Wonder Woman and Justice League

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Zeus doesn't do much of anything in this. Always Hercules trying to keep order while Ares and Hades try to screw everyone else and each other. Why does Hades get that much hate? He is actually pretty loyal in the myths, sure he brings people to their ultimate end but he is much less of a scoundrel than even Zeus or Poseidon.

[Condottiere 40K]

Persephone, Rape thereof.

[Kyriakos]

Then again, could you name three olimpians that don´t fit that description?

Hm, there is Hephaistos, and Hestia, who are good iirc. Afaik Aphrodite is neutral (i think she didn't kill anyone, too busy being a sex-symbol and all ).

Apollo (at least in some myths) is supposed to be lawful, and anyway is the god of Beauty, Logic and Law, among other things. I suppose he has killed, but is nowhere near as murderous as gods like Dionysos or the Zeus-Poseidon or Ares or Athena or Artemis
Pretty sure Hermes has killed mortals as well.

There is also Demetra (Demeter), mother of Persephone. Hercules is risen to Olympus upon his death as well.

[Condottiere 40K]

Apollo is a narcissist; but probably a genius.

Aphrodite has ADD.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Persephone, Rape thereof.

I honestly don't think Persephone minds. We never even get her perspective.

[maxi90]

Hm, there is Hephaistos, and Hestia, who are good iirc. Afaik Aphrodite is neutral (i think she didn't kill anyone, too busy being a sex-symbol and all ).

Isn´t Aphrodite the one who turned a woman into a spider because she beat her at a knitting contest? Or was that Athena?

[Condottiere 40K]

Athena; lots of sexual tension.

[Kyriakos]

Athena vs Arachne, yes. Besides, it's not like Aphrodite would be knitting

[Knight of Heaven]

Wait, that amazon with the crown-thing is Hera? (i suppose not, but...)

That would be Hypolita i think. The Queen of the amazons.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

In some versions Hyppolita looks just like Diana.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Where as in others they look nothing alike.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Condottiere 40K]

Makeovers; between pillow fights.

[saxdude]

Women

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Wonder Woman has never been that successful compared to other DC comics.
Their newest iteration of comics is some of the weirdest I have ever seen. It is overly sexualized and every panel looks like bondage porn. It is noticeable how hard the artists tried to show off their bodies in almost every panel. The story is everywhere and the characters have little to no personalities. Zeus is the father of Wonder Woman which is stale and predictable as all . They try to seem more mature by using big kid words like etc etc. They have a sort of weird Feminist angle where they are saying Feminism is good but in a cheesy predictable sort of way like men are good too but Amazons are justifiably angry at the entire world because some guy did some bad stuff to them once. Diana's design is really boring, mostly because her facial expression rarely changes and she wears really tight everything, even armour when really they would be wearing flowing clothes and stuff because ancient Greeks did not have jump suits and armour is actually really thick (that in itself though is not so removed from comics and Wonder Woman in general). Steve Trevor is a modern combat pilot (instead of a WW1 or WW2 pilot) and he is a Black guy for some reason despite the fact that in all their versions Steve Trevor has been an extremely White Blonde haired guy. To be honest I never really liked Steve Trevor, he has always been the generic fast talking, womanizing scoundrel Han Solo type, too many of those as it is since it creates an over used stereotype.

The issue with Wonder Woman in general is that it plays with the mythology and source material, doesn't really do that much interesting with it, constantly reuses origin stories (again not far removed from comics in general), reuses major plot points but switches it between villains so when it isn't Ares it is Hades, is strange as all but takes itself way too seriously, has an extremely cliched Feminist message but isn't even sure whether it is old 1950's mom and pop Feminism or Third Wave Feminism or a parody of Feminism even, fails to really make the titular protagonist different or interesting aside from being very titular, aside from the Olympians has terrible ing villains (and character designs) and usually the writing is not that good and never goes anywhere and is never resolved (like many comic books). They also have to constantly shove the character, story and setting to the modern day which gets really cliched and annoying. To this day I'm not even sure what all of Diana's powers are, I guess she is like a weaker Superman. Wonder Woman has produced one or two good comic series but utterly fails in television or film adaptations, has low sales in pretty much every media and is basically reduced to making cameos in the Super Friends or Justice League. The premise and character concept is also really weird, notably in the character design but it is a comic book so it has to slide. Actually the premise is basically the same as Percy Jackson but with other freaks wearing capes and tights so that it is hard to see it as terribly unique by current standards. I mean you got things like Percy Jackson, Marvel's Thor and every other version of Wonder Woman, it has been done a million times!

[Condottiere 40K]

Probably because it can't reconcile itself with the era it was created in, the source material, and the underlying sadomasochistic philosophy of her creator.

[saxdude]

eeeh, she's basically DC's Thor, but poorly managed. Still, she has managed to become part of DC's holy trinity and one of the most iconic comic book characters of all time, so you have to wonder, considering what a spectacular failure DC has been at marketing her, just how that happened. Was Bruce Timm's run in JLU really that good?

Maybe she is best at being a team player?

[Condottiere 40K]

Thor was dead boring until Walt Simonsen took over; Daredevil slightly more interesting, but had no traction until Frank Miller; and Tony Stark had to wait until RDJ sobered up.

To be fair, Green Arrow only became interesting with the teevee series.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Wonder Woman was originally intended to be a symbol of 1950's Feminism. Hence the design, plot points and the lack of men in her setting, except for the Steve Trevor guy who always manages to find a way into the story somehow. It wasn't so much about Greek mythology as it was putting all of that into a modern setting. Her success afterwards was entirely due to her "team ups" with groups like the Justice League and her interaction with those characters. Though Wonder Woman is not exactly the most interesting character ever. She is almost as boring as Superman but her main conflicting characteristic comes in the form of her overbearing idealistic mother and her reaction to that, in concept at least the whole thing is very sexual, by the lack of sex thereof I suppose. In one of the later comic books they decided to give her some existential angst because "she is nothing more than sculpted dirt" which honestly was a stupid plot point from the beginning and is something that only serves a maximum purpose if it turned out to be a lie. Every time it was suggested that her father was either Hercules, Ares or Hades it meant something at the very least out of shock value because they were bad guys and at the most because it was actually relevant to the characters and story. Now that she is the daughter of Zeus it doesn't mean anything at all. Zeus was never that relevant to this story anyway and now it is just hey look at Diana she is the daughter of Zeus, so strong oh wow.

I don't even think the failure has been due to marketing, it is just a weird as comic book that provides very little to the reader because the writing and origin story have pretty much always sucked and they just change it a little every time but not enough so that it is really good, meaning they don't fix any of the inherent problems. None of the shows or movies or live action adaptations have been successful either. As we live in a very cynical society I doubt this series can really stand the test of time. The solution was to shove her into the Justice League and explore some of her story there or put her in a team as part of the big three (Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman). But then we got fan fictiony romances with Superman, sometimes Batman but never both at any given time. Lets face it, any comic that isn't the original series is basically just fan fiction but with the brand recognition and sales privileges. That doesn't mean the original of anything was good or the best but every adaptation after that will be based on that first copy and play with it a little as writers of fan fiction often do.

[athanaric]

Wonder Woman was originally intended to be a symbol of 1950's Feminism.

Which is why the movie would have been cool, and the jokes in the trailer funny and daring, if it'd come out in the 1950s.

[saxdude]

That'd work pretty well actually, it being in the height of macarthyism.

[Condottiere 40K]

Characters tend to evolve as a mirror to the current society; Superman turned from Socialist to liberal.

Thor seems quite comfortable in his skin and in our world, at least in the movie.

So the question would be, what role do the creative team(s) think that Wonda plays both in the superhero pantheon and in our era.