Straczysnki and Lee are giving Wonder Woman a new costume and new origin story.
Wonder Woman - old and new costumes (left and right respectively)
How long before Fox News attacks this?
Wonder Woman: Less Naked and Less Patriotic
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Austro-Athenian Empire
"Austro" as in Rothbard and Wittgenstein, "Athenian" as in Aristotle and smashing-the-plutocracy.
“Unequivocal proof that Islamo-fascists have infiltrated the innermost rings of federal government. And they made fun of us for suggesting that fist-bumps were terrorist related. Who’s laughing now?”
They already have.
Actually, Fox News has already been all over the Wonder Woman costume change.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/07/01/new-wonder-woman-loses-patriotic-costume/
I wrote about the new costume (I’d don’t like it, but for other reasons) here:
http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100708/ARTICLES/307089994/1126/living?Title=Wonder-Woman-gets-new-wardrobe-
Re the origin story, DC isn’t eliminating the original story, it’s introducing two conflicting timelines. Some of the characters in the new one remember the old one and are trying to figure out what went wrong. So it’s more like “The Big Bang” than a reimagining.
(And Steinem’s reference to Straczynski as a “limited brain” is rather silly.)
This sounds like the re-emergence of exactly the kind of problems Crisis on Infinite Earths was created to fix.
I think DC has decided (rightly, I’d say) that collapsing the multiverse into a single timeline was a bigger mistake than any of the problems it was designed to fix — since it required completely eliminating some of DC’s best characters and storylines. At any rate, 2005’s Infinite Crisis reestablished the multiverse.
I’d say the way Crisis was executed was the mistake. The way it was written, they saved only the prime universe, but they could have phonied up any reason to save whatever characters they wanted, from any of the other universes. All of the characters were mingling with each other at that point without any physical boundaries.
There were also mistakes in the post-crisis reboots. John Byrne did a great job with Superman, eliminating the Fortress of Solitude, lowering the character’s infinite powers, eliminating a lot of the more ridiculous ones — why would Superman’s yellow sun powers give him instantaneous time travel I wonder? But then Byrne dropped the ball by bringing back the pre-Crisis Superboy (in full possession of all pre-Crisis powers) without explanation. Also, some of the reboots were executed earlier than others, and characters who had not yet been rebooted were included as guests in the earlier reboots before they could be re-imagined. The editorial staff didn’t have enough unity of purpose. I remember reading an interview with Byrne in the early 1990s in which he said DC in the mid-80s needed Jim Shooter as head honcho instead of Dick Giordano — “A guy with a death ray instead of a kindly father”.
It would be difficult to save both Kamandi and the Legion of Superheroes in a single timeline.
I like nakedness.
And, for the record, I really prefer writers who are creative enough to come up with new material with-in the current continuity. Rewrites, Big Bangs, alternate timelines, etc. They get old.
Marvel did this way too much back in the late 90s and I finally just swore off them.
I’ll eventually do the same thing to DC from the looks of things.
Create a new character. Don’t screw with current ones.
That’s just my take.
Well, Wonder Woman’s storyline has gotten a little stale lately; I think Straczynski is a good choice to shake things up. I like what he did with Spider-man (even though Quesada ended up undoing almost all of it).
I won’t deny it’s gotten stale. But a highly creative writer doesn’t need to redo/undo everything to “unstale” it. And, if it can’t be done, maybe the character needs to fade away and die. Many fans I know would prefer she be remembered for who she is, and not hipped up.
We have plenty of hip characters now. If you like that kind of thing, read those characters (I know I do) or create your own.
This constant state of flux of characters is why comic fans are turning away from DC and Marvel to indies. When something happens to a character, we expect it to mean something. Not be retconned out of continuity a year later when the next writer picks up. These “dream sequence” mix-ups are lame.
Tracy
But it’s not exactly unknown in the indies either.
I’m sure that’s true. But, at least from what I read (and I read alot) it’s much rarer.
I read a lot of Top Cow, I’ve never seen any of their books completely rewrite history.
I suppose most characters in indie comics don’t last long enough for writers to run out of ideas to feel the need to “reinvent” things.
Anyway, I’m a bit of a comic snob 🙂
Tracy
I’m not even sure who reads Wonder Woman anymore, tbh. Forgot the comic still existed.
That’s the main reason they’ve brought Straczynski in — to jumpstart the franchise. (But the recent animated movie has probably helped in that regard too.)
I doubt this costume change will actually last. Remember the last time they changed her costume this radically?
What, the 90s?
This was the worst. (It was the 60s, they were trying to make her into Emma Peel.)
They recently collected those comics in 3 trade paperbacks.
This.
There was the 90s costume as well and that time they put her in the white jumpsuit. I think this new costume will go over just as well as those did.