There are tons of terrible variant covers. Not sure why this one warrants a thread.

>>3653 it being by a roosterteeth artist, and being a genuine attempt to push "fat acceptance" s somewhat notible, but it still didn't need it's own thread.

>>3674 fat acceptance superheroes make no sense; fighting crime burns tons of calories

>>3712 Unless you're Blob.

Wonder Woman has never been a solid character in the way Batman is. No one can name any good and defining stories for her back when super comics were still relevant. Her rogue's gallery isn't at all interesting. Her supporting cast ranges from bleh to ignored. Her homeland bounces between some magical dyke paradise and a gurl junta. They've tried updating her design when embarassed by the star spangled bikini/skirt look. She's a character who's only really iconic by what she is/supposedly represents.

>>5031 That's pretty apt. She works in team books. On her own she's just not interesting. She's a character that needs a supporting cast around her. Steve Trevor & Etta Candy exists not just to ground her but to give her more to do than just fighting monsters & greek deities. The only villains people know her for are Aries & Cheetah. Hence why they're use in the movies. Where Wonder Woman only really shined was with Justice League & JL Unlimited. Also reminder that she was born purely from a writer with a bondage fetish.

>>5031 They need to figure out what her characterization is for her to become a solid character. Is she the ruthless one who's willing to kill people if it means keeping innocents safe? Does she only resort to fighting as a last result? Is she snarky or is she serious? Does she understand modern culture or is she a complete fish out of water?

>>5037 Shouldn't she compliment or play off bats and supes?

>>5031 I made a post in a much less related thread a few weeks ago that would make more sense here. I'll copy and paste it. They never let anything about Wonder Woman stay around and become "iconic." Even her setting. Superman has Metropolis, Batman has Gotham, Flash has Central City, Green Lantern has Coast City, Green Arrow has Star City, Hawkman has Midway City, Atom has Ivy Town. I could keep going, even with less popular characters. Sometimes they do stories where they try to set them up in a different city, like Seattle, or St. Roche, but there's a core concept that they can return to at least. What does Wonder Woman have? Themyscira isn't the equivalent to Metropolis, it's the equivalent to Krypton or Oa or Thanagar or Mars. They've done runs where they try to set her in Washington or London or all sorts of other places, but never built up her own setting. And what are her supporting characters? Steve Trevor and Etta Candy are good ones, but they're ashamed to use them because Steve Trevor is a man who isn't completely useless, so it makes feminists mad, and Etta Candy is fat and funny, so that also makes feminists mad. Of course Steve being a warrior who tries to help Wonder Woman, even if he doesn't have powers, basically being a human counterpart to her, works great when Lois Lane does it for Superman, and makes both of them great love interests, but we can't let that happen because Wonder Woman gotta need no man! So they keep trying to do other shit with Trevor, like making him liaison to the Justice League just so he could watch Superman cuck him. And Etta Candy has to get made skinny and black and a badass super spy who is never allowed to be funny, because... uh fuck it. Just make it a 100% different character, and an utterly generic one at that. There are a few Themysciran secondary characters that are alright, but given that they don't have that relationship with both parts of Diana's identity, it's not really the same. Again, Hippolyta is much closer to Jor-El than she is to Pa Kent. And even Pa Kent isn't actually as important in terms of regular secondary characters as Perry White. Wonder Woman's closest equivalent is just a bunch of different government agents or whatever, who never become mainstay characters. But then it's hard for Wonder Woman to have characters who primarily interact with her "human side" because a lot of times they just don't give enough of a shit to even give Wonder Woman an alternate identity. And I know a lot of people will say that's good because it makes her more unique, but it does away with a lot of her classic portrayal, and only makes it more difficult to actually establish a consistent version of the character. And villains? Come on. Hades and Ares are so lame as villains that they could turn them into good guys in New 52 and it was better than any of the stories where they were villains. But it's not even like they evolved into that, like when Luthor became a good guy around Rebirth, they just rebooted into good guys because everyone knows that they were never worth giving a shit about. Tigra is the closest Wonder Woman has to an actual nemesis, which is basically the equivalent of if Superman's arch nemesis was some low level guy like Metallo or Parasite. Baroness von Gunther is a good one, but has been underused. Maybe the movie will fix that, but I don't exactly have much hope for that movie. And even then, they had to pull some pretty ridiculous shit to continue having her relevant for so long when she's intrinsically tied with WWII, and they don't want to just 100% rip off Red Skull. Who else do you have? Doctor Psycho? Great, another mad scientist, but since it's Wonder Woman, we'll say he hates women. And sometimes he's psychic, but sometimes he's not, because it doesn't actually matter because he doesn't actually have any meaningful connection to the protagonist. Who else is there? Angle Man? I'll admit I haven't read all his appearances, so someone please tell me what makes this guy anything more than a one time villain, or one of those background filler characters who shows up when every villain in the world breaks out of jail at the same time or something. What does he have that actually connects him to Wonder Woman? The fact is that Wonder Woman as a series actually sucks. She's a logo for feminism, and because of that, they can't admit that she's not actually good, because a ton of people who have never read a single comic in their entire lives would go apeshit over admitting that a series they never read isn't actually good. None of this is to say there aren't good Wonder Woman stories, there are, but a lot of the best ones are ones that those same people who haven't read them, but claim to love the character, would go apeshit over, because they aren't just feminist drivel, or they actually try to do more thought provoking things like examining the inherent sexism of an island that only allows women, instead of unironically calling it "Paradise Island." Then the same people who accept and even defend "Paradise Island" will make fun of the Invisible Jet. Know how bad Wonder Woman sucks? Just think, how strong is Wonder Woman? I'll tell you how strong Wonder Woman is. It's however strong Superman is at the time. Superman actually has stories about why his power level may fluctuate. Yet even though Wonder Woman doesn't get these (except for stories where she full on loses her powers), her power is always just shown as "as strong as Superman," because that's all she is. She's just there for feminists to be able to say there's a female superhero as strong as Superman. Of course there's Supergirl, not to mention like a million alien and god characters who are way stronger than Superman. But fuck it, you can't expect casuals to actually read comics and know about them. And they'll get mad that Supergirl is just girl Superman, ignoring the actual unique character and history that she has, because they never actually cared about characters or stories to begin with. These same people will think of Superman as "Generic Hero Man," but claim to love Wonder Woman, when the only reason they like her is literally because they see her as "Generic Hero Woman," and don't know or care about any of her stories, because even those stories are so disconnected that it gives her a history of, overall, just being treated as "Generic Hero Woman" even in her own series. If she was good, she would have more consistent elements, and they wouldn't just have to keep throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

>>5042 If she had an actual defined character, then her interactions with other characters would come naturally. The Justice League is a mashup of characters who were originally created completely independently, yet they have very solidly defined relationships that simply spring from what each character's personality is like, as well as their history. Green Lantern is a cop, Flash is a cop, so they're friends and they see eye to eye on a lot of things. On the other hand, Green Lantern is more of a carefree type who rebels against the system a little more, while Flash is a nerd, so they have those disagreements. Then later Wally replaces Barry and Kyle replaces Hal, and Wally doesn't like Kyle because Wally grew up seeing Hal like an uncle, and doesn't trust this new replacement who came out of nowhere. Of course you also have Green Arrow, who is a hippie, or more of a limousine liberal type, so he clashes with Green Lantern, as well as Hawkman, because Hawkman is not just a cop, but a soldier, and sometimes he's a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh/caveman, so he naturally leans a bit more conservative. Then you have Batman, a guy with no powers who is naturally not very trusting, and also operates in darkness, so his dislike of the space cops who use light as a weapon gives him a reason to dislike them, especially since the main one once went crazy and erased the whole universe, and then later we were all just supposed to forgive him for that. Of course, he also has problems with trusting someone as powerful as Superman, not to mention how they're very tonally opposite, but they've known each other since they were the only two active superheroes on Earth, so over that time they've grown to understand, respect, and trust each other, despite their differences. Earth-Two and Earth-One Wonder Woman was somewhat defined, but not very interesting. Then with the Crisis on Infinite Earths they fucked up big time by completely rebooting her, so all of her history was erased and she became the newbie of the superhero community, but everyone was still supposed to respect her like she was one of the founders, because of course in real life she was, but that doesn't work when it doesn't apply in universe anymore. They tried to do stupid shit like having a story where she and Superman fought monsters in a timeless dimension for like a million years, so then after that Superman would say that Wonder Woman was his best friend, but that's fucking dumb, because we never actually saw them interact that much, while there were other characters like Jimmy Olsen, not to mention Batman, who were then just getting the shaft. They tried to act like Batman wasn't his close friend during this era, but neither character had been fully rebooted, and both were still treated as the two oldest modern superheroes who worked together all the time, so that change didn't ring true, resulting in it all reverting, them being best friends again, and Wonder Woman again being left with nothing, because it never made sense for the rebooted version to have any strong relationships with these characters. Meanwhile, since the reboot, they erased her secret identity, so that took away a big part of what defined the character before, including supporting characters, or at least the relevance of those supporting characters. Then after Infinite Crisis they just said that Earth-One stuff was canon again mostly, but she still never had a secret identity before and had to create a new one, and by that point it was too late. 20 years without it made it not an essential part of her character, even though it should be. But for those 20 years, and for a long time after, they just kept floundering, trying to find new stuff for her to do. They tried to say that she is a warrior so she would be willing to kill Maxwell Lord when Superman and Batman weren't. But really this ends up just reading as trying to play against what feminists think are stereotypes about women, and it clashes so hard with previous (Pre-Crisis) portrayals of the character that it's hard to see it as the same character, which of course it wasn't, technically, but they still expected us to treat her with the reverence that the Earth-Two and Earth-One versions had gained over 45 years, which the New Earth version had never earned. Then immediately after this they slapped the Earth-One history into the New Earth version, but those characters had such radically different personalities that even with the altered history it never really felt consistent. And now I know what you're thinking, that other characters have radically different Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis versions too. Well they don't. At least not the major ones. You have fuckups like Hawkman, but part of that was that they tried to keep him too consistent but also change certain parts without a full reboot and didn't think it through. Personality wise they didn't change, except for the gradual change over their 45 year history. Also Hawkman was always two different guys for like the last 25 years anyway. They just got confused which was which. People think Superman was rebooted, but he wasn't. His history was changed and he was made weaker, but his personality stayed the same, because his story after Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow picked up right where The Crisis on Infinite Earths left off. Oh, but what about Batman? People always talk about how radically different his portrayals have been! But never due to reboots. In fact, the Crisis on Infinite Earths barely changed him at all, except for changing Jason Todd's backstory so he wasn't just a full on copy of Dick Grayson. Batman's changes happened gradually and with story explanations. He got a lot darker in the "New Look" era in the '60s, but there was no reboot, just a story and gradual change, actual character growth. He continued getting darker over time, but again, it was gradual character growth.

The difference with Wonder Woman is that even her writers don't care about what she actually IS, but just what they want her to be, because they don't see her as a character, but as a symbol. So each writer will come along and change it to whatever they think represents feminism the best, because they don't care. And frankly, they don't have much reason to care. Even the Earth-One version, while consistent, never had anything to actually make her interesting. So they can lean on the Greek mythology stuff, but it was never actually the biggest part of the old stories, and it isn't the biggest part of what the character is in the public consciousness, so none of it rings true. They lean on feminism, but that was never actually a major part of her stories either, even though it is a major part of why she's popular, so you're in a double bind. You're damned if you lean into the feminism, because it isn't actually like the stories that made her popular, but you're damned if you don't, because the casuals who like her think that's all she is, or at least they want her to be that, but she really isn't. She isn't anything. What needs to be done, and what several writers have tried and failed to do, is have some autist like Geoff Johns come along and really drill down to what the core of the character is. Green Lantern was never the most successful series. It got cancelled in the '70s and had to share a book with Green Arrow, then it became a backup series in The Flash, then got fully cancelled for a few years. And even after it came back, it kept floundering, switching stars and being about John Stewart, and then having Hal go evil and completely erasing most of the world that he operated in when Kyle took over. And in a way, he had similar problems the whole time. Now we see Hal as a pilot, and I bet most of you don't even know that he spent a very large part of his history as a traveling toy salesman. Kind of a weird thing to think about when you remember his whole stint as an open child molester with Arisia later on. But my point is that they never really nailed down what his character was. Then turbo-autist Geoff Johns came along and defined him more strongly. He added a lot of new stuff to do it, like the emotional spectrum, but it was all based on old stories and elements. Green Lanterns need willpower and were always said to be without fear. So then Green represents willpower and yellow, already their weakness, represents fear, which it already is traditionally associated with in wider culture. So Hal is fearless and willful, and that makes sense with being a test pilot, a very dangerous and scary job. This bit was around in his origin story, but never leaned on heavily in his later stories, so much so that they made him a Toy Salesman instead. The willful part made sense with how he was already a bit of a rebel in the corps, not to mention an Anti-Monitor-tier supervillain, so it all fit. After that, the emotional spectrum stuff could add a lot to the lore, and it was still largely based on previous things. Star Sapphire was always one of his arch enemies, and was always either Carol Ferris or one of his other love interests, so if emotions are part of this, then they represent love. Atrocitus is built out of an Alan Moore backup story from the '80s. idk about the other colors, but note that these were the first ones he worked on. By the time he got that far, his run on the series was acclaimed and the emotional spectrum thing was popular and well established, so he could introduce new stuff for the other colors. He earned the reader's respect for it fist, and established that it was all tied to established lore. So let's do this with Wonder Woman. What are some core elements of herself, her supporting characters and concepts, and her antagonists, that we can use to tie together the whole franchise? Well if you can tell me anything that Cheetah, Ares, Baroness Von Gunther, Dr. Psycho, and Angle Man have in common, then I'd be happy to hear it. If you can give me a good explanation for Diana's wildly different personalities over the decades, which had never been explained as character development in-universe, then do so. But it's all moot, because anyone who tries to write Wonder Woman is in a double bind of making her feminist enough to appease feminists, but not overbearing. Any of her modern so called fans who say she needs to be very feminist would never like her old comics, because they weren't feminist enough. Of course they were feminist, but it's never enough for them. Never enough until you're telling your audience to not buy your book, and if they do buy it, then it had better be calling them all shitlords.

>>5032 >Steve Trevor He gets ignored since regardless of any and all coolness points he has he's still the "weak man." Superman and Batman are repeatedly pushed as pairings for her since both are her superior and female psychology is what it is. It's the same problem works like Legend of Korra and Kim Possible have where the protagonist is too powerful so they can't really take interest in the men within her immediate social circle since they're obviously inferior. Korra addressed this by making her a dyke and KP tried making Ron less pathetic.

>>5056 They could just make female protagonists who are decent people and can appreciate men that might not be the highest on the totem pole, the same way Superman can love a highly flawed mortal like Lois Lane. But I guess it's not even the writers' fault. We'll believe a man can fly, but a woman that isn't a shallow bitch just suspends disbelief way too far.

>>5060 Men and women are different and each has different requirements for reproductive success. A man has to be impressive in feats (dominance, strength, resources, all around resourcefulness) or at least project such and perhaps most importantly needs to be respected by the women for top reproductive success. Getting back to Korra, all of the living and notable males in her show by the end who weren't old men were either mugging goofballs like Bolin and Varrick or an effeminate pussy like Wu or little kids like that Aladdin boy or already disrespected see Mako. Being a dyke was the only option left since there were no worthy men. That's the problem.

>>5064 >Getting back to Korra, all of the living and notable males in her show by the end who weren't old men were either mugging goofballs like Bolin and Varrick or an effeminate pussy like Wu or little kids like that Aladdin boy or already disrespected see Mako. Being a dyke was the only option left since there were no worthy men. That's the problem. Of course this is all by design, since it's fiction, and making all of the males either losers or evil is textbook feminist writing. >Men and women are different and each has different requirements for reproductive success. A man has to be impressive in feats (dominance, strength, resources, all around resourcefulness) or at least project such and perhaps most importantly needs to be respected by the women for top reproductive success. You're just restating what I said with a different tone. None of it changes or even challenges what I said.