Wonder Woman Villains Sightings

[Gaius]

Thanks! That's odd considering how much development they gave Egg Fu in their Harley Quinn run. Maybe he's the only Wonder-rogue that they like. I thought with their love of obscure characters, they'd be mining Diana's rogues for characters we haven't seen in decades.

Reading the Connor/Palmiotti issues I just get the sense they wish they were still writing Harley Quinn.

[prepmaster]

The majority of the audience disagrees on that.

Like who? The villains whose goals are changed are generally the ones whose goals weren't considered very interesting to begin with.

I'd say its the opposite. It shows character development. It shows that the villains are reacting to what is happening to them. Goals changing (wealth accumulation to taking down heroes to taking over a city to saving the ones that the character cares about by all means necessary) allows much greater variety of storytelling. With Mr.Freeze, you have the same repeated story line of him trying to save his loved one from a disease by all means necessary. Every other character that has a wife/husband/loved ones can do that in just one story line. Having to save his wife as his goal all the times makes him boring. The thing about villains is that they are written as villains - meaning evil antagonists to heroes. You don't simply know everything about the villains as much as the heroes in terms of morals, psychological trauma, relationships, personal desires etc... I'd argue that villains are not allowed to be too fleshed out because that would mean they would not be useful as plot devices and make them less intriguing.

[marhawkman]

I'd say its the opposite. It shows character development. It shows that the villains are reacting to what is happening to them. Goals changing (wealth accumulation to taking down heroes to taking over a city to saving the ones that the character cares about by all means necessary) allows much greater variety of storytelling. With Mr.Freeze, you have the same repeated story line of him trying to save his loved one from a disease by all means necessary. Every other character that has a wife/husband/loved ones can do that in just one story line. Having to save his wife as his goal all the times makes him boring. The thing about villains is that they are written as villains - meaning evil antagonists to heroes. You don't simply know everything about the villains as much as the heroes in terms of morals, psychological trauma, relationships, personal desires etc... I'd argue that villains are not allowed to be too fleshed out because that would mean they would not be useful as plot devices and make them less intriguing.

If they become too interesting they end up like Harley and Ivy where people don't want to see them as villains.

[Agent Z]

I'd say its the opposite. It shows character development. It shows that the villains are reacting to what is happening to them. Goals changing (wealth accumulation to taking down heroes to taking over a city to saving the ones that the character cares about by all means necessary) allows much greater variety of storytelling. With Mr.Freeze, you have the same repeated story line of him trying to save his loved one from a disease by all means necessary. Every other character that has a wife/husband/loved ones can do that in just one story line. Having to save his wife as his goal all the times makes him boring. The thing about villains is that they are written as villains - meaning evil antagonists to heroes. You don't simply know everything about the villains as much as the heroes in terms of morals, psychological trauma, relationships, personal desires etc... I'd argue that villains are not allowed to be too fleshed out because that would mean they would not be useful as plot devices and make them less intriguing.

Decades of writing proves otherwise. Villains became more interesting because they were written less and less as plot devices with no personality. You even sited this as a reason for why Batman's villains were popular.

[kjn]

If they become too interesting they end up like Harley and Ivy where people don't want to see them as villains.

Not necessarily. It's a combination of shifting mores and values in society together with attempts to make the villains more interesting that makes people not wanting to see them as villains.

Villains like Penguin, Two-Face, or Doctor Psycho has all received good treatments that explore their values and personality, while their villanous status was preserved. The same is true for the way Rucka handled Veronica Cale and Barbara Ann Minerva/Cheetah.

[prepmaster]

If they become too interesting they end up like Harley and Ivy where people don't want to see them as villains.

Harley becomes popular so DC turns her into an anti heroine for profits. Ivy got tagged along to be a support cast for Harley but i don't think Ivy gets good character development from being coupled with Harley. As a concept, Ivy is firmly a Batman's rouge and basically a twisted version of the guy. But does Ivy have good stories as a villain against Batman? She is often used as more "change of the pace" villain in Batman comics. I find Ivy to be more utilized in non Batman comics than in Batman comics. With Ivy, you could write her as a villain in a story and its just part of her character, not the whole of it.

Also I find it problematic that people used to characterize her plant obsession as mental illness when a plant is small part of nature itself and we unintentionally mock someone who could have such great love for nature. This kind of characterization must be from the age where hyper environmentalists were seen as crazy plant obsessed people.

[SiegePerilous02]

There is a need for a pro-environmentalism voice in DC comics canon. But putting the effort into building up a new hero is hard and next to impossible, especially in this day and age, and Ivy is the most high profile character they have with that agenda. So it somewhat makes sense to go the anti-hero if not full blown hero route with her, even if characterization wise it doesn't make complete sense.

Take her edge away, there is no reason for her to be a Batman villain. He opposes her because she poisons people and feeds them to plants, not because of her basic cause.

[Mistah K88]

It makes Mr.Freeze a more sympathetic character but at the same time boring because his goal is to save his wife. Other villains can have goals that can be changed.

I wouldn't say Freeze becomes boring, but his background does have a shelf life for how long you can feel sorry for the guy. It's gotten to the point that recently he keeps getting called out for his deeds (He blamed his company/boss for his wife's predicament, but now it's pointed out that he was EMBEZZLING from the company for his personal reasons). It's like the opposite of Harley where instead of wanting you to forget that she was trying to take advantage of the Joker in her origin, they are really pointing out Victor's problematic behavior before he donned the suit.

It is a little disheartening that all we have to look forward to with Wonder Woman's rogues is being jobbed by a Batman character...If the jobbings were equal it'd be more forgiven (i.e. the Triumvirate of Terror episode of Batman the Brave and the Bold...Sure Wonder Woman was jobbed by Joker, but Superman was jobbed by Cheetah and Batman couldn't beat Lex...so it evened out)

[marhawkman]

There is a need for a pro-environmentalism voice in DC comics canon. But putting the effort into building up a new hero is hard and next to impossible, especially in this day and age, and Ivy is the most high profile character they have with that agenda. So it somewhat makes sense to go the anti-hero if not full blown hero route with her, even if characterization wise it doesn't make complete sense.

Take her edge away, there is no reason for her to be a Batman villain. He opposes her because she poisons people and feeds them to plants, not because of her basic cause.

It's an odd personality trait when a VILLAIN is the pro-environmentalism one Take Batman and Captain Planet, swap the villains from Batman to Captain Planet, and vice versa. The Planeteers wouldn't even bat an eye unless Ivy actually kills someone.

[PopQuezy]

In the above video, Grail is shown as one of the Wonder Woman enemies in this dedicated episode. The rest are Greek Gods and generic beasts; however, at least one Wonder rogue got added.

[prepmaster]

It's an odd personality trait when a VILLAIN is the pro-environmentalism one Take Batman and Captain Planet, swap the villains from Batman to Captain Planet, and vice versa. The Planeteers wouldn't even bat an eye unless Ivy actually kills someone.

You can kill innocents for sadistic pleasure and still recycle.

[prepmaster]

Take her edge away, there is no reason for her to be a Batman villain. He opposes her because she poisons people and feeds them to plants, not because of her basic cause.

Even if you don't make her evil and kill people for sadistic pleasures, she would still be an antagonist to Batman because he is a law enforcer and a protector human lives and no matter what kind of schemes she enacts or what kind of humans she targets, she is ultimately a law breaker and a killer. The conflict between her and Batman isn't just good vs evil but also ideological.

[SiegePerilous02]

Even if you don't make her evil and kill people for sadistic pleasures, she would still be an antagonist to Batman because he is a law enforcer and a protector human lives and no matter what kind of schemes she enacts or what kind of humans she targets, she is ultimately a law breaker and a killer. The conflict between her and Batman isn't just good vs evil but also ideological.

The protector of human lives thing is pretty much what I said.

There isn't too much of an ideological difference. Batman isn't against environmentalism, and aside from Gordon and a few others he doesn't bow down to the law. I don't think he'd prioritize taking down Ivy if she wasn't feeding people to giant venus flytraps. Wonder Woman would be OOC if she put up with Ivy's more extreme methods as well.

[Gaius]

In the above video, Grail is shown as one of the Wonder Woman enemies in this dedicated episode. The rest are Greek Gods and generic beasts; however, at least one Wonder rogue got added.

Odd that Flashpoint Wonder Woman is among the other WWs but I guess there's only so many alternate Wonder Woman that looks distinct from one another.

[prepmaster]

The protector of human lives thing is pretty much what I said.

There isn't too much of an ideological difference. Batman isn't against environmentalism, and aside from Gordon and a few others he doesn't bow down to the law. I don't think he'd prioritize taking down Ivy if she wasn't feeding people to giant venus flytraps. Wonder Woman would be OOC if she put up with Ivy's more extreme methods as well.

The guy himself is corporatism. He is among the wealthiest people.

Edit: Batman is the perfect hero but that should not make Bruce the perfect rich guy. That's the interesting part of his character - the duality of Batman & Bruce Wayne. He is among the wealthiest people, which means he is realistically among the top polluters.