Thursday, February 10, 2011

Oh, for fuck's sake.

So... Does anyone remember this post where I ranted about the Perez reboot taking Wonder Woman off the JLA founder's list?
As a result, Wonder Woman was younger, less experienced, and less wordly than her former contemporaries. Again, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but it sure as hell does to me. Seniority is a huge deal where I work. These men were her colleagues before, and now, when she had been an equal when it came to age, experience and wisdom, she was now behind the curve. She went from looking to them as friends and co-workers to looking at them as examples and possible mentors. When they were veteran heroes she was a rookie. She was originally meant as an inspiration specifically to women, but now, when she came on the scene, it was littered with female heroes anyway. Her own sidekick, Donna Troy, had been recast at the beginning of the timeline and was, as Wonder Girl, more experienced than Wonder Woman when she first arrived.

And why? So that Diana, originally conceived as a teacher could be recast as an innocent setting her first feet on Man's Shores and learning the harsh lessons of life. They couldn't do it like Batman: Year One or Man of Steel and write her origin in a miniseries set at the beginning of the timeline. No, they put her at the beginning of Crisis so that we would watch her new life unfold in real-time. They rewrote her supporting cast to fit. Where she'd been a mentor and friend of a group of young girls, she was now surrounded by older women (Julia Kapetalis, the new Etta Candy, Myndi Mayner) who were there to guide and mentor her. She'd previously had a love interest, an adorable Navy pilot with a cute butt she followed all the way from Themiscyra, a man with old-fashioned ideas about womanhood who found Wonder woman strangely intriguing. She used to roll her eyes at him, try to subtly teach him lessons, and save him from danger when he got in over his head. Now, he was aged over twenty years ahead of her, and instead of a cute guy she wanted to come around to her way of thinking she had an older man to act as a father figure and guide her in this new world because she was now so fucking young and naive.

Or any of the other posts where my point is that as the most recognizable independent female superhero in the genre she should be the equal of Superman and Batman in experience, status, and ability and treated with the same respect?

If not, go read those. That way you'll know why I'm so pissed off at this.

And I'm going to remain pissed off until they X-men: Omega out this fucking reboot and restore her to the same experience level as Superman and Batman. Because they've shoe-horned her in as the doe-eyed novice of the Trinity once already.

4 comments:

  1. Agreed. Why oh why is the concept of Wonder Woman being a woman with experience and wisdom such a threat to people? If you need a dewy-eyed innocent Amazon, then have it be Donna Troy. After all, what is one MORE reboot in her crowded young life?

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  2. -reads the article on Wonder Woman's inspiration-

    .....yikes

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  3. I'm sure we'll be back to Diana Classic in one year, tops.

    Damn, I wish DC had just originally given the Supes and WW jobs to Roberson and Hester in the first place so we could have bypassed JMS completely.

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  4. As a male WW fan (are we really that rare?) I'm simply voting with my pocketbook and staying away from this crap.

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