Wonder Woman Mission

[Tzigone]

Also,if diana is not the ambassador,than what is her position,her "thing"?

Do you mean job/career or do you mean purpose in leaving Themyscira or do you mean overreaching objective?

[Mel Dyer]

I think it's a good question. Understanding what Diana seeks to accomplish, by being in MW, is a step toward creating the archenemy, who is a clear and present threat to it.

Presently, when she isn't being an adventurer, she appears to a sentinel, manning the wall, between MW and the unknown.

[Tzigone]

I think it's a good question. Understanding what Diana seeks to accomplish, by being in MW, is a step toward creating the archenemy, who is a clear and present threat to it.

I will beat my dead horse again - being "here" to defeat the Axis* (as opposed to open-ended goals of Superman and Batman) did sort of leave her adrift, I guess. So many of the other heroes (including Batman and Superman) are of this world now - I mean, even if Superman is an alien, he has no place to go back to. I guess they did try to get rid of the Amazons a few times to do the same to Diana, but it never took. I feel like a a hero doesn't need an overreaching "thing to accomplish" - they can simply get up and help each day because they're heroes, because they want to improve the world or save lives or do good (an because they enjoy it a bit). But a reason for never going back home? Well, the best reason, IMO, is because the hero has found a new home, and it matters as much as the one of their birth.

But knowing DC, they're more apt to try to kill everyone off, like they did for Martian Manhunter.

I'm not fond a firm, defined, goal - and end point. Either the hero reaches it, and it's rime for a new one or I end up feeling like hero is in hamster wheel, never getting anywhere, with no hope of accomplishing said goal (if it was something like "remove war from the world").


*Okay, so she was to fight for liberty for all womankind. Which is good. But certainly a great deal of what we saw her fight were a particular set of forces of evil, and her general setting - job, love interest, etc. was around that war.

[Ascended]

I'm not fond a firm, defined, goal - and end point. Either the hero reaches it, and it's rime for a new one or I end up feeling like hero is in hamster wheel, never getting anywhere, with no hope of accomplishing said goal (if it was something like "remove war from the world").

I think it depends on the character. It works for some, doesn't for others. Barry Allen has no end goal or overall mission. He gets up, and helps as many people as he's able to, and that's it. He can help, so he helps. And he hopes that people see him helping, and then start doing the same. I wouldn't want anything else from him (including the dead mom BS).

Diana, I see as being someone who would have a goal. Being who she is, raised as she was, and knowing how bossy her gods are? Yeah, there's politics in the mix of her heroics. Which doesn't demean her heroics, but she knows exactly what she's trying to accomplish.

Obviously YMMV, which is cool, but that's how I see it.

[Mel Dyer]

The best villains deprive (or threaten to) the hero of what is most precious to him. That's very hard to create, when the hero's most important thing is 'being here...in case'. How do you craft a story, much less a classic, decade-spanning enmity, around that?I

Not to muddle the posted topic, but, this is a great insight into the sacred mission or purpose of the hero. What is it that the archenemy's existence threatens to cheat Diana out of having or doing? If we don't have an answer...no mission.

Maybe, the mission can be found by going back to her classical origins. Diana, is first and foremost, an Amazon. Uniquely, she is an Amazon, born after classical times, when her sisters won their freedom from their greatest adversary, ..all of us. Upon her leaving Paradise, does she pledge to go wherever tyranny rules ..and fight for the freedom of others? Isn't this the sworn mission of all Themiscyra's Amazons?

Maybe, her mission is her Amazon identity, ..or is that too Marstonian?

[kjn]

Marston's Wonder Woman was built around a thesis: women make better and more capable leaders than men.

Now, one might agree or disagree with that thesis, but I think it's important to recognise that she was built on a radical idea that impacts all of society. She is in Man's World to accomplish and to change something.

I believe that observation also helps explain why some things added to the Wonder Woman mythos, like the Themysciran embassy, never really managed to get off the ground. Without a thesis behind them, they are just an empty facade. A Potemkin village that is mercilessly exposed once a story is attempted to be told with or about it.

Now, the thesis behind Wonder Woman need not stay constant. The 2017 movie I think managed it well with the more diffuse "I believe in love" and a focus on care ethics when combined with the civilisation critique of 1918 society, but I will be interested to see how WW84 manages—the closer we get to our time, the more striking any critique of our society will be. The Hiketeia also had a thesis, with its feminist critique of justice under patriarchy, and I think that's also why that story resonates so much.

[Mel Dyer]

As with the 1989 Batman film, the super-villain defines the superhero. The greatest villains are worst-case scenarios for the heroes, they bedevil.

[WonderScott]

To me, Diana’s mission as champion of the Amazons is to fight for, protect, and raise up the collective consciousness of the oppressed and oppressors in the DCU to radicalize the world into a place of greater equality, equity, empathy, and love.

It’s how she interacts with the world simply by being herself and as a colleague, educator, teammate, sister, friend, mentor, agent of ARGUS, etc., or in any capacity she finds herself in, whether that’s a guest lecturer at Holliday University or combatting Barbara Minerva and Lex Luthor in a new formation of the Injustice League or thwarting Ares and his kids in their attempts to shift the balance to falsities, distrust, and hatefulness.

I’d keep Diana as she is and not a formal ambassador from her nation - I’d have another Amazon fill that role to broaden and deepen the Amazon mythos in the DCU. That way we can have multiple takes on spreading Amazon ideals across the DCU and their impact on nations and Themyscira - one that’s within the political system and one without.

[Mel Dyer]

The most horrific loss of freedom for Diana, being a once-coddled princess from a mythical island utopia, might be to be dragged into a living, cosmic story book, ..by a demonic, extra-dimensional sorceress. What aboutFor-EVER. I think Queen of Fables is just about the scariest thing I've seen in the pages of Wonder Woman, since...

Of all the super-villains, I imagine that the Queen might be the one, who would keep her up, at night, waking up in cold sweats.

[WonderScott]

I'm not fond of the idea of Themyscira having an embassy in Man's World, ..but, I like that idea. There's a job for Nubia in the current mythos, after all.

I kind of have a plan for a story that involves the broader world politics of the DCU and Themyscira is a main component of it.

And, ambassador or not, Nubia needs to play a larger role in the Wonder mythos!

[WonderScott]

The most horrific loss of freedom for Diana, being a once-coddled princess from a mythical island utopia, might be to be dragged into a living, cosmic story book, ..by a demonic, extra-dimensional sorceress. What aboutFor-EVER. I think Queen of Fables is just about the scariest thing I've seen in the pages of Wonder Woman, since...

Of all the super-villains, I imagine that the Queen might be the one, who would keep her up, at night, waking up in cold sweats.

I love Tsarina and think she’s magnificent, but I question the need for Diana to have a single archenemy (and I’m not saying you are), when she’s much more complex than man versus superman or chaos versus control.

The archetypes and themes we historically associate with women are limited comparatively and I think destroying that is what Diana’s about regardless.

In regards to her mission, I guess you could archetype her into themes like man versus woman or love versus hate or truth versus lies, but because of her complexity, I don’t see one foe that plays off her in a way that we accept as readily as Luthor or the Joker.

[Ascended]

Of all the super-villains, I imagine that the Queen might be the one, who would keep her up, at night, waking up in cold sweats.

I can see that. There's a good argument for the Queen being Diana's most dangerous foe, if not her archnemesis.

Where has the QoF been at lately, anyway?

Also, I will never read her dialogue now without hearing the voice of Wanda Sykes. Still not sure if that's a good thing or not....

[Psy-lock]

That's right. Cheetah, Ares and Circe, who needs them? Queen of Fables, a character who didn't originate in a WW book and appeared in her comics ONCE is her true arch-enemy of course.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Mel Dyer]

I love Tsarina and think she’s magnificent, but I question the need for Diana to have a single archenemy (and I’m not saying you are), when she’s much more complex than man versus superman or chaos versus control.

The archetypes and themes we historically associate with women are limited comparatively and I think destroying that is what Diana’s about regardless.

In regards to her mission, I guess you could archetype her into themes like man versus woman or love versus hate or truth versus lies, but because of her complexity, I don’t see one foe that plays off her in a way that we accept as readily as Luthor or the Joker.

Such a nuanced, complex consideration of the Wonder-narrative! I can't wait to see your project, Scott.

I share your opinion on Diana being created to destroy historic archetypes about women and how that makes it next to impossible to categorize her. I think that makes crafting a singularly natural enemy for her, equally daunting. Her chief super-villains each threaten an aspect of what/who she is.

Just the same, I think creating that single Moriarty to her Holmes has to happen, if only because it is a staple of the superhero comic genre. Even if Diana's archenemy was a group, family or sinister corporation, I think it has to be there, because most comic readers expect it to be there and won't get it, if it isn't there and doesn't work, that way.

I really like the JLD idea of Circe being this scorned, heroic sorceress, who can't get over being betrayed and driven off, by her own people. I think her outrage has to be more defined, than that, though. If her outrage over the betrayal is created, because of Circe's idea about who she is - how could mankind betray the daughter of the God of Light, enlightenment and intelligence, ..Helios?! I could understand that or something similar to that. There must be something, besides spite, to drive Circe's thousands of years of outrage over her exile ..and thirst for revenge.

Tsaritsa is really hugging that silly factor, a little hard, even for a comic book villain. She has embraced her silliness, like the characters in Carroll's story. That said, she or the threat of her, the idea of being physically dragged out of your life and all that is familiar to you ..and into her twisted magical realms, forever...

That's some scary kangapucky.

In a universe of megalomaniacal blowhards, the truly bizarre ambitions of the Queen of Fables ..are refreshing to me. Of all of Diana's supervillains or anyone else's, Tsaritsa has the WTF factor that makes her a match for DC's premier WTF superhero, ..Wonder Woman.

I can see that. There's a good argument for the Queen being Diana's most dangerous foe, if not her archnemesis.

Where has the QoF been at lately, anyway?

Also, I will never read her dialogue now without hearing the voice of Wanda Sykes. Still not sure if that's a good thing or not....

Where is Tsaritsa?! I would like to see more of her. Wanda Sykes did kinda mess that up for me, too. Just pretend it didn't happen.

That's right. Cheetah, Ares and Circe, who needs them? Queen of Fables, a character who didn't originate in a WW book and appeared in her comics ONCE is her true arch-enemy of course...

Gail created the Queen for use in a JL story, many years, before she started writing WW. Diana was clearly at the center of that story, and I've thought of her, as an honorary WW villain, ever since.

C'mon, Psy-lock...Deathstroke wasn't created in the pages of Batman, but is pretty much plugged in, as a Bat-villain. Comapratively, WW's rogues should not be restricted to villains, created in the WW comic, when characters, like Queen of Fables or Queen Bee, created in other comics, are so suited to WW stories.