"Why did you choose T'Challa's [Black Panther's] first love over his ex-fiancee, Monica Lynne?
RH: Because Superman should be with Wonder Woman, not Lois Lane..."
(Hat-Tip to West)
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Why Reginald Hudlin Should Never Be Allowed Near the DC Universe
He proves in this interview that he has no understanding of the major personalities in that universe:
(Hat-Tip to West)
(Hat-Tip to West)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh, I don't think this belies a lack of understanding. It's just his opinion. I've known a lot of comics geeks that think it more appropriate for Superman to pair off with WW than with Lois. There have been a few decent stories written with that theme as well. I do think it's about as silly as all those movies where the fat girl always pairs off with a fat guy because heaven forbid you have a couple with two different body types. Or, perhaps more to the point, for the Black Guy to always pair off with the Black Girl.
ReplyDeletewow. just...wow.
ReplyDeletei also think hudlin's black panther series would benefit from some time in uganda. since getting back i see the series totally differently.
Different opinion != lack of understanding.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm at it, Wonder Woman should not end up with Steve Trevor.
Seriously though, that's bad logic - but Superman and Wonder Woman is a point made by pretty much everyone. Specifically Frank Miller and Alan Moore. So yeah, I agree they should end up together.
ReplyDeleteWhat I miss from older comics is the sense that super-heroes used to mix with "regular" people.
ReplyDeleteThey would take time out to help kids, hold 9 to 5 jobs in their secret identities, date or even "civilians."
In other words, they were connected to life.
Nowadays, costumes just talk to costumes and its all pretty incestuous.
These days - especially at Marvel - heroes stand apart. Guess that's why the "normal" folk in that universe hate their heroes so much.
See, I do think this is a serious lack of understanding of Wonder Woman, because it tells me that the guy wants the world's preeminent Superheroine to end up with the only guy who is physically stronger than her. A superheroine built to turn the normally sexist conventions of comic books around so that they would fit a female hero. You know, those sexist conventions that have the powerful guy always saving the damsel in distress?
ReplyDeleteSo in this case, difference of opinion = lack of understanding of WW's concept.
For that matter, I honestly think suggesting pairing Superman and Wonder Woman shows a distinct lack of understanding of *Superman's* concept.
ReplyDeleteSuperman's an alien grown up as a normal farm boy. He seeks to forge connections to humanity. His closest companions are Perry White, Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, all very quintessentially human. They're ambitious, reckless, charming and goofy. They make him laugh and they make him feel human. They let him be the dorky, sheltered, naive farmboy that's as much a part of him as the rest.
Diana's a great character, but she's a foreign dignitary, she's quintessentially other. When Clark is around her, he's Superman, he's Kal. He's inescapably the alien hero. That's a lot of pressure for a man. And as much as he loves Diana platonically, as I see the character, he can't ever bridge that last distance.
Some of it's just temperament, Diana's too...polite. She'd never yell at his incompetence or mock his dorkiness or call him "Smallville." But the thing is those things are what keeps Clark human, keeps him connected mentally and emotionally to the human race. As long as Perry yells at him, as long as Jimmy pesters him, as long as Lois, his wife, will bitch, tease, annoy, support, accept and love him...he can still be human, regardless of biology.
Lois isn't just a woman very much suited to Clark Kent's temperament, she's also as much of a symbol as Superman is. He's Truth, Justice, American Way, and all that, but she's *humanity* itself in all it's contradictory, crazy, brilliant, feisty glory. So while Lois Lane the woman loves Clark Kent the man, as a symbol, she's humanity reaching for and embracing a higher ideal. Without humanity's acceptance, ideals are just...thoughts. They're meaningless.
Diana, as isolated as Clark himself, could never fulfill this role for him, just as he couldn't for her. They're basically too alike, too much in the same boat, to work with each other.
Just my opinion, of course.
Fortress Keeper, have you seen what Kurt Busiek has been doing with Superman lately?
ReplyDeleteTake a look at Superman #654. It's *gasp* a stand alone story. I didn't think they made those anymore.
See, I do think this is a serious lack of understanding of Wonder Woman, because it tells me that the guy wants the world's preeminent Superheroine to end up with the only guy who is physically stronger than her.
ReplyDeleteBut that is just one way of seeing it. You can also say that people want to see Superman with the only woman who can K.O. him.
Fortress Keeper, have you seen what Kurt Busiek has been doing with Superman lately?
I loved the latest issue of Superman. Too bad Lois' horrible evil dominatrix haircut kills the enjoyment a bit.
re: "See, I do think this is a serious lack of understanding of Wonder Woman, because it tells me that the guy wants the world's preeminent Superheroine to end up with the only guy who is physically stronger than her."
ReplyDeleteI understand your point, but I disagree with it. A couple reasons:
1) I've heard people say that the two are actually equal in strength.
2) Even if #1 isn't true, the fact that Superman is "the only guy who is physically stronger than her" doesn't mean that that's why we would like to see them togehter.
I think that's an important distinction to acknowledge.
West -- Okay, here's the other thing. It goes along with "She should not be with Steve Trevor."
ReplyDeleteOnce again, she was pretty much created to overthrow conventional sexism and show the story structure in favor of a woman. The story structure was "Damsel in distress gets rescued by guy."
Now, I don't mind that story in itself, it can be interesting.
And don't take this as me being against equal partnerships in opposite sex relationships. I like husband and wife and boyfriend-girlfriend teams. Hell, this SM should be with WW has yielded good stories with take-loff characters like Winged Victory and Samaritan.
But there are all too few stories with a strong woman who saves a physically weaker man. Wonder Woman should be one of those stories.
Putting her with Superman rather than a mortal because he's her equal or he's stronger (and 've always seen her put as #2 in physical power to him) just smacks to me of people not accepting that a woman can be the stronger of a couple. Which sucks, because one of Marston's reasons for creating Dian was to show that a stronger woman is just as beautiful and alluring as a weaker woman.
And it's complicated by the fact that, since Steve got taken out (which I do think is writers being uncomfortable with seeing a guy in Lois Lane's place), no love interest has been successful.
On the flip side, part of the appeal of Lois Lane is her lack of appeal as a woman. Diana's the perfect woman, Lois... ehh, not so much. But Superman, the Ideal Man, considers her like a goddess. I've went over this before as my main reason for loving the character.
In alternate books, with sidekicks, with everyone else, okay, but with Superman himself and Wonder Woman herself they should to be platonic. To smush them together throws away incredible and unique aspects about both Wonder Woman and Lois Lane.
I kinda read it as "T'Challa deserves someone worthy of his super-high-profile-badass-aura-of-cool" . . . by which reasoning Storm's really kinda marrying below herself, ain't she? Who the hell outside of the comicbook fandom even knows who Black Panther is?
ReplyDeleteI still haven't seen anyone making a case for why Superman and Wonder Woman would be a good pair. Bonus points for anyone who can credibly argue why this match would lead to better stories.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm with Ragnell and kalinara on what these respective characters signify, and why making them a couple would violate the integrity of each...but the Fortress Keeper just made me realize why I recoil from the thought of the two of them together: it smacks of fascist imagery. It's the ubermensch and his ideal uber-mate, a pairing of aristocratic gods we common folk can only gaze upon from below. Remove their emotional connections to humanity and the whole "superhuman" idea becomes ugly very easily.
I also think it reflects a certain mindset about marriage -- or at least how the ideal of marriage is presented in popular culture -- that has little to do with how good partnerships work in real life.
but Superman and Wonder Woman is a point made by pretty much everyone. Specifically Frank Miller and Alan Moore.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as how Miller has rarely shown any real understanding of the character of Superman I would pretty much outright dismiss anything he had to say on the matter, personally. And while Moore had the two paired in his rejected Twilight of The Superheroes proposal he clearly changed his mind by the time he wrote the romantic examination issue of Supreme which concluded that a human love interest was the best way to go.
As I'm not a big fan of "the shared universe" concept as it's currently practiced in general, I can't say I like the idea of a Wonder Woman and Superman pairing all that much. I think it would severely dillute each character's ability to stand as their own franchise, especially where Wonder Woman is concerned.
There's also a Cinderella/fairy-tale like appeal in royalty-commoner/god-human romantic angles that would be a shame to lose, especially considering that's what drove the Lois and Clark tv series for as long as it lasted. Though if pressed I would have to admit to liking Lana more than Lois.
I don't understand the Superman/Wonder Woman thing either. I think people find the idea of those two hooking-up kind of cool, but, the problem is...we're talking about relationships here, not superhero team-ups.
ReplyDeleteNow that I think about it, isn't this the same exact problem with the Black Panther/Storm relationship?
P.S. kalinara's explanation was beautiful.
I always thought that Superman and Wonder Woman were equals in strength. Although the modern Lois Lane is a feminist icon, other versions represented the damsel-in-distress, who required constant saving. Since Diana's powers come from the Greek Pantheon, I would never see her being defeated by Superman (he is vulnerable to magic!).
ReplyDeleteI do like the whole "Smallville" nickname.
BTW, does anyone else find the "Smallville" Clark Kent kinda creepy? I find that after having watched him constantly lie to Lana, and then see Lex Luthor always being honest with her, Clark seems like a loser. Lex finds a space ship. He tells Lana. Lex get taken away and mutated by aliens. He tells Lana. Lex Luthor may eventually turn into a cad, but so far in the series, Lex has been a good friend to Lana.
Once again, she was pretty much created to overthrow conventional sexism and show the story structure in favor of a woman. The story structure was "Damsel in distress gets rescued by guy."
ReplyDeleteWhich is also one of the reasons why many Storm fans were furious when Eric Jerome Dickey re-wrote the Storm/Black Panther backstory to depict T'Challa rescuing Ororo during their first meeting instead of her saving him which was how it had always been shown and referred to before Dickey cocked it up.
/ironically phallic language
YE GODS, that's stunning in its stupidity.
ReplyDeleteThe man should be barred not merely from DC comics, but Western Civilization, all of whose decent members should be enjoined to withhold from him both water and fire.
To the person who mentioned how unfamiliar most folks are with Black Panther, please consider how unfamiliar they also were with the character, Blade.
ReplyDeleteTreat'em like second-tier characters and that's what they'll always be. Reconsider the scope of their relevance and entertainment value and you may reap big benefits.
As far as the Superman/Wonder Woman thing, well... I've probably said it all on my blog, already.
Thanks for the convo.
Frankly, I've found the recent romantic tensions between Diana and BRUCE -- which arose, apparently independently, in the JLA comic and the JLU animated series -- to have far more potential than any match-up between Diana and Clark. Or, hell, even Bruce and Clark.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Anonymous: yes: on Earth-Smallville, Clark is creepy, whiney, and unsympathetic. I think that, despite their best efforts to keep the storyline on the track that it "has to" take, the creators keep having the characters hijack the story.
Clark is not the protagonist of Smallville. Lex is.
Frankly, I've found the recent romantic tensions between Diana and BRUCE -- which arose, apparently independently, in the JLA comic and the JLU animated series -- to have far more potential than any match-up between Diana and Clark.
ReplyDeleteBatman and Wonder Woman being together is only a matter of time. Its like they say....'it takes a dick to get a pussy.' Now, in Lois and Clark's case, which is which?
Spencer -- Oh, please, we all know the website name!
ReplyDeleteAnd that saying is pretty far off base, mainly because most of the guys who use it as an excuse for being alone are clearly utter dicks claiming to be "Nice Guys."
He chose? Who said he chose? Who's to say this wasn't an edict from the Editor's office?
ReplyDeleteIt's how I sleep at night.
Lois and Clark should be married.... And Diana come over once in a while for a three-way.
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. Everyone I know who has ever invoked that kind of logic in attracting women has done exactly that: attracted women. Now, the only time I've heard a nice guy say something to the effect of "it takes a dick to get a pussy" is when they pontificate upon their solemn state of single-tude, noting that all the girls that they(the nice guys) like, like the jerks.
In considersation of the language in which you DC bloggers communicate in, this is where I would insert a scanned pictures of Hal Jordan getting pushed around by Carol Ferris from New Frontier and their subsequent hooking up, followed by a "oh, snap!" to rub it all in, but.........I don't have the scanner nor the comic book handy so we'll skip all that.
So because the man has an opinion that A LOT OF OTHERS SHARE, it automatically makes him unfit to write in the DCU? No.
ReplyDeleteWonder Woman and Superman are a far better couple than Superman and Lois Lane. Lois is a horrible example of a character and the marriage from hell needs retconed away asap.
So in this case, difference of opinion = lack of understanding of WW's concept.
ReplyDeleteThat's arrogant.
For that matter, given the way their battle in the "Sacrifice" arc went, it's clear that they're equals, and it shows a wealth of issues that have nothing to do with Hudlin that you are denying that.
Superman and Wonder Woman are equals, they can be partners. Lois, on the other hand, is clearly NOT Superman's equal, and WHY should Wonder Woman have to either be alone or with an inferior man just so that Lois the Annoying Groupie can have the "farm boy."
Hudlin shows that he understands Wonder Woman far better than you are because Diana should strive towards the best - and the best is Superman. Further, it's in Clark's blood to recognize goodness, honesty, justice, and truth and that's what he falls in love with. So far from having Superman/Wonder Woman together = not understanding Clark, it is perfectly in character to the man he is supposed to be. Because Lois? Is neither good, nor kind, nor just, and on days that end in y, she doesn't know what the word "truth" means.
After all, if you go to Lex Luthor's arms when your husband is Superman. . .
Hudlin recognizes that two charcters who are reflections of each other belong together. That's not misunderstanding. That's having common sense.
Now saying that Diana, who values truth and goodness above all else would settle for someone who lives in the shadows like Batman? THAT is fundamentally not understanding Diana or Bruce.
Once again, she was pretty much created to overthrow conventional sexism and show the story structure in favor of a woman. The story structure was "Damsel in distress gets rescued by guy."
ReplyDeleteOh, Christ. So your vision of feminism is that a woman should settle for a man that isn't her equal in any way, shape or form?
Try again.
Try Again
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying that in your view of feminism, a woman should have to change her positive reaction to a portrayed relationship just because of some anonymous dissenter.
Don't try again. Grow up.
Superman and Wonder Woman have very different, almost incompatible worldviews. Their morality is not the same.
ReplyDeleteTheir intellect focuses on different areas.
Superman is her equal only physically.
And their wear similarly colored costumes. They *look* good together.
But that is a poor, poor basis for a relationship.
Kris
Man of Steel/ Women of Kleenex?
ReplyDeleteWhat? Of COURSE Lois and Clark can have sex! Superman loses his powers ALL THE TIME.
Seriously tho, I'm very against the Idea of Superman + Wonderwoman together. As a team-up sure, but in a relationship? Eeeh.. their 'human' sides seem pretty incompatable.
So you're saying that in your view of feminism, a woman should have to change her positive reaction to a portrayed relationship just because of some anonymous dissenter.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to defend anonymous, but I can understand his confusion on feminism. Ask four different women and you get four different answers. Each one completely in keeping with the feminist ideal.
To anonymous: No one is saying that WW should settle for an "inferior mate." Would you? As for WW and SM, I think that others on this post said it best. Especially Ragnell, who finally gave me a real appreciation of Lois.
To me, that Huldin quote shows misunderstanding by comparing apples and oranges, and bananas and star fruit. T'Challa has little in common with Superman, so the point Huldin's attempting to make just doesn't make sense. Personality wise, occupation wise, origin wise, role-in-the-community-of-superheroes wise, they just aren't the same. Same with Storm and Wonder Woman, though probably to a lesser extent; I can't make super-confident claims about them because I'm a bit less familiar with them, but don't they have different personalities? And, while Storm is incredibly powerful, aren't there several more powerful, more visible female superheroes out there? They don't have the same role in their respective universes. And aren't their back stories about as similar as puppy dogs and umbrellas?
ReplyDeleteThe comparison just doesn't make sense. It's like someone asking George Lucas why he made Vader Luke's father and him replying "It's because Captain Kirk's father needed to be a Romulan instead of a Starfleet captain."* Science fiction? Yes. Main character? Yes. Parentage? Yes. Remotely relevant? Uh, no.
*And no, that conversation thankfully never took place.