As a Wonder Woman Fan, Does it Bother You if Diana Kills?

[Citizen Kane]

My question is the same as posed in the title. Personally, as someone who never grew up reading Wonder Woman comics, seeing Diana stab and kill people with her sword or anything of the like never really phased me. I'm just curious of the people who have been a Wonder Woman fan longer than myself, and what they think about the issue. I see lots of stories either portraying Diana as being more level-headed and less likely to resort to violence, or the other depictions that show her thinking with her sword first. Obviously, this can become a little confusing, especially if readers see Wonder Woman as being one way and not the other. I'm interested in seeing your replies and what insights you can provide regarding the issue. Thank you for your time!

[Dr. Poison]

I don't see Wonder Woman killing except in extreme circumstances, after she's tried diplomacy and offering out her hand. Now, if all of this fails, then I can see her resorting to killing but it should be rarely.

[Nyssane]

Depends on the situation.

Should she be killing Biff the Armed Robber when she could easily subdue him and hand him off to the authorities? Abso-effing-lutely not.

Should she be killing a mythical monster who she knows will bring mass murder at every opportunity they get? Sure.

Because Diana is such an experienced and skilled warrior, I think she's able to decipher whether her opponent can be stopped through reasoning (or nonlethal combat). If they can't, like Max Lord or Medusa, she has no other option -- she has to kill them to save countless lives.

[Gaius]

What Nyssane said, depends on the situation.

I'm more annoyed when "Diana kills" is used as a point to buildup how great Batman and Superman are for their no-kill codes.

Also when has Diana ever been Ares' daughter?

[SiegePerilous02]

Depends on the situation.

Should she be killing Biff the Armed Robber when she could easily subdue him and hand him off to the authorities? Abso-effing-lutely not.

Should she be killing a mythical monster who she knows will bring mass murder at every opportunity they get? Sure.

Because Diana is such an experienced and skilled warrior, I think she's able to decipher whether her opponent can be stopped through reasoning (or nonlethal combat). If they can't, like Max Lord or Medusa, she has no other option -- she has to kill them to save countless lives.

Nailed it. I didn't vote because it's neither yes nor no, but I certainly do care. Writers like Perez, Rucka and Simone have written Diana with a willingness to kill if she has to as a last resort and not have any regrets. Max and Medusa are the best examples of this. But she also has restraint and has no desire to kill if she has plenty of other options, and someone of her power level certainly does. Jenkins Wonder Woman movies actually have a good arc in place for that. In the first film she's in a war time setting and hasn't fully unlocked her powers yet, so she's fighting and killing as an Amazon warrior. By the second film she's at full power and more experienced, so despite the film's other problems, her avoiding killing anybody was a good grasp on the character.

Other takes miss this nuance. Johns wrote Diana as being almost eager to hack people up and behead them early on the New 52, no diplomacy in sight. Snyder had her kill a bunch of human criminals and cause needless property damage because he thought it was cool, no other reason. She should never be that casual about it, even if the people she's killing are despicable (like the criminals in the movie). Rucka did a similar scene in Year One, where she was only just unlocking her powers and managed to avoid killing a single person.

Sometimes introducing the idea of her willingness to kill doesn't seem worth it. Only three writers have actually been able to do it well in all this time we've had it

[Citizen Kane]

Also when has Diana ever been Ares' daughter?

A mistake on my part. I seem to be misremembering a line from the Injustice game where Ares claims kinship with Diana (which I believed was referring to a Father/Daughter dynamic, but it probably was referring to either the half-sibling dynamic or the grandfather angle). It didn't help that Diana was the goddess of war for a time. Just goes to show that doing your due diligence to confirm certain statements can prevent such embarrassments. I'm prepared to accept the ridicule ad infinitum.

(If I'm being honest, the Ares-Father angle sounds way cooler than the Zeus origin. I mean, we could get some neat stories about Diana struggling to choose between her duty as a member of the Justice League and as an ambassador to the world of mankind or her nature as the daughter of the god of war.)

[Koriand'r]

You can always tell when people don't read Wonder Woman because they'll invariably use the word "Amazonian".

[Frontier]

I prefer that she only uses lethal force as an absolute last resort and against a threat where it is required and she's exhausted all other options. Otherwise she absolutely doesn't use lethal force.

Like in Bloodlines when she only killed Medusa after she tried everything in her power to talk her down.

Making her more open to killing just takes away from her compassion and peaceful methodology she learned from Themyscira and just makes her warrior Wonder Woman whose always swinging a sword.

This is not Wonder Woman:

[Citizen Kane]

You can always tell when people don't read Wonder Woman because they'll invariably use the word "Amazonian".

My reputation precedes me.

[Koriand'r]

To answer the question, nope not at all as long as they're not humans. Gods and monsters are fine, even "human" monsters.

[Nyssane]

Making her more open to killing just takes away from her compassion and peaceful methodology she learned from Themyscira and just makes her warrior Wonder Woman whose always swinging a sword.

I think this is important. Compassion (for me) is Diana's defining characteristic, so it really miffs me when writers forget that and have her ready to kill anyone who even looks at her wrong.

The New 52 did a LOT of damage to Diana. Not only did we get that dreadful panel from Justice League, but we also had Diana casually chopping off centaur arms really early in Azz's run.

[I'm a Fish]

Hmmm, well my short answer would be "yes, unless she really has to", but I remember a time when the answer would have been "It doesn't matter to me" since my first ever introduction to the character was the animated Wonder Woman (2009) movie and my first comic introduction to the character was the first volume of Nu52 Justice League both of which paint Diana is a more aggressive light, and I wasn't reading much Wonder Woman at the time.

But, it does now...it's hard to put into words why, but I think, upon reading the older issues off Wonder Woman, I see a character who frequently tackled political issues and more nuanced themes be repurposed into someone who would rather simply solve their problems through violence and violence alone. That is, of coarse, a slight over exaggeration on my part and I am referring more to the recent DCAU movie universe than anything when I discuss that version of the character. Although, the comics certainly have their fair share of that depiction.

Basically I guess, (and I'm really not trying to offend anyone who likes this version of Wonder Woman) I see that version of the character as an insult to the audiences intelligence, that we should be satisfied with a character so one-dimensional. A character who's original mission was to reform villains, and considering the incarceration epidemic in present day America, is a version of the character I think is needed now more then ever.

I really don't know why, a character who was created to appeal to children in the 40's, addressed more complex issues about war, self-esteem, fake news, gender-norms, ect., than anything DC seems comfortable with the character portraying now in a mass-media market and larger comic titles. (I honestly feel that is true with most superheroes and not just Wonder Woman, at least both of her movies did make such attempts to explore deeper themes).

But, I also simultaneously approach comics with a mindset that the entertainment value is what is most important. (I do read silver-age stories after all, but those stories are so bazar that I am rarely board by them.) But I have never believed media needs to be void of complex topics and themes to be entertaining, I find quite the opposite to be true in fact. Which is mainly why I advocate for a cartoon or tv show, so we would have room to explore these themes in greater detail.

~Anyway, that's my rant~

[Gaius]

I prefer that she only uses lethal force as an absolute last resort and against a threat where it is required and she's exhausted all other options. Otherwise she absolutely doesn't use lethal force.

Like in Bloodlines when she only killed Medusa after she tried everything in her power to talk her down.

Making her more open to killing just takes away from her compassion and peaceful methodology she learned from Themyscira and just makes her warrior Wonder Woman whose always swinging a sword.

This is not Wonder Woman:

And yet.

[Perseus]

Like what Nyssane said, it really depends on the situation at hand. Diana's sense of morality and wisdom lets her make good judgements, when she's written properly.

Most situations Diana is in she can fight the villain and win without lethal force. Add on to the fact that most of her villains are not so far gone that rehabilitation is off the table. I do also agree that a lot of writers will flat out ignore her compassionate side in a vain attempt to make her "look cool" to people who think being kind is a weakness.

In the cases of Maxwell or Medusa or Triton or frankly any New God from Apokalypse, I don't have a problem with Diana killing. Not being able to rehabilitate everyone is a good lesson and a wise one at that. And realizing that a villain has gone to far for any kind of jail time to mean anything doesn't make Diana a monster or morally bankrupt. At some point you can't justify the actions of monsters, and some monsters need to die.

[Perseus]

This is not Wonder Woman:

That's a lazy writers excuse for not utilizing a hero's villains.