Female Role Models in DC Universe

[HarleenQuinnzel]

What female DC character is your role model? Girls and guys please answer! And don't forget to give your reasons why.

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

Wonder Woman. If a villain goes too far, or poises her with a sadistic choice she actually kills the f***er and saves lives, and when the entire superhero community chews her out for it (because they become naive idiots with a childish view of the world when it comes to the "one rule") she refuses to apologise for what was an utterly sensible and heroic decision.

 

[HarleenQuinnzel]

Wonder Woman embodies what modern feminists should embody. She acknowledges the flaws of men's attitudes towards women in all sorts of cultures, but she is also a defender of men. She is feminine, she is tough enough to defend herself and others, she is intellectual, she is a leader, and she does not use her attraction as a tool of manipulation as say, Poison Ivy does.

My favorite Wonder Woman moment is in Justice League of America, the New Frontier. She rescues a group of women who suffered horribly. The men of their village were killed along with all the children, and they were used as sex slaves. She allows the women to take up arms and kill the men who harmed them. Superman argues that she has become a vigilante and she replies, "I have to do what I think is right." Wonder woman gave the women the right to choose to defend themselves, to gain revenge for those they lost, or to have mercy.

 

[Mystirious]

Can I have two favourites

I'mma post two favourites

Batwoman

Because she is a strong powerful confident and selfless person. Because she risks everything to protect others and make sure no one goes through the same loss she did. As both Batwoman and Kate Kane she has spent her life trying to protect people first by joining the army then by putting on the costume and becoming another of Gotham's caped crusaders

And as an out and proud lgbt woman I admire Kate for being the same for not being ashamed of her sexuality or hiding in the closet even though being open about it cost her her millitary career.

Wonder Woman

For all the reasons posted above and more I loves her with all my love and think she is one of the most wonder-ful heroines in comic books

 

[fifthfiend]

Wonder Woman. If a villain goes too far, or poises her with a sadistic choice she actually kills the f***er and saves lives, and when the entire superhero community chews her out for it (because they become naive idiots with a childish view of the world when it comes to the "one rule") she refuses to apologise for what was an utterly sensible and heroic decision.

Until the villain comes back from the dead anyway, making her decision to become a cold-blooded murderer meaningless and idiotic, just as it always was and was going to be.

 

[HarleenQuinnzel]

Yeah Wonder Woman's a bad-assThanks for the heads up on Batwoman Mystirious. I honestly haven't ever looked into her much, but it sounds like she has a really original story!

 

[Two-Face=Badass]

Until the villain comes back from the dead anyway, making her decision to become a cold-blooded murderer meaningless and idiotic, just as it always was and was going to be.

I fail to see how putting a villain out of action for quite a while is any less effective than shoving them in Arkham where they will return weeks, not years, later. And again, I'm astonished there are still people out there who think her killing of Max Lord to SAVE THE WORLD makes her a "cold blooded murderer". Preachy comics do that to some people I guess.

 

[SuperFerret]

Yeah, Diana twisting Max's head around wasn't cold-blooded murder. She's a warrior for one, and Max essentially declared war on the superhero population. Also, Max was wielding a deadly weapon, hell, he was wielding a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION when Diana killed him, AND he was poised to use it to kill her and others, so even if she was held to the same level of conduct a police officer is, she's in the right.

 

[Manic]

Wonder Woman is unique in that she's both the most practical superhero when it comes to using deadly force, and she tends to be more compassionate toward villains she sees as misguided. She adjusts her attitude depending on what type of supervillain she's dealing with. She's both a lover and a fighter, basically.

 

[hippie_hunter]

Yeah, Diana twisting Max's head around wasn't cold-blooded murder. She's a warrior for one, and Max essentially declared war on the superhero population. Also, Max was wielding a deadly weapon, hell, he was wielding a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION when Diana killed him, AND he was poised to use it to kill her and others, so even if she was held to the same level of conduct a police officer is, she's in the right.

Yes it was. Max was defeated and he let Superman go from his control. He could have been easily imprisoned in the Watchtower with psychic dampeners to make sure that he wouldn't take control of anyone again, but Wonder Woman decided to break the neck of a man tied up.

 

[Manic]

Even though Maxwell was tied up, he still had a superpower that made him an imminent threat to Diana and others at the time Diana killed him. That could be argued as justifiable homicide.

 

[fifthfiend]

I fail to see how putting a villain out of action for quite a while is any less effective than shoving them in Arkham where they will return weeks, not years, later.

Yes you do; and the reason you fail at it because of your general inability to grasp the distinction between reality and fiction.

You see in fiction, which is imaginary, and also made up, these characters return from death in exactly the amount of time it would take them to escape from Arkham, because they return at exactly the moment the writers - who make up the fictional stories of the things that these imaginary characters do - decide to have them come back again.

In reality, it is indeed impossible to escape from death, much as it is actually very nearly impossible for criminals to escape from prison, as demonstrated by the almost no real criminals who successfully do so, which is why we as a society confidently place people into prisons all the time, without having to viciously murder them.

Whereas in fiction, characters achieve the impossible feat of returning from death when the writer writing them feels like having them return from death, much as they achieve the for all practical purposes impossible feat of escaping from prison whenever the writer writing them feels like having them escape from prison.

I'm astonished there are still people out there who think her killing of Max Lord to SAVE THE WORLD makes her a "cold blooded murderer".

She sure did successfully save the world from the threat of Max Lord who is currently alive and posing a greater threat than ever to the world.

Yeah, Diana twisting Max's head around wasn't cold-blooded murder. She's a warrior for one, and Max essentially declared war on the superhero population. Also, Max was wielding a deadly weapon, hell, he was wielding a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION when Diana killed him, AND he was poised to use it to kill her and others

Wonder Woman murdered a subdued captive, who was beaten and had surrendered, in deliberate cold blood, even though he posed no threat at the time, based solely on the possibility that, if she were not to murder him, he might pose such a threat again in the future. This was all explicit in the scene where this occurred, and was made explicit because it was the entire point of that scene.

 

[SuperFerret]

Yes it was. Max was defeated and he let Superman go from his control. He could have been easily imprisoned in the Watchtower with psychic dampeners to make sure that he wouldn't take control of anyone again, but Wonder Woman decided to break the neck of a man tied up.

Not the way I read it. Sure, Clark wasn't under his direct control, but Max could regain it at any time, and he wasn't exactly defeated either.

One of the things DC does better than Marvel is their use of telepaths. There are relatively few of them in the DCU and most of them are ridiculously dangerous to those around them. So even though Max was tied up and physically helpless, he was still a threat to the world at large and he needed to die.

But regardless of what the legal term for it would be, she killed him, and she was morally right in doing so. It's too bad the cockroach didn't stay dead.

 

[SuperFerret]

Wonder Woman murdered a subdued captive, who was beaten and had surrendered, in deliberate cold blood, even though he posed no threat at the time, based solely on the possibility that, if she were not to murder him, he might pose such a threat again in the future. This was all explicit in the scene where this occurred, and was made explicit because it was the entire point of that scene.

I'll repeat. I don't see him as defeated, and good, he deserved to die.

 

[fifthfiend]

Your approval of premeditated murder for the sake of vengeance is noted.

 

[The Question]

While I don't believe in killing people because they "deserve it," I have to say that Wonder Woman took the only option available to her. There was no other way of stopping Max from using Superman as a weapon than killing him.

 

[SuperFerret]

Your approval of premeditated murder for the sake of vengeance is noted.

I believe in the death penalty too. Moreso for supervillains.

While I don't believe in killing people because they "deserve it," I have to say that Wonder Woman took the only option available to her. There was no other way of stopping Max from using Superman as a weapon than killing him.

What he said.

 

[fifthfiend]

I believe in the death penalty too. Moreso for supervillains.

Sooner or later these conversations always seem to come around to the people trying to argue that premeditated cold-blooded murder somehow isn't premeditated cold-blooded murder, or that there's just no practical option aside from premeditated cold-blooded murder, admitting that actually they just rilly rilly wanna see sum murdurz.

Which I mean, that's at least a position, and not a pretense argued in bad faith, so it'd be nice if we could just skip right to that in the future.

 

[SuperFerret]

Nope. I don't want to just see some people die, in fact, I'd prefer they don't show me. I would like to know about it, and I would like the punishment be as cruel as the crime. It may not be the most practical way to solve things, nor is it necessarily the right thing to do in every case, but sometimes, some people need to die.

Would you argue for someone like the Joker to not be put down?

 

[fifthfiend]

Would you argue for someone like the Joker to not be put down?

Can you give me a reason for murdering the Joker that isn't actually a reason for 1. sending him to jail and 2. having him stay there, given that the latter is exactly as likely to last as any attempt to permanently murder him?

 

[SuperFerret]

Wait, are we talking for real or comic book?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I would assume comic book, since people don't usually recover from death in real life...

 

[fifthfiend]

In either, actually, as long as we're comparing either real-world death to real-world jail or comics death to comics jail, and not making another attempt to compare the clownish caricature of the prison system in comics to some real-world permanent death which bears little resemblance the hilariously fluid version of mortality portrayed in pretty much every comics universe.

EDIT: Like just as a for instance, we as a society have managed to engineer what has shown to be a pretty damn permanent real-life fate for this person who was convicted of killing a tiny, tiny fraction of the number of people the Joker has killed over the years, much as we have somehow beaten the odds to ensure that this criminal mastermind has failed to engineer his brilliant escape from our prison system for nearly forty years.

 

[Mystirious]

Yeah Wonder Woman's a bad-assThanks for the heads up on Batwoman Mystirious. I honestly haven't ever looked into her much, but it sounds like she has a really original story!

Thanks Harleen

You should check out the Batwoman Elegy graphic novel it is really

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Throwing a villain in jail and killing them are just about the same when it comes to comics because either way, they're coming back.