With all the buzz about superhero films lately I am truly in my own little playground. This excites me more than anything. It also got me thinking about what other movies would be great to see and the thought of Wonder Woman came to mind.
There has been a lot of talk and controversy revolving around this third of the iconic core of the Justice League and instinctively I think she NEEDS to have her own movie. Having the king of girl power movies Joss Whedon write it seemed like a match made in heaven, but it fell through. Other plot rumours surfaced and the fan base was outraged. Will this movie ever get made? Last we heard The Wachowskis were giving the project a makeover and we don’t even know what that means.
TheFerrett writes an insightful essay on the topic called The Empty Superhero Suit, and addresses what makes a character WORTH a story.
Almost all of the big names in comics have now had their own movies – X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman. The non-comics-readin’ man on the street only knows a handful of superheroes, and they’ve all had their movies made.
There is one notable exception: Wonder Woman. And therein lies the new problem with making comic movies – Wonder Woman has no actual stories.
See, when the average Spider-Man fan thinks of Spider-Man, there are a couple of iconic story arcs that immediately spring to mind: Letting that criminal go, and discovering that with great power comes great responsibility. The death of Gwen Stacey and the subsequent death of Norman Osborn. The first time he stopped being Spider-Man.
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But if you think about, “Wow, this storyline defines this character,” Wonder Woman doesn’t have one. She comes from Paradise Island, a pretty ill-defined place that’s either a colony of warriors, or a hippie love-fest, or an isolated out-of-touch Greek/Roman enclave, or whatever the writer needs it to be for that story line. Nobody’s really nailed it down so that it matters.And she comes to, uh, America, to be pretty and fight shit. And get tied up.
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In the end, Wonder Woman is famous for being an idea – the first kick-ass female heroine, a set of golden bracelets, an invisible plane – than anything she’s actually done. That’s troublesome.
The essay hits on more than just Wonder Woman and really dissects why some choices are made in Hollywood, and digs deep into the heart of these characters we know and love.
I encourage you to read the essay. You may not like what he has to say entirely but it is eye opening peek from the mind of an insightfully intelligent comic fan and a good starting point for discussion. TheFerrett can also beat Doug at Magic The Gathering.
You can read the rest of it by clicking HERE
