Wednesday, June 30, 2010

If That's Wonder Woman, Where's Her Star-Spangled A--?

Yeah, that's the new Wonder Woman. I don't have a whole lot to say about this because, like most red-blooded American geeks, I haven't read her comic in years.

DC is rebooting the character in an attempt to give her some more fans. While I'm getting a little tired of all these reboots, it is also pretty clear that something needed to be done. She hasn't really been all that interesting since the days when she was rescuing Steve Trevor, palling around with Etta Candy, and getting tied up with her own lasso way too often. So Jim Lee has given her a new costume and J. Michael Straczynski has re-written her whole life, origin to now. It might not be such a bad idea. I mean, peace ambassador for Themyscira is not the sort of mission to engage a readership. War against crime, upholding truth, justice, and the American way, that can get your blood pumping. Peace ambassador? Anyway, the whole point of a continuing character is to be an ongoing vehicle for stories, so if we get good stories out of this then it was a good idea.

As for the costume, I'm just not sure. The original look, iconic as it was, was a bit goofy. It's pretty hard to be taken seriously as an ambassador or as a crimefighter dressed in a strapless bathing suit and go-go boots. And DC gave Robin pants years ago, so why not Wonder Woman? But the new look doesn't have all that much pizazz. Perhaps she'll lose the jacket in time. If bare arms are good enough for Michelle Obama, they should be okay for the Amazon princess.

At least she's still got the tiara and bracelets. It's just not Wonder Woman without the tiara and bracelets.

1 comment:

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

For some reason I have little problem with this redesign and I am usually the first one to start bitching about any little changes. As long as the people who are writing the book include the mythology elements that make a good WW tale then they can get away with alot. For some reason you need to place a character like this half in the real world and half in the mythologica world of gods and monsters.