Should Heracles remain a villain past the Amazons' origin story?

[Psy-lock]

I don’t think he should have a big role in the mythos outside of the Amazons' backstory. His redemption in Perez' run was questionable, but at least it was implied that he wasn't in his right mind. His almost romance with Hippolyta definitely didn't age well though.

[witchboy]

Definitely. His evil acts against the Amazons just went too far for me to accept him as anything less than a villain.
Marvel already has a heroic Herc so keeping the DC Herc as a villain makes him a more distinctly different version.
I wouldn't be opposed to a future reboot replacing Herc in the story with Ares, but the last thing we need is another reboot.
On a side note I recently re-read the story introducing Artemis with the reveal that Hippolyta was secretly Herc's accomplice on the attack on the Amazon. Ugh I had forgotten just how bad that was.

[Sebastianne]

I believe that Heracles should be the main antagonist of the Amazons, a hero-rapist-murderer, typical of his time.
Like God already on Olympus, he shouldn't be a villain, but I do think that from time to time he antagonizes Diana because of the opposite look they have on everything.
I think he should be shown as a small-minded brute who often follows his father's orders or even his own destructive impulses.
Likewise, I believe, Heracles (yes, Diana's half brother) is dead in current canon, and so he should remain.

[HestiasHearth]

Is Heracles dead? When in DC continuity was he seen last? I am quite intrigued about the idea of him becoming a full-on Wonder Woman villain due to his long history with the amazons and his desire to make Hippolyta suffer for what Heracles thinks she did to him. Was it recently when he died?

[Sebastianne]

Is Heracles dead? When in DC continuity was he seen last? I am quite intrigued about the idea of him becoming a full-on Wonder Woman villain due to his long history with the amazons and his desire to make Hippolyta suffer for what Heracles thinks she did to him. Was it recently when he died?

He died at the hands of Grail in the James Robinson run, I don't recall him being seen again in the main Diana series. Maybe I'm wrong.

[HestiasHearth]

He died at the hands of Grail in the James Robinson run, I don't recall him being seen again in the main Diana series. Maybe I'm wrong.

Thank you very much. Oh, and yes, I also think Heracles is a great choice for official induction into Wonder Woman's rogues gallery. The seeds are all there, as his history with the amazons is fertile ground for a potential revitalization of Heracles as a great modern WW villan.

[kcekada]

I think Zeus and Hercules/Heracles can be both heroic and antagonists. DC had a Hercules series in the 70s that portrayed him as a hero. In pre-Crisis, he was supposed to be the same character that conquered Paradise Island -- but he also bestowed powers to Diana (which was confusing to me as a kid). But I think DC's Hercules matured and reformed over time -- and was mostly considered a hero -- similar to Marvel's Hercules.

I guess in mythology, the most heroic thing Zeus did was conquer the Titans who had exiled and/or eaten the rest of his brothers and sisters. For the most part, he was causing trouble -- as were the majority of the gods.

[marhawkman]

He died at the hands of Grail in the James Robinson run, I don't recall him being seen again in the main Diana series. Maybe I'm wrong.

Hmm wasn't there a continuity mangling after that? Is that still in continuity?

[HestiasHearth]

I think Zeus and Hercules/Heracles can be both heroic and antagonists. DC had a Hercules series in the 70s that portrayed him as a hero. In pre-Crisis, he was supposed to be the same character that conquered Paradise Island -- but he also bestowed powers to Diana (which was confusing to me as a kid). But I think DC's Hercules matured and reformed over time -- and was mostly considered a hero -- similar to Marvel's Hercules.

I guess in mythology, the most heroic thing Zeus did was conquer the Titans who had exiled and/or eaten the rest of his brothers and sisters. For the most part, he was causing trouble -- as were the majority of the gods.

Did Hercules really bestow powers on Diana, or was that just part of a logline that DC used for Wonder Woman ("stronger than Hercules, faster than Mercury, Wise as Athena")? Was that truly something that those mythological figures gifted Diana with during the Golden Age? I always vaguely recall Hermes/Mercury being somewhat involved in Diana acquiring powers, but never Heracles/Hercules. I could be wrong...

[kcekada]

Did Hercules really bestow powers on Diana, or was that just part of a logline that DC used for Wonder Woman ("stronger than Hercules, faster than Mercury, Wise as Athena")? Was that truly something that those mythological figures gifted Diana with during the Golden Age? I always vaguely recall Hermes/Mercury being somewhat involved in Diana acquiring powers, but never Heracles/Hercules. I could be wrong...

That was the origin in the Bronze Age, but it may have started in the Silver Age. One origin showed Athena, Mercury, Aphrodite and Hercules (some used Greek names -- others used Roman names) visiting infant Diana's crib and bestowing powers. It showed her trying to grap Mercury's sceptre -- and he promised her speed would surpass his own. She then grabbed Hercules's finger, and I think he said her strength would surpass his as well.

This was the Hercules that has long since ascended to Olympus after his death, so I think we are to assume he had come to regret his past actions.

[HestiasHearth]

That was the origin in the Bronze Age, but it may have started in the Silver Age. One origin showed Athena, Mercury, Aphrodite and Hercules (some used Greek names -- others used Roman names) visiting infant Diana's crib and bestowing powers. It showed her trying to grap Mercury's sceptre -- and he promised her speed would surpass his own. She then grabbed Hercules's finger, and I think he said her strength would surpass his as well.

This was the Hercules that has long since ascended to Olympus after his death, so I think we are to assume he had come to regret his past actions.

Thanks! OMG, I really have to re-read so many classic WW comics. I have forgotten many many details of all those stories!!!

[godisawesome]

I think I would prefer it if he were just a tired, gloomy, surprisingly introspective occasional guest star; play into both the amorality of Ancient Greek “heroes” on one hand and yet also how he was one of Athena’s students, and how he had a gender role reversal story with Omphale, and then have him be someone who observed and took note of how the world changed and how his actions could be recontextualized.

I think Zeus and Ares best fit the patriarchal and toxic masculinity types of villainy, while Heracles has a morally complex story even by Ancient Greek standards, including periods of losing his agency as well.

And I’m just not that in love with Perez’s take on his conflict with Hippolyta.

[Alpha]

I'm a little bit tired out of the debate we were having about Ares and I do think these two guys were making good points, but I will say this, if Athena and Ares both represent war (which is obviously debateable) Ares clearly represents the reprehensible side of it. And thusly, any leniency with him would be leniency towards the evil version of war.

I actually liked First Born in that role..... but whateves. There are other villains that need a push to be relevent and need a role to fill so we could just revamp someone else and keep Ares as someone not like your basic saturday morning cartoon villain.

Obviously I outlined that I wanted an intensely written version of a warmonger with the most defensible version of warmongering, but one that would be decisively against everything Diana stood for.

A good villain can be well written and have good arguments, even when his ideology is something that absolutely needs to be put down.

I can actually list some pretty good reasons to go to war.... defeating a tyrant, freeing slaves, defending your home from invaders... No one 'wants' to go to war, it's not a fun thing but it is justifiable and can be necessary. Does abuse work that way? And Ares represents all aspects of war, including the bad stuff. So, why only do the bad and not look at the larger picture?

Obviously I've already responded to this when I brought up solitary confinement. My only point is that abuse is certainly a gray area, but it isn't actually relevant to this conversation.

In some interpretations, he fathered four: Hippolyta, Antiope, Melanippe and Penthesilea. All with Otrera, the first Amazon queen, he was her consort and one of her patrons along with Artemis. He gave Hippolyta the girdle that Hercules stole and was not at all happy with Hercules for killing his daughter. Yet Hercules is hailed as the hero, and Ares is overall considered a bad guy in Greek myth. But then, so are the Amazons.

I've heard so many people in this forum talk about the amazons being evil in the Greek Myths, but I'm actually not familiar with that so I would really like to understand how thta manifests in those stories. Because Greek Myths aren't usually about good and evil, they are usually about the nature of power. Who has it and how to survive and possibly prosper in it. Usually the conclusion being "you can challenge those in power, and you may succeed for a while, but eventually you will fail"

You can think it's weird all you want, take it up with the ancient Greeks. They had him represent brutality and slaughter, yet he still killed Poseidon's son in retaliation for raping his daughter and was acquitted by the other Gods for it. Despite being viewed as the least redeemable God, he didn't commit any rapes, and at least somewhat supported empowered women like the Amazons.

Obviously most of the stories we read now come not from religious texts, but from how Greek writers rewrote those gods after many centuries of worship. The Illiad is somewhere between Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ.

From a modern viewpoint, whether they intended it or not, the Greeks characterized Ares as being less crappy than some of the other Olympians, so if WW comics were to treat him as somewhat more honorable (at least compared to his father), it'd be in keeping with how Wonder Woman flips a lot of the perspectives on the Greek myths

Recognizing the religion has never been a priority for the Wonder Woman comics, from Marston to Perez, I don't see any great need for it to start happening now. People shouldn't be looking to American pop entertainment for serious fealty to religion. The Gods are treated as characters/tools for a story first and foremost, not objects of religious worship. Even in some of their ancient stories, some of the characterizations varied.

That's a fair assessment, but god of slaughter and brutality isn't just a detail of religious continuity. These gods were concepts. What Greek Myth tells the story of Hera as the patroness of women during childbirth? Doesn't the whole "redeeming Hera" come from her Domain? What's redeemable about Hera in the Greek stories?

Who's saying the abusive characters aren't as complex? Ares at most being a "lighter shade of black" compared to Zeus and Hercules wouldn't make the latter two less complex just because they have less redeemable moments (and even in Ares's case, the redeemable moments would be mild and few).

Well I was literally responding to you saying "Ares was more complex", but I understand now that you didn't mean Zeus and Hercules should be written with less complexity, just as more antagonistically. That said, To me the idea of not putting Ares as an Ideological catastrophe next to Zeus is unacceptable.

[marhawkman]

it's like the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance thing with Senator Armstrong. He HAs a good point... just a terrible idea for how to fix the problem he identified.

[John Venus]

Marvel already has the loveable heroic Herc and I figures that if anyone else were to tell the story of Hercules, he would be an admirable hero and the Amazons would be portrayed as brutes and inconsequential characters.

With the WW franchise you have the opportunity to do a different take on Hercules. Explore the darker sides of his character that gets glossed over in retellings. Myths are meant to reinterpreted multiple ways. There has been a bunch of evil Superman no why not Hercules? Plus there has been even wilder reinterpretations of Hercules like the Disney version for example.