The Official WONDER WOMAN Discussion Thread

[Manic]

Vigilante crime-fighter? She ain't a vigilante. Never has been. She's always worked closely with the law.

"Vigilante" is a very broad term that could mean anything, depending on the interpretation of the person who said it in the first place.

 

[Drz]

They probably wanted to say vigilante instead of a global superhero, setting up her roots for LA for now, but who knows how international she will go with crime fightning.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, people tend to use "vigilante" to mean "anyone who doesn't have a badge." Doesn't quite make it accurate, though.

 

[BrianWilly]

Like, at first when I heard about them doing a TV series I was like "Hmm, well, okay. Okay." because I figure of course they'd be adapting the plot of the old TV series because...what else could they possibly do, right? And that was fine because the plot of that old show -- what little there was of it -- was frankly pretty iconic and Wonder Woman-ish. I mean we all made jokes about it being Ally McBeal in a Wonder Woman outfit barf because haha that's the joke, right? Never once did I imagine it would actually happen that way because...I mean...that's the thing you joke about it becoming. It's the punchline.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'll personally consider this show a success if they never, ever do the twirl.

 

[Anubis]

I'm really digging the CEO angle. I just hope she's more like Hardian from the WildCats during his HALO Corp days and less........Alley McBeal.

 

[hippie_hunter]

There's gonna be a Diana Prince in every single incarnation of the character ever, and especially for a TV series. I don't really care about that. I care that literally no part of the show sounds like Wonder Woman!

Vigilante crime-fighter? She ain't a vigilante. Never has been. She's always worked closely with the law.

LA? She's never been based in LA. Where the hell did LA come from? Why LA?

Successful corporate executive. Who the **** is this person? Batman? Iron Man? Power Girl? Green Arrow? Where is Wonder Woman in this? Beyond the fact that it doesn't resemble the character in any way -- although some people are apparently fine with that -- it's JMS's continuity twister all over again. People whine and whine and whine about Wonder Woman's history being too convoluted to remember and adapt, and the solution is to make it even more convoluted and non-iconic? How is this possibly a good idea?

Yeah, at first I was like this when they announced that the Wonder Woman TV show was going ahead:

Now that they've taken away all the aspects of Wonder Woman that has made her unique and made her a typical superhero but with a vagina instead of testicles, makes me go

 

[Nave 'Torment']

I don't know, as I mull over the whole CEO thing, it actually could work. I mean, think about it. Who is more likely to influence the world, an ambassador from some island or a company putting out life changing products, charities that do more than feed starving kids with 50 cents, and going toe to toe with the corrupt fat cats that secretly run the world? I'm surprised nobody thought about doing it in the comics

I agree with you that the secret ID isn't as prominent, or necessary, but since they want to go with it I can't say I'm going to hate them. It's just that - if we consider ourselves core WW fans and most of us here are adamant that she works better without a secret ID - a status quo that DC themselves incorporated - maybe the new TV show developers ought to keep that in mind. Anyway, I disagree, however, with the CEO completely. Since when is a CEO supposed to be more humanitarian than an ambassador? Her job dictates she do whatever it takes to make money for the company, her goal is profit (sorry, I did read ur siggy but this has nothing to do with that ) not peace, truth or anything else embodied by a superhero (unless you are Booster Gold that is). An ambassador is the opposite of that. The best that a CEO can do is give people more jobs, but that's also limiting in terms of 'making a difference' or 'integrating Themysciran ideals'. Having said that, I think the people behind this are well aware of it and are going to address the issues, but why would you want to interpret Di as someone like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark is something I can't get.

Good points on the CEO, but I guess it's because I, like BW (not that he agrees with my POW, I just know he's talked about it a lot), tend to lean a lot with the activist point of the character. Her being out there, as herself, saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done, etc. Of course, you can do both, but I guess that just feels somewhat bland to me since that's essentially how the majority of heroes are.

Exactly. Even if you want to write Wonder Woman as the ideal girl spreading a feminist message, it's much better to do so with her role as an activist/ambassador, when her stage is global and not limited to one city. But maybe they're looking for something that contrasts with her role as that activist/superhero/vigilante (but wouldn't making her an equally powerful CEO be the opposite of that?).

And maybe Kelley's trying to tell a Wonder Woman that isn't set on a global scale when it starts off. Maybe.

 

[Anubis]

I agree with you that the secret ID isn't as prominent, or necessary, but since they want to go with it I can't say I'm going to hate them. It's just that - if we consider ourselves core WW fans and most of us here are adamant that she works better without a secret ID - a status quo that DC themselves incorporated - maybe the new TV show developers ought to keep that in mind. Anyway, I disagree, however, with the CEO completely. Since when is a CEO supposed to be more humanitarian than an ambassador? Her job dictates she do whatever it takes to make money for the company, her goal is profit (sorry, I did read ur siggy but this has nothing to do with that ) not peace, truth or anything else embodied by a superhero (unless you are Booster Gold that is). An ambassador is the opposite of that. The best that a CEO can do is give people more jobs, but that's also limiting in terms of 'making a difference' or 'integrating Themysciran ideals'. Having said that, I think the people behind this are well aware of it and are going to address the issues, but why would you want to interpret Di as someone like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark is something I can't get.

That's why it would have to be more covert. On the surface, Big Business. Where are the funds actually going? Empowerment programs, Charitys, etc. I mean, I'd see it more along the lines of the company being more of a front. Not like she's worked her way up to be CEO of BP or some boos**t. A company, started and funded by the Amazons. Built for one purpose: Changing Man's world from the inside out. At least that's what i'd do. Don't know wtf they wanna do.

 

[Nave 'Torment']

That's why it would have to be more covert. On the surface, Big Business. Where are the funds actually going? Empowerment programs, Charitys, etc. I mean, I'd see it more along the lines of the company being more of a front. Not like she's worked her way up to be CEO of BP or some boos**t. A company, started and funded by the Amazons. Built for one purpose: Changing Man's world from the inside out. At least that's what i'd do. Don't know wtf they wanna do.

Hmmm... I could see that I suppose. But I think thematically it just feels like something you'd add for the sake of it, really. Maybe it's just me. But it just doesn't feel Wonder Woman this way -- not one bit. It might work, but it just doesn't feel like the source material at all.

If the objective is to incorporate Amazonian policies covertly into Man's world, sure I guess giving them a corporation could work, sort of like a cult, or something from a conspiracy theory. Yeah I'd definitely like to see a story told like that. And it'd make all the paranoia more troublesome. The problem I have with the approach is that the Amazons were never about covert, they are about Truth and all that stuff. They are direct, vocal. Bold.

But I'm open to the idea. Lets see where this goes.

 

[BrianWilly]

That sounds awfully dodgy for a character like Wonder Woman. Why should her fundings be secret? Why shouldn't her name be plastered on her foundations? I mean I get that a character, somewhere in a story that exists somewhere, would possibly do that and have it come across as a thing that they do. But "big business as a front for charity" seems like a really backwards way just to get to a place that really shouldn't be so hard for Wonder Woman to get to in the first place. She changes hearts and minds, one person at a time, with her words and actions. Through example and leadership and activism. Not with...commerce and cash transfers and secret partnership contracts.

 

[Mystirious]

Good points on the CEO, but I guess it's because I, like BW (not that he agrees with my POW, I just know he's talked about it a lot), tend to lean a lot with the activist point of the character. Her being out there, as herself, saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done, etc. Of course, you can do both, but I guess that just feels somewhat bland to me since that's essentially how the majority of heroes are.

Agreed Tron Bonne

I dig the activist point of the character. Making her a ceo and vigilante sounds lame I want the show to be more faithful to the comic book

 

[Nave 'Torment']

Diana will be the CEO of Amazon.Com

That sounds awfully dodgy for a character like Wonder Woman. Why should her fundings be secret? Why shouldn't her name be plastered on her foundations? I mean I get that a character, somewhere in a story that exists somewhere, would possibly do that and have it come across as a thing that they do. But "big business as a front for charity" seems like a really backwards way just to get to a place that really shouldn't be so hard for Wonder Woman to get to in the first place. She changes hearts and minds, one person at a time, with her words and actions. Through example and leadership and activism. Not with...commerce and cash transfers and secret partnership contracts.

That's exactly what I mean by the CEO concept going against what the story stood for. I'm open to them depicting the Amazons working in some sort of covert way in contrast to the comics - sort of like what a TV series would do really, tell an extended tale of how the characters get to the place where they are in the comics. That's typical of origin stories and reboots. But I dunno... the more I think of it the more I'm put off by the idea.

I don't know why they might go for a covert Amazon conspiracy, it betrays the very fact that Diana and the Themyscirans stand for Truth. That's a more prominent theme to Wonder Woman than perhaps any other super-hero out there (including and especially Big Blue 'S'). My question is, if the idea is to change man's world from the inside, why should it be a CEO with influence in Wall Street than an ambassador with connections in Washington? Politics is a more powerful global arena than commerce.

Even if Kelley sees the world as being controlled by evil conglomerates and corporations (i.e. greedy capitalist business MEN), why would the Amazons use it to fight the very same thing? The whole 'lets use their weapons against them'? That sort of turnaround is irrational for WONDER WOMAN's Amazons because they are primarily AGAINST the ways of man. Hence their shunning of warfare, and their separatism in general. The old Amazons of Myth were 'man-haters' but they paradoxically used to cauterize/cut off their boobs so that they could be more 'man-like'. This would be similar.

In the end, even Kelley's ideological stances seem unjustifiable for the story, and thus we can only assume that the change is for the plot or characterization. In which case, it's pointless since the plot went well the way it had been told in the comics.

That's the way I see it atleast.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I think, at the end of the day, it basically comes down to Kelley knowing how to write big business and not wanting to stray too far from his usual wheelhouse. Lamentable, to say the least.

 

[Mystirious]

Agreed

 

[Nave 'Torment']

Yeah

 

[GL1]

^I think y'all are trippin'. Especially for a character that changes jobs and locations every five years. In the *worst* case scenario this is just another writer taking his stab at making an inaccessible character accessible to the masses, which, as we have discussed, and has been demonstrated by the many casual fan-critics (including myself sometimes) that we constantly correct with references to forgotten storylines, she is not in her current form.

In the best case scenario we have someone with demonstrated passion for the character, in a position to bring this character back into the forefront of pop culture, who has found a way to take Wonder Woman's kernel and mission and put it into the modern world in a way someone unlearned, or not into the fantasy genre, can recognize and understand and relate to and enjoy.

Now, obviously, it is true that she is a businesswoman in LA because that is what leads to the best stories for this particular creative team. The only creative team that cares, by the way. The beauty of it, and the power of it is that it removes the things that are off putting from Wonder Woman. Instead of requiring the audience a familiarity or amicability towards Greek mythology, it simply requires you to be an average person and it will introduce and teach you the mythology you need over time. This, imho, is the key to the show's potential popularity. If LOST had opened up with time travel and smoke monsters from day one, it would never have gained its current popularity. That's why the Perez storyline, as high quality as it was, won't grab the masses, it won't grab the average viewer. It requires a boatload of mythology from the introduction. It's not a different world we can slowly get used to like in most (all?) pure-fantasy stories, it's not our world that starts with a small change for the central character (who starts like us) like most (all?) superhero stories, it's "your world, but different in XYZ and ABC ways, with a character who has nothing in common with you on the surface, but really doesn't have a lot in common because of... tl;dr"

If you don't believe me, look at Wondy's sales numbers through great runs like Rucka's and Simone's.

So as not to be a hypocrite, tl'dr version:
- Business woman is a decent long overdue modernization
- Kelley is passionate, which suggests amazon mission will still be intact
- Perez story requires huge mythology hurdle that would remove the general audience

The show might not live up to its promise, but this kind of WWINO talk is a bit premature, imho.

 

[Tron Bonne]

^I think y'all are trippin'. Especially for a character that changes jobs and locations every five years. In the *worst* case scenario this is just another writer taking his stab at making an inaccessible character accessible to the masses, which, as we have discussed, and has been demonstrated by the many casual fan-critics (including myself sometimes) that we constantly correct with references to forgotten storylines, she is not in her current form.

In the best case scenario we have someone with demonstrated passion for the character, in a position to bring this character back into the forefront of pop culture, who has found a way to take Wonder Woman's kernel and mission and put it into the modern world in a way someone unlearned, or not into the fantasy genre, can recognize and understand and relate to and enjoy.

Now, obviously, it is true that she is a businesswoman in LA because that is what leads to the best stories for this particular creative team. The only creative team that cares, by the way. The beauty of it, and the power of it is that it removes the things that are off putting from Wonder Woman. Instead of requiring the audience a familiarity or amicability towards Greek mythology, it simply requires you to be an average person and it will introduce and teach you the mythology you need over time. This, imho, is the key to the show's potential popularity. If LOST had opened up with time travel and smoke monsters from day one, it would never have gained its current popularity. That's why the Perez storyline, as high quality as it was, won't grab the masses, it won't grab the average viewer. It requires a boatload of mythology from the introduction. It's not a different world we can slowly get used to like in most (all?) pure-fantasy stories, it's not our world that starts with a small change for the central character (who starts like us) like most (all?) superhero stories, it's "your world, but different in XYZ and ABC ways, with a character who has nothing in common with you on the surface, but really doesn't have a lot in common because of... tl;dr"

If you don't believe me, look at Wondy's sales numbers through great runs like Rucka's and Simone's.

So as not to be a hypocrite, tl'dr version:
- Business woman is a decent long overdue modernization
- Kelley is passionate, which suggests amazon mission will still be intact
- Perez story requires huge mythology hurdle that would remove the general audience

The show might not live up to its promise, but this kind of WWINO talk is a bit premature, imho.

Bold: Uh, Lost had its smoke monster straight from the beginning more or less. We may not have gotten full discourse of it, but it was very much part of the show very early on.

Underline: What in the work would lead you to this kind of conclusion? Just because it disconnects itself from the mythology so the 'unlearned' can 'get it'? Oh please, there's other ways of doing that. Hell, look to the character's beginning, where the mythology was more of a backdrop than anything. You could probably easily do the same as an ambassador without delving that deeply into the mythology. Read Rucka to see a real modernized take on that. Admittedly, he did use the mythology a lot, but it's a good skeleton of how you could do that without it (illustrate the tension and workings between two very different places with some superheroics thrown into the mix). Honestly, this assumption that you have to have the character fully loaded with every degree of Greek mythology that only the highest professor in the field could possible know island for it to work with the character is off and, really, contradicts her very origin. You definitely should have some, no doubt (otherwise, there's no point in utilizing the character), but even then there's ways to utilize it without it becoming some huge, incredible unstoppable burden for those who know nothing more than what they teach in High School.

Bold 2: Most of us have acknowledged that it's too early to condemn anything outright, but obviously when the description thus far sounds nothing like the character, well why wouldn't you exact a 'What?' reaction from at least some people? I get tired of this idea that you just have to shut the hell up and take everything with a big ol' goofy smile, with every criticism or potential speculation that isn't 'Hell yeah!' *fistbump* dismissed as whining.

And, really, you're doing the same by going with that attitude, anyway, just from the opposite side.

 

[Mystirious]

Agreed Tron Bonne

 

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