LOL - Megan Fox: Wonder Woman a lame superhero

[Themightytom]

"consolidated" not "introduced". The theme existed before but sometimes he was your friendly nehborhood spiderman, sometimes he was your typical Misunderstood Marvel Mutant,,, The movies beat the theme to death so much at this point its on Spiderman's fricking letterhead.

Bill Spiderman LLC
"With great power comes great responsibility."

[Jim Raynor]

I too would like to know what "Spirit of Truth" exactly means. It's one thing to say the title, it's another to actually do something to show that it's meaningful. I get the feeling that a lot of writers, even the better ones, don't have a grasp of. I watched all of JL/JLU and the recent animated movie, and it was never explained, stated, or even implied (unless you want to reach for surface elements like the lasso).

As far as core concepts go, isn't WW supposed to be the feminist champion trying to show "Man's World" the error of its ways? She comes from a secluded female culture which is strong, independent, and supposedly more enlightened than us. That's something that I've heard about from all incarnations of the character.

I know there's another thread about how to make WW better ("not suck"), but here's my idea on how the character could be portrayed and defined in a new movie:

Don't shy away from the feminist angle, and tie it in to the concept of "Truth." Explain that the Amazons have lived in peace for thousands of years without the biases, hatred, superstition, political bullshit, and conflict that the rest of humanity has been unable to free itself from. As a newcomer to "Man's World," Diana sees all this stuff for what it is, and it all looks silly to her. She's here to spread to spread logic and peace, fighting when she must (I don't think fighting necessarily contradicts her goal of peace). Opposing her would be Ares, who revels in all of humanity's crap and adds fuel to the fire by influencing certain world leaders (one of the concepts I liked from his one JLU episode). To balance things out and keep the character from seeming too pretentious, have her experiences open her eyes toward her own culture's flaws. The Amazons are too isolated and too arrogant about their superiority over men. They're not as peaceful as they profess to be either.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm a more-than-casual but less-than-diehard comic book nerd, and I absolutely NEVER got the idea that Diana was supposed to be the embodiment of truth. She's usually 'honor' or 'justice' or 'feminine ability', and yes, sometimes truth, but that's never been apparent as her overriding theme.

Almost ALL Superheroes have a theme/core value that you can identify-

Batman: Vengeance
Superman: Truth, justice, America (tm)
Green Lantern (all of them): Law & Order/Right & Wrong
Flash: Fun and goodness
Aquaman: Get the fuck out of my ocean
Captain Marvel: Growing up
Spider-Man: Power Responsibility
Iron Man: Doing what you can to help the world.

And note, some of these guys (like Flash and Aqua-Man) suffer from the same terrible villain problems that WW does. But, they're still able to be compelling. Aside from JL/JLU Wonder Woman, I've never found her to be an interesting character.

[JME2]

And note, some of these guys (like Flash and Aqua-Man) suffer from the same terrible villain problems that WW does.

I'll agree with Aquaman's villains, but not so much with the Flash villains. The Rogues, if written properly, can make for a formidable, yet interesting group of super-powered thugs, as last year's Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge mini-series demonstrated.

[Pablo Sanchez]

...in fact, the only type of comics I've seen that would fit with your description is the type that are about and for men, and feature women only as ambulatory cheesecake. Shit, if Watchmen with its all-but-perfunctory female characters is considered a litmus test amongst women comic readers, what would happen if you gave them - on their own terms - a heroine on the level of Batman?

I should clarify what I meant by saying that there isn't a substantial female audience for superhero comics. What I was talking about was Superhero books not as a medium but as a genre with its own conventions and tropes. There are superhero books, like the Spiderman, Batman, Superman, or whoever's titles, and then there are fantasy/horror books like Hellblazer, crime books like Scalped or Criminal, and so on. You even basically admitted that the superhero genre is poisonous to the female audience because your response was to cite a bunch of extraneous shit like Sandman, a TV show, and mangas. I think to sustain a female audience's interest in a superhero book it would have to be heavily hybridized, because the typical superhero book story arc is "hero encounters problem, which he learns more about through study and deduction but ultimately solves with violence." Obviously there are embellishments but they don't go that deep. This is fine for Hemingway novels and the Punisher MAX imprint, but I think the audience for it is limited to nerds and the sliver of girls who like that kind of thing (they do exist, there just aren't very many).

I think it's conceivable to create a superheroine that could move a lot of books among women, but the title would need to be very different from superhero comics in the general sense, to the point that it would practically be a different genre altogether.

[Darth Wong]

Well come on, let's be honest: Wonder Woman comics just don't hold the interest of male readers because we keep waiting for her to be kidnapped by the horny tentacle monster of Pervertius V, and when it never happens, we get disappointed and don't want to read any more.

[Batman]

I dunno. Either there ARE enough male readers otherwise interested to keep the comic afloat DESPITE that never happening, OR the male audience which DOES hope it'll happen is gullible enough to keep reading the comic in the hopes it'll perhaps happen next issue despite it never actually happening in 60 years.

[Havok]

Honestly, I'll read WW every now and then in the hopes that I will actually like it one day. That day has yet to come.

Also, they need to keep a good artist on the book that knows how to make her strong, but still sexy. She gets made manly far too often.

[Eleas]

I should clarify what I meant by saying that there isn't a substantial female audience for superhero comics. What I was talking about was Superhero books not as a medium but as a genre with its own conventions and tropes. There are superhero books, like the Spiderman, Batman, Superman, or whoever's titles, and then there are fantasy/horror books like Hellblazer, crime books like Scalped or Criminal, and so on. You even basically admitted that the superhero genre is poisonous to the female audience because your response was to cite a bunch of extraneous shit like Sandman, a TV show, and mangas.

I know it's a quibble, and we may have been using different meanings of the word "superhero comics." I'm just saying that, just because the majority of superheroes comics are male-only wish fantasies, this doesn't mean that the core of the genre - its conventions, tropes and affectations - is or must be poisonous to the female audience, as you aptly put it.

What I was pointing out with my examples wasn't that these stories were somehow superhero comics by association, or some such nonsense. No, what I meant to assert was my thought there's not that much of a barrier between, say, Heroes and the X-Men comics aside from the medium they use. Sure, put it in printed form and you'll be alienating a lot of women fans, but I think that's largely due to low expectations, not the inability of the medium itself to tell entertaining stories.

I think to sustain a female audience's interest in a superhero book it would have to be heavily hybridized, because the typical superhero book story arc is "hero encounters problem, which he learns more about through study and deduction but ultimately solves with violence." Obviously there are embellishments but they don't go that deep.

I think you do have a point, but also, you couldn't have illustrated my own point better. Loath as I am to bring back Buffy into the conversation, not being a huge fan, I have to note that you just encapsulated the majority of its episodes. Buffy encounters problem, learns about it through study and deduction (with help from sidekicks, also a superhero trope) and ultimately takes down the big bad through violence.

[Vendetta]

I dunno. Either there ARE enough male readers otherwise interested to keep the comic afloat DESPITE that never happening, OR the male audience which DOES hope it'll happen is gullible enough to keep reading the comic in the hopes it'll perhaps happen next issue despite it never actually happening in 60 years.

Like most superhero books, they're kept afloat during the bad times because you can license the character to things which are actually profitable, like action figures, videogames, and movies.

[Batman]

I don't know about action figures and videogames but I don't think there have been all that many Wonder Woman movies recently and anyway wouldn't those mostly appeal to the same audience that keeps buying the comics?

[Darth Wong]

I dunno. Either there ARE enough male readers otherwise interested to keep the comic afloat DESPITE that never happening, OR the male audience which DOES hope it'll happen is gullible enough to keep reading the comic in the hopes it'll perhaps happen next issue despite it never actually happening in 60 years.

Like most superhero books, they're kept afloat during the bad times because you can license the character to things which are actually profitable, like action figures, videogames, and movies.

I'm sure you could get healthy sales for a videogame called "Wonder Woman in the land of the Penis Monsters".

[Patrick Degan]

I dunno. Either there ARE enough male readers otherwise interested to keep the comic afloat DESPITE that never happening, OR the male audience which DOES hope it'll happen is gullible enough to keep reading the comic in the hopes it'll perhaps happen next issue despite it never actually happening in 60 years.

Like most superhero books, they're kept afloat during the bad times because you can license the character to things which are actually profitable, like action figures, videogames, and movies.

I'm sure you could get healthy sales for a videogame called "Wonder Woman in the land of the Penis Monsters".

Or Wonder Woman Hentai...

[The Yosemite Bear]

Wonder Woman would make a great character in a satirical superhero movie, or a porno superhero movie. But in a superhero movie which takes itself somewhat seriously, she just doesn't work.

I thought that was kinda the original concept, on both fronts. Look at all the old covers where she's tied up-it's obviously closeted bondage fetish.

which is why I've always felt that a cloned Betty Page should play her.

[montypython]

I dunno. Either there ARE enough male readers otherwise interested to keep the comic afloat DESPITE that never happening, OR the male audience which DOES hope it'll happen is gullible enough to keep reading the comic in the hopes it'll perhaps happen next issue despite it never actually happening in 60 years.

Anime/manga is replete with series that don't necessarily have overt hentai in it with female protagonists yet have a strong male following; it doesn't even need to be an action series to do that. Kyoto Animation for example is (in)famous for it's various series, such as K-On!, Lucky Star, Clannad and Kanon.

[Ghost Rider]

Jesus Christ, can no one read dates anymore?