Should WW take over DC's magic characters?

[HsssH]

This is coming from AA #3 thread where Fuzzy Mittens basically said that maybe Shazam characters should become secondary characters in WW's books. I have said the same half-seriously during the recent crossover with Shazam. And I wonder what other WW fans think about this idea?

But I don't think that we should stop with Shazam, after all during Rebirth it felt like JLD was WW's team so we can probably cover all magic related characters in this topic. You know, what about Zatanna? Or Xanadu? Demon Etrigan and so on.

And I want to stress one point. Idea here isn't that now in WW's book Shazam would be stealing pages from Cassie or someone else. Idea is that maybe Shazam would have his own mini or ongoing and Cassie could appear there and so on, but the book itself would be under WW's franchise or editorial.

And, well, Shazam book or JLD book or even Zatanna book is likely to sell beter tham Wonder Girl or Amazons Attack so it could lead to various WW characters actually getying more pages than they currently get.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

My opinions already kinda known but I feel like it has merit.
Like, whenever you have a street vigilante type character they typically get compared to Batman.
Green Arrows supporting cast frequently crosses over with Batmans.
Characters like the Question, Slam Bradly, and Black Cat are established to have histories with Batman and will either show up in his book or when they have their own stories, will not find it odd that Batman pops up.

Superman is the same thing for alien stuff.
He would show up or be a looming presence in stories for Naomi, Starfire, and Galaxy.
Characters like Dreamer are established to live in Metropolis because its THE town for aliens.
Whenever a member of the super family has a book, they typically have a few of the other alien characters as part of the cast.

And the same thing could feasibly work for Wonder Woman.
Theres certainly some precedence for it. Etrigan has been a supporting character in Wonder Womans book on multiple occasions. Deadman was a big presence in Cloonans run. They made a big to do trying to tie Wonder Woman to Justice League Dank.
I say lean into it. Let magic types have a presence in Wonder Womans stuff and crossover more. Push to members of the Wonder family in magic team books. Establish that characters like Shazam and the lot have ties to Wonder Woman, making it so that it could in a sense be treated like another Wonder book where Amazons could just pop up on occasion.

-

While this might seem to have its downsides such as downplaying Wonder Womans more sci-fi elements or drawing attention to other characters instead of Diana, I see it having more positives than negatives.

For one thing while Batman and Superman have their own focuses, its not like they wind up pigeon holed by it.
Batman frequently has adventures with wild sci-fi or magical elements, parts of the Batfamily have superpowers, and he exists well past his specific wheelhouse.
Same goes for Superman who has magic characters like Traci 13, metahumans like Omen, and street level threats to deal with.

So if it is balanced well, pushing magic characters and concepts into a connection with Wonder Woman would be able to highlight one side of Wonder Woman without burying the more science fiction side of things.

--

As for the possible loss of focus on Wonder Woman by highlighting other characters such as Zatanna, Xanadu, and Starblossom; it would have the possible boon of Wonder Woman popping up in their stories and establishing Wonder Woman as having a bigger role in the setting at large.
At the same token those characters would get more attention and would potentially be able to take off more on their own.

[HsssH]

Yeah, it shouldn't block WW from having non-magical stories. After all, characters like Shazam have science based villains as well and nobody is suggesting to throw them away.

[Primal Slayer]

I can only see the Shazam fam coming under the WW umbrella but other magical characters....not really.

[MarquisAsh]

I wouldn’t mind Zatanna being adopted by WW. She needs somewhere to be.

[Agent Z]

No.

Firstly, this would just overcrowd the Wonder Woman comics with characters completely unrelated to her, all while her own supporting cast goes ignored.

Secondly, this will turn a bunch of other characters with their own lore into Wonder Woman sidekicks which will only annoy fans of those characters. It will rob them of their own uniqueness and agency. And if these guys can sell better than a Wonder Girl or Amazons book, why are they mooching off of Wonder Woman?

I don't particularly care for how DC uses Superman and Batman to overshadow other characters within their respective genres either.

[Koriand'r]

My opinions already kinda known but I feel like it has merit.
Like, whenever you have a street vigilante type character they typically get compared to Batman.
Green Arrows supporting cast frequently crosses over with Batmans.
Characters like the Question, Slam Bradly, and Black Cat are established to have histories with Batman and will either show up in his book or when they have their own stories, will not find it odd that Batman pops up.

Superman is the same thing for alien stuff.
He would show up or be a looming presence in stories for Naomi, Starfire, and Galaxy.
Characters like Dreamer are established to live in Metropolis because its THE town for aliens.
Whenever a member of the super family has a book, they typically have a few of the other alien characters as part of the cast.

And the same thing could feasibly work for Wonder Woman.
Theres certainly some precedence for it. Etrigan has been a supporting character in Wonder Womans book on multiple occasions. Deadman was a big presence in Cloonans run. They made a big to do trying to tie Wonder Woman to Justice League Dank.
I say lean into it. Let magic types have a presence in Wonder Womans stuff and crossover more. Push to members of the Wonder family in magic team books. Establish that characters like Shazam and the lot have ties to Wonder Woman, making it so that it could in a sense be treated like another Wonder book where Amazons could just pop up on occasion.

-

While this might seem to have its downsides such as downplaying Wonder Womans more sci-fi elements or drawing attention to other characters instead of Diana, I see it having more positives than negatives.

For one thing while Batman and Superman have their own focuses, its not like they wind up pigeon holed by it.
Batman frequently has adventures with wild sci-fi or magical elements, parts of the Batfamily have superpowers, and he exists well past his specific wheelhouse.
Same goes for Superman who has magic characters like Traci 13, metahumans like Omen, and street level threats to deal with.

So if it is balanced well, pushing magic characters and concepts into a connection with Wonder Woman would be able to highlight one side of Wonder Woman without burying the more science fiction side of things.

--

As for the possible loss of focus on Wonder Woman by highlighting other characters such as Zatanna, Xanadu, and Starblossom; it would have the possible boon of Wonder Woman popping up in their stories and establishing Wonder Woman as having a bigger role in the setting at large.
At the same token those characters would get more attention and would potentially be able to take off more on their own.

I could see this working very well in a Marvel Knights kind of way, an alliance of heroes that share commonalities yet remain distinct from one another as separate properties.

Everyone gets more exposure, but no one feels their favorite hero (be it Shazam, Constantine, Zatanna, the Demon Etrigan, etc.) is being overtaken by the Wonderverse.

That's why she shouldn't be the headliner, call it "Darkstars" or something else equally inclusive. Stars are a Wonder Woman thing, but the branding isn't as obvious as putting "Wonder" in the title.

[kcekada]

I don't think of Wonder Woman as a magic-based character, so no.

[wonder39]

I don't think of Wonder Woman as a magic-based character, so no.

Yeah, this

I'm fine with there being an umbrella for those type characters if they're untethered, but not the Wonder Fanily
I really prefer for the universe to not be so entangled.

[Psy-lock]

I prefer WW to be as self-contained from the rest of DC as possible, so no.

[DochaDocha]

IMO, there's a slight distinction between being mystical/mythical and magic. The latter is more specific to someone conjuring up spells and whatnot, and that's not really up WW's alley. Furthermore, magic stories are rife with inconsistency, I think to some extent it does WW some disservice to burden the franchise with too much magic.

[HsssH]

I agree on mythical/magic part and in my opinion that is main reason why, at least to me, wide majority of JLD stories fail. Most of these characters have nothing in common with each other asides of being "different" to regular heroes or are former Vertigo characters.

But I think DC doesn't care about that and we might as well work with what we have.