Currently(or soon to be) Reading: Absolute Power, Batman/Superman: World's Finest, Birds of Prey, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Justice Society of America, Shazam, Titans, & Wonder Woman.
Cloonan and Conrad did a podcast interview where they talked a bit about WW and their run and Immortal Wonder Woman
A lot of the same info they've given in other interviews but some nuggets for those who don't want to sit through an entire podcast;
-Siegfried is Persian for anyone wondering what his ethnicity is.
-Basis for the change was the vikings having trade connections from their various raids and also not wanting Valhalla to be all white people.
-They didn't intend for Diana's thoughts on Clark in IWW to be read as romantic, at least anymore than her interaction with Bruce's ghost(?) was. Cloonan actually thought the scene with Spectre read more romantic.
Last edited by Gaius; 04-27-2021 at 11:31 AM.
Eh, it's not as if the Wonder Woman comics have ever made any pretense of having fealty to other cultures and their mythology just looking at how they handle Amazons and Greek stuff, and this is aimed at an American audience. Siegfried being non-white (and having a reasonable hand wave reason for why) is a non-issue.
I'm probably not on the right side of history with this, but when we're adapting other culture's heroic figures, I'd prefer they reflect people of that culture. I'm fine with multicultural Amazons and such because they're an American riff on nebulously Greek mythology. That's groovy. Some of these characters are cultural touchstones, however, so it's a bit more delicate in my mind. You can argue some superheroes have reached that level (Superman, for example), but they're ours to change. Sigurd is a German hero and I feel he should reflect them, just as I'd feel Sun Wukong should be Chinese (if not a monkey as in the source text), Tezcatlipoca should be Aztec and so forth. American figures are our history and folklore to adapt as we see fit, but that of other cultures should probably be respected a little more.
For context, I'm of Greek ancestry. We typically don't show up in any media except to be a punchline about being hairy, obnoxiously loud assholes or old, hairy obnoxious waiters... or when discussing the Greek pantheon/mythology. We don't really get to be heroes that often (and 300 is decidedly not a good example of representation when it omits every other Greek at Thermopylae to fetishize 300 warlike Spartans). Everywhere else, we're just the other Italian. I've had to make my peace with seeing my family's heritage in Zues or Hercules and they're not exactly seen favorably under the modern eye. Nevertheless, we exist primarily in mythic figures, not new ones. Western media is content treating us like we went extinct thousands of years ago. Okay, Constantine Drakon was one, but you see my argument. If we're desperate, we try and claim Diana who is (at best) nebulously Greek, but more accurately an American fascination of Greek Culture wearing the trappings like a Halloween costume. If tomorrow we adapted Hercules in DC to be non-Greek, well, you see where I'm going with this. To the entire world, that's pretty much the face of my family's people and when we don't even get to see ourselves represented there it can sting a little. Brad Pitt being cast as Achilles sure didn't make me happy, I'll tell you that. I know that because I'm white this can also seem like sour grapes, but considering Germans mostly show up in American superhero comics with a red armband and heavy goosesteps, I do sympathize if they feel like one of their more positive heroes getting racebent bothers them.
Seriously, think for a moment which characters you know in DC that are of German ancestry and completely unrelated to anything pertaining to the nazis or Norse gods. If you can think of one, enlighten me because I cannot.
Just my two cents.
It doesn't make me angry, but it is disappointing. I do want to stress once more that I'm fine with stuff like Hamilton because that's our history as Americans, so I admit a double standard to some degree.
Last edited by Robanker; 04-27-2021 at 11:45 PM.
Ngl, I would have liked Siegfried to be German (or germanic/slavic) because as Robanker says there aren't many German characters that aren't connected to Nazis or are just straight-up Nazis. Lois was half-German at some point and that's pretty much it as far as I remember. DC doesn't have a Nightcrawler.
But it's not as if I feel any outrage about it. It was clear he isn't white from the very first page. So far Siegfried doesn't even have many ties to his own saga. He is pretty much just a random Norse. I hope that changes before the end of the arc.
And if I feel the need to pick up visibly germanic Siegfried in comic form, I pick up a comic from Splitter.
Do we know if this have any plans for Cassie and Donna
They've said they'd like to use them but they also said in the interview above whether or not writers are allowed to use characters depends on the editors/creatives say for the books those characters fall under. Donna for the Titans, Cassie for whatever's planned with YJ.
YJ hasn't be used much. And that's kind of dumb the Bateditors are able to use Nightwing has much has they want in Batman and the Titans can use him too. So it's not impossible for that to work. This is why the editors are the worst people. Especially with Wonder Woman. I think this is why her power levels in comics always go up and down
This image indicates that they will appear but with a reduced role. We should just hope that Michael Conrad and Becky Cloonan get a long and healthy run and hopefully expand on new and creative foundations for her world along with a definitive status quo. These first two issues indicate that they are able to create momentum in a story, create chemistry between characters with Diana, generate intrigue in her stories, and that these are big events happening. If they are able to tell big stories without going back to the well of the Greek Gods then we are in for a treat, and to me that's more than enough for now. Donna and Cassie need someone with a vision for them, and it's hard to do that if Diana doesn't have a solid status quo.
I really don't think there should be any problem. The Young Justice crew seems to be on hold for the foreseeable future, so they should have free use of Cassie in the meantime. Likewise Titans Academy is a book with a large cast and Donna isn't really getting a lot of focus. As long as the two teams are able to communicate and play well together Donna should be able to guest in Diana's, Yara's, or Nubia's series later this year. They should be able to share the characters. Though part of me is annoyed that with Donna and Cassie that Titans/YJ always gets to pull rank on Wonder Woman. But I guess it's just the way it's always been and nobody higher wants to change it.