Villain Thematics & How They Reflect/Define Wonder Woman

[Guy_McNichts]

The best villains often reflect a certain aspect of the hero or challenge them on a philosophical and thematic level. I was thinking about Wonder Woman's various rogues and how they challenge Diana, looking for commonalities and patterns, and I've found the majority of them can be broken down into four major themes.


1) Humanity/compassion vs. the rejection of both
I'd argue this is the biggest one and the most important to Diana.

Cheetah became a monster, and as much as her powers are a curse, she's incapable of giving them up.
Giganta is a selfish person who relies on brute force, looks out mostly for herself, and believes "might makes right."

Queen Clea is despotic and cruel, and given the opportunity, would jump at the chance to be a goddess.
Osira actually did fashion herself as a goddess in ancient times and presumes to know how best to run the world over others by taking away their free will.

Devastation and Genocide both revel in how monstrous and destructive they are.

This theme isn't limited to magic & the mythic either. Doctor Cyber shed her humanity to become machine.
Even Egg-Fu is, depending on origin, a bio-mechanical abomination that sees himself above humanity.

There's the Adjudicator, a cosmic being that presumes to judge humanity.

Of course, there's Ares, a literal god. He exploits the worst in humanity.
Finally, you got Circe who is also immortal and sees the worst in people, believing them to be animals.

If you stretch it, you could even make a case Dr. Poison and Eviless fall under this category to a certain extent.

But they all, in their own way, reflect and challenge Diana's own compassion and idealism, and her battles with them reinforce that, despite her fantastical origins, she is human and humane.


2) Feminine power vs. misogyny & toxic masculinity
Given this is Wonder Woman, this theme naturally should be obvious, beginning with Doctor Psycho, a depraved misogynist.

You have Heracles who is often presented in Wonder Woman as an embodiment of toxic masculinity.
And despite DC's efforts at making him Diana's benevolent father, Zeus is far more appropriate as an embodiment of abusive patriarchy.

But it's not just men. The various Silver Swans have been women who have had their insecurities exploited to turn them into weapons of war. The Swan is everything Wonder Woman stands against even before Vanessa gets turned into one.

And finally Veronica Cale, who represents the internalized misogyny of women who try to tear down other women.


3) Perversions of Amazon beliefs
A recurring challenge Diana encounters is characters who, in some way, represent Amazon beliefs skewed or betrayed or twisted.

There's Alkyone, who was obsessed with destroying Diana.
Astarte, who claims to be Hippolyta's lost sister, who formed her own, violent Amazon tribe in space.

And there's Gundra, a Valkyrie who, in the Golden Age, supported the Nazis. Modern interpretations vary, but she's usually used to contrasts the Amazons with the Valkyries.


4) Truth vs. deceit
Given Wonder Woman's trademark weapon is the Lasso of Truth, of course she has foes who rely on lies and deceit.

The Duke of Deception, naturally, who works his lies usually to create division and conflict to benefit Ares.

Zara uses her abilities to con people into joining her cult. Hypnota brainwashes people into slavery.

And the Queen of Fables warps reality into her stories.

--

That's as far as I've gotten.
Of course there's overlap. I don't want to imply these are set-in-stone categories and characters can't address multiple themes at once. Queen Clea particularly despises men, so she can fit into the second category to an extent. Why does Giganta believe in brute force? Is it a response to misogyny? And Superwoman, appropriately as someone who is meant to be Diana's opposite, can fit into all four.

And you have rogues that don't necessarily fit into any particular theme, but can make for fun opponents like Angle-Man and Blue Snowman. Or maybe there is some strong theme to them?

Anyway...point is a sign of a strong rogues gallery is when they define the hero and what they represent. And when you have a strongly defined hero, you can aim the villains to oppose them in stronger ways instead of just throwing cardboard cut-outs at them to get punched.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

A fascinating subject for a thesis. And certainly correct that a strong hero is showcased by the villains they have. Obviously it wont work for everything, as some villains will be outliers in a rouges gallery, but a good case study all the same.


Personally ive tended to lump them into categories of
Product of a flawed society in need of change. (Cheetah, Blue Snowman, Helen Silver Swan)
Aspect of war and the rejection of peace. (Ares, Bombardier, Red Panzer)
Enemies who either embody an aspect of Wonder Woman, or exist as a dark reflection of it. (Baroness, Queen Clea, Genocide)
and outright anthropamorphic personifications of concepts and ideas. (Duke of Deception, Earl of Greed, Adjudicator)

[Gaius]

I know Grail is still a pretty divisive character around here but the sixth issue of King's run (and posts by Mantis Ray and Vordan) made the character click for me where she hadn't before. I'd say she'd fit into a category like 2 & 3, if Diana is someone where the most defining character in her life is her mother, than Grail, as the daughter of Darkseid, is the opposite where her mother is so irrelevant Grail pretty much abandoned whatever goals/aspirations her mother had for her and defines herself entirely by the fact she's the daughter of a patriarchal top god.

So she's pretty much the worst possible interpretation of New 52 Wonder Woman; empowered slay queen who doesn't really care about actually changing the world and everything important about her powers/skills wise comes from the men in her life.

Kind of related but while back there some talk in one of the rogues gallery appreciation threads about which WW villains fit/fall in to the seven deadly sins, so kind of relevant to the thread that I'd thought'd be interesting;

Greed: Circe, Cheetah,

Pride: Queen Clea

Lust: Dr. Psycho

Wrath: Ares

Envy: Silver Swan, Veronica Cale

Gluttony: Atomia

Sloth:

[Psy-lock]

I know Grail is still a pretty divisive character around here but the sixth issue of King's run (and posts by Mantis Ray and Vordan) made the character click for me where she hadn't before. I'd say she'd fit into a category like 2 & 3, if Diana is someone where the most defining character in her life is her mother, than Grail, as the daughter of Darkseid, is the opposite where her mother is so irrelevant Grail pretty much abandoned whatever goals/aspirations her mother had for her and defines herself entirely by the fact she's the daughter of a patriarchal top god.

So she's pretty much the worst possible interpretation of New 52 Wonder Woman; empowered slay queen who doesn't really care about actually changing the world and everything important about her powers/skills wise comes from the men in her life.

Kind of related but while back there some talk in one of the rogues gallery appreciation threads about which WW villains fit/fall in to the seven deadly sins, so kind of relevant to the thread that I'd thought'd be interesting;

Greed: Circe, Cheetah,

Pride: Queen Clea

Lust: Dr. Psycho

Wrath: Ares

Envy: Silver Swan, Veronica Cale

Gluttony: Atomia

Sloth:

Osira can work for sloth, since she wants to achieve world peace without any effort, but by just taking away people's free will.

[Alpha]

I find that most Wonder Woman villains need to be revamped, and in that sense I don't find it very useful to group them up, since what we would want is to focus on their unique drama. So I won't be able to contribute much, but I'm glad people are thinking about it.

Kind of related but while back there some talk in one of the rogues gallery appreciation threads about which WW villains fit/fall in to the seven deadly sins, so kind of relevant to the thread that I'd thought'd be interesting;

Why are people so fascinated with Seven Deadly Sins? That's just a list of things that christians didn't like, created in the early middle ages. It's not some kind of universal truth about humanity

[greatmetropolitan]

Years ago I idly thought of how I'd go about a Wonder Woman run, and one option was to frame her and her beliefs by comparing her to villains representative of opposing political philosophies.

Dr Psycho and Giganta - fascism, misogyny and the Leviathan state the domination of one being by another. Psycho represents control of one person over another, but not a hand of loving dominance, willingly submitted to, but conquering. he'd be mind controling Giganta (the leviathan state) as a metaphor for wide scale fascist government control and the patriarchy controlling women.

Ares - War, military industrial complex, interventionism, might makes right

Cheetah - state of nature, giving in to wildest impulses rather than the evolved thought of the Amazons.

Lex Luthor - Capitalism, America, the American Dream and the immigrant experience (Guest starring Superman)

Genocide - A gritty look at war in the DCU, what Diana does to head it off and the tragic consequences of it occurring

Captain Nazi - reimagined as an Nazi Shazam, a man who forcibly stole the powers of various celtic and nordic gods to make himself into a pseudo ubermench, the right's most popular populist superhero. All about truth, lies and control over the public. (Call the arc Truth, Social).

I'm sure I had more, and this isn't necessarily how I'd go about a WW run nowadays, but it was fun to think about.

[Gaius]

Osira can work for sloth, since she wants to achieve world peace without any effort, but by just taking away people's free will.

Yeah, sloth's kind of the hardest one to define so based on your interpretation it could fit a few characters.