid as well as their peers on the Bat-books and (b) other titles are putting in little to no effort to achieve the same level of creative diversity.

Same goes for the films. Even though it’s frustrating that so many underrepresented directors are limited to “staying in their lane,” it’s still good that they’re carving out opportunities specifically for women and POC. Also it wound up benefitting WW in a HUGE way - bringing in Patty saved us from the heinous, stupidly misogynistic plan Zack Snyder originally had for the character (if only they’d also kept Geoff Johns from getting his greasy paws anywhere near the franchise…).

[Agent Z]

See I actually love that so many female, queer, and nonbinary creatives are getting the spotlight in WW’s books. Especially love that Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala are playing such huge roles in shaping that world. You can see how Themyscira is changing with the times - the Amazons are way more diverse now than ever and we finally get to see overt queer representation after so many years of telling without showing.

And historically, WW’s books have always hugely benefitted when women were involved in the creative process. Marston’s partners were huge driving forces through the creation of the character (hell, the character was going to be a man before his wife insisted otherwise). Greg Potter’s apparently terrible post-Crisis plan for WW was only nixed because there were enough women in the room who pushed back. George Perez attributed a ton of his success on the character to Karen Berger’s work as editor. (I will carve out an exception for Greg Rucka but like…I give him honorary girlie status and in his Rebirth run he had Nicola Scott and Bilquis Evely). Frankly I think underrepresentation of women in the creative process was a huge force behind the character’s unfortunate Xena-fication.

The problem isn’t that they’re putting underrepresented creators on WW books; it’s that (a) they’re not being paid as well as their peers on the Bat-books and (b) other titles are putting in little to no effort to achieve the same level of creative diversity.

Same goes for the films. Even though it’s frustrating that so many underrepresented directors are limited to “staying in their lane,” it’s still good that they’re carving out opportunities specifically for women and POC. Also it wound up benefitting WW in a HUGE way - bringing in Patty saved us from the heinous, stupidly misogynistic plan Zack Snyder originally had for the character (if only they’d also kept Geoff Johns from getting his greasy paws anywhere near the franchise…).

Jenkins has credited Snyder a great deal with her take on WW and most of what you wouldn't have liked was tossed by Snyder himself already. Snyder was also involved in the writing of the first film and Jenkins had full control over the second one. Johns alone wasn't the issue with 1984 and Jenkins has defended even the infamous handsome man moment.