Nevermind.
Nevermind.
Giganta didn't have a direct connection to Diana, but they still interacted several times in the show. Even with her limited screen time Giganta really stood out as a cool character, most fans remember that version the most. Ares was fine, especially when you have Michael York hamming it up. Definitely better than his live-action counterpart.
The Amazons didn't banish her, her mother did because of the whole obeying the gods thing. Later on in JLU Hippolyta basically says "**** the gods, this is your home" and lifts her ban.
Bruce Timm did the animated Wonder Woman film in 2009, which most people seemed to like. I'm not aware of Dini writing much for Wonder Woman.
Last edited by mabromov; 06-22-2020 at 11:59 AM.
I completely recognize and applaud the creative team for including her in the Justice League show. They definitely did the right thing there and I have no complaints.
...but you cannot really say it was a great interpretation of the character when pretty much everyone who watched the show walks away with the impression that Diana is an unpleasant fighter with a chip on her shoulder...who wants to date Batman....and that's all. You can make the case that's exactly what they were going for, but I think it was more a matter of not really getting who the character was and being slightly indifferent. I mean, they were willing to kill off the Cheetah in her first appearance after completely altering her origin and giving her one noteworthy character moment - kissing Batman. Now imagine if someone did that to the Joker on a Superman show. I think it's completely reasonable for fans to feel let down by the way Wonder Woman and her mythology were treated.
The fact that they never really clarified her origin and then had to keep explaining it even years into the run says a lot. The episode The Balance was more about clarifying the questions viewers had had about Hades since the show premiered. Superman got the beautiful Last Son of Krypton...Batman got Mask of the Phantasm...Wonder Woman got two extremely vague scenes in the pilot episode.
And as others have already pointed out, episodes that focused on getting inside the heads of the lead characters, like Only a Dream and Comfort and Joy, omitted Wonder Woman entirely.
I'm not trying to preach a one-sided narrative. I do like what the show got right, like Diana meeting Steve Trevor during World War II and her devotion to her sisters during Paradise Lost and Diana's relationship with Martian Manhunter, which was touching. But there's so many other things that they easily could have gotten right but either chose not to or didn't even realize they were flubbing.
... I think it's completely reasonable to say that both versions were disappointing.Ares was fine, especially when you have Michael York hamming it up. Definitely better than his live-action counterpart.
Her stealing her armor really bothered me back in the day, and it bothers me just as much in the live-action movie. If anything, and this isn't to start an argument with you, I think it's a bit presumptuous to say that people didn't like it in the show but then forgot they didn't like it for the movie. You don't know how people feel. It would have been better to just ask how people felt about that than state as fact that they were being hypocritical.
Also, it's LYNDA Carter, with a Y. I hereby revoke your Wonder Woman fan card.
And yet half of those things were not executed all that well. Especially Ares, the lasso getting its powers so late and
They didn't have nearly the starring role that Lex, Brainiac and Darkseid did, despite Superman already having a show as well. None of their appearances were anywhere near as well received as the Joker two parter, "Wild Cards." So the few Batman and Superman villains that appeared in their solo shows and here were treated very well. Wonder Woman doesn't get a show period and her villains got mediocre treatment.
The show did not help Giganta's reputation as being a joke villain. Hippolyta lifting the ban is still a short change of the origin story, her origin was rushed and basically an afterthought.
Timm wasn't the only part involved with the 2009 film, and even so a lot of things did not go over well. Chiefly Steve and Etta Candy.
I'm not defending Cheetah, killing her off in Injustice for All would have been stupid. It should be noted James Tucker pushed for Cheetah coming back for JLU.
But I've read some pretty hyperbolic things about this version of WW on here, which I just found ridiculous. Though some areas could have been improved as discussed, they did have episodes that did justice to WW. I wish more people here would remember that. I just watched the JLU episode "Ultimen" (one of my favorites of the series), and it featured Wonder Woman as a mentor to Long Shadow, which inspired me to make this thread.
At any rate, for all the talk about WW being a feminist icon, she had sorely been ignored in media up until this show, unlike Batman or Superman. Heck, she never had a big screen live-action film until 2017.
This show helped bring the character back into the spotlight.
Last edited by mabromov; 06-22-2020 at 12:46 PM.
The best WW moments were good, but the worst ones are pretty awful. For me to consider this "average," there would have to be some stuff on the other extreme of the spectrum to balance out the really bad stuff, but there really isn't that much. For comparison's sake, I think the first season Superman is some of the lousiest Superman material you'll ever see, but I would consider JL Superman overall to be decent because they make up for it with great moments throughout the rest of the series. There's no analogous "great" Wonder Woman episode that I'd point someone out to say "Now this is Wonder Woman." I don't like the origin, her constant feuding with Hawkgirl was annoying, etc.
The animation team did better in the 2009 movie than they did in the TV show. If a C grade is average, maybe I call this a C-. If a B is average, then it's maybe a C+.
Anyway, everyone's take is different.
EDIT: I would agree that later seasons of JLU started to do the character better. The writers of the show were highly attuned (at least as far as writers for TV shows typically can be) to fan chatter on the internet, and I think they realized that fans thought nerfing the lasso into a breakable rope with no other powers was not acceptable. They also were aware that fans were generally receptive to her ambassador role and made that a part of the show. The writers deserve credit for improving on pre-exsiting lore they created. But also note that you don't get full credit for breaking something early on and fixing it later. I read comments that they skipped the Lasso's truth abilities because then it would either make their jobs interrogating too easy or it'd overlap with Martian Manhunter's mind-reading abilities. To me, that's just not a valid approach to the character, and it kind of rubs off on me that it was more important to check some boxes and feature the character than it was to get the character right in the first place. Granted, they did this to a lot of characters save Hawkgirl and Batman, so it may be less a WW problem and more of problem with how to balance the characters in general.
Last edited by DochaDocha; 06-22-2020 at 03:08 PM.
I was going to object to the bolded right away, but then thought it’s not even worth it. However since DisneyBoy decided to go there in his post, I’ll follow. I hate this version of the origin every where I see it—cartoon, live-action, makes no difference. It eliminates the Contest, which is one of the most fun bits in her story.
I will say however Wonder Woman LOOKED better on JLU than she did in her own animated films. She was prettiest there despite the bad characterization.
Here's a list what I disliked about DCAU Wonder Woman
Diana stealing the armor and leaving the island without proving herself.
Aphrodite and Athena not being the Amazons patrons.
Diana criticizing men as savages. She's supposed to be compassionate, kind, and loving.
Hawkgirl grew as a character while Wonder Woman didn't. The rivalry between them was childish.
Turning Wonder Woman into Batman's cheerleader.
No outsmarting/strategy moments from Wonder Woman except when she broke free from her prison cell in the Starcrossed episode.
No moments of Wonder Woman as a ambassador/diplomat except for the episode "To Another Shore"
Ignoring the Lasso of Truth power because Bruce Timm thinks that mysteries will easily be solved.
I think it gets rated about where it should. It was a below-average showing. Me, I put it at absolute worst. That's me, not everyone goes that far, but I think its fairly labeled as mostly bad. She had a good voice actress, and that's where the positives end, imo.
Last edited by Sacred Knight; 06-22-2020 at 06:28 PM.
"They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El
Overall I enjoyed WW in JL(U) but of course it is far from the best WW and another reason why we need another animated series where she is a main character if not THE main character. Robbing her of something like her Lasso of Truth for majority of the series was lame. It was a very watered down version of Diana.