Quote Originally Posted by Rightoya View Post
She needs to be faster in combat and have better reflexes, or the skill advantage becomes moot without Karate Kid-like shenanigans. If he is a 10 and she a 9.5 in strength, and he can bench press a planet, she need to be able to bench press a planet too just with more difficulty. And them being equally powerful, don't means they must have the exact same stats in any way, just that the core stats must even each other out and the magical gear or kryptonian abilities are just put on top of that.

If both are in a struggle of strength, he would at best slowly gain the upper-hand and Wonder Woman would kick him and open up the struggle, is a simplistic description of the concept of equally powerful without the exact same strength. If she attacks him with a weapon, he uses heat vision to gain distance, and she deflects the heat vision, and so on.

But the biggest problem is how much DC and WB have poisoned the well already, it might be at this point impossible to truly start with portraying them as true equals, without Wonder Woman just winning a couple of fights at first.

I entirely agree, Diana can do most anything Clark does physically. The difference should almost never come up, and if it does, it shouldn't be treated like he's far-and-away her superior in that category. It's why I said 9.5 instead of 10. He just lifts easier. Her having greater reaction speed tracks. I don't see why a trained combatant like Diana is ever going to match Clark in that quality rather than just simply surpass him.

Even though i get what you are trying to say and don't disagree with it, Wonder Woman's reason is more important, because it is a core concept that truly exists. Superman was never created to be the strongest, most powerful, or anything like that superhero in the room, that interpretation is just fanon invented by his fans much later on, his core concept never even involved such comparisons. And many of the other superheroes in DC including Wonder Woman could not be spin-off of Superman, because they were not even published by the same company until 1946 for most and far later for Shazam.
Clark definitely was created to be his world's strongest creature. He was a bulletproof super strong man who could leap tall buildings and outrun trains when his only comparison was the physical world. The only reason he's not specifically stated to be stronger than other superheroes is they didn't exist. You don't really start talking about chickens and eggs if there have never been a chicken or egg before the first chicken, you know?

Fundamentally, I do agree that because Diana was created to be women's seat at the superhero table as equals, she should always be Clark's equal. I don't see that as just saying carbon copy, however. They should have key differences but ones that put them shoulder-to-shoulder with one another. She's inherently more important than other people created in reaction to him like Captain Marvel (now Shazam) strictly because she came from the need to give a disenfranchised subset of the audience their hero.

But trying to hold one character's reason for existing over others and playing favorites doesn't make for good stewarding of a shared universe. They need to coexist. Too often, fans will argue why their hero is the bestest and should be able to stomp anyone or it's bullshit/nepotism/sexism what have you and I don't agree. That isn't to say those don't happen, we've seen that they categorically do, but it can also be hard to remember that each one of these characters is a protagonist and as such they have plot armor when is necessary and thus hand out or get wins they probably shouldn't.

Diana getting one-shot will always be a mix of shitty writing, poor editing and likely some sexism, but that last one I reserve judgment for simply because it's a very damning claim to throw simply because someone doesn't understand the powerset of a character that DC flip flops on every week and traditionally treated like ****.


That is Wonder Woman on paper, but like you say, without a truly competent editorial and a company that is even trying to keep her consistent it is just moot.
She is and likely always will be DC's most mismanaged IP. Hell, for fear of pissing off China, she was hidden on all their Pride stuff despite being their highest profile queer character. Not a very cash-money move, and certainly not a Wonder Woman one.


The Spectre is an odd comparison for this, because even with all his jobbing i don't think i have ever heard or seen anyone saying Superman would be stronger let alone more powerful, at worst they did not knew the Spectre even exists.
He's the only one I recall who truly humbled the Silver Age Superman, which is already a ridiculously strong incarnation of the character which I'd argue is terrible for a shared universe (but fun if you're a child who likes to read silly adventures, but my argument for a lot of things changes if we're just going by the metric of "is it goofy fun?"). I bring him up as an example of how all the power in the universe doesn't mean **** unless you have editorial backing you. This guy humbled silver age Supreman and fought the Anti-Monitor to a draw, seemingly even winning by the metric that Spectre himself cared for.

He mostly shows up to get **** on and then leave having done what he came for. In fact, he just got one-shot by Darkseid despite essentially being the infinite wrath of the Presence. The Spectre, when he had his own book, fought Arch Angel Michael to standstill for a period, but sure Darkseid one-shots him for a lark. Why? Because editorial sees him simply as a pin to knock down to build up their boy Darkseid.

That's the power of editorial. Superman, Wonder Woman, the Spectre, it doesn't much matter; without an editor in your pocket, you don't mean much. Clark usually has one, and while they must kiss the Batring, he still has an editor. Diana didn't forever, and now she has one who is herself a woman and my god that's a fresh change. I can only hope she gets enough respect to actually protect Diana instead of being a figurehead.

We've got a great run, lots of spin-off projects and Diana will be headlining a crossover for the second time in a decade, though this will be the first that isn't just a Batman event she's in front of. Things are looking up.


DC's portrayal of Superman and Wonder Woman definitively often bordered on or was sexism, but i also don't think Tom Taylor as example is a sexist, other writers possible or probably were but that is a case by case evaluation.
My argument is more that DC in general has a bad track record with their female heroes, not specifically Diana. Taylor wrote the biggest boneheaded ****, but I can't really see him as a sexist when he does very well for other female characters when given the opportunity and from the opinion of every woman he's worked with. He's easily her worst writer, much like Geoff Johns, but I think his poor understanding of Diana has less to do with some belief women are lesser and more a byproduct of having read her powerset rising and falling like the tide every Wednesday.

At absolute worst, he's simply ignorant that his bad read on her is the result of sexist writing of the character being the source material, but he needs to wake the **** up on that or simply stop writing her... Which will never happen so long as everyone praises every book he touches. With luck, Dark Knights of Steel will be his redemption for Diana despite the name essentially implying it's a book about the World's Finest in a fantasy setting.