SMAX... that blue guy in TOP 10, right?

[JarlWolf]

And for a Wonder Woman movie to work, like the Batman movies of recent you need to re-invent her. Sure, most people know of Wonder Woman and Batman but aren't really heavily vested in either of it's stories: At least that was the case for Batman until the recent movies came out. Those movies approached it from a different angle then most of the films before it and went back to the core theme of Batman for the most part and it was a huge success. Wonder Woman needs to start from ground zero again like Batman did and she needs to be re-invented for the audience of today. Bring back villains and any elements that can give her contrast and you'll have an interesting film.

[Buster's Uncle]

I couldn't disagree more strongly.  This is the thinking that ruins most comic book movies.

Are you familiar with the first season of the WW TV show?  It was set in the 40's, she beat up Nazis most weeks, and she looked like this:



Hard to go wrong with watching Nazis getting pummeled by her.  The other seasons, set in the present, just weren't as good.

So it's already been done right, and was a huge hit.  Let's not fiddle with a winning formula, but find another statuesque brunette and hurt some Nazis!

[JarlWolf]

You are entitled to your opinion, and again: My knowledge of this super heroine is worthless. I don't know much about her.

But I think some sort of revitilization is needed and I think there was a bit of misunderstanding: She hasn't had any film recently and audiences may be a bit unfamiliar with her is all. When I meant start at ground zero I didn't mean- change her story and theme, I meant:

Start off at the BEGINNING of her story so people get accustomed to her again.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh.  Well, we agree then - although the kids do know who Wonder Woman is over here. 

Everybody does, which is sort of my push-back about having to have a concept.  It's a little like having to come up with a concept for a real person you know.  She's not up there with Superman, quite, but as famous as, say, Robin, which is a VERY famous character.  Spider-man and the X-men are getting there, 'cause having hit TV shows and/or movies is the name of that game -being famous to non fans- but she, like Superman and Batman and Robin, have been famous a lot longer.

Nothing about the pictures?

I do need to say that from a purely comic book perspective, which is what I've been talking about, I don't want to start over if it can be helped.  DC, the company that publishes her, has started over everything so many times in the last 25 years, that it's become a creative cancer that I want to avoid.  Just give me and Mylochka a month to read everything in the Wonder Woman comic since 1987 as research, and I'd want to try very hard to go on from wherever she was when we came in and try to make it work and/or ignore the unusable parts by not mentioning them again.  Way, way, WAY too many reboots already.

[Buster's Uncle]

Apropos of nothing, I want to point out a sub-optimal creative decision in Watchmen.  I'm fine/agree with the idea that actual masked mystery men suddenly running around in Watchmen's real life killed the appeal of capes as escapist fantasy.  But other things being the same as in the actual real world, when a particular genre ended up pushing out monster comics, romance comics, horror comics and the like in place of supers, it would have been war or western comics, the latter being most realistically likely, IMAO.  Pirates were indeed a thing in the older comics, but my diffuse knowledge of comics history indicates that they didn't quite rise to the level of the other genres I mention.

But since Wertham and the congressional hearings got nipped in the bud because of the spook agencies employing the Commedian, and EC Comics didn't get stepped on and driven into just publishing MAD Magazine, horror comics would have been realistic and the best fit for the creative echoes Moore and Gibbons were doing with the comic Bernard read for 9 months...

[Buster's Uncle]

...I left out funny animal comics, a major early genre; but then, who wants to imagine how Moore would have twisted Hoppy the Marvel Bunny or Fox and Crow?

-Besides Uno, I mean...

[Vishniac]

But other things being the same as in the actual real world, when a particular genre ended up pushing out monster comics, romance comics, horror comics and the like in place of supers, it would have been war or western comics, the latter being most realistically likely, IMAO.

Two things:

1) Yes. I remember a lot of comics (aside from Marvel) from when I was young but I can't remember pirates ones. (That's perhaps why Moore chose this sub-genre). There were a lot of non-super heroes and western (Blek the Rock, some lesser kinds of Tarzan-like, the Phantom) and war and horror comics were everywhere in very little and black&white format.

2) I don't know whether you saw them but there are now a series of different comics from different writers/scenarists called "Before Watchmen" and narrating the adventures of the Comedian, the first, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the  Minutemen, the Masked Judge, etc. I could just throw a glance at them once in a shop but they seem pretty well done (but Moore would kill anybody acknowledging that!).

[Vishniac]

So it's already been done right, and was a huge hit.  Let's not fiddle with a winning formula, but find another statuesque brunette and hurt some Nazis!

Your opinion on this?

[Buster's Uncle]

Megan Fox is about as right as Angelina Jolie - brunette and certainly good-looking enough, but with an air to her that hints she'd do you proper if she liked, and she may be considering it.  Horny, appealing as that may be, is the wrong look for Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman is pretty thoroughly caste in nature.  I'll get to that soon.

[Buster's Uncle]

2) I don't know whether you saw them but there are now a series of different comics from different writers/scenarists called "Before Watchmen" and narrating the adventures of the Comedian, the first, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the  Minutemen, the Masked Judge, etc. I could just throw a glance at them once in a shop but they seem pretty well done (but Moore would kill anybody acknowledging that!).

Before Watchmen is a whole big conversation that I don't know is worth getting into with so few of us here that deeply invested in love of comics.  Leaving aside the whole ethics controversy, which I do not do lightly, my short take is that they've done the creatively bankrupt comics equivalent of remaking Casablanca.  Some things are just so right and complete that you don't touch them.  Also, Neil Gaiman didn't write any of it, so not worth doing even if you don't think it's remaking Citizen Kane.  I wouldn't care to see even Grant Morrison try - and no one involved in Before Watchmen was even on his level of mastery, apologies to Joe Kubert.

[JarlWolf]

And that girl doesn't have the right face for Wonderwoman methinks. Wonder Woman seems to me a bit more... stronger and bolder looking. And darker form of brunette. I always imagined Wonder Woman with near black hair to be honest.

[Buster's Uncle]

Blue-black, not very dark brown, and bigger hair...

[Green1]

Okay, I will bite.

Wonder Woman is a worthless super hero.

Even Underdog from the 1960s has more use. Maybe even the Pink Panther.

Now, being an Amazon and all that is okay. But a real amazon would be more dike-ish and ready to stomp some tail. Her weapons? A lame lasso that makes folks tell the truth and indestructible bracelets that just happen to be useful if something hits your wrists? Or the lameness of an invisible jet?

Now, they did retcon her to try to "make" her cool with the whole god/goddess stuff, but still, it has no comparison to the mythology of Superman or lord forbid the deepness of Spiderman.

I think she should be made a love interest or go away. Either that, or a grittier, feral deal from the jungles.

Although the spinning 1970s transformation is classic and one of the more worthless images burned into my head.

[Sigma]

In Greek mythology the Amazons were seen as being incredibly desirable, so making her a butch lesbian isn't necessary to that aspect of her character.

[Vishniac]

Now, they did retcon her to try to "make" her cool with the whole god/goddess stuff, but still, it has no comparison to the mythology of Superman or lord forbid the deepness of Spiderman.

Joke or irony?
Fact is Superman has no deepness.
He is the most one-dimensional of all super-heroes, perhaps because he was the first one (or not far from it).
He's just the boy-scout and not much more, and authors had to write some stand-alone stories to change that matter.
The mythology too is shallow: Krypton heritage? Bah! Kryptonite weakness? Always the same thing. Been there done that. Even Zak Snyder felt compelled to bring back Zod for a movie, so few are the threats to him.

I've read herds of people complaining about Smallville being crap but I liked the show. There you had a (pre-)Superman who doubted, who wonders, who loved, who failed, who was seeking answers, who had adventures...
But the usual Superman? Give me Lex Luthor instead anyday!