... Name is Wonder Woman.

The thing is, I have an awful lot to say about Wonder Woman. If by some chance I keep this blog up, it would hopefully be about many things, not just comics, but I am the first to admit in recent years too much of my idle time is spent thinking about, drawing, or reading Wonder Woman. So it only seems appropriate to finally get some of it out. I've included a few images, visual aids for me as much as any readers, to keep me on a few specific subjects to touch on for this post. This first attempt at a post on my thoughts on her may seem a bit unfocused or uneven but I will work on that...

I also happen to be a big fan of the work of comics writer Grant Morrison. He has had several very successful runs with the most iconic superheroes out there was well as with his own creations and is also known to have a few controversial opinions about Wonder Woman specifically. I don't have a link handy but perhaps whoever reads this will already be aware.

I will say that I like most things about his portrayal of Wonder Woman, down to minutiae. For example, he tends to give her full name as Diana of Amazonia, which is to my mind a lot more accessible and less pretentious than the typical "Diana of Themyscira" with it's misplaced letter "y" and tricky pronunciation. I realize this is sort of pedantic, but it is named for the titaness Themis (Themiscyra) and that was the name of the Amazons' home on the Thermodon River, which Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston, simply referred to as Amazonia. They moved to Paradise Island, which if anything I guess would be New Themiscyra. Also this brings to light another nerdy pet peeve, something I've also heard writer/artist Ben Caldwell (who has SO many amazing thoughts on Wonder Woman) address: the Amazons weren't Greek. A little more creativity and a little less generic Greco-Roman rehashing is something I am very in favor of.

Anyway, about Paradise Island: pictured above is my favorite visual version, the floating isles with grandiose, translucent architecture used by writer/artist Phil Jimenez during his run. A wonderful, fluid place for creative, fluid ideas. The Amazons should be nothing if not progressive. Paradise Island should be bountiful, with new arts and sciences. It was much more than just a "lost civilization" as envisioned by Marston.

And here we have something from the original Marston comics. One of those bits commonly sited as controversial, wacky, or just silly. But really, read that first part again and think about the primary complaint people have these days against fictions like Twilight. If you aren't familiar, the common criticism I tend to hear is that in this vampire romance novel, the female protagonist Bella is a bland and somewhat self-loathing person who not only allows but encourages cruel and stalkerish behavior from her romantic interest/the-real-protagonist Edward (the vampire, for anyone living in a cave these days). In any case, the point being that girls are ready and raring to project themselves into this character, Bella, and the first panel above presents a fairly strong point about that in my eyes. As Gloria Steinem pointed out in her intro for the Wonder Woman collection printed by Ms. Magazine, (and more recently reprinted by Caleb over at Every Day Is Like Wednesday):

"If we had all read more about Wonder Woman and less about Dick and Jane, the new wave of the feminist revolution might have happened less painfully and sooner."

Things could do for a little updating and editing, sure, but Marston's Wonder Woman could do the world some good yet. She's a good fiction, and if you ask me the bondage stuff wasn't as dark as people make it out to be, I've read most if not all of his Wonder Woman stories and haven't seen anything less than benign in it.

Above is an image of Diana referring to herself as an "anima meta." Which is an interesting categorization. I believe in the same story Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) is also under interrogation and is identified as an "energy-based meta." This is certainly something which links her to Alan Moore's Promethea, the main character in which was named Sophia, Greek for Wisdom, and the name of the most complete state of development for one's spiritual feminine side in Jungian psychology. It could be argued that anima is a bad descriptor since it is determined as being originated by a man, but she was technically created by a man (metatextually if not at all textually), and really that's probably a more literal interpretation than was ever meant.

And being categorized as an anima meta gives more interesting terms. Say if you were playing that old game and trying to replace her on a Justice League lineup, a fair equivalent would not be just "a girl" (i.e. Black Canary) or someone superstrong who can fly (Superman and Power Girl are surely solar heroes, right?), it would have to be some other superhero with specific goddess-traits, both physical and psychological, like Isis or Barda, maybe Mary Marvel once she gets herself cleaned up. The other obvious choice would have to be someone else from the Wonder Family (Hippolyta, Donna, Artemis, etc.) though I would argue that Cassie, the current Wonder Girl, certainly doesn't seem to possess any goddess-traits that aren't physical... that girl could use a little help in the psychological/philosophical department if they want to keep her in the family. I feel like when giving superhero characters simple descriptive categories this sort of more thoughtful titling should be encouraged. So many characters like her are much more than their basic power sets or even their modus operandi would imply.

Something I'm surprised is never really brought up in relation to Grant Morrison's Wonder Woman is her part at the end of World War III, the final arc of his JLA run. It may be that Animal Man provides the idea, or that other scientists help to build the machine or that Flash's giant god-friend powers the machine, but she is rarely crediting with the Anti-War Ray, the device which empowers everyone on Earth to combat the war machine Mageddon. The device is clearly Wonder Woman's; it has a very simple, Golden-Age Marstonian name, and using Purple Ray tubes. The Purple Ray was originally what gave Donna Troy her powers as Wonder Girl, so using it not just to heal but to empower is nothing new to the mythos, if perhaps underused.

Using the big monolithic human head statues on Easter Island to fire the rays across the globe was just a brilliant concept. Something very Wonder Woman, something very technologically advanced out of something which just seems ancient, obtuse and maybe a little silly.

A common critique of Morrison's Wonder Woman is that she is not presented with "big moments" or impressive feats comparable to his portrayals of Superman and Batman. Which is in some cases a valid concern, but I think his Wonder Woman delivers things people don't expect from her these days. Greg Rucka described his own Wonder Woman as a warrior/priest, and Gail Simone called her a strategist/tactician. Grant Morrison's Wonder Woman is often attempting negotiations or administering healing treatments to the injured, I would call his version more a doctor/diplomat. And I will say that his Superman and particularly his Batman don't spend nearly as much time interacting with the people of the world the way his Wonder Woman does. In World War III it's she that empowers the people of Earth and leads them into space to take their stand, in JLA: Earth 2 it's she who spreads the news to the world that things have changed for them, and even in Final Crisis, this is subverted and it is she that carries the evil god Darkseid's plague to the people. In the end, after Darkseid has become every thing and everyone, she might not get the final victory but it is her holding the lasso over her head and holding the planet (universe?) under her thrall so that no one is hurt. I think I'll touch more on that later, though. Too much to say about too much of this.

I remember recently re-watching a little of the old Wonder Woman television series. In the episode "The Nazi Wonder Woman," she ends up helping strong and brilliant Fausta Grables, the titular villain, to reform and end up working against the Nazi party. When Fausta announces she will not go back to America with Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, but instead stay behind in Germany to join the resistance, Wonder Woman holds her hands and looks her in the eye to tell her how brave she is. She does the same for Steve, telling him he is wonderful. Hokey as it all sounds, I like this vision of Princess Diana, warm and complimentary, holding hands and smiling a lot. The prettiest and strongest girl in the world who is there telling them how great they are. I feel like there may be one too many images out there in comics of a Wonder Woman who is condescending or admonishing, not that she could never be that way, but she's often portrayed that way in situations or with people who don't merit that sort of treatment. And that ain't so wonderful.

Wonder Woman at her best is not someone above the rest of us, or if so, is only above waiting for everyone to join her.