The Blog of Bert Jones

Rewrite Wonder Woman? I Don’t think So!

• Posted by Bert • 1 July, 2010 • (0) Comment

The Iconic Lynda Carter

So, if you know me, you know I love my Wonder Woman!

I am not sure if my infatuation started with the Comic or the TV Show, but either way it started when I was very young.

I still remember that I would gather every Saturday at noon to watch Channel 9 for the TV Show.

I could careless about Batman, didn’t really watch any Superman. But anything with Wonder Woman in it, I watched religiously!

I even remember my mom taking me to a ComicCon in the Twin Cities (even though I vaguely remember it, nor did I know what it was.) All I remember was stopping to view anything Wonder Woman. I think I walked away with two buttons and a T-Shirt.

So for me, Wonder Woman has been iconic in my life. I have collectables, all the TV Shows, and more. I even have my kids hooked on the WW as well.

But with all things great, people feel the need to change it. DC is revamping her look:

http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2010/06/30/j-michael-straczynski-on-wonder-woman%E2%80%99s-new-costume/

And I feel it’s crap. As a designer, I understand the importance of change and freshening up a look over time. You need to so that you can gain readership that you lose over the years. But this.…

An “Urban” Wonder Woman is not who she is. You can’t just re-write history with a simple “timeline” switch, just so that you can give her a new outfit and a new story. She is an amazon princess. At her core, that is who she is, not to mention a one-time goddess. You can’t just wipe that away and make her a street rat. I feel that is belittling who she is at her core, and to me, takes away the grace that she has had as a character.

This has been my frustration with DC comics lately. I have been an avid subscriber for years for the WW line. Lately I have felt like I have been missing gaps in the story line, or that they take a direction, then just switch gears to a new story, without finishing the first one. I have felt so lost.

And it bugs me to no end when they continue the story in other comics, like the JLA. So I subscribed to that one…and then she isn’t even in it anymore. GRRR.

Speaking of JLA, how are they going to adress that now? Is she going to be in the JLA? This timeline thing would affect most of their story arcs, not just hers. What about the Teen Titans, Troia is her “sister” and one-time Wonder Girl in the Teen Titans, and what about the current Wonder Girl…how did Wonder Woman befriend her and get her to be WG and into the Teen Titans?

I don’t like it. But I especially don’t like the costume…

They tried doing this before and it didn’t last either. Matter of fact, this new look, looks vageuly familiar to what they tried before. Look at these photos:

A New Wonder Woman.

A New Look/New Story

A New Costume

Now, if you look at the first photo, I want you to notice a few things: The minimize belt, the jacket with stars on it. The Black tights, the gloves, the straps over the shoulders and the boots.

Now if you look at the last photo (or the one below, last version on the right), what do you see? Notice the minimal belt, the jacket with the stars on it, the black tights, (gloves, even though not shown here, were in the comic), the straps you can’t see, but the exact same type of straps were shown in the comic and the boots…plain black.

If it didn’t work then, it ain’t going to work now. My only hope in all this is where the writer says this:

d) find some way to straighten out the timeline and reconcile what was to what is.

That at least gives them a way to revert back, if the fan base screams loud enough. Which I hope we do.

One of my favorite artworks of Wonder Woman hangs in my office, its a drawing that DC did when William Moultan Marsden, creator of Wonder Woman, passed away. It shows all the variations of Wonder Woman over the years, and the various Wonder Girls and Troia (Donna Troy…not to be confused with Deanna Troi from Star Trek).

So, I leave you with a gallery of some of my Favorite shots of Wonder Woman (and a recap of the images above)…who knows what comes next.