Monday, June 17, 2013

Further Proof that DC Just Doesn't Get It

The Twitterverse was, uh, aTwitter with news about a Superman/Wonder Woman book. Really, DC? This is the best you can do? Sure, the promo art is pretty, but, really? Wonder Woman? With Superman? And relegated to second billing, at that?

Supes belongs with Lois. Period.

To DC Comics, I say:
You want to give Diana a second book, great! Good for you! About time! More than about time! But this is not how to do it. It's so not how to do it. It's.... well, it's everything that's wrong with females in comics, especially DC comics these days. Wonder Woman has been around for decades. She was born out of mythology that dates back centuries, millennia, even. She's part of your trilogy of Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman. She's iconic. And you're reducing her to playing second fiddle to her boyfriend (something I find ridiculous, that she's second fiddle to anyone, and that she's his girlfriend)? No. Just. No. I don't have enough words for how wrong this is. 
See, I get that you want to appeal more to female readers, but this is so not how to do it. You do it by creating more female characters who headline their own books and are so interesting, males as well as females want to read about them. You do it by respecting and showing that respect for your female characters on the level that you respect your male characters (though with how you've treated a lot of male characters in recent years, perhaps you are treating the females equally, now, or at least, treating the males the way you have the females for far too long). You do it by respecting female readers the same way you respect male readers (well, at least the fanboys who are your target demographic, because I fully understand that, along with being a female comics reader decades before that was fashionable, I aged out of the target age demographic a lot of years ago).

This is why I'm glad I haven't been reading either the Superman books or Wonder Woman in the New 52. I want Wonder Woman to be a big success. I want her to finally get a movie -- a great one! -- and/or a TV show (one along the lines of the amazing Arrow). I just don't think this is the right path to achieve that. It's wrongheaded and backward thinking, and not what Diana and her fans deserve. This book sounds like the sort of thing a well-meaning but clueless man would come up with.

3 comments:

  1. Um...yeah. Superman and Wonder Woman is one book that I won't be getting. And I am not all that thrilled with the way that she has been depicted as a bubble-brain in Justice League either.

    And I am REALLY getting sick and tired of DC trying their darndest to ram this pairing down our collective throats. It ain't working!

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  2. The Superman/Wonder Woman romance is so forced you can see the screwdriver marks.

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