Just who does DC Comics think that Diana is these days? It depends who you ask, apparently; according to Brian Azzarello, the writer of next month’s relaunch of the regular title, she’s a character in need of some attention… but not necessarily a superhero:
[T]he first issue’s all done and we’re running right up to the edge, as far as what we can get away with. We’re pushing the envelope with this one. I firmly believe that that’s what this character needs right now… [I]t’s not going to be a superhero book. I can guarantee you that, it’s not a superhero book. It’s a horror book.
Meanwhile, Grant Morrison – who may or may not be working on a project that may or may not turn out to be Wonder Woman: Earth One – apparently also wants to run right up to the edge, but in terms of sexuality:
Morrison said that you can take the violence out of the original concept of Superman- all the drop-kicking bad guys into the ocean, which would basically kill them anyway, or you can take the gun out of early Batman, and these characters remain essentially the same. But you can’t take the sex out of Wonder Woman. That version of the character died with Marston in the 1940s and she hasn’t recovered her popularity since.
That Superman’s meant to be this ultimate expression of masculinity and he still gets to be sexual, while Wonder Woman’s meant to be the ultimate expression of womanhood and yet she isn’t allowed anything to do with sex.
Morrison’s take will, he says, be informed by “feminist theory from Simone de Beauvoir to Andrea Dworkin” (but not beyond? Or maybe he was just going for the most well-known names), and be sexual without being exploitative. Considering Morrison’s Bulleteer, I’m very curious to see where he ends up going with this – if it ever sees print. After all, remember Wonder Woman: Bondage?
August 22nd, 2011 at 10:43 am
Wonder Woman as a GhostBuster is definitely a new direction for the character.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:22 am
Is the last sentence (fragment) of that excerpt a continuation of “Morrison said” from the prior paragraph? It seems like it needs an “is [adjective]” at the end.
Anyway, I agree that Wonder Woman’s sexuality is essential to her character. Not because she is a sex object but because is sort of an aspirational figure — a woman who can be sexy but self-contained at the same time, in a way that is not seeking attention. Also, she doesn’t have to be afraid that her sexuality is something that can make her a target for violence, since she’s Wonder Woman and all. I guess Marston’s original vision of submission as power kind of plays into that, but I find that it too often veers into kink territory, which muddies up a clear vision of the character.
I find that superheroes work best when they are NOT terribly complex. The world they exist can be, but they are points of stability. Superman is strong and good. His internal struggles have to do with his essential character — how can he do the most good? How can he be sure he is not misusing his power? How can he be human when he is not a human? To me, Wonder Woman is also strong and good, but in a way that is transcendent — she is, literally, a goddess. Her struggles have to do with finding a way to relate on a human level with those she wants to protect. I wonder, though, why does a goddess care about mortals? Unlike Superman, I don’t think WW wants to be human.
Sorry! Musing here…
August 22nd, 2011 at 1:52 pm
“Superman’s meant to be this ultimate expression of masculinity and he still gets to be sexual [...]”
Says the man who’s undoing the character’s marriage and reverting him to a “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” characterization.
August 22nd, 2011 at 6:03 pm
@K-Box
Please read Golden Age Superman and tell me when does the Kleenex comes in. The villains, perhaps? This is obviously the inspiration for Action Comics’ Superman.
August 22nd, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Arturo: As much as Morrison says he’s hearkening back to the Golden Age Superman, he’s resurrecting one of the most onerous and inherently misogynist Silver Age cliches of the character, which is the Lois/Clark/Superman “love triangle.” Siegel and Shuster, the Golden Age CREATORS of the character, actually tried to do away with that trope back in their day — the story that originally would have introduced “K-Metal” (the precursor to Kryptonite) would have had Lois discovering the secret, and the characters moving forward from there. Couple this with DC’s leering insistence that Clark be a creepy “nice guy” who uses his super-hearing to listen in on Lois and her new boyfriend, plus their promise that Superman will hook up with Wonder Woman instead, and yes, “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” is indeed where we’re headed. Hell, in the “Earth One” novels by JMS, he promised to devote an entire story to showing that Superman is INCAPABLE of sex with a human. THIS is the mindset of modern DC, and it’s so virulently gynophobic that they probably think vaginas have teeth.
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:49 pm
This is the sort of nonsense I’d expect to read over at dcwomenkickingass, where uninformed, misandrist jackassery is the order of the day and one of the signs of the coming apocolypse is catwomans exposed bra strap.
It’s obvious that kbox knows as much about the Gold and Silver Age Superman as he/she does about flossing his/her vagina.