Originally Posted by
Lightning Rider
I liked the earlier attempts to try and think of scenarios in which the both would react very differently.
I think the lasso of truth is almost a cheat in the sense that Diana can avoid a lot of difficult moral dilemmas by eliciting the truth from actors with ambiguous intentions. So the situation with Hawkgril in JLU could largely be resolved by putting the lasso around her and asking if she could be trusted. Though I guess asking for that in itself implies a lack of trust. Does being such a staunch believer in truth mean that she takes betrayal doubly seriously? I could see her asking her to take the lasso test as a show of good faith. While Clark would probably try to redeem her the good old fashioned way and just give her a second chance, without requiring more (though not without watching her closely).
In fact, I see Diana's use of the lasso as a liberty that Clark wouldn't be entirely comfortable with. Sure he infringes on people's privacy from time to time, but he probably sees the lasso as borderline coercion, an extrajudicial inducement of confession. But Diana sees the truth as a universal good that can't ever be bad.
That said, I can also see Superman going in guns blazes against someone he honestly and reasonably thinks betrayed him, puffing out his chest and asking direct questions, whereas Diana would be more patient at the outset.
I guess I'm arriving at the conclusion that Superman may have more of a temper, but generally respects institutions. Diana is more clear-headed, but has stricter morals that operate outside of man-made institutions.
The Ozymandias situation is a tricky one. I could see her wanting to spill the beans right away, but then compromising to let the truth be known after 10 years or something like that, if humanity can keep the peace.
Let me think of some others:
If the gods, particularly the more benevolent ones, came down and gave Diana a controversial mandate, I think she would instinctively follow their lead, so long as she thought it was with good intentions. She might defy them later, but Clark would be skeptical from the jump, if their demands were significant. For example, if Athena & Aphrodite asked Diana to preach and open temples in communities that had lost their way, in exchange for blessings, she might do it. Whereas Superman would be like, "1. I don't owe these 'gods' any special reverence, and 2. this is going to seriously rock the boat and make humanity dependent in a way I don't like."
I also think that if it came down to an actual war with humanity, in which both sides committed blunders and made mistakes, Diana would side with her Amazon sisters and fight to protect them. Whereas Clark would side with humans if Kryptonians could only exist by inevitably replacing humans. "Krypton had its chance", type of deal. Maybe my perception is colored by the fact that the Amazons are more uniformly good, but it also has to do with their actual relationships to their respective civilizations.