It's Happening Again

[Guy_McNichts]

Welp...looks like we are indeed going to get Injustice 3 after all.

We all know the score at this point, I thought it'd be fun to create a poll. What are they going to do to Wonder Woman this time? Or, to put it less generous, how badly are they going to botch her?
Will they get ambitious and try to do better? Just phone it in and keep her as she has been? Get even worse somehow?

[Guy_McNichts]

Personally, if I had to bet on what WILL happen...probably nothing notable.

But I'll admit, there is a morbid part of me that hopes they get ambitious. While I don't think it'll fly for one minute, I would find it hilarious if they tried to dig Diana out of the hole they put her in.

[Gaius]

Ha, Great idea!

Honestly…rather non-plus’d at the moment. Mainly because WW’s getting her own game so I can’t say I particularly care anymore. So long as that’s good I don’t really give a shit what the hacks at Netherrealm throw out this time. What sucked about Injustice was in addition to being awful in its own right, DC was dead set on making Diana a thoroughly unlikable character between Injustice, New 52, and the Animated movies.

Now don’t me get me wrong. It will be terrible, WW in it will be terrible, the costumes will be terrible, the Tom Taylor comic will be terrible, Nuclear Holocaust Clown Lady will be terrible.

But there’s options now for me to blissfully ignore it.

[Frontier]

I wonder if they'll have playable Nubia.

[Vordan]

What exactly do you mean by “fix her”? Because we’re waaaaaay past the point of Warcrime Woman suddenly realizing she’s a villain. Both the comics and the games have cast her as just as evil as Murderman, and eagerly pushing him to be even worse. In Injustice 2 (the game) iirc her “tournament” ending is she goes back to Themyscaria and massacres the Amazons with Murderman in revenge for the Amazons imprisoning her after the events of the first game. In Murderman’s ending for I2, she urges Kal to kill both Bruce and Kara because they’re too dangerous to keep alive. There’s no real plausible way for her to have a crisis of conscience at this point.

I guess NRS could say Circe brainwashed her or replaced her at some point, they don’t give a damn about the comics origin Taylor gave her, but she’s not getting redeemed by Taylor. He’s writing her right now over in his Jon Kent mini and I haven’t seen anyone post anything on Twitter that indicates she’s being portrayed differently.

Best case scenario: I3 is the end of this timeline and then they reboot. A lesser but still acceptable outcome would be that NRS kills her and Murderman off and Conner and Cassie take their places as Superman and Wonder Woman. That’s all you can hope for.

[Nyssane]

What do I hope will happen? I've seen people mention that this version of Diana has really been Circe all along, and I like that. It elevates a WW villain and comes up with a reason for Diana's wretched portrayal in the games. Circe being a playable fighter would also put her among Ares and Cheetah (though I hope Cheetah doesn't get cut from the roster like Ares was). I'd also love to see more WW characters in the games like Nubia (who I guess could be a WW skin), Giganta, and Ferdinand. Speaking of skins, I hope they do a better job with Wonder Woman's costumes. The equipment from Injustice 2 looked, for the most part, meh. I'd love to see actual references to her various outfits over the years.

What do I think will happen? Wonder Woman won't be any different from the first two games, will get very little screentime, and will probably get killed off in the story to advance Superman's story. Cheetah will be cut from the game like Ares was last game, and there will be no new WW-related characters.

[Frontier]

What do I hope will happen? I've seen people mention that this version of Diana has really been Circe all along, and I like that. It elevates a WW villain and comes up with a reason for Diana's wretched portrayal in the games. Circe being a playable fighter would also put her among Ares and Cheetah (though I hope Cheetah doesn't get cut from the roster like Ares was). I'd also love to see more WW characters in the games like Nubia (who I guess could be a WW skin), Giganta, and Ferdinand. Speaking of skins, I hope they do a better job with Wonder Woman's costumes. The equipment from Injustice 2 looked, for the most part, meh. I'd love to see actual references to her various outfits over the years.

What do I think will happen? Wonder Woman won't be any different from the first two games, will get very little screentime, and will probably get killed off in the story to advance Superman's story. Cheetah will be cut from the game like Ares was last game, and there will be no new WW-related characters.

We had Ares in the first game and Cheetah in the second game. I guess it would make sense to have Circe in the third game.

[DochaDocha]

I read that it IJ3 wasn't a sure thing, just that they hadn't done it yet. Maybe the interview in question is more up to date.

Seeing how much they've rebooted the MK universe, maybe they'll do an IJ reboot. Heroes are still fighting heroes, but for a different reason. I'd bet on more of the same for WW, but I don't rule out the possibility that they change things up drastically.

EDIT: And this is why I think it's too bad that the DCU catalog is exclusive to NRS and WB Games. NRS prides itself on storyline. It's hit and miss to me, so I'd rather a developer like Capcom or SNK did this. Make the story tertiary like in the original Marvel vs. Capcom games or a "Dream Match" like KOF98.

[Guy_McNichts]

What exactly do you mean by “fix her”? Because we’re waaaaaay past the point of Warcrime Woman suddenly realizing she’s a villain.

Oh no, I do mean redemption. Or even just them getting her character to make sense, because Injustice Diana really is way off the map in characterization. As trite and lame as the dead Lois angle is, it is at least a motive for Superman to turn evil. Diana doesn't even have that, save for the "Steve was a Nazi" thing from the comic...which actually makes her becoming a fascist make even less sense.

Anyway, as I said, I don't think they'll try, but I'd be very entertained if they actually attempted to salvage Wonder Woman. And even if they do, I can't imagine them pulling off such an effort if they did for the reasons you mentioned and more. Hence why I included "try to fix her, but it doesn't work" option.

Funnily enough, I actually did create a thread some time back asking how Injustice Diana could possibly be salvaged, and coming as no surprise, most of the responses (including mine) involved some kind of manipulation or mind control...usually involving Circe.

At this point, Injustice Diana is a total car wreck. Now the fascination is in seeing how much worse it can get, how much farther it can run, or if they'll (futilely?) try to save it.

[Gaius]

I don't see any particular reason they'd try to fix her. The second Injustice game doubled down on her being awful in the same year her first movie came out, and I remember quite a bit of mockery when they tried to capitalize on it with a DLC skin of the movie costume but she still spouted "Heil Superman" quotes. So not sure why'd they course correct now.

If anything with WW getting her own game I can see them going even further because Diana in her own game, presumably, won't be a horny fascist so they'll need something to differentiate their version.

[Vordan]

Oh no, I do mean redemption. Or even just them getting her character to make sense, because Injustice Diana really is way off the map in characterization.

I was going to say there’s really no way to plausibly do that with what the story is for Warcrime Woman thus far… but you know what **** it. I don’t give a damn about this franchise’s godawful story, if there was a chance to retcon everything as Circe’s doing then so be it. Harley nuked a city and the ashes weren’t even cold before Black Canary and Green Arrow were paling around with her. There’s no logic in this crap anyway. Easiest fix I can think of is something like that one WW story where Circe retconned herself into being WW. Using magic Circe has altered the history and personality of Diana to get her to groom Clark into being God-Emperor and she was planning to dispose of Diana and take her place besides Clark after Batman and the Insurgency was crushed. Diana finds out about this and has her worldview shattered upon learning she was Circe’s Manchurian agent and attempts to undo the damage to both herself and Clark, leading into a reboot.

That’s about the best I can do. Least you guys have a video game coming so honestly it doesn’t matter what I3 does. These fighting games have like 4 hour campaigns, the WW game will likely have 20-30 hours. After playing that game everyone will understand that NRS are hacks when it comes to WW at least.

[Geraldofrivia]

First they should make Wonder Woman look like Wonder Woman. At this point just make Wonder Woman is actually the god of War and evil and roll with it. Wonder Woman being evil because she wants to sleep with Superman is the most sexist reason ever written. Her being God of War or a Fascist will give her more agency and make her look less pathetic. Also she should be given equal importance to the story like Superman and Batman

Realistically, We know none of this will happen and they will make her more pathetic and use her and her villains to prop up other characters.