Splitting this off from the Injustice 2 thread, it was noted that in several Elseworlds, Diana tends to be pretty much a sociopathic monster. Even if not, she is a cold hardass like in the New 52 (I haven't seen much of her in Rebirth.)
The worst example I can think of is Flashpoint, where she slaughters the Shazam kids.
Off the top of my head, the post-crisis Wondy. DCAU, DCEU, Earth One, and old TV versions were generally good women, and compassionate to varying degrees.
But off the top of your head, would Sup Forums say she is one of the few heroes most likely to be an antagonist/evil as she is good in an Elseworld story?
>Diana tends to be pretty much a sociopathic monster. Well the Greeks had a very different view on what heroes are. Superman is probably what kept her from going all murder queen on the bad guys of Earth. I do find it interesting that every time Superman gets mad she gives in and every time he goes crazy and starts to take over the world she's his right hand.
Brayden Campbell
Evil Diana:
Flashpoint Injustice Superman/Wonder Woman: Whom Gods Destroy (Diana is part of the Nazis while an older Lois Lane becomes Wonder Woman)
James Brooks
Red Son
Tyler Cruz
Kingdom Come
Landon Hughes
>would Sup Forums say she is one of the few heroes most likely to be an antagonist/evil as she is good in an Elseworld story? Yes, because for whatever reason, writers LOOOOOVE making her and Superman to be absolute assholes in Elseworlds, but ESPECIALLY Wonder Woman, because people (falsely) believe she should be some sort of Ruthless Warrior Woman, so they write her like the Punisher or something.
Isaac Davis
Because elseworlds and what ifs are a chance to really do away with the character's establishment, and for Diana, it's that she's a loving caring person, who also happens to be an Amazon warrior princess, but more the loving caring part. In elseworlds, you get to finally ignore that part or even go the complete opposite direction in a way that you can't really do in normal runs that are bound by continuity. Same reason why Superman is usually the one to go evil, the convention of the character is to be the boy scout. Of course, this isn't to say that Diana and Clark are always written as loving and boyscout in continuity, far from it, but elseworlds are written as standalones, and thus attract a wider audience (see: Injustice) so your audience isn't necessarily comic readers who've known about neck snapping wondie, they just pick up vague stuff about love from the cultural Zeitgeist and see the opposite, and innately want to find out more.
Lucas Mitchell
Nobody knows how to fucking write Wonder Woman these days. Most writers tend to stress the Amazonian warrior aspect to the character and not the loving, compassionate, even motherly side.
Xavier Lopez
In the same vein, the reason batman doesn't fall into this same trap in elseworlds, is one, his massive batgod fanbase, and two, he's usually already written as a darker broodier more morally questionable character, and honestly mainstream audiences probably wouldn't be interested in a Batman alternate take where he is the paragon of Justice like Superman is.
Julian Hernandez
Hold up. Neck Snapping is normal behavior for an all-loving mommy?
William Sullivan
>Hold up. Neck Snapping is normal behavior for an all-loving mommy? Yes, when you fuck with her kids...Superman is now has a Oedipus complex?
Justin Ross
New Frontier.
Angel Green
>Kingdom Come She wasn't a sociopathic monster in that.
Noah Cook
She's essentially an alien, very removed from humanity. Biologically like Clark, and psychologically like Bruce.
Bruce has his humanity to rein him in. So does Clark.
Diana for the most part gets her humanity from her relationships. Mostly from Steve. If you take Steve away, she has no anchor. No grounding. And that makes her the most easily evil-ified of the trinity.
Bruce will always have his memories of humanity from his parents' (deaths), Alfred, his wards, and even his friendship with Jim (and Clark).
Clark as has been discussed before, is more an ordinary guy who happens to have godlike powers. Thank the Kents, and Smallville in general for raising him this way.
Diana? Depending on the iteration, she has very little of these. No support system, no important relationships, not even wards to keep her in check (Donna/Cassie? Lolno).
James Gray
She wanted to execute prisoners.
Ayden Barnes
>a Batman alternate take where he is the paragon of Justice like Superman is.
That's what the Adam West version is.
Jacob Martinez
>She wanted to execute prisoners. So do most people in our world, does that make us monsters?
Zachary Collins
You do know that the amazons are humans, right? That Paradise Island is located on planet Earth? That she most of the time get her powers are blessings from her patron goddesses as an adult, yeah?
Levi Roberts
>Depending on the iteration, she has very little of these. No support system, no important relationships, not even wards to keep her in check I'm pretty sure she has the other Amazons at the embassy and...well I wouldn't call Artemis a good influence, but she does have Clark and Bruce. Clark is enough to rein anybody in at least in most situations. I mean she didn't snap Maxwell Lords neck until Clarkâs life was on the line. That seems rather reasonable to me, of course how Supes and Bats reacted seemed completely unreasonable.
Michael Adams
The problem is only one: SUPERMAN.
Superman and Wonder Woman share a lot of traits in common, something DC doesn't like because Superman has to be special, so they twist her character to better contrast the two and make Superman look better by comparison.
Even in Elseworlds where the basis is that Superman has fallen from grace someway, they use her to sort of justify his actions by portraying her as an instigator or enabler.
Seriously, every bad portrayal of Wonder Woman can be linked to Superman. Is Wonder Woman acting stupid in a story? See if Superman is in it.
Christian Russell
>The problem is only one: SUPERMAN. I think you mean DC writers.
Ryder Gomez
Except they didn't play it straight, it was all corny tongue in cheek humor.
Jeremiah Mitchell
That's the point - the people who keep her in check are Clark and Bruce. So in Elseworlds that screw with either of them, Diana understandably turns out much worse.
Justin Campbell
That as well, but i bet is more editorial.
Initially they wanted to ship her with Superman, because of the merchandising potential thanks to their similarities. It's easier to sell shit to couples based on the SUPERman and WONDER woman iconography. So in order to facilitate that they started to take away the powers that made her different from Superman while adding new ones, like the power of fly, thus making them true equals. Then they pushed that angle of two icons who are true equals hard in comics.
But then that created a problem: now Wonder Woman is too much like Superman. Before she was just the girl on the team, but now there are too many comparisons drawn between them. This not only make it hard to make their dynamic work, but could pose the threat of her diluting his brand. Superman isn't so special when he's not the most powerful, important and beloved super-hero in the world anymore.
Thankfully Kingdom Come was published giving the publisher the springboard they needed to contrast the two a bit. By making Wonder Woman be more disconnected and violent than Superman they not only created a dynamic that can add some rapport and tension between them, but that could also make Superman look good by showing him as the more human and level-headed of the two. Not to mention that she now comes off as a bad-ass warrior chick. Xena: The Princess Warrior was all the rage back then.
That's now the characterization they always go with for her when pairing the two in a story.
Easton Harris
Yes. Fuck Drumph and fuck conservashits.
Wyatt Johnson
>That's now the characterization they always go with for her when pairing the two in a story. Couldn't we just get a mature and loving version of her. I see no reason to push blood thirsty monster version.
Carter Evans
This.
These writers don't read a single goddamn issue of Wonder Woman and so they've just characterized her how they've seen her in shit like Kingdom Come, or they make all these assumptions about her based on the oft parroted phrase "She's a warrior!" despite her never fighting a battle in her entire life before leaving Paradise Island.
It's been really nice that more people on this board have been starting to finally understand this and try actually reading Wonder Woman comics, I have to totally commend some of you guys for that.
Brandon Wood
Well user could argue that she was raised without dads so she never experienced this American nuclear family Christian values? Lol
Angel King
>Yes. Fuck Drumph and fuck conservashits. Is the death penalty really right leaning? Always thought it was more center then anything else. I mean Superman would be ashamed, but Diana is more grounded and would understand.
Lucas Jenkins
>more grounded and would understand By grounded I meant practical, that seems like a pretty good descriptor for her in comparison to the rest of the trinity.
Dominic Flores
Wonder Woman has tons of connections, actually. There's no justification for her awful characterization in Elseworlds or elsewhere.
Basically, DC wants to show Superman and Wonder Woman as an item, but they're too much alike. So to make it work WW is turned into the bitchy one.
In stories where is just her, she goes back to being a wholesome character. Hell, even in stories where you've her and another character teaming up, say Batman or Power Girl, or whatever, she's still very much her wholesome self.
Superman's basically her Red Kryptonite.
Benjamin Ramirez
Julia and Vanessa Kapatelis, major supporting characters for her entire post-Crisis pre-Flashpoint existence.
She lived on an island of incredibly loving, close people. This idea that she's alien is baseless and is what I'm talking about when I say people take simple aspects of the character like "warrior" and extrapolate them in their minds instead of getting firsthand knowledge.
Chase Cooper
>I mean Superman would be ashamed, but Diana is more grounded and would understand
>By grounded I meant practical, that seems like a pretty good descriptor for her in comparison to the rest of the trinity
Nigga, we're talking about a character that lived most of her life in a literal fucking paradise where the bitches did nothing but lazy around or parry playfully with one another because they never had to worry about want, disease or death. In what hell did that teach her to be grounded and practical?
Isaiah Butler
>Basically, DC wants to show Superman and Wonder Woman as an item, but they're too much alike. But there really not all that alike. I mean he's a farm boy from Kansas and she's a princess from a mystical island. I mean they're both super powered sure,but even then their powers and skill aren't the same. I mean big blue is at least a tier above in ability with a tank mentality and she's warrior born with a real battlefield mentality.
Jacob Evans
>Is the death penalty really right leaning?
Ehhhh, kinda. Sorta. In America it's more like, the death penalty is supported by basically all right-wingers BUT the left seems to be more or less ambivalent. It's legal in California despite there being referendums to make it illegal almost every voting year.
William Sullivan
Wonder Woman? Pph! More like Blunder Woman!
Kevin Scott
She was always very... practical. When DC wants to portrait her evil she just becomes... more practical.
Austin Gomez
>In what hell did that teach her to be grounded and practical? She's from a society that was enslaved and humiliated and took on a very war like Spartan approach to civilization. They may preach peace and love and all that jazz, but when it comes to life they live they are practical if not to the point of brutality.
Christopher Evans
She's cross-eyed in the third panel.
Jackson Lee
>Ehhhh, kinda. Sorta. In America it's more like, the death penalty is supported by basically all right-wingers BUT the left seems to be more or less ambivalent. It's legal in California despite there being referendums to make it illegal almost every voting year. In other words it's more center, might lean a little stronger right, but still center.
Alexander Martin
People seem to just think they're the same because they're both nice. Despite them having completely different views.
Everything needs to be EXTREME and Flanderized so simpletons can easily differentiate.
Ryan Lee
>She's from a society that was enslaved and humiliated and took on a very war like Spartan approach to civilization. They may preach peace and love and all that jazz, but when it comes to life they live they are practical if not to the point of brutality.
That's wrong, though. They aren't Spartan at all. They secluded themselves in a isolated island precisely because they didn't wanted to fight and hurt anymore. They just wanted to be left alone and leave in peace. If some of them train, is to keep that peaceful way of life.
Wonder Woman's only shown as a pragmatic warrior that kills because DC has been trying to push her in that direction since the 90s to make her stand out in the Trinity and look more kewl.
Josiah Sanchez
Your evidence supporting her "always" being practical is one of the comics that started this whole stupid practical meme.
Landon Hill
I don't know where you're getting this idea unless it's from the New 52 run, because the Amazons have always been a peaceful people once they moved to Themyscira.
They spend all day playing games and studying, not preparing for a war.
When they finally decided to return to the world, they went on a mission of peace going from city to city spreading their message, and didn't bring weapons with them.
Thomas Thomas
Personality-wise. They're two wholesome character who are super nice and caring. So it's hard to write them as a duo and make that dynamic work. One has to bite the bullet and play the bad cop and it certainly won't be Superman.
And about them being nothing alike, DC usually ignore their backgrounds. I mean, both characters have complete different backgrounds and world views, but whenever DC wants to pair them up those differences are never addressed and you've both acting like solitary gods unable to connect with anyone but each other, despite that bullshit making no sense since Superman grew up in society as human first and foremost and only started developing his powers as teen.
Jace Foster
>because the Amazons have always been a peaceful people once they moved to Themyscira. Well they had more in line with a Greek city state pre Themyscira thus war like and once they were on Themyscira they continued at least the training. Or did Supergirl just play all day when she went there for training. Actually the Amazons are always portrayed as great warriors usually in full armour. That's without including the Bana tribe at all.
Grayson Kelly
because most elseworlds, while fun and interesting are lazy as hell, and no story is more lazy than "what if the hero was EVIL?!?!!?"
Leo Campbell
>Personality-wise. They're two wholesome character who are super nice and caring. So it's hard to write them as a duo and make that dynamic work. One has to bite the bullet and play the bad cop and it certainly won't be Superman. Diana at her core is bold while I would say Clark is rather reserved though not meek. There is no reason to make a bad cop in their relationship merely need to point to where their viewpoints differ.
Noah Parker
Not can't do, as far as DC is concerned. Superman has to be always the nicest person in the room. They can't also have too many opposing viewpoints, or otherwise it makes it harder to justify their supposedly great connection. Only if it is to show that Wonder Woman is wrong about something in order to make Superman look better in comparison. Then it's allowed.
Hudson Russell
>Not can't do, as far as DC is concerned. Superman has to be always the nicest person in the room. They can't also have too many opposing viewpoints, or otherwise it makes it harder to justify their supposedly great connection. Only if it is to show that Wonder Woman is wrong about something in order to make Superman look better in comparison. Then it's allowed. And this is why they both should be in the public domain.
Luke Hernandez
To be honest, Wonder Woman isn't the only one that suffers because of Superman.
Captain Marvel and the Flash are on the same boat. Every time they share a comic with Superman, Captain Marvel becomes 10 times more naive and juvenile, not say dumber and stupid, and the Flash loses his intelligence and speed, becoming a clumsy retard or background material.
Jace Lopez
No, it is just one of the comics where they estabilished she doesn't have problem with killing when she is forced to.
She killed countless demons and shit, just not humans.
>They spend all day playing games and studying, not preparing for a war. I'm going through her stories and I didn't read the N52 so far but the amazons were always trained to hunt and kill, they always had weapons and they could protect themselves when sometone attacked the island. The always fighting amazons of Bana-Mighdall were always calling them pussies but they still were a match. Just because Diana always protected her sisters and the weak but it doesn't mean she is automatically considers "muh not killing" an unbreakable rule.
Michael Murphy
They were never trained to hunt and kill. Their weapons is for defense.
And that user is right, Greg Rucka's run started the idea that Wonder Woman's a pragmatic warrior who's willing to dish out what the rest of the trinity can't. Might have been editorial, since it was for cross-over bullshit and tie-in cross-over bullshit a for a much bigger event cross-over that needed all the heroes to be a former shadow of themselves.
Jason White
>In other words it's more center, That's probably true for most countries where it still exists. In countries where there's no longer a death penalty, it's always right-wingers who want it back, and often the most extreme of them.
Landon Walker
>So do most people in our world, does that make us monsters?
Yes? Once they're prisoners they are strictly the problem of the justice system. Her actively showing malice like that is Isa good sign this WW is not stable in the slightest.
Jack Collins
>Is Wonder Woman acting stupid in a story? See if Superman is in it.
Then explain her being a ruthless dictator in Flashpoint.
Aaron Walker
They tried to do the same take but with Aquaman.
But yeah, Flashpoint is the odd one.
Angel Harris
She was always pragmatic because she wasn't raised by normal people. As for the defense if you mean killing their opponents then yeah. Her original stories showed her ww trial as a sport competition but everything after, was pretty much a combat trial. They guarded Dooms Doorway for a long time and they knew how to defend it. Philippus always wanted to kill shit as soon some danger emerged. Just because they weren't always in armor it doesn't mean they were hippies.
Zachary Ortiz
Many Justice League stories are especially suffering for this reason. I'm reading JLA because people said it is cool but it is mostly about "things are shit until Superman get to know who to punch"
Andrew Murphy
What do you mean by normal? And just because some of the amazons were always on the ready due to still being shell-shocked by their past horrors, that doesn't mean they were all like that.
That page only show me WW acting like a cunt because once again she has to be an aggressive and wrong woman when near Superman.
Elijah Campbell
>That page only show me WW acting like a cunt because once again she has to be an aggressive and wrong woman when near Superman. Is she wrong? I suppose that's a matter of perspective.
Joseph Jones
They are trained to hunt and kill. Part of the price of living in a paradise is that they guard Dooms Doorway and that meant dealing with the occasional monster army.
Blake Cruz
She wasn't a ruthless dictator in Flashpoint, she was a naive idiot in way over her head. Her aunt was the one doing all the evil shit behind her back. Her aunt started the war with Atlantis, her aunt rounded up the men and her aunt was the one who killed the Shazam kids.
Hudson Smith
She still went through with the whole thing because she wanted revenge on Aquaman. She could've stopped way earlier if she wanted to.
Carter Ramirez
I just went through her entire post-Crisis history, as well.
With very few exceptions, she always honors life above all. Even John Byrne kept this aspect.
Even monsters she rarely killed, because she can commune with animals and pacify them with her lasso.
Easton Gray
Fuck off Frank.
Jose Miller
Everyone drops they're IQ when Batman is in the room.
Nicholas Gomez
Killing Diana is shit and so are murderous Amazons. Azz might be a good writer, but this was a retarded idea.
Jayden Murphy
>Fuck off Frank. You can try to deny it, but it's true. I can't say I even enjoy that fact.
Matthew Long
Amazons Attack had the Amazons going full supervillain child murderers in the regular DCU.
Nicholas Williams
>Well the Greeks had a very different view on what heroes are. That doesn't make them serial murderers, though. Sure, a classic hero will kill in the heat of combat, but they do not tend to do so when they can help it.
Caleb Turner
>That doesn't make them serial murderers, though. Sure, a classic hero will kill in the heat of combat, but they do not tend to do so when they can help it. You really need to lookup greek heroes. Here read this:mythweb.com/heroes/heroes.html
Brandon King
>Hand a link to Greek heroes >It lists "Hercules" Yeah, your source is garbage.
Brandon Campbell
Hercules was just the Roman name for a Greek hero.
Being a pedant about something you apparently just know fun facts about is the worst kind of pedant and places you high on the peak of mount stupid.
Julian Fisher
In a world where people come back to life regularly, yes
"Strike one, neck snap. Strike two, throat slash. Strike three, NO VIDEO GAMES, YOUNG MAN."
Asher Morales
Your source is still shit.
Samuel Gonzalez
greek heroes killed for the most petty shit someone could block there way and they wolud go on a murder spree
Justin Kelly
Is it cold on mount stupid?
Caleb Reyes
>Your source is still shit. It was actually my source and its from a teaching website. If you would have actually clicked on the Hercules page you would have read, "Hercules was the Roman name for the greatest hero of Greek mythology -- Heracles.". I assume they did it for name recognition. mythweb.com/hercules/herc01.html
Aiden Flores
She wanted to if there was no other choice and if the prisoners escaped from a super prison in an irradiated Kansas. Like, Diana was basically stating an ultimatum and she wasn't happy to do it. You make it sound like she was being a bitch, but the reality is she was simply stating that, if there was no other way, she'd be willing to kill super powered prisoners if it meant saving the world.
Jordan Morris
Read a god damn WW comic that isn't new 52
Brandon Garcia
Unless Johns is writing it.
Lucas Martinez
She was ready to spill blood in her pursuit of peace and SHE WAS WRONG. Every one tells her that.
Blake Richardson
No, Superman and Batman tell her that. Everyone else agrees that if shit gets to real, they'll have to kill the prisoners if they do escape and don't comply. Wonder Woman didn't even want to do it, but she saw no other choice. Later she only kills one guy that was about to kill another hero (I think Red Robin).
Jose Harris
Superman and Batman were right.
Her willingness to do it made her a cunt. It was unnecessary and wrong. She was overcompensating to prove herself after failing as an amazon.
Alexander Lee
...
Logan Jones
Didn't Hercules murder his own wife and kid cause he got mad?
Benjamin Cox
johns is shit because he doesn't jerk off Batgod enough
Ian Flores
the problem is that it is easy to see wonder woman as the product of a small minded cult like isolated group of self righteous battle maniacs. the amazons are just that easy to drag into a dark interpretation.
Aiden Bennett
I think he was manipulated into doing it by Hera. It led to him going into self-imposed exile for years because of the crushing guilt.