![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Perez's Wonder Woman. Moffat's Doctor Who.
Jun. 5th, 2011 08:49 amOnce upon a time, I sat down to write myself the ideal Wonder Woman story. Like many women, I feel an innate connection to Wonder Woman - she's a demi-Goddess from the ideal feminist society, trained as a warrior but chooses to become a diplomat - that has nothing to do with the actual quality of Wonder Woman.
She's historically underwritten when compared to Batman and Superman of the DC Trilogy. Compared to the big male heroes (Batman, Spider-Man) she has far fewer villains anyone can pick out of a line up. There are very few storyarcs or graphic novels that comics fans can quote by name as being 'the essential Wonder Woman stories'. Of the options, two names seem to float up frequently: the Perez era of Wonder Woman and the Greg Rucka Wonder Woman, Perez being far more archetypal due to the recentness of the Rucka era.
So, why is that? I sat down to have a think about what made those eras interesting to me and I came up with a bunch of stuff: both are more interested in the Greek mythology than in necessarily fitting her into the wider DC universe. The Rucka books focus mainly on her political role as an Ambassador (I am in the habit of referring to them as 'West Wing with Xena') but within that context they have a lot to say about women as role models to other women, and the depiction of women within the political sphere. The Perez books are rather more domestic, with Diana building a family-of-choice in modern-day America. The Perez era, especially, feels like it would have been more at home in Vertigo had it existed yet. Strong roles for women, particularly with an age disparity always has feminist undertones, then.
What I realized was that the monomyth, the Hero's Journey - that great Joseph Campbell tool that's been run into the ground by a generation of crappy American screenwriters, has fuck all to do with women. You can make your female protagonist go through the Hero's Journey, but the psychological aspects of why it works has nothing to do with the way a majority of women experience the universe.
( Amy Pond and the Spoilers of Doom )
She's historically underwritten when compared to Batman and Superman of the DC Trilogy. Compared to the big male heroes (Batman, Spider-Man) she has far fewer villains anyone can pick out of a line up. There are very few storyarcs or graphic novels that comics fans can quote by name as being 'the essential Wonder Woman stories'. Of the options, two names seem to float up frequently: the Perez era of Wonder Woman and the Greg Rucka Wonder Woman, Perez being far more archetypal due to the recentness of the Rucka era.
So, why is that? I sat down to have a think about what made those eras interesting to me and I came up with a bunch of stuff: both are more interested in the Greek mythology than in necessarily fitting her into the wider DC universe. The Rucka books focus mainly on her political role as an Ambassador (I am in the habit of referring to them as 'West Wing with Xena') but within that context they have a lot to say about women as role models to other women, and the depiction of women within the political sphere. The Perez books are rather more domestic, with Diana building a family-of-choice in modern-day America. The Perez era, especially, feels like it would have been more at home in Vertigo had it existed yet. Strong roles for women, particularly with an age disparity always has feminist undertones, then.
What I realized was that the monomyth, the Hero's Journey - that great Joseph Campbell tool that's been run into the ground by a generation of crappy American screenwriters, has fuck all to do with women. You can make your female protagonist go through the Hero's Journey, but the psychological aspects of why it works has nothing to do with the way a majority of women experience the universe.
( Amy Pond and the Spoilers of Doom )
