Wonder Woman Controversial Opinions Part 2

[Marik Swift]

I don’t particularly find Wonder Woman’s real world history with the JSA to be important enough that it requires upending her origin so there can be some WW stand-in on the JSA whether it be making her debut exclusively always in the 40s or through some previous mantle holder. She isn’t Captain America.

Not Diana. Hippolyta.

[Gaius]

Not Diana. Hippolyta.

This applies to Hippolyta also. Wonder Woman doesn’t need the JSA.

[Marik Swift]

This applies to Hippolyta also. Wonder Woman doesn’t need the JSA.

Never said she did?

Hippolyta not having history with the JSA is just wasted opportunity. I don't get what's Wonder fans obsession with the "present", when the Amazons are thousands of years old. It's one of the few problems I have with DCEU Diana. Why make Diana 5000 years old if she has no history to play upon. For 5000 years she was pretty much just on the island doing little to nothing. If they wanted her to be old, they could have achieved the same by making her a couple hundred years old. And why is she 5000 years old and still act like she's a teenager.

Hippolyta being thousands of years old, as much history as possible should be stuffed into that, otherwise what's the point. Yes, she has the Amazons history, but at the end of the day there's only so many times writers can keep digging into that well before it gets repetitive. Give her history with the JSA and it opens up windows for creative endeavor.

If the problem is once again that Diana should be the first Wonder Woman, then Hippolyta could have easily gone by something else, probably Suprema.

Overall, Wonder Woman was created in 1941. Superman & Batman can't stick to their original creation dates for obvious reasons, but not having Diana stick to hers when she can is backwards thinking cause again, she's just following in their path. "They can't debut in 1930/40 because it goes against their setting, so Diana can't too".

[Gaius]

Never said she did?

Hippolyta not having history with the JSA is just wasted opportunity. I don't get what's Wonder fans obsession with the "present", when the Amazons are thousands of years old. It's one of the few problems I have with DCEU Diana. Why make Diana 5000 years old if she has no history to play upon. For 5000 years she was pretty much just on the island doing little to nothing. If they wanted her to be old, they could have achieved the same by making her a couple hundred years old. And why is she 5000 years old and still act like she's a teenager.

Hippolyta being thousands of years old, as much history as possible should be stuffed into that, otherwise what's the point. Yes, she has the Amazons history, but at the end of the day there's only so many times writers can keep digging into that well before it gets repetitive. Give her history with the JSA and it opens up windows for creative endeavor.

If the problem is once again that Diana should be the first Wonder Woman, then Hippolyta could have easily gone by something else, probably Suprema.

Overall, Wonder Woman was created in 1941. Superman & Batman can't stick to their original creation dates for obvious reasons, but not having Diana stick to hers when she can is backwards thinking cause again, she's just following in their path. "They can't debut in 1930/40 because it goes against their setting, so Diana can't too". Makes me wonder if you really have Diana's best interest at heart at all.

It's not really a wasted opportunity as there's nothing intrinsic about Diana's origin that requires it to be tied to the 40s in the same way the vast majority of DC"s major characters aren't tied to the time period they were created in. It's just adding lore for the sake of lore.

The movie did WW1 because that's why Snyder setup in BvS and the vast majority of Diana's origin retellings all moved her whatever the then current present day was with no problem.

[Marik Swift]

It's not really a wasted opportunity as there's nothing intrinsic about Diana's origin that requires it to be tied to the 40s in the same way the vast majority of DC"s major characters aren't tied to the time period they were created in. It's just adding lore for the sake of lore.

The movie did WW1 because that's why Snyder setup in BvS and the vast majority of Diana's origin retellings all moved her whatever the then current present day was with no problem.

There's no such thing as "adding lore for the sake of lore". Or do you think Tolkien and G.R.R. Martin were "just adding lore for the sake of lore". Yes, the Game of Thrones books happen in one time period, but there's such a rich history that you could literally tell a story from any point.

This is especially important for a comic book setting where there are dozen of writers & monthly issues. The more writers have to draw upon the better.

[Stanlos]

Finally! Absolute Wonder Woman I can add to my collection! The Perez Absolute collecting 1-14 releases July 20, 2021!

I hope they do Absolute volumes for both Rucka runs but especially the first one. I also hope they let him do the planned mockup of REFLECTIONS

[Koriand'r]

There's no such thing as "adding lore for the sake of lore". Or do you think Tolkien and G.R.R. Martin were "just adding lore for the sake of lore". Yes, the Game of Thrones books happen in one time period, but there's such a rich history that you could literally tell a story from any point.

This is especially important for a comic book setting where there are dozen of writers & monthly issues. The more writers have to draw upon the better.

Other than Orlando most Wonder Woman writers don't do that though.

[Koriand'r]

There are lots of wasted opportunities, underused characters and unexplored concepts.

[SiegePerilous02]

There's no such thing as "adding lore for the sake of lore". Or do you think Tolkien and G.R.R. Martin were "just adding lore for the sake of lore". Yes, the Game of Thrones books happen in one time period, but there's such a rich history that you could literally tell a story from any point.

This is especially important for a comic book setting where there are dozen of writers & monthly issues. The more writers have to draw upon the better.

They have more than enough lore to draw on for Wonder Woman already. Odds are if a writer adds the type of lore you're suggesting, we'd just see another writer ignore it and it will be added to the shelf along with all the other wasted stuff.

Anyway, it kind of is adding lore for the sake of it when it ignores how key Hippolyta's rejection of the outside world is to Diana's motivation to see it. The older Amazons are jaded and reject Man's World, not without many valid reasons, and Diana has to rebel against her family to win the right to be their emissary to the outside world again. Hippolyta's overprotective nature and the aura of the forbidden that the outside world has for Diana is going to be undermined if Hippolyta has a long history of going back and forth there as either Wonder Woman or "Suprema." There is no wasted opportunity here because the JSA doesn't mean anything to Hippolyta in published materials aside from Byrne's relatively brief and misguided retcon. The Wonder Woman with the JSA was always Diana, so publishing stuff with Hippolyta or another Amazon in her place is basically just a lie because we all know that's not how it happened. These headache inducing retcons of "the older stories are totally canon, but also totally different!" is why post-COIE was a big mess. Tying Wonder Woman to WWII and the JSA can work more easily for her than Batman or Superman, but like them she's also evolved beyond the need to be tied to that era. It can be preserved on Earth-2 (where IMO the JSA really belong), but otherwise it seems pointless when everything about her world works just as well in the present.

Tolken and Martin were also the main architects of their lore and didn't have to deal with a shared universe with a bunch of other creators whose ideas wouldn't line up with theirs, nor would they have to contend with reboots and retcons. Their lore building is inherently different than anything we will get out of mainstream superhero comics.

[kjn]

I have to disagree here, Marik Swift. Lore is important only insofar as it enables or enriches story, and beyond story you find themes.

Every time you add fixed background elements, then you also limit the amount of story area that is left to explore. Perhaps some DC editor takes my idea of Achilles as a trans woman and adds it to the Wonder Woman bible, but some writer had a different idea on a strong story using Achilles and the Amazons. Of course you need some lore, but no more than necessary for the story that is being told right now.

When it comes to Wonder Woman being decoupled from the Second World War, it's not really following Superman and Batman. It's addressing a storytelling issue around chronology that besets any characters that is supposed to be active "now" but has their origin fixed to a specific point in time. It's fine as long as you have some plans on how to tell your specific story, but as years go you get further and further away from the character's origin.

Here I want to add that the Amazons provide one of the trickiest worldbuilding problems that I know of, since you have so many interlocking and thematically important parts. You touch on one of them yourself, with what the Amazons did between the start of their exile and now, and Diana's chronological age versus her emotional/experienced age, but I don't see how placing Diana's entrance into the Second World War solves that problem in any meaningful way. If anything, it makes the second problem even worse!

Having Hippolyta enter the world before Diana also doesn't really solve anything, and I'd argue that it diminishes the theme of "the first woman" that Marston and especially Pérez set up with her. It also fundamentally changes the relation between Themyscira and the world, and thus also the meaning of Diana going into Man's World.

[Agent Z]

I have to disagree here, Marik Swift. Lore is important only insofar as it enables or enriches story, and beyond story you find themes.

Every time you add fixed background elements, then you also limit the amount of story area that is left to explore. Perhaps some DC editor takes my idea of Achilles as a trans woman and adds it to the Wonder Woman bible, but some writer had a different idea on a strong story using Achilles and the Amazons. Of course you need some lore, but no more than necessary for the story that is being told right now.

When it comes to Wonder Woman being decoupled from the Second World War, it's not really following Superman and Batman. It's addressing a storytelling issue around chronology that besets any characters that is supposed to be active "now" but has their origin fixed to a specific point in time. It's fine as long as you have some plans on how to tell your specific story, but as years go you get further and further away from the character's origin.

Here I want to add that the Amazons provide one of the trickiest worldbuilding problems that I know of, since you have so many interlocking and thematically important parts. You touch on one of them yourself, with what the Amazons did between the start of their exile and now, and Diana's chronological age versus her emotional/experienced age, but I don't see how placing Diana's entrance into the Second World War solves that problem in any meaningful way. If anything, it makes the second problem even worse!

Having Hippolyta enter the world before Diana also doesn't really solve anything, and I'd argue that it diminishes the theme of "the first woman" that Marston and especially Pérez set up with her. It also fundamentally changes the relation between Themyscira and the world, and thus also the meaning of Diana going into Man's World.

In addition to this, World War 2 is already a played out narrative in superhero fiction which is one of the reasons it wasn't used in the movie. And superhero takes on World War 2 are often shallow and propagandist. The less association Diana has with it the better.

[Marik Swift]

I understand some of your apprehensions about the whole WWI/WWII debit, so I'll concede.

Still, I just feel like Wonder Woman has a rich world that should be made the most out of, and would especially go a long way in helping writers find stories to write with her. There should be no shortage of the number of stories that can be told with Diana (there are a lot currently if writers actually gave a damn, but there should be an endless amount).

And yes, I know doing that she runs the risk of being too much like though, but she came before him (Norse myths don't count), so she has more claim to that adventure niche than he does if DC had been smart enough to capitalize on it from the jump.

[Guy_McNichts]

I've never been a fan of keeping Wonder Woman in World War II (tied mostly to Diana's age, immortality and other factors), but one thing that's been sticking to me lately is Diana and the Amazons' stated purpose, their mission, is to bring peace and improve the world.
So if Wonder Woman or any Amazon Champion participated in World War II...she failed. She failed as a peacemaker. She failed as a hero.

As much as we (as a country--the United States) love to mythologize WWII because it was the last "good" war with clearly defined "bad guys" that were defeated...there's still the attempted extermination of the Jews, the atrocities the Germans and Russians committed against each other during their fighting, the (arguably) unnecessary bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among many other things 'cause, you know, it was a freaking war.

Captain America in WWII kind of gets by because he's just a soldier fighting battles and he's not as powerful. But, again, Wonder Woman & the Amazons stated mission is to bring peace. I can't imagine Diana or Hippolyta or any Amazon allowing that to happen, nor do I see them letting politics stop them.

At least the first Wonder Woman movie had her only appear at the end of World War I. And I guarantee the sequel is not going to dwell much (if at all) on what Diana did during the 30's and early 40's. Because there is no good answer unless you go full "alternate history."

This is what I meant when I said making the Amazons a part of past history turns them into defenders of the status quo. Because you have to reconcile how/why a lot of nasty crap happened despite their presence. They either tried to improve things and failed consistently, or felt it wasn't their place to interfere and limited their actions to punching bad guys. The "Why doesn't Superman just fly over and overthrow this dictator" excuse.

That's why it's better narratively for the Amazons to cut themselves off from the world until Diana leaves in modern times. And why I think, if you are going to have previous Amazon Champions, limit to five or six over the thousands of years.

[Agent Z]

I've never been a fan of keeping Wonder Woman in World War II (tied mostly to Diana's age, immortality and other factors), but one thing that's been sticking to me lately is Diana and the Amazons' stated purpose, their mission, is to bring peace and improve the world.
So if Wonder Woman or any Amazon Champion participated in World War II...she failed. She failed as a peacemaker. She failed as a hero.

As much as we (as a country--the United States) love to mythologize WWII because it was the last "good" war with clearly defined "bad guys" that were defeated...there's still the attempted extermination of the Jews, the atrocities the Germans and Russians committed against each other during their fighting, the (arguably) unnecessary bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among many other things 'cause, you know, it was a freaking war.

Captain America in WWII kind of gets by because he's just a soldier fighting battles and he's not as powerful. But, again, Wonder Woman & the Amazons stated mission is to bring peace. I can't imagine Diana or Hippolyta or any Amazon allowing that to happen, nor do I see them letting politics stop them.

At least the first Wonder Woman movie had her only appear at the end of World War I. And I guarantee the sequel is not going to dwell much (if at all) on what Diana did during the 30's and early 40's. Because there is no good answer unless you go full "alternate history."

This is what I meant when I said making the Amazons a part of past history turns them into defenders of the status quo. Because you have to reconcile how/why a lot of nasty crap happened despite their presence. They either tried to improve things and failed consistently, or felt it wasn't their place to interfere and limited their actions to punching bad guys. The "Why doesn't Superman just fly over and overthrow this dictator" excuse.

That's why it's better narratively for the Amazons to cut themselves off from the world until Diana leaves in modern times. And why I think, if you are going to have previous Amazon Champions, limit to five or six over the thousands of years.

In fairness to this - and again as someone who doesn't like Diana in WW2 either - this is going to be an issue no matter where you put Diana in because the nature of a superhero universe means there is always conflict.

[Guy_McNichts]

In fairness to this - and again as someone who doesn't like Diana in WW2 either - this is going to be an issue no matter where you put Diana in because the nature of a superhero universe means there is always conflict.

Yeah, it's inevitable with superhero comics in general, and it's one of those things you kind of have to let slide. It's a matter of making these awkward questions easier or harder to slide.