Wonder Woman Rogues Gallery Appreciation 2021

[HestiasHearth]

Jesus Diana, this is why you use the Lasso and not a shield to disable people

I was gonna ask WTF Diana was doing there. Most likely written/drawn by guys who prefer the "badass warrior chick" Diana...

[marhawkman]

I love it when writers do stuff like this. It really helps put the story in perspective so that you know not just what is happening but why.

[I'm a Fish]

Jesus Diana, this is why you use the Lasso and not a shield to disable people

LOL, that’s Bloody Mary, she’s made out of glass and her face is always bleeding even before Diana put a shield through it. I also don’t think she can die since she’s already dead. (If that make anyone feel better )

[Gaius]

[Gaius]

Interesting interview from a while back (thanks to Last Son of Krypton) with Liam Sharp talking about WW and on getting to work on her villains.

MS: You completely revolutionized the look of Barbara Ann Minerva, the Cheetah. We got to see bits and pieces with Nicola [Scott] and Bilquis [Evely], but her character has been a major part of your storyline. What was your thinking going into that?

LS: We went through a few stages in the editorial process and I was working with [editor] Jim Chadwick at the time. Jim had a lot to do with that. I can’t take all the credit for it. He didn’t want her to look either too much like a full-on furry or how she had looked.

I got there pretty quickly. I did three or four designs, and in the first one, she pretty much looked like a human with a cheetah head. Jim suggested making her a weird hybrid between a human and a cheetah, something a little more eerie and a little more uncomfortable.

I got rid of the long hair because, to me, it didn’t seem appropriate for a creature that’s all about speed, you know? How does that even work? It also kind of looked like something that should have been left behind in the eighties. She was a little bit hair metal. It slightly made her look like a model that had been body-painted, rather than something truly terrifying.

She’s a cat. And cats have a lot of facets to them. I wanted to be able to do this thing where she could be cute and almost playful, like you could go and scratch her behind the ears. The next minute she’d be pouncing and taking down an animal of some sort, like an elk. Something really fast.

MS: We’re coming up on the conclusion of the story with your last issue (#23) this week, and you’re finally getting to draw Ares. Early on, I know this was something you were looking forward to down the line.

LS: It’s not going to be what people expect. It actually comes from conversation that Greg and I had really early on. We did go back to some really early sources for the reveal. He’s a very different take. That’s not to say I don’t get to draw the full-on version that people are expecting, but the rest will be a real surprise.

It’s key to the story, though. He is the lynchpin in it all.

MS: The bigger picture for the entire run has been about rebuilding both Diana and her supporting cast and villains. Is there anyone else that stands out to you in your process?

LS: The whole cast has been really interesting. I love Doctor Cyber and that sort of playful nature she has. They’ve all had an arc, you know. Cyber may be the cybernetic entity that runs everything, but Cale is her close friend. Maybe a little bit dismissive of her. But then you learn how she became Doctor Cyber and that was heartbreaking.

And then you get to see her furious, demented, and terrifying. That was fun! Even with that, I did one or two earlier versions, and there are hints of her old costume in that design, for the real long-term fans of this stuff who like to connect the dots.

Cale has been really interesting and is a particular favorite of Greg’s. And she has a hell of an arc. What Greg does really well is take characters that maybe we should hate, and give them such rich back-stories. You have to feel sorry for them. I mean, Cheetah is particularly heartbreaking, but if we’ve done it right, Cale will also be a heartbreaking story.

I’m trying to think if any of them are just out-and-out badass. Poison (Maru) is just a merc, so she’s pretty black and white, to some degree, but she’s a badass. I wanted to put some old school super-hero type cowls on her team because the book hasn’t felt at all to me like a mainstream super-hero comic. It’s been quite a unique book with it’s own universe. It’s almost felt like the entire series was just one special project.

The whole world is very rich, and that was something we were keen to do: make it feel like an inhabited space. With crazy detail.

[Vordan]

So uh has Cyber reappeared since Rucka’s run?

[Gaius]

So uh has Cyber reappeared since Rucka’s run?

[Vordan]

Damn that’s crazy. I hope Cloonrad are the ones to finally bring her back. Rucka finally “cracks” her for me like he did Cheetah, and nobody bothers to keep using her after that.

[Alpha]

I feel like Dr Cyber works better as a Bond villain type, rather than an evil A.I.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

Personally I feel like theres room for both.
Though theres a woeful lack of AI villains, and the original Doctor Cyber fills an important niche being Wonder Womans only Bond villain

[PopQuezy]

So uh has Cyber reappeared since Rucka’s run?

Cyber appeared in Robinson's run briefly.

[I'm a Fish]

I feel like Dr Cyber works better as a Bond villain type, rather than an evil A.I.

Personally I feel like theres room for both.
Though theres a woeful lack of AI villains, and the original Doctor Cyber fills an important niche being Wonder Womans only Bond villain

Considering how she was more playful, I could see Cyber adopting a Bond type villain persona for “lols”.

Or since she’s an A.I., she could make different versions of herself with different personalities.

[Gaius]

Damn that’s crazy. I hope Cloonrad are the ones to finally bring her back. Rucka finally “cracks” her for me like he did Cheetah, and nobody bothers to keep using her after that.

Well, in fairness that was pretty much the first time anyone used Cyber in a major way (no group shots or cameos) since pre-Crisis.

[The I.A.D.C.]

I prefer Cyber in her original Pre-Crisis form as a leader of an undercover criminal organization.
The evil AI just makes her Diana's version of Brainiac, an evil computer program.

[Vordan]

She can be both though, look at the pic Gaius posted. She can have an AI body to move around in, it can be synthetic meant to mimic a human one while still providing her increased strength.

I do agree she shouldn’t serve Cale anymore, although I’d like to think there would still be some embers of their past relationship. But Cyber should be working for herself now.