House to Astonish Episode 115
After last week’s debacle, we’re very pleased to be able to say that things seem to have worked out a good bit better this time round – we’ve got news about Stan Lee Media’s latest lawsuit, Fox’s Marvel movie universe, the X-Men movie after next, Warners’ casting of Wonder Woman (and yes, we know her name’s not Godot, that was just for a rubbish joke, we promise), Marvel’s digital trades giveaway and the new Wolverine & the X-Men and Magneto series. We’ve also got reviews of Inhumanity, Rover Red Charlie and Black Science, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is retro chic. On top of that, we’ve got interviews with Al Ewing, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Kieron Gillen which we recorded at Thought Bubble. All this plus Superman eating a puppy, scratch & sniff numbering, the sound of fighting geese and the true story of what killed all the Romans.
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I generally like the interviews mainly as it is a chance to get inside the head a little of the creators. That said though, they were a wee bit hit and miss in this one. Al Ewing sounded pretty knackered and his message that (paraphrasing) “anyone can be an Avenger” just reminded me of one of the worst things of Bendis’ run whereby he picked a random character each month (Daredevil, Storm) and just made them an Avenger seemingly just for the sake of it. The Avengers name is already diluted enough as it is with about 20 titles being called ‘Avengers-something-or-other’ but if any C or D lister can become one, it just, I don’t know, sort of makes it seem less prestigious, considering that they were usually though of as being the best of the best.
Kelly Sue DeConnick though had a really good voice, plenty of energy to it. I still think she is fairly inconsistent (Avengers Assemble – yay; Captain Marvel – nay), but Pretty Deadly is one to keep an eye on. Completely forgot about her & Rios’ work on that Osborn mini, which turned out to be a really good read.
Was disappointed that it was only a cameo from Kieron Gillen (you had a valid reason fair enough, but even then, most of it was complete gibberish). Pity as he is a class writer and going by previous interviews is always good for a yarn.
The Marvel 0.1 or .NOW or .INH numbering still continues to do my head in.
As I still haven’t seen Amazing Spider-Man 1 (I really can’t be arsed to sit though a beat-by-beat re-telling of the origin), I didn’t really have any expectations of the sequel. But man, that trailer looked quite bad. The CGI looks quite cheap & poor and then that’s even before what a mess it is probably going to be juggling that many villains. People getting short shrift is one of the reasons why Spider-Man 3 was a disaster.
I just wonder with the FF whether they would benefit if their books were all just cancelled and they were taken out of Marvel altogether for about 3 or so years. They did the same thing with Thor, after I think Disassembled, and it ended up working wonders both in terms of sales and then the renewed focus & prominence on the character. It made him feel important again. I still do laugh that that the Waid & Wieringo 9cents début FF issue sold like an absurd 800,000 copies.
I really hope you are bluffing about there being no special guests at the awards show. It really has been too long since there was an appearance from Cockney Frank Cho or Ulster Nick Lowe.
I think you guys are missing the point of Wonder Woman. The key to her isn’t that she’s a woman, but that she’s a princess. That taps into a very specific genre that she shares with Princess Ariel or Princess Leia. Because of her station in office as heir to a throne, she has a people and a responsibility that Batman or Superman do not have. Her “male equivalent” would be Luke Skywalker or Prince Valiant.
The best Wonder Woman stories revolve around her being a Princess and being an American. Her “Powerless” 70s Mod phase is a reaction her royal station. Her “Death of Wonder Woman” story in the 90s revolves around her choosing to being an American over being a Princess. The really good Greg Rucka run is all about following the dictates of her station as Princess over her station as Superhero in a sort of “west wing” way.
A good Wonder Woman movie would be a “Princess in the New World.” I have no idea if Zack Snyder knows this or will even attempt this with Superman vs. Batman, but if DC was smart, they’d plan a Wonder Woman movie around this premise.
“I think you guys are missing the point of Wonder Woman. The key to her isn’t that she’s a woman, but that she’s a princess.”
Okay, she’s a princess. Let me mull that over.
Nope, still not interested.
Besides which, I disagree with you.
“The really good Greg Rucka run is all about following the dictates of her station as Princess over her station as Superhero in a sort of “west wing” way.”
I hand’t thought of it that way — that’s brilliant, and explains Rucka’s opening story with Wonder Woman (“The Hiketeia”) that had her at such odds with Batman.
What is this talk about WW being an American?
Right here we’re seeing the problems that make Wonder Woman so difficult to adapt to a feature film. It isn’t even an issue of people not knowing the character, it’s that people know wildly divergent different versions of the character.
The Lynda Carter Wonder Woman – which is still probably the basis for most of the general public’s view of the character – worked for the US Army; her theme song talked about her fighting for “the old red white and blue.” I’m pretty sure the original comic book version was pretty close to that, if only because she was created during a time when all American-made superheroes were expected to support the war effort.
The SuperFriends version – probably the second most well-known version – didn’t really get into her national loyalties that I recall (to the extent that you can talk politics about such a silly show, it seemed to play more to the “citizen of the world” approach to characters like WW and Superman, but the team was still referred to as the Justice League “of America”) but the JLU version was explicitly not an American – she was Themyscira’s ambassador to the world.
It’s perfectly legitimate to play her as anything from a flag-waving American Patriot to a xenophobic Amazon unimpressed by anything in “man’s world.”
And that’s not even going into her powers (seriously, I’m pretty sure I read both her solo book and the Justice League for over a year before I was certain whether New-52 Wonder Woman could still fly) or her personality – Lynda Carter WW was a big softie, JLU WW is always ready for a fight and sometimes even needs to be talked down by her teammates.
Gary up above says that to him, the most important aspect of her is that she’s a princess. That’s a perfectly valid take, but it’s the opposite of the one I’ve always had. I see her as being a princess the way Batman’s a CEO: it’s something she can’t completely ignore, but whenever it requires her attention, her attitude is more “oh what do these people need NOW?” than “I live to serve my people.” Unlike other characters with royal backgrounds – Aquaman, Namor, Black Panther, even Geo-Force – she’ll try to make peace when her homeland comes into conflict with the rest of the world, if she fails, she’ll regretfully side with the rest of the world. She’s the ambassador who can see both sides. At least unless the plot calls for her to be otherwise.
It isn’t that there’s no definitive take on the character, it’s that there are multiple conflicting definitive takes on the character.
“I see her as being a princess the way Batman’s a CEO.”
Funny I was actually going to make the same argument in my reply to gary. That her royal title is just as “key” as Bruce Wayne’s status as the head of a company. But then I guess it all depends on which version of WW people are familiar with.
Speaking of Batman, I can still remember the press he was getting in advance of the 1989 film. Practically every columnist had something like “Biff! Pow! Batman opens today!” written as their column headline.
Slowly over the course of these films, that sort of thing became less and less common and by the time Dark Knight Rises was released, I didn’t see a single “Biff!” or “Pow!” in these articles. It took a long time, but the overall public perception of Batman finally changed.
I guess my point is that DC has an opportunity here to reintroduce WW to the mainstream and firmly establish who she is and what she’s about. Hope they’ve given some thought to this but I’m bracing myself for Lynda Carter with a bit more attitude.
Why not make a completely new take on Wonder Woman?
In the movie she’ll be a clumsy Canadian software designer with a heart of gold. And an amusing cute pet of some sort, let’s say a hedgehog. She’s in a crappy relationship and her boyfriend is cheating on her. Along comes Steve Trevor, and it’s hate at first sight. But they’re continually thrown together, and they fall in love in a touching but hilarious scene where they find themselves tied together in the Lariat of Truth and are forced to admit their deepest secrets. But tragically a secret that no sane person would care about breaks them up, and Wonder Woman leaves for Canada on her invisible jet. But at the last moment, Steve catches up to her, they kiss, and everyone in the crowd cheers.
Also, she bounces bullets off her bracelets at some point. I mean yes she’s a milquetost serial victim defined by the men in her life, but she can also kick arse.