The Wonder Woman movie was great, and it brought scores of new fans to the character. However, DC failed to capitalize on this movement by promoting a pretty generic DC Super Hero Girls comic instead of a real Wonder Woman story.
The Wonder Woman movie had Diana dealing with her high principals in a murky world, kicking the asses of Nazis and gods and tanks (if tanks have asses). There were kids – boys and girls – posing with the 3D posters at the theater.
Unfortunately, there’s none of that kick-ass strong woman in the kids marketing for DC. For a long time, it seemed that any comic book marketed to kids had to have almost no violence, and of course no sexuality, and no complex storyline.
The DC Super Hero Girls described Wonder Woman this way: “the Amazon warrior and princess who has never left her home on Paradise Island until now! In order to be the best Super Hero she can be, Wonder Woman has to juggle classes, new friendships, and seeing a boy for the first time – at the most elite school in the galaxy.”
I’m not kidding. Here’s the picture:
Ares isn’t the villain. He shows up and they hug or something.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to devalue the hard work of the people who put this comic together. It’s not a terrible book. It’s a breezy read, and the art is fun. But if you leave the theater expecting more of the same, you will be highly disappointed.
Wonder Woman was the first super hero movie my 10-year-old daughter had ever seen. She only wanted to see it because there was a girl kicking butt. So, she read this comic and was OK with it and moved on. She read it once and it really didn’t jive with her.
Instead, I loaned her this:
Buy it here:
JLA Vol. 5 (Jla (Justice League of America))
In this one, a hapless mortal accidentally unleashes the Queen of Fables into the real world. Being a creature of fiction, her power is fed by imagination. She is fueled by fairy tales and horror movies and anything else writers can think of (and writers can think of some pretty messed up stuff). She mistakes Diana for her nemesis, Snow White, and casts a curse on her. The League has to travel into the world of myth, where Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth has great power.
Add to this, the fact that the team is hobbled by a lack of trust after Batman betrayed them with ways to defeat to them all. This lack of trust got worse as they faced off against Destiny and eventually, their alter egos and super hero personas got split and took on lives of their own.
During Mark Waid’s run on JLA, it felt like there was something cool happening on every page. And Bryan Hitch was able to make it happen.
My daughter eagerly read this graphic novel and loved it. It was more of the kick-butt girl she wanted.
This mistake isn’t new. When the very first X-Men movie came out, all the heroes from the movie were on different teams and Magneto was dead. I was working at a comic book store at the time. People came in looking for something like the movie for their kid, and I had trouble recommending something. Mostly because every issue of every comic back then was part 7 of a 14-issue story arc.
Comic companies have to remember the time decades ago when comics were all ages and reached a variety of fans. There’s a way to write so that kids can have that “gosh wow” feeling of cool action, and older readers can dig into the more sophisticated backstories.
Whatilearnedbywriting's Blog 