To appease a vast minority of "fans" who could never get into the character and felt her costume was impractical for a warrior princess. Starfire is a warrior princess....look at her costume. The current direction is pretty bleh, but I do support DC moving Diana back up to the big leagues where she belongs.
I would say, though, that current Diana hasn't shown really anything beyond lasso use that is beyond Carol at this point.
It's a weird idea that comic companies sometimes have that less powerful = more interesting. Or that they should 'start at square one' rather than build on what's already there. It's been done to WW before even- the Martial Artist/Mod era back in the 70s. I wonder when it'll occur to them to try the opposite- if you want to have people check out WW more, have her more involved with the wider world/other heroes. Like Infinite Crisis, people were interested because the trinity played a big role and her sales were the highest in decades.
The JMS issues were a weird middle ground where they didn't even take advantage of her status at all to tell different stories to boot, but acted like we were supposed to be excited when she got specific powers back. The new writer is a big step up, actually showing her do stuff like beat opponents easily she had trouble with a few issues ago, and what the whole deal is- evil goddesses are trying to turn her into an evil goddess as well. You know, showing things that have a point, with the depowering thing being tossed more and more on the wayside.
Diana's classic costume, while tweaked here and there, had really nothing wrong with it. There was no need to change it. Starfire comes from a society where stuff like sensuality/sexuality isn't really frowned upon or treated like some kind of huge deal.
Word. I recall reading somewhere that her costume will evolve through the issues, which is cool I guess, but Wonder Woman's iconography shouldn't be needlessly changed for the sake of appeasing a group of people who didn't really like Diana to begin with. A lot of the pro-JMS direction letters I've read had people express that they felt Diana used to come off as very haughty and disdainful of humans, which, outside of like...a handful of specific instances, makes absolutely no sense.
I recognize I am but one person, and comic companies needn't appease me specifically; however, I still think both their outfits look rediculous. Even though Wonder Woman's new outfit isn't perfect, I consider it an improvement. I wouldn't mind Starfire's being altered either. Her sister's looks a lot better.
Yea. It's one of the most obvious warning flags that someone doesn't 'get' Wonder Woman, she doesn't think herself better than anyone, merely stronger, and she'll talk to anyone as an equal. Superman gets the same flak.
Ironically the JMS Diana didn't show a hint of her normal humanness- she was just going around fighting evil guys with guns with nary an indication of humbleness in sight. She was 'aloof badass'.
Heck, she worked at McDonalds once and apologized to her boss for failing to fill the noble role of food preparation in order to go do superheroing once! A bit odd, but totally in-character for her point of view.
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Apr 28th, 2011 12:02 PM
