Part 4: 5 lacking parts of the Wonder Woman mythos and how JMS’s run may fix them

In honor of the many changes that have recently affected one of DC Comics’ most long lived character, I’m writing five problems I see with Wonder Woman and how they might be fixed.

Part 4: The Sex(less) Doll

I guess it’s fitting that a character made from dirt is written with the sexuality of a headstone, but that doesn’t make it any more interesting. Wonder Woman has long been depicted with a virginal saintliness, deprived of human contact outside the realm of sisterly hugging with the nearest safely feminine woman or alternatively punching misogynists in the face. I think the heart of this problem lies in the massive void that was created when the character’s original golden age relationship and sexuality were wiped out. In the Golden Age, she was a lady in the street and a freak in the bed, so to speak. That is to say, in her civilian life as Army Nurse Diana Prince (or even as Princess Diana) she was a pining romantic and in her role as Wonder Woman she was a bit of a dominatrix. Once World War Two was no longer a functional setting for the heroine, out went the sense in her relationship (what logical role would an Army Nurse have in non-army life and why would she have a continuing relationship with an intelligence officer). Similarly, after original writer William Moulton Marston was no longer writing the book, out went the kinky fetish interest that was based in his own private interests. Admittedly I’m not a comics historian, but nonetheless this is how I see it. In the absence of those aspects of her life, Wonder Woman was left with a huge gaping hole at her center, one that no one has been able to fill since.

Ways People Might Try (and mostly fail) To Solve Her Relationship Troubles

1- Bringing Back Steve Trevor
Steve Trevor worked when he worked because of the context in which Wonder Woman was being written. He can work again, but ONLY if one is willing to return Wonder Woman to the army, where their romance makes sense. The problem is that our views of the United States and of the army have grown much more complicated since the second World War, and it would be nearly impossible to set her in that space without constantly running into problems of political incorrectness and offensiveness, or alternatively writing with extreme nuance about subjects that are highly complicated morally. Needless to say, there is a dearth of writers who could tackle that challenge.
In summary, that’s a terrible idea unless maybe on Earth One.

2- Continued Asexuality/Virginity
This would actually be an interesting idea if someone had the stones to go ahead and do it. What I mean is, the character is currently being written as if she was asexual, or at best falsely sexual, but without this being a stated choice. If someone were to play with the idea of a truly asexual person we could have a character whose friendships had a decidedly romantic quality, but outside the confines of our society’s monogamy fixation. Even more complicated would be a character with sexual urges who resists them in favor of being a virgin in the Ancient Greek temple maiden sense. In both cases, most writers would probably have trouble placing themselves in the shoes of one in these atypical circumstances, so I doubt it will happen.

3- The False Lead
This is the big one. Many superhero comics miss out on the fact that the love interest (much like the rest of the supporting cast, the alter-ego, the costume, and the rogues gallery) are all just aspects of the main character’s dramatic themes or concepts.

So for the case of Superman:

The Value: The American Way i.e. honest, hard work and playing it straight (this idea has yellowed a bit)

The Occupation: Reporter. The reason that this works is because the reporting done by the Daily Planet seeks to undo corruption, which would get in the way of the value

The Villain: Lex Luthor, the ultimate corrupt business man

The Love Interest: Plucky Alpha-Reporter Lois Lane, who embodies journalistic integrity, bravery and the ideals of the occupation

Now for Wonder Woman (using the most recent circumstance previous to the current run)

The Value: Compassion (this is probably why she was a nurse originally) and Truth

The Occupation: Super Spy. This is sadly where they went so wrong. How exactly does being a secret operative relate to either of her core values?

The Villain: Genocide, a crazy emotion corrupting dark mirror villain. Not terrible, but not great, if only because she’s so deliberate and formulaic. Villain creation differs from other aspects of character creation in that it needs a bit of comic book wackiness to not feel so obvious.

The Love Interest: Super Spy Tom Tresser a.k.a. Nemesis. This actually is a perfect love interest for this occupation, if the job fit Wonder Woman at all. Poor Nemesis could’ve worked so well with another character, say, The Question. Then again, he’s not really her type.

Note that in this case, the lead fails based on premise not on his own merit within that premise. Often it’s another case. For instance, let’s pretend Wonder Woman was in a job that represented her core value of compassion– A Zoo-keeper. This would probably be a terrible choice since it’s not enough of a springboard for stories, but at least it would embody her characteristics and be better than sticking her in a Taco Restaurant. Now let’s say you introduce Friendly Teacher Smiley Bobenkins as a love interest because he takes his class to the zoo one day. A teacher actually isn’t a terrible match, but in this context they have really no need to bump up into each other ever. In the end, all of their interactions will feel unnecessary and ham-fisted. Now if you’d chosen instead Collegiate Zoology Professor Jackwell Handsome, the match could work a lot better.

Ultimately, it comes down to a process of overall design of a character’s circumstances into which a Romantic lead fits. When the lead is created independent of a character’s station, or alternatively, when a character’s station is not fitting for them, we have the birth of the false lead. This is also known as the failed lead that never sticks. This is also true for: villains, sidekicks, supporting characters, and alter-egos, and costumes.

JMS’s Run: Straczynski really hasn’t played at all with the notion of a romantic lead. Maybe the oracle girl counts?

Second Helpings: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5

Grant Morrison’s The Return of Bruce Wayne has been one of the more critically lauded superhero runs of the year. Despite this, one dogged attack on the book (and of Morrison as a writer) still haunts me; namely complains of Morrison’s experimentations with the bat legacy and his free use of continuity. Morrison has taken Bruce Wayne from his genesis as Batman through to death and back again. As if death was not enough, The Return of Bruce has seen our hero take on the Batman mantle throughout the ages, finding new contexts for his vigilantism in various historical Gothams.

The latest issue finds Batman in a …ehhhh… post Martha and Thomas Wayne Gotham? Temporal specificity is a damning trick here. When the hell were Bruce Wayne’s parents killed?  Batman’s original Detective Comics origin story came to the public in 1939. Does this suggest then that they were killed in the 1920’s? Being a hero in a continuous prime, his origin is unset.

This fifth issue of The Return of Bruce Wayne summons up period detail but refuses to align itself with a single period.The world Bruce finds himself in this latest issue is a rough noir sketch of the world Batman originally entered in the Detective Comics of the late 30s and early 40s. We’ve got an obliging hardboiled intro narration and Bruce even makes a one off joke about being given a pinstripe ‘gangster’ suit. This temporal color plays out nicely until we see Morrison fixture (and  forties Detective Comics relic) Prof. Carter Nichols enter the story wearing the quintessentially 70s ‘Have a Nice Day’ shirt, replete with giant smiley. This detail has been a contentious one for readers. It seems to be a glaring anachronism. But how are we meant to date this period in Batman’s personal history? If he is permanently in his prime, shouldn’t the death of his parents be fluid, continuously shifting back twenty years, give or take. This admixture of times seem appropriate for Morrison’s aims. He has tried to synthesize the character, bringing an understanding to the entirety of his history. It was easy to intellectualize his choice but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it in practice.

Flash forward to this weekend. I am channel browsing and happen upon the heaping brilliance of asynchronicity that is Tim Burton’s Batman. I hadn’t seen the film in a few years. What I saw in the 15 minutes I watched it was a free melding of time and tone. The film shifts from noir, to slapstick, to over-produced gothic blockbuster and back again. For backdrops we’ve got post-Regan urban squalor and parodies of old Hollywood soundstages. Instead of Heath Ledger’s reliably insane Joker we’ve got Jack Nicholson’s swaggering. He plays the part like the bastard son of Fred Astraire and Jack Torrance, camping it up in one dancey moment only to be utterly menacing the next. Oh, and the film has got Prince. Despite (or because of) its free use of continuity, the 1989 Batman film became a huge blockbuster and a primer for superhero adaptations to come.

While this self-aware Batman has been replaced by the grittiness of the Nolan Batman films, its initial success should be a reminder for readers of Return. While Morrison might be renowned as a alien abductee, doper, or high priest of metaphysics, he is just as concerned with spinning a damn entertaining yarn and is not afraid to play with boundaries to get there.

5 lacking parts of the Wonder Woman mythos and how JMS’s run may fix them

In honor of the many changes that have recently affected one of DC Comics’ most long lived character, I’m writing five problem I see with Wonder Woman and how they might be fixed.

Part 3: Greek Myth wasn’t like this

Another aspect of Wonder Woman’s stories that rings false is their take on Greek myth. I’m not referring to the conception of Ares or Circe as direct villains, that’s the nature of the genre and can work well, but rather that it doesn’t contextualize myth in contemporary realities. Most myths are and were created from oral traditions to either teach morality, explain the way the world works, or allow for worship. They transformed as they passed from mouth to mouth to fit regional eccentricities or the realities at their time of telling. Strange then that in Wonder Woman comics its use feels dated and irrelevant.  During Greg Rucka’s run he attempted to change this by modernizing the gods and making them reflections of Wonder Woman’s mind frame, but DC decided to abandon that. If myth is to be used in comic books then it needs to be grounded and palpable as any other story is. It needs to reflect our current time period in many ways. Even if the gods remain in their classic forms, the way they react to the current world and the way their behavior functions needs to interact with the world in a more seamless way. Most often, writers turn the gods into either pollyanna figures or cackling maniacs, when in myth they were so much more multi-faceted and interesting.

Another point, it’s nonsensical to ignore the realities of multi-canon belief and limiting Diana to a realm of only greek belief is thinking small. Here and there writers including the talented Gail Simone have attempted to introduce figures from other myths as minor plot points, but a big picture all inclusive vision on the line of War of the Gods or Neil Gaiman’s Sandman would make the character’s world so much richer. This month’s Thor comic did this nicely: Thor is forced into Christian hell by a confluence of circumstances and there finds Gaia, the earth goddess. He comes to realize that this is merely one aspect of her form and that despite the pain she is feeling from being bathed in hellfire, it is a natural aspect of a goddess who exists in all earth. In this way two pantheons are fluidly mixed, creating a more interesting overall take on godliness. It was a small moment but one that worked well.

JMS’s run: In the most recent Wonder Woman story, issue 602, the protagonist speaks with her patron goddess Aphrodite, who lobs some tepid vagaries at her about becoming a queen and ominous gobbledygook and then fades away. This again, really?  I understand that inevitably the story will develop and the fate of the gods will become clearer but the talking snorephrodite in Wonder Woman’s head is certainly not enticing. On the upside, the temple where the story is set has a history of being lowered into the earth by Aphrodite only to later be summoned out by an Amazon priestess, which is a great bit of invented myth and perhaps points to some more interesting stuff coming up.

Part 1: The Amazon Way

Part 2: Small Island Culture’s Condition Is Not The World’s Condition

Recommendations from recent comic reading: DMZ, The Complete Dracula and Atomic Robo

The holiday weekend allowed for a little more reading than normal for me, and I wanted to point out a couple of comics I’ve been enjoying on my iPad.

DMZ from DC Comics
Brian Wood is writing some truly inspired work. I’m hoping after the Walking Dead succeeds on AMC, DMZ will be picked up next.
– read DMZ on the Web, on your iPad or iPhone or purchase at your local store

The Complete Dracula from Dynamite
I’m enjoying the art on The Complete Dracula, and the adaption is compelling. I especially love the bonus content the comic comes with, including some scripting and some notes about the adaption.
– read The Complete Dracula on the Web, on your iPad or iPhone or purchase at your local store

Atomic Robo Volume 4 from Red 5 Comics
Clevinger and Wegener continue to hit it out of the park with Atomic Robo.
– read Atomic Robo on the Web, on your iPad or iPhone or purchase at your local store