Wonder Woman: Holding the Female Fort

America's federal buildings are a part of the backdrop. I always felt there was a reason for that.

Recently, David E. Kelly tried his hand at a Wonder Woman weekly series. The network passed on the pilot, to the relief of some fans who got ahold of the script which kind of found the whole thing to be a bit of a travesty. Even the revamped costume got some bad press that made quite a few headlines. (However, the outfit actually used in the pilot was seen as much better) This has been another setback for Wonder Woman. The mainstream explosion of comic characters has, ironically, passed by the first lady of superherodom.

If you could ask someone to name a superhero, Wonder Woman would definitely be near the top of that list. If you asked for the name of a female superhero, she would practically come up every time, unless you came across a comic-reading smartass naming someone more obscure just to prove he could. The word "iconic" is overused over and over, but Wonder Woman is truly iconic. She is one of those characters who are currently more iconic right now than that economically viable.  She was one of the few characters (namely among DC's "Trinity" of heroes including Superman and Batman) to survive the culling of Golden Age superheroes. As such she was always featured prominently in lineups and press releases and merchandise. But recently, in a major slap-in-the-face to the character, the "trinity" was expanded to a "quorum", but at Diana of Themyscira's expense. The Green Lantern and the Flash--two characters who's secret identities weren't even written out of comics for substantial amounts of times, were included on DC's 75th anniversary buttons when Wonder Woman wasn't. There's just a lot of talk about how the character just can't fit in with the current paradigm, and is only continuously published because of an arcane clause that DC forsakes the rights if they stop publishing her.

Diana Prince is probably the most famous secret ID to be completely dispensed.

She's not only the most famous female superhero, but really the only really prominent one who isn't a derivative of a male superhero (often just created to secure copyright), or a member of a team concept (Like the X-Men features a lot of). One a meta-level, it should be mentioned that she's legally not allowed to guest star on shows, so for her, it's been all or nothing. It's kept her off of Smallville and Batman's 5,730 cartoons. (Which in turn, often turn the "Justice League" episodes into complete sausagefests.) Not much room for sneaking the in the back door there. Charged with the task of holding her own, every new Wonder Woman project is very high stakes, and often under the clout of "Female protagonists don't make bank, especially in the action genre". It should be said that DC's editorial policy has been kind of...good old boy lately. But still, why is it so tough for her?

Blogger Ragnell says that she definitely suffers from revamp after revamp. Icons, especially DC icons, get leveled and reinterpreted every now and then. But Wonder Woman probably suffers from it on an inordinate scale. It's certainly hurt her commercial appeal, as nobody really knows what they're going to get when they pick up the book. Ragnell also points out that an industry that is increasingly catering to males, and a certain type of male, is not best suited to do a character who was created for females, and did a good job at selling to them at that. But are there reasons even the most well-intentioned writers can have trouble with her?

I do think, for one, it's hard to wrap one's head around a character who is the very embodiment of feminism. Not only because it doesn't appeal to the reactionary male readers, (Who I was disappointed made up a large segment of comics readers one fateful day) but because...what is feminism? Writers have a hard enough time writing around the perfection of Superman, but this is a character who's supposed to be, ostensibly at least, ahead of the curve of where women are "supposed to be" in society. Because the fight for equality is always gradual and ever-changing, the superhero who's raison d'etre is that sort of thing is always going to have to have soft reboots and personality changes every now and then. Of course, there's also the problem that feminism, you know, isn't one thing. I've seen arguments that Twilight is anti-feminist because the character sees attaching herself to a controlling guy sends a bad message, and that it is an example of girl power because girls are buying it. Not that I particularly believe the latter point, it's just that this kind of infighting is going to happen on the subject. It boils down to the belief in freedom as negative rights or positive responsibilities. You have to do this with a character who operates on the arc of history. Who's supposed to be a paragon, as opposed to say, Green Arrow or USAgent, who are allowed to be abrasive in their political beliefs as character traits. And all of this written by men half of the time.

Completely out-of-left field revamps that isolate her from other superheroes are par for the course.

I also think there's another element that makes it hard to wrap one's head around her, and this would probably be controversial for many of her fans. Greek Mythology figures heavily into Wonder Woman's backstory, in her opponents, in her supporting cast. In my Thor article, I talk about how the welding of ancient myth and modern superheroes isn't always that seamless. You have fans of the genre who can be put off by all the mystical elements. You also run the risk that everyone always has their own opinion on representing myths, and thus the concept continuously gets overhauled to make it more "accurate". (George Perez famously revamped the character in the 80's, bringing back Themysicara as opposed to the more anglicized "Paradise Island", and much of everything looked more authentically Hellenic than the generalized Classical style of previous decades)  But the problem is, when half the figures of her book are of public domain, than they're not really part of "her" mythology, are they? A fight with Ares is always fun, but doesn't truly distinguish her from Xena. And many of her fans don't see a problem with it. I've seen many comments along the line of "Play up the mythological aspects! Play it up! It separates her from the other superheroes". But in my opinion it does separate her. Separates her right out of the genre.

It's very odd that a character from the Greek world (Or a world that was created from Greek Myth) would be the goodwill embassador for women in comics. But I think there's something important to remember. The United States of America modeled itself after the Greco-Roman world. Our architecture, our names for government bodies. We basically modeled ourselves after the classical world. We could draw parallels between Washington and Athens, and interpret Wonder Woman's mission as to "Man's World" as to make sure we don't make the same mistakes. That we live up to the mantle of responsibility and name of "democracy". One has to remember the mythical Amazons were not Greek. They were alien presence, even to other Greeks. So one does not have to tether Wonder Woman and her world to a strict Greek background, just the broad strokes of Classicism, or Neoclassicism as it were. The Amazons are a Matriarchal society that will adopt the model of the number one democratic power, and hope that we will return the favor. A stray minotaur and the like is always fun, but there's no reason to turn Wonder Woman into a toga-wearing Thor. Think about it, the Middle Ages were thus called because the Classical world was seen as much more advanced. The Utopia of Paradise Island should present itself as a world that never entered its Dark Ages. My general point I''m trying to make is, like all superheroes, Wonder Woman should be about the glory of the future. Of aspirations. The mystical stuff makes for a nice background, but her world should have a veneer of modernity, if not industry. Especially a character who's explicitly here to show us how to make things better.

Fans are often outraged at how folks treat her like the only thing she's a symbol of is sex.

Is Wonder Woman going to be forever resigned to dwindling readers, and no major media adaptations? Not necessarily. It's not been a great decade for her, but let me put it this way; At the beginning of the decade, the Hal Jordan Green Lantern was not being published monthly. In fact, he had very rarely carried his own title at all since the 1960's. But force of will from a creator (and editor) that had an intense love for him made him a franchise all his own, and of course, the upcoming movie. Wonder Woman has been having a tough time lately, but the arc of history bends towards justice. And Wonder Woman is a character who exists to exemplify the arc of history.