Wonder Woman Controversial Opinions Part 2

[marhawkman]

I want the Amazons to be advanced, I just don't want the trajectory of their development to mirror our own.

Even if they have a reason to invent air travel, and I call that suspect at best, why would they invent a device that looks like a real plane? I'd think an Amazon flying device would resemble something Da Vinci designed, or a chariot (like their gods use), more than it'd resemble a Boeing 747.

When I see Amazons using stuff that looks like technology we have, but with a slightly sci-fi sheen, it makes them feel like "regular people, fifty years in the future" instead of making them feel like their own unique culture with its own unique needs and considerations.

I like the idea that the invisible jet was something they made for Diana, but that it's merely shaped like an airplane.

[kjn]

When I see Amazons using stuff that looks like technology we have, but with a slightly sci-fi sheen, it makes them feel like "regular people, fifty years in the future" instead of making them feel like their own unique culture with its own unique needs and considerations.

Agree.

I'd add a bit here on the relation to Marston. Keep the questions and the themes, but change the answers and the specific. Too much, I think modern Wonder Woman writers, when they do revisit the Golden Age, keep the answers and the specifics, but fail to consider the questions or the themes.

The Purple Healing Ray is one such example. The first is that I think everyone here agrees that the Amazons should have superior medical knowledge, practices, and treatments. The specific way that Marston implemented that was via the Purple Healing Ray, but having read quite a bit of the Golden Age Wonder Woman, it's clear that Marston (like many others of that era) had rays as some sort of universal answer. There is the invisibility ray that Paula von Gunther invents, the paralysis rays of Eros, and indeed the Purple Healing Ray.

This doesn't mean that I'm against having the Purple Healing Ray. But I do think it's a lazy way to establish the skills and knowledge of the Amazons, if that's all there is to it.

[Koriand'r]

Agree.

I'd add a bit here on the relation to Marston. Keep the questions and the themes, but change the answers and the specific. Too much, I think modern Wonder Woman writers, when they do revisit the Golden Age, keep the answers and the specifics, but fail to consider the questions or the themes.

The Purple Healing Ray is one such example. The first is that I think everyone here agrees that the Amazons should have superior medical knowledge, practices, and treatments. The specific way that Marston implemented that was via the Purple Healing Ray, but having read quite a bit of the Golden Age Wonder Woman, it's clear that Marston (like many others of that era) had rays as some sort of universal answer. There is the invisibility ray that Paula von Gunther invents, the paralysis rays of Eros, and indeed the Purple Healing Ray.

This doesn't mean that I'm against having the Purple Healing Ray. But I do think it's a lazy way to establish the skills and knowledge of the Amazons, if that's all there is to it.

That's why when Rucka reinvented it he made a big deal out of the Amazons having the right crystals from the sacred vault to empower it. He also explained how it worked, the Purple Healing Ray restored biological matter while the P.D.R. reversed the process and destroyed it. He delved into the moral implications of it's use as well. That's enough for me. these are funny books, there's no need to overthink them.

[AmiMizuno]

Earth One does a great way of having them be advance yet have their own version. I do like the bikes. With the plane why not it be made from a materiel that can transform. That way Diana does carry it around and it can be other things.

[Alphaxman]

I have a question that I know that has been brought up hundreds of times, but I can't remember the answer: Did George Perez intend for Diana to appear in Patriarch World during the DC's Post Crisis present, or was her first storyline supposed to be set in the past? Couldn't the first seven issues take place in the past and then start from the present with issue 8? Or was her appearance in Legends (where no one knew who she was) set it up that she was a new hero?

I was just getting into the Teen Titans at the time, so with the back issues I read in the library or found in the comic book store, I always thought Diana and Donna still had their connection. It wasn't until Who is Wonder Girl storyline in '88 that I learned otherwise and thought it stupid that we were to believe that Donna had appeared (in universe) first, with the same costume, accessories, and powers as Wonder Woman, yet not one could figure out how to make it believable.

How could DC make such a misstep? Was it because Diana only had one title and couldn't tell her origin in another book like Man of Steel? Why cause such a massive headache with your premier super-heroine that wreaked havoc with a major member of your most popular book and rewrote the membership history of the Justice League?

By setting the first 7 issues in the past, that could have saved a lot of problems. And they could have still gone forward with the Who is Wonder Girl storyline and just have the Titans of Myth drop Donna off on Themyscira as a pre-teen. I could even picture a young girl crying for Diana to stay in those first couple of issues (without saying her name), making people to guess if it was Donna, only to see it all played out in the Titans, a year later.

[Perseus]

Earth One's Themyscira was undoubtfully the most beautiful rendition of the city state. I loved just staring at the thing...




I think that the amazon's having advance tech is a must. You can't have me believe that the amazons never advanced past the bronze age. I think combining Greco-Roman architecture with sci-fy advance tech is already a visually stunting design, adding the extra layer of cool golden age tech like the P.H.R. and invisible jet (space jet now) only makes it better.

One problem that I find isn't in wanting to make Themyscira like that, but the amazons themselves. Most modern writers that I've read turn the amazons into one note warrior woman, not an actual civilization with culture and a certain way of life. Rucka explored their royal hierarchy and some other professions, but like where do they farm? what about fishing, other animals on the island, etc..? we don't have a full in continuity map or anything that's permanent.

[Sacred Knight]

Yeah, Earth One visually just destroys most other interpretations. Love it.

[Robanker]

Earth One's Themyscira was undoubtfully the most beautiful rendition of the city state. I loved just staring at the thing...




I think that the amazon's having advance tech is a must. You can't have me believe that the amazons never advanced past the bronze age. I think combining Greco-Roman architecture with sci-fy advance tech is already a visually stunting design, adding the extra layer of cool golden age tech like the P.H.R. and invisible jet (space jet now) only makes it better.

One problem that I find isn't in wanting to make Themyscira like that, but the amazons themselves. Most modern writers that I've read turn the amazons into one note warrior woman, not an actual civilization with culture and a certain way of life. Rucka explored their royal hierarchy and some other professions, but like where do they farm? what about fishing, other animals on the island, etc..? we don't have a full in continuity map or anything that's permanent.

Being drawn by Yanick Paquette certainly helps. :P

[Koriand'r]

Earth One's Themyscira was undoubtfully the most beautiful rendition of the city state. I loved just staring at the thing...




I think that the amazon's having advance tech is a must. You can't have me believe that the amazons never advanced past the bronze age. I think combining Greco-Roman architecture with sci-fy advance tech is already a visually stunting design, adding the extra layer of cool golden age tech like the P.H.R. and invisible jet (space jet now) only makes it better.

One problem that I find isn't in wanting to make Themyscira like that, but the amazons themselves. Most modern writers that I've read turn the amazons into one note warrior woman, not an actual civilization with culture and a certain way of life. Rucka explored their royal hierarchy and some other professions, but like where do they farm? what about fishing, other animals on the island, etc..? we don't have a full in continuity map or anything that's permanent.

In total agreement here. I think there should be a flag and permanent landmarks that span over all artists, writers and continuities.

Yeah, Earth One visually just destroys most other interpretations. Love it.

Me too, I especially like all the curves. The arches and domed roofs, the shapes of their transportation...it all looks as if it was designed by women, for women.

[SiegePerilous02]

Yeah, Earth One visually just destroys most other interpretations. Love it.

Agreed. I think the only one that rivals it is Jimenez's new Themyscira in his run.

[Tzigone]

Me too, I especially like all the curves. The arches and domed roofs, the shapes of their transportation...it all looks as if it was designed by women, for women.

While it's nice-looking, I don't get the "by women, for women" - arches and domed roofs (in the buildings we have with them) are quite often designed by men, and I don't see how they benefit women (are "for women") any moreso than men. Also I really don't like the "lean forward" on the flying motorcycle look. Not for daily/mundane travel - seems uncomfortable.

I'd be interested in going away from so much white. I know we associate that with classical era Greek, but wasn't the older stuff (Mycenaean, Minoan, etc.) a lot more colorful? And colorful tiled mosaic floors would be cool, too. Appreciate the red roofs.

Edit: Actually tiled mosaics may be too new. Not saying they have to stick with the decorating styles of 3000 years ago, but they don't have to copy things done in our world, either. But it's "iffy" place to be. Still need artists of today to craft it, and need a look that invokes a certain sentiment (which sentiment is up to the creative team) to the audience. A truly foreign and unlike-anything-familiar look might not work for that, might make it feel more alien than they want.

[Perseus]

I think Roman colors would be nice. Some reds, oranges, golds, greens, violets, blues, etc... Classical Greece was rarely ever just whites.

[Gaius]

One problem that I find isn't in wanting to make Themyscira like that, but the amazons themselves. Most modern writers that I've read turn the amazons into one note warrior woman, not an actual civilization with culture and a certain way of life. Rucka explored their royal hierarchy and some other professions, but like where do they farm? what about fishing, other animals on the island, etc..? we don't have a full in continuity map or anything that's permanent.

One thing I'd love to see in the upcoming Historia would be a Jimenez drawn map of the island.

[Agent Z]

While it's nice-looking, I don't get the "by women, for women" - arches and domed roofs (in the buildings we have with them) are quite often designed by men, and I don't see how they benefit women (are "for women") any moreso than men. Also I really don't like the "lean forward" on the flying motorcycle look. Not for daily/mundane travel - seems uncomfortable.

Especially since this version of Themyscira was designed by two men whose understanding of feminism is limited to research they did specifically for the purposes of shaping this continuity's version of the Amazons.

[hgzip]

One problem that I find isn't in wanting to make Themyscira like that, but the amazons themselves. Most modern writers that I've read turn the amazons into one note warrior woman, not an actual civilization with culture and a certain way of life. Rucka explored their royal hierarchy and some other professions, but like where do they farm? what about fishing, other animals on the island, etc..? we don't have a full in continuity map or anything that's permanent.

Totally agree, and that's something that irks me from time to time... it also applies to the movie version of Themiscyra. There are two issues here.

a) Themiscyra seems to consist mostly of temples, palaces, council halls, and other grand public buildings. It looks similar to the way Hollywood depicts Rome or Athens. In reality, the temples and palaces made up a very small percentage of those cities, and most of the inhabitants were no philosophers, priests, artists, or politicians, but craftsmen, tradesmen, workers (not even talking about slaves). Most of Rome consisted of slums and multi-storey tenement blocks. Why do you think Rome burned for 5 days? Hint: it wasn't the great marble palaces...

Where do the amazons build those flying motorbikes, and who builds them? Where do they do mining, farming, etc., and who does it? Or 'does the Lord provide', i.e. all the things of everyday life are provided by the Gods via magic???

b) I find it impossible to believe that a 'warrior society' can exist for thousands of years, just sparring every day. Either they would go soft over time, or they will go to war from time to time. Anybody who has _been_ in an army knows that peacetime duty is boring and makes people either dull, or aggressive. An army always needs to be occupied in some way. In peacetime, the Roman legions built all those roads (that lead to Rome...), or drained swamps, cleared woodland, and whatnot. Otherwise, they would get up to funny ideas like plundering the civilians they should protect, or stage a coup and make their commander the next emperor.

Even if we assume that the amazons are more noble than the Roman legions, at some point they will get bored of sparring. This may actually explain the frequent civil wars that occur on 'Paradise Island', e.g. 'Paradise lost' by Jiminez, or the Amazon/Manazon war in the Finch run... which, however, tends to diminish the number of amazons, unless they _do_ procreate (sex pirates...).