Why Do Wonder Woman's Villains Suck?

[Agent Z]

You say that DC should embrace the public domain characters like Marvel does with Thor yet the only memorable villain Thor has is Loki and given that you wish to see Wonder Woman villains more threatening yet Loki is only intimidating with a army of aliens behind him. Let's face it DC has already scrapped the barrel on ancient Greek antagonists and the only ones that have seemed to stick is Ares and Circe and occasionally Hades.
Also I find it funny that you wish to see Wonder Woman less like Superman and more like Thor when the Marvel film studios are making the Thor films more like a sci-fi genre that looks almost exactly like adventures on krypton.

The comic version of Thor still uses fantasy/myth tropes. It's the movies that focus on sci if but that's due to the MCU wanting a more unified tone.

Also, Loki has been plenty threatening without an alien army in the comics.

[Outside_85]

So? Pandora was also powerful enough to alter continuity at the end of Flashpoint. Her weapons may be just as powerful. If anything, Giganta taking on Pandora may be a step up from fighting Wonder Woman as Diana certainly can't alter continuity.

She isn't that powerful any more, she doesn't even remember doing it, she was actually nearly killed by Vandal Savage before Giganta stepped in (wanting revenge for the eye).
Also, Pandora isn't the one that makes her weapons, it's some reincarnated lover of hers thats responsible for that... who Vandal killed btw.

I agree that "Who is Wonder Woman" is atrocious, and precisely because it makes everyone in the story look like an idiot, not just the villains. Except for maybe Circe, but it's hard not to look like a genius when everyone surrounding you is a moron. See also "Amazons Attack."
But up until that point, the WW villains stomping around like Kaiju wasn't really in character for them, at least not Cheetah and Psycho. In the issues that Brian K. Vaughn wrote where she battles Clayface, Clayface disguises himself as Cheetah and rampages around. Diana deduces fairly quickly that it isn't Minerva because mindless rampages aren't in character for her. If Cheetah and Psycho were established by Perez from the beginning as being mindless monsters I would see your point, but I don't see the point in ignoring better stories in favor of preserving the lackluster stories that nerf their powers and intelligence for no reason. And which are also poor stories in general.

Sadly in Cheetah's case, thats pretty much become her MO outside of comics, which are doing a huge job of shaping people's perception of her. Not helped at all by the New 52.
But however much it's not in her character to go on a mindless rampage, making long term plans hasn't been her forte either.
All that said, the Clayface story has a lot of flaws in it, so I am kinda hesitant about taking Diana's observations there as an undisputed fact.

I don't think it would be annoying personally. Justifying why Giganta was weaker in earlier stories that didn't amount to much at the end of the day hardly seems worth the effort. If whoever the next writer on the WW book writes a great Giganta story, why should they be shackled with having to explain away a forgettable Pandora comic? DC's isn't adhering to a strict continuity anymore, and while that might have some drawbacks, making it easy to ignore crappy comics (Hello Cheetah in Green Arrow) is a definite plus. Being too hung up on continuity is probably how we got stuck in the "Wonder Woman's Villains suck" situation in the first place.

Well, it would annoy me, simply on the basis of DC, its writers or editors seemingly having zero idea of where they are heading with the character. Does DC want Cheetah to be able to take on the League on her own? Or do they want her to get beaten up by Green Arrow and Batman? Who knows? And what we are also left with not knowing, is which version is it thats going to appear next and if she's going to pose any kind of threat to whoever she is facing?

You say that DC should embrace the public domain characters like Marvel does with Thor yet the only memorable villain Thor has is Loki and given that you wish to see Wonder Woman villains more threatening yet Loki is only intimidating with a army of aliens behind him.

You seem like someone who bases all of his knowledge on cartoons and movies. In the realm of comics, you may want to read up a bit.
Thor's PD-based enemies:
Loki
Surtur
Ymir
Fenris
Midgard Serpent (Or Cul if you want to go in that direction)
the Jotun

And yes, Loki only looks threatning when he brings an army with him... because Loki is a pantsy and a coward, but he isn't an idiot, so he knows he is going to need that army to take on Thor, the simple football hooligan. The reason hes taken off in movies is more to do with Hiddleston's perfomance.

Let's face it DC has already scrapped the barrel on ancient Greek antagonists and the only ones that have seemed to stick is Ares and Circe and occasionally Hades.

Have they now? Hmm, I'd say the Azzarello run disagrees with you that the greek mythological barrel is running on empty... especially not when theres like 3 times the amount of characters from myths thats never appeared in comics yet.
Hades isn't even considered one of her regular adversaries...

Also I find it funny that you wish to see Wonder Woman less like Superman and more like Thor when the Marvel film studios are making the Thor films more like a sci-fi genre that looks almost exactly like adventures on krypton.

And I find it funny you think I am even considering movies, when the problem is in comics. The DC movies will do fine, and because there are only going to be a limited amount of them, they are going to be a heck of a lot more conherent than comics.
That said, Thor as a Marvel character has the sci-fi element built into his creation because of Jack Kirby's perception of what these old gods might have been.

[Carabas]

In the issues that Brian K. Vaughn wrote where she battles Clayface, Clayface disguises himself as Cheetah and rampages around.

Brian K. Vaughn wrote Wonder Woman? When did that happen and how did I miss it?

[Billy Batson]

Brian K. Vaughn wrote Wonder Woman? When did that happen and how did I miss it?

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-nove...an-false-faces

[dshipp17]

Maybe not, but it gives more respect to the character that she is able to take it to that level.

While that is true, it only makes sense if those mortals act accordingly with the knowledge they are trying to take down someone that powerful. Like my recurring examples with Lex and Joker, they engage their nemesis' at a distance before the eventual confrontation ocurs, they fight smart and try to weaken their opponents while Diana's often try to take her head on... which by now is like running head first into a wall.



Depends if you choose to write him as such. Whoever wrote that Aquaman appearance certainly did boil him down to being a one-dimensional roaring monster. But I find it kinda odd to see you champion Psycho as multi-dimensional, when he has for the past 30 years been written as very one dimensional, he has his hatred of Diana and his psychic powers, and thats about it. The exception is his appearance in Odessey, where we finally see him without his cartoony level of evil he put out at all other times.

Which is also why Psycho is a relic; he's short and ugly, back when he was created, that was all that was needed to put one on the path to villany or a spot as the sidekick of some herculean exemplar. In his own way, Psycho should be as offensive to short people as the racially charged sidekicks of the Spirit and Hal Jordan were to their groups.
Tell you what, Psycho would actually work better today if he was a person of normal stature and average-to-good-looks, who has gotten a small scar or blemish on his face and simply couple it with a preexisting case of narcissism of the nth degree. That way, his uglyness is all in his head, and his own powers are simply driving him down that road that he thinks he's repulsive and now takes out his anger on people he thinks are undeservingly pretty.

Because in this case the marginazied group is being held up as villains and madmen, which is not how you include people in your community. And like you basically said; comics these days have the duty to be inclusive and be for everyone, but comics are not for short people if one of the very few characters with their condition is a sadistic madman. Wonder Woman served as a symbol in comics of what women could be. Short people deserve better than Psycho as their representative.

Hercules however, he is the direct opposite of what Diana was trying to achieve back in the day, he is the old system driven by masculin machismo where all the dude-bro's hung out and were totally awesome in their local clubhouse and all the women were totally dependent on these fools while stuck in the kitchen and raising the kids. Where Psycho is an attack on appearance and vanity, Herc attacks the message Diana was originally created to bring.

Bad idea to remove the fact the Dr. Psycho has issues with looks, make him normal looking with a psychosis, and disfigure him. The thing that should make many people feel empathy for him is that he has issues with his looks and cannot participate in normal social interactions with women, and why the shallowness of women formed him into a villain. His height is clearly not the issue here, it’s his ugly appearance that’s important; however, some short men I’ve met can be difficult to get along with, because they automatically thought someone was focused on their height; but, these were short men as opposed to Dr. Psycho’s height; I’ve met a couple of little women before, but, they were very pleasant to be around, at least for me. Dr. Psycho is the way he is towards women, because they are the objects of his trauma and struggles. The constant mockery and rejection drove him over the edge and made him into a villain. Thus, he don’t really hate women, he’s just acting out in hurt, because he’s unable to have the same social interactions with them as other men and people. Dr. Psycho was normal, at first; he saw women through normal, healthy male eyes. But, reality struck, as his ugly appearance prevented him from socially engaging with women the same way as handsome men can engage with women. So, stating that he hates women is just a mask to hide the real root of his pain; it’s similar to someone else in a different context doing something infamous to get public attention; Dr. Psycho is being infamous, as otherwise, he’d never get attention from women. Whether than misogyny, Dr. Psycho is infatuated to borderline obsessed with women, so Wonder Woman becomes literally irresistible for Dr. Psycho, except, he lack the skills to socially interact with her as a man, since those skills have literally been stunted to the skill level of perhaps a boy younger than 12.
However, removing that feature of Dr. Psycho and making him into a once handsome person takes away everything about him that made him special. He’s actually converted to someone who is not creative with the skill of interacting with women; while he once had the skill with his good looks, he can’t adapt to a change; he’d merely need a little advice to take the crick out of his issue; but, that makes a mockery of someone who really developed a trauma extending back to childhood; they are profoundly different situations, where the trauma of trying to interact socially, as a man, with women has rarely, if ever, been explored in entertainment media. Because of that, using Dr. Psycho would bring a certain uniqueness to the Wonder Woman comics that’s missing everywhere else and sure to draw in new fans, if handled skillfully; and with it, we have the added variable of gender politics, something that should be in the Wonder Woman book, just like discrimination is in the X-men book. By the way, in this respect, the Dr. Psycho introduced in the recent Gods and Monsters comic was a bad idea; I was just happy that Dr. Psycho had crossed paths with Wonder Woman. By the way, what issue did Dr. Psycho appear in Aquaman?

Hercules is handsome; yes, he has the traits that you pointed out. So, his indifference for women is the product of womanizing. The best examples of a certain flavor of a misogynist is a womanizer; they don’t have the ability to be infatuated with a particular woman, and, thus, fall in love with her the proper way; I’ve been in love with a woman this way before; she was my fiancée; I was totally infatuated with her and she was the center of my world; when I was in that state, all other women were viewed purely as platonic to me; I was not going to allow anything to even come close to jeopardizing my relationship with her. The key feature of a misogynist is indifference for women; I suppose actual hatred of women can by misogynistic, but, I think people really misunderstand the meaning of what it is to be misogynistic; hatred of women should more be grouped with something like sociopaths or psychopaths, while misogyny is more of an indifference of women; a flavor of it could involve not wanting to be outdone by a woman, which is the flavor of Hercules.

And, as I said, I think Dr. Psycho was very badly introduced by Perez; Marston had created a very good character that was multi-dimensional the way I described; that may have been a bit of my mistake, but, when I think of Dr. Psycho, I’m always thinking of the character Marston created. Actually, if you look back at it, Dr. Psycho was never actually given a background, when Perez reintroduced him, and, no other writer has given him a background or focused on his background, since Perez introduced him; so, you have to default back to Marston’s background for the character. Perez just reintroduced him engaged in a despicable act of messing with a baby; from there, he just leads out of an institution and uses his psychic powers to be a menace; no one has even given him a motive; the reader is just left assuming that he’s the same character that Marston created.

The way to upgrade Dr. Psycho into a threat is to keep it such that Wonder Woman is not immune to his powers, as was last the case in the JMS/Hester run. Remove Wonder Woman from Ares' role. Give Dr. Psycho telekinetic powers, along with his psychic powers. Revisit Wonder Woman’s pre-crisis weaknesses. Make her care about saving others. And, have Dr. Psycho mess around inside her head and become a major psychological issue for her (e.g. he becomes like a Shadow King for Wonder Woman, but, much more of a threat for her; when we have Wonder Woman in action it should be impossible to tell whether it’s real or Dr. Psycho messing around inside her head). Allow Wonder Woman to use her diplomatic skills to address Dr. Psycho. Eventually, Wonder Woman wins by making Dr. Psycho a repentant villain with her diplomatic skills, but, this would be after a long series of battles equivalent to the many trials the Joker has put Batman through.

[Carabas]

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-nove...an-false-faces

Very early work of him then. Nice. Putting it on the list.

[Carabas]

Hercules is handsome;

Have you seen New 52 Hercules? He's a 7' Dr. Psycho.

multi-dimensional

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."

The way to upgrade Dr. Psycho into a threat is to keep it such that Wonder Woman is not immune to his powers, as was last the case in the JMS/Hester run. Remove Wonder Woman from Ares' role. Give Dr. Psycho telekinetic powers, along with his psychic powers. Revisit Wonder Woman’s pre-crisis weaknesses. Make her care about saving others. And, have Dr. Psycho mess around inside her head and become a major psychological issue for her (e.g. he becomes like a Shadow King for Wonder Woman, but, much more of a threat for her; when we have Wonder Woman in action it should be impossible to tell whether it’s real or Dr. Psycho messing around inside her head). Allow Wonder Woman to use her diplomatic skills to address Dr. Psycho. Eventually, Wonder Woman wins by making Dr. Psycho a repentant villain with her diplomatic skills, but, this would be after a long series of battles equivalent to the many trials the Joker has put Batman through.

Most of that isn't upgrading Psycho but depowering Wonder Woman.

Also, this is 21st century corporate superhero comics. Status quo rules supreme. Repentant villains will just go back to how they used to be as soon as their repentance arc is over and done with.

[Darkgreed]

After looking at her rogue gallery, i do see a lot of improvement for some of these characters. with the right story line they could come back in a big way.

Veronica Cale- The Lex Luthor of Wonder Woman rogues. she can be the key figure to rebuild her Rogue Gallerey.

Mayfly- a speedster assassin, whats not to love about her. a killer Diana can't catch. you can do some good fights here.

White Magician- Magic users are always great to have, it means Wonder Woman needs back up to deal with his magic, hello Zatanna team up. or better yet make a Amazon mage character.

Osira - A powerful Female character, who can hold her own against Diana is always welcome

Dr. Poison - Joker meets scarecrow, she is a gimmick villain yes but with a team to help her she can be so much more.

Dr. Cyber - i don't have to change a thing. why is she not in comics now? i don't know

Silver Swan - Veronica Cale can make her

Cyborgirl - i like her story already i won't change it

The Mask - she could be a good villain to have. another Two face like character.

[dshipp17]

Have you seen New 52 Hercules? He's a 7' Dr. Psycho.




"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."


Most of that isn't upgrading Psycho but depowering Wonder Woman.

Also, this is 21st century corporate superhero comics. Status quo rules supreme. Repentant villains will just go back to how they used to be as soon as their repentance arc is over and done with.

No, it's not depowering Wonder Woman at all, because she was never the god of war before now; that was Ares; and, Wonder Woman was not immune to Dr. Psycho during Rucka's run or before Perez's run; actually, the writers, with Perez, depowered Dr. Psycho.

Is that Dr. Psycho in that scan? I take it, this is the Aquaman issue previously mention? The question was, what issue is it?

[Outside_85]

Bad idea to remove the fact the Dr. Psycho has issues with looks, make him normal looking with a psychosis, and disfigure him. The thing that should make many people feel empathy for him is that he has issues with his looks and cannot participate in normal social interactions with women, and why the shallowness of women formed him into a villain. His height is clearly not the issue here, it’s his ugly appearance that’s important; however, some short men I’ve met can be difficult to get along with, because they automatically thought someone was focused on their height; but, these were short men as opposed to Dr. Psycho’s height; I’ve met a couple of little women before, but, they were very pleasant to be around, at least for me. Dr. Psycho is the way he is towards women, because they are the objects of his trauma and struggles. The constant mockery and rejection drove him over the edge and made him into a villain. Thus, he don’t really hate women, he’s just acting out in hurt, because he’s unable to have the same social interactions with them as other men and people. Dr. Psycho was normal, at first; he saw women through normal, healthy male eyes. But, reality struck, as his ugly appearance prevented him from socially engaging with women the same way as handsome men can engage with women. So, stating that he hates women is just a mask to hide the real root of his pain; it’s similar to someone else in a different context doing something infamous to get public attention; Dr. Psycho is being infamous, as otherwise, he’d never get attention from women. Whether than misogyny, Dr. Psycho is infatuated to borderline obsessed with women, so Wonder Woman becomes literally irresistible for Dr. Psycho, except, he lack the skills to socially interact with her as a man, since those skills have literally been stunted to the skill level of perhaps a boy younger than 12.
However, removing that feature of Dr. Psycho and making him into a once handsome person takes away everything about him that made him special. He’s actually converted to someone who is not creative with the skill of interacting with women; while he once had the skill with his good looks, he can’t adapt to a change; he’d merely need a little advice to take the crick out of his issue; but, that makes a mockery of someone who really developed a trauma extending back to childhood; they are profoundly different situations, where the trauma of trying to interact socially, as a man, with women has rarely, if ever, been explored in entertainment media. Because of that, using Dr. Psycho would bring a certain uniqueness to the Wonder Woman comics that’s missing everywhere else and sure to draw in new fans, if handled skillfully; and with it, we have the added variable of gender politics, something that should be in the Wonder Woman book, just like discrimination is in the X-men book. By the way, in this respect, the Dr. Psycho introduced in the recent Gods and Monsters comic was a bad idea; I was just happy that Dr. Psycho had crossed paths with Wonder Woman. By the way, what issue did Dr. Psycho appear in Aquaman?

Hercules is handsome; yes, he has the traits that you pointed out. So, his indifference for women is the product of womanizing. The best examples of a certain flavor of a misogynist is a womanizer; they don’t have the ability to be infatuated with a particular woman, and, thus, fall in love with her the proper way; I’ve been in love with a woman this way before; she was my fiancée; I was totally infatuated with her and she was the center of my world; when I was in that state, all other women were viewed purely as platonic to me; I was not going to allow anything to even come close to jeopardizing my relationship with her. The key feature of a misogynist is indifference for women; I suppose actual hatred of women can by misogynistic, but, I think people really misunderstand the meaning of what it is to be misogynistic; hatred of women should more be grouped with something like sociopaths or psychopaths, while misogyny is more of an indifference of women; a flavor of it could involve not wanting to be outdone by a woman, which is the flavor of Hercules.

And, as I said, I think Dr. Psycho was very badly introduced by Perez; Marston had created a very good character that was multi-dimensional the way I described; that may have been a bit of my mistake, but, when I think of Dr. Psycho, I’m always thinking of the character Marston created. Actually, if you look back at it, Dr. Psycho was never actually given a background, when Perez reintroduced him, and, no other writer has given him a background or focused on his background, since Perez introduced him; so, you have to default back to Marston’s background for the character. Perez just reintroduced him engaged in a despicable act of messing with a baby; from there, he just leads out of an institution and uses his psychic powers to be a menace; no one has even given him a motive; the reader is just left assuming that he’s the same character that Marston created.

The way to upgrade Dr. Psycho into a threat is to keep it such that Wonder Woman is not immune to his powers, as was last the case in the JMS/Hester run. Remove Wonder Woman from Ares' role. Give Dr. Psycho telekinetic powers, along with his psychic powers. Revisit Wonder Woman’s pre-crisis weaknesses. Make her care about saving others. And, have Dr. Psycho mess around inside her head and become a major psychological issue for her (e.g. he becomes like a Shadow King for Wonder Woman, but, much more of a threat for her; when we have Wonder Woman in action it should be impossible to tell whether it’s real or Dr. Psycho messing around inside her head). Allow Wonder Woman to use her diplomatic skills to address Dr. Psycho. Eventually, Wonder Woman wins by making Dr. Psycho a repentant villain with her diplomatic skills, but, this would be after a long series of battles equivalent to the many trials the Joker has put Batman through.

I had picked this apart and addressed the various parts of it, but CBR's boards decided it shouldn't be posted... and I cba to do all of that again.

Suffice to say it boiled down to:
-Marston's Dr. Psycho was of a time when mocking people who were disabled or just different was good fun, it's not any more.
-I was referring to Hercules who appeared in Aquaman
-Misogyny literally means hated of women, Dr- Psycho has this. Heracles just has the everyday disdainful of what a woman can do.
-Dr Psycho can be fixed to remove the offensive elements (his height) without loosing any of the other bits just fine.
-Diana does not need to be depowered. What Psycho and alot of her foes need is a power-boost.

[Nyssane]

Osira - A powerful Female character, who can hold her own against Diana is always welcome

I would love for Osira to be brought back in a big way. An alien who considers herself a god and emits an impenetrable forcefield would definitely be a formidable opponent for WW.

[Outside_85]

I would love for Osira to be brought back in a big way. An alien who considers herself a god and emits an impenetrable forcefield would definitely be a formidable opponent for WW.

Speaking of which (Egyptian theme):

What if we got Isis back, as in Black Adam's former heartthrob, with all her weather powers and basically play her as an evil-ish Storm (Ororo)? As in making her this incredibly powerful human that's come to think of herself as a goddess and demands mortals bow down to her? Marvel does after all like to take DC's characters and change them a bit before setting them loose as villains for the X-Men and Avengers to fight with.

[Carabas]

Is that Dr. Psycho in that scan?

It is the physically so magnificently beautiful and perfect Hercules.

[Agent Z]

I'd use Theseus, Odyseus, Achilles, Ajax and Jason as villains. Heracles would have tried to stop them from enslaving the Amazons but would have died trying. The Big Five as I call them, would blame his death on the Amazons.

[Mel Dyer]

...Genocde and the First Born were basically just bent on destruction - not very original in the least bit. Nemesis was just boring on all levels. Mayfly was goofy looking and her name rivals that of Crazy Quilt. I do like few of Diana's newer rogues such as Dark Angel, Cyborgirl, and the Queen of Fables...

Doctor Poison and I haven't agreed on much, historically...

But can't argue that the Queen of Fables, introduced in the JLA comic, has been Wonder Woman's most compelling female foe, since the original Silver Swan! I would like very much to see her continue to be. However, I also find that much of her 'act'- chalky white countenance, defined magical abilities, ferocity, irony, etc - has been adopted by the new incarnation of Circe, who debuted in Men Of War #2. As much as I agree with Doc, I must also consider that having two so similar supervillains around might be redundant and superfluous - never-mind that it will probably confuse newer fans.

Thanks for sharing that, Doc. Some reason you couldn't mention Robo-seidon?