Hear hear!
And the last thing on the mind of those films' producers was bringing WW into their narratives. For the longest time, Diana was allegedly part of the Trinity and yet nobody in Hollywood would give her the time of day. It wasn't until the astonishing success of the MCU that WB finally realized that maybe there was *some* money to be made on making movies about someone other than Clark and Bruce.
I don't think being a love interest to another heroic character necessarily "reduces" any heroic character. If anything such a status quo can lead to interesting crossover stories opportunities if handled correctly. The trick is to balance the worlds of both heroic characters making them more or less equal in importance, but I digress.
"So you've come to the end now alive but dead inside."
They can keep Steve to a mention and a photo, that is enough. Just like with Steve Rogers/Peggy in the Marvel movies, he had his picture of her if he wanted to think of her after she had died.
It does reduce because how much of a relationship can they really have without sacrificing either character's mythos? Batman tries to spend every night in Gotham and his world is filled with corrupt or innefective police departments, secret organizations, gangs/ crime families, super villains, weird mutated people, urban supernatural mysteries, asylums with immoral psychiatrists, etc.
Wonder Woman's mythos is even larger and more diverse on a conceptual scale, but treated as much smaller, which is something that has huge consequences (and just one of the reasons why I want greek mythology to at least be put on a hiatus for 10 years). We need writers that will to major worldbuilding, growing the various sides of her world, and putting her in a relationship with a superhero with his own mythos strangles this.
It either means: that we have to spend parts of her stories on a character and mythos outside of her own group of underappreciated villains and allies;
Or that Diana is in a relationship that has no impact on her major adventures and crisis inside her solo book.
Imagine that we have a revamped version of Doctor Poison who has been spreading cursed potions all over Holliday College. These poisons give evey woman that drinks into Body dysphoria. Lots of women end up drinking it without their knowledge, including Diana. Now she is going through a depression because she doesn't feel like she belongs as a woman anymore and there is no clear solution. Do these women need to be cured? If so, should this "cure" be given to transwomen who also feel depression? This is a very stupid way to explore a theme, I know, but it is still a profound topic that explores fundamentals of the WW character and modern conceptions of gender. If Diana was dating Superman wouldn't the both of them talk about it during this arc? But do we really want Clark to get involved in this? Don't you think it's a topic better explored through WW characters?
You can't just follow through with a ship and then ignore the consequences of it. And I don't think you can find benefits that outweight the cost of such a decision.
Last edited by Alpha; 02-03-2021 at 05:19 AM.
not when the other character is larger, she will end being a supporting cast. You can't balance it when one of the characters is far more larger than the other. Not even if they belonged to the same book its not that easily achieved let alone two characters from different titles.
Last edited by Goldrake; 02-03-2021 at 05:02 AM.
That's probably more true for comic books and longer ongoings than it is for a short series of movies, though. For instance, it was probably annoying in the DCAU because everything in that universe revolves around Batman and everyone at some point has to fawn over how awesome Batman is.
Like, let's assume Superman is still considered bigger than Harley Quinn these days. If the next Suicide Squad movie ended with a cliffhanger-ish ending where Harley Quinn tells her new boy-toy to come hither, and it so happened to be Superman himself, I don't think the fan reaction would be to reduce Harley to Superman's newest fling.
The above is a such an outlandish scenario that makes no sense, but for some reason I could imagine happening in the DCEU...
Last edited by DochaDocha; 02-03-2021 at 09:19 AM.
The Harley scenario you are saying might be a brief moment but Superman even in that brief moment will overshadow her. How big Harley Quinn is also questionable, her movie flopped her comics don't sell well. She is an icon for a particular audience but doesn't seem to translate in box office or comic sales success.
While Superman will always be Superman. He is a one of the most famous if not the most famous Superhero. Superman's love interest to the bigger audience will always be Lois. Bringing in another character from another franchise will end with the later as supporting cast or rejected by the audience.
Back to Diana she has her own mythos, with characters that define her, throwing her into the arms of Superman or batman she would be seen as the conquest of one of the two.
I feel like yes. Pines signed a mutiple feature contract. So him appearing in the three movie
equal partners require characters from the same book and that also requires delicate balancing. In Aquaman with Arthur and Mera they have to be careful not to overshadow one of the two, and that occasionally happens. To an extent that they had to take Mera off panel space for sometime.
Diana in that sense has no such problem, because its unlikely she will have a partner that equals her power or character. But if it involves superman or batman than she stands to lose.
Believe me, I understand the point you're making. In a comic book run, the equal partnership is hard to maintain. But for a shorter TV or movie run, it should be possible.
I'm loathe to what the DCAU did, but let's say for example in a WW movie, at the very end of a WW film they happened to say she was going to meet Bruce Wayne for dinner (no thanks!), that's not reducing WW to anything. It's her movie, 99% of the movie has nothing to do with Batman, etc. Or, if they paired them off in a JL movie (which should never happen, but whatever), and the writing was good and neither character overshadowed the other, then the creators did their job to make a balanced pairing. If the audience decides to go full moron and spout nonsense equating WW to nothing more than Batman's arm candy, well, that's what they get for being stupid. Sucks for fans that these people will have too much of a voice in online conversations and stuff, and almost undoubtedly some future writer will run with it and screw it up worse, but what I'm saying is that at some point you can't always blame the person who starts an idea with good intentions if then all the fans, critics, and follow-up artists turn it into something terrible.