Has WW gained anything from playing it safe these days?

[WonderLight789]

We know that this character and her lore are very radical and controversial, for an industry that still is pretty conservative, sexist and all. A character that comes from an all women society, with queer concepts, feminsm, girl power that is supposed to be second to no man. That was raised in the philosophy of sisterhood as a vehicle for greater changes, in a world where most positions of power belong to men. So what did they do? Change her origin to focus in being one of Zeus's bastards, nerfed her power, turned amazons into rapists(then changed it, but still portray them as men haters and violent more often than not), took away their amazing technology for decades, portray WW as a generic angry warrior girl, female kratos, that needs the pure and kind Superman, Batman etc oh good men. To teach her about love, kindness and no killing. Her iconic and unique gear became overshadowed by generiv sword and shield. And even though they saturate everything with her sword, She looks like she hasn't trained with a sword one day in her life. Her martial art skills are almost completely gone. Her wisdom doesn't appear like ever, etc. So did she gain something by playing safe, in an attempt to appeal to a certain part of the white straight male demographic, that obviously has too fragil egos to actually support a woman, whose concepts offer something that is different from their status quo? Did we see the amazing quality writing of this generic white straight amazon warrior girl with short temper, or at times very doubtful and insecure pacifist in other equally uninspired stories that don't get her either? Has playing it safe helped her sales? As far as i know, she is still just a glorified token next to the white straight privileged batman and even superman. What do you think, did anything good come out of trashing her lore and concepts like this?

[WonderScott]

Nothing good has come out of it from my POV. There are some editors and writers and artists who understand the history, message, complexity and nuance of the character and others who simply seem to regard her as Mythic Fighter Lady. My guess (I haven’t worked at or have connections to anyone who has worked at DC Comics) is that even if some editors and writers and artists wanted to dive into all those messages, complexities and nuances, they’ve been told “nope” or “we can’t go there” out of some form of brand and IP management.

Being so-called risk averse (from their POV) with Wonder Woman just doesn’t fit the character.

So, then this happens and then they (DC, WB & Discovery execs) wonder “why isn’t Wonder Woman more popular?” They know the answer to the question but they’d rather not do something deemed “controversial” (from their POV) and so then they exhaust and revisit all options that don’t seem to work. Maybe no one wants to be responsible for doing something transformative with the character because of the controversy it causes, even if it’s something the character is all about. Maybe no one wants her to be who she is because all of that is “too hard” to work on, or even understand, and they just want her to be more simple and accepted as that.

This is why many iterations of the character never fully lands with fandom. They either don’t know the character like Wonder fans do, so all they see is what’s being put out there or they inherently feel something is off in their subconscious with how the character is being portrayed.

Everything is controversial and polarizing today, so you’re never going to make Wonder Woman “acceptable” and interesting by taking a middle-of-the-road approach. Without embracing all that she is and all that she has been and taking risks and getting creative with her and her mythos and just dealing with and just accepting any “controversy” that comes up, Wonder Woman will never be who she’s supposed to be and gain/find/attract/keep the fandom that she deserves.

[Agent Z]

I'm not sure if "playing it safe" is how I'd describe all this. If anything, Wonder Woman is probably the one comic where it seems anything goes.

[WonderLight789]

I'm not sure if "playing it safe" is how I'd describe all this. If anything, Wonder Woman is probably the one comic where it seems anything goes.

''Anything goes'', as long as she is never seen in a queer relationship, as long as she never matches the alpha males in power. As long as she is never portrayed as the most skilled, inteligent or the kindest of the group.

[Phoenixx9]

No, I certainly don't think so and am appaled that they would do this to Wonder Woman.

[DABellWrites]

The obvious answer is no, considering her book has been a low-mid seller for decades. Wonder Woman is a B-lister with A-lister status. The only titles DC Comics has ever cared about are Superman and Batman, which is why they're in this predicament now when they put all their eggs in two baskets (be it Superman from 1983-1980s) and Batman (1980s-present). Sure, books like The New Teen Titans come up. But, for the most part, it's The World's Finest. I use the 1980s because I don't know when Batman overtook Superman in comic book sales, I wanna say 1989, but I'm not sure.

[Top Hat]

''Anything goes'', as long as she is never seen in a queer relationship, as long as she never matches the alpha males in power. As long as she is never portrayed as the most skilled, inteligent or the kindest of the group.

Well the Wonder Woman Earth One series kind of did that and while I enjoyed it and I know it got a lot of positive reviews it also got a lot blow back with accusations of portraying her as a man hater and being a authoritarian dictator.

[phonogram12]

Well the Wonder Woman Earth One series kind of did that and while I enjoyed it and I know it got a lot of positive reviews it also got a lot blow back with accusations of portraying her as a man hater and being a authoritarian dictator.

I enjoyed it as well (in fact, it's one of my favorite depictions of the character). I never really saw her a man hater in those books, though.

[Agent Z]

Well the Wonder Woman Earth One series kind of did that and while I enjoyed it and I know it got a lot of positive reviews it also got a lot blow back with accusations of portraying her as a man hater and being a authoritarian dictator.

There were also criticisms of the inappropriately sexual art, racism and frankly I don't recall Diana being portrayed as particularly strong or clever, especially when Dr Zeiko was around. I agree she wasn't a man hater and I'm pretty sure no one made that argument.

[WonderLight789]

Well the Wonder Woman Earth One series kind of did that and while I enjoyed it and I know it got a lot of positive reviews it also got a lot blow back with accusations of portraying her as a man hater and being a authoritarian dictator.

I mean outside some rare moments in an elseworld story. Most of her canon comic appearances these days, live action movies, cartoons etc do not do her any good.

[bardkeep]

Well the Wonder Woman Earth One series kind of did that and while I enjoyed it and I know it got a lot of positive reviews it also got a lot blow back with accusations of portraying her as a man hater and being a authoritarian dictator.

I'm really not a fan of Earth One but this isn't the only reason why (and I don't think Diana's a man-hater in it at all). My biggest gripe is that I think it embodies the exact mindset that scares people away from WW's roots. When people think of the subversive elements of the character, they get hung up on bondage and kink and assume it began and ended with Marston. What's REALLY subversive is the fact that every part of her is a rejection of the patriarchal narrative, and that's something Perez understood as well.

When you get to the essentials of the character as she was conceived, you've got your core feminist themes like women-centric storytelling, emphasis on loving relationships between women (homoerotic and otherwise), and power rooted in the feminine, and you've got your more intersectional themes like the focus on oppressed people liberating themselves, the exploration of healing from trauma, and Diana's role as an agent of change. Marston idealized his Amazons to the point of dehumanizing them, but they should always represent love and sisterhood in addition to being fully realized and flawed. And the bondage stuff was out of control and gross, but there's an important reference to suffragette imagery hidden somewhere in there.

There's also the concept of Diana being absolutely superior to men even though her power comes entirely from women and their love for her (note the old catchphrase "wise as Athena, beautiful as Aphrodite, stronger than Hercules, swifter than Mercury" - equal to the women, superior to the men). Even the goofy expletives always call to goddesses rather than gods. It detaches strength from masculinity.

So it's very telling that Grant Morrison claimed to be getting to the character's TRUE roots with Earth One and wrote a story that violates more of those themes than it captures. Diana gets her powers not just from a man but from her mother's rapist, the Amazons are initially cruel and judgmental toward mortal women, the only deities of significance are male, the whole thing with Dr. Psycho is an absolute mess, the ideal that the Amazons uphold is a matriarchal dictatorship that brainwashes dissenters...it really goes on. Morrison did, however, really highlight BDSM themes, aesthetics, and face-value interpretations of Marston's out-there visions of institutional matriarchy. There are definitely things I like about E1 and I love that they brought back the queer high-tech Amazons, but the bad vastly outweighs it for me.

Fortunately we've got the radical Wonder Woman story we need right now in Historia. And interestingly Kelly Sue DeConnick went into it explicitly rejecting Marston.

[Top Hat]

There were also criticisms of the inappropriately sexual art, racism and frankly I don't recall Diana being portrayed as particularly strong or clever, especially when Dr Zeiko was around. I agree she wasn't a man hater and I'm pretty sure no one made that argument.

Before I purchased the series I decided to look at some reader reviews and you would be surprised how often that complaint came up in the reviews, especially about the last volume.