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On Wonder Woman's Rogues

Wanted to offer some thoughts on Diana's Rogues. Frankly I think they're stronger than many would give them credit for, just horribly underused. I'm leaving Cheetah and Circe off of this since I'd like to get to them separately some day. Obviously this doesn't cover everyone, but here's some of my thoughts on the major players.

Ares

Other than Cheetah and Circe, Ares is probably Diana's greatest foe. Traditionally he's been the embodiment of everything Diana is opposed to in Man's World: toxic masculinity, war, greed, pride, and so forth. George Perez gave him a killer design for Post Crisis, and that really helped to carry him. Problem is that Ares as a character is pretty flat and one note. He's evil... because he's evil. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, not every villain needs a sympathetic backstory or goal, but when your first confrontation with Wonder Woman involves plotting to start WW3 as a gambit to become king of the gods, only to have Diana point out that would kill humanity and thus rob you of worship, where exactly can you go from there? Outside of that one story, writers struggled to figure out what to do with Ares. Peaking in your intro leaves you nowhere to go but down.

Personally I think the best solution is to mix what Perez and Rucka have done with Ares and what Azz did with Ares. I think that Ares works best as someone with some sympathetic traits, but ultimately should still be a villain at heart. I personally would make Ares a Ra's Al Ghul figure villain for Diana. He wants Diana to take his place as God of War, or at the very least to embrace war as a tool. Perhaps he wants this in order to free himself from the restrictions being the God of War place upon him, perhaps it's a simple "fuck you" to Athena by taking her champion for his own, perhaps he has another motive altogether for why he seeks someone to take his place. Regardless that's what I think his interest in Diana should stem from.

His end goal should be to convince Diana that Man's World can not be changed peacefully, only by force. Basically he wants Diana to end up like her Flashpoint incarnation, and he's the villain whose goal is to break Diana and then mold her into something resembling himself. Ares should constantly be offering her advice and tempting Diana with taking the easy route of forcing her beliefs on others. Resisting his toxic influence and not becoming the monsters she fights against is as key a part of Diana's conflict with Ares as stopping his plots to trigger bloodshed.

Dr. Cyber

Rucka's WW Rebirth run really made the character click into place for me, along with a bunch of the other WW Rogues. Before she was a character I didn't get the appeal of. Was cool that she was created in the Mod Era of WW, but I didn't really see how she could fit into a modernized take on Diana. Really enjoyed the Rucka revamp, and her personality and connection to Cale as established by him are features I'd like to keep. Really weird how she has yet to return since Rucka's run, does no one else see any potential in her?

Best way she can serve as a foil to Wonder Woman is by contrasting Cyber as the prophet of the singularity in contrast to Diana preaching the Amazon Way. Diana seeks to bridge the gaps between the sexes by promoting love and acceptance, by sharing the philosophies created on Paradise Island. Cyber seeks to eliminate all differences of gender, race, or creed by transforming humanity into a posthuman technological race like she is. Diana is not an imperialist, she doesn't spread her beliefs by force, and she attempts to understand the myriad beliefs of humanity. Cyber holds the current "meatbag" ways of belief in contempt. She intends to force "ascendance" upon everyone, believing that by doing so she will eliminate inequality and help humanity achieve understanding. Where Diana has the Amazons Cyber has Godwatch, the organization she "inherited" from Veronica Cale.

Both want to eliminate prejudice, discrimination, and injustice, both are powerful women who have powerful organizations behind them, and both are motivated by their personal philosophies which they believe can solve humanity's problems. I'd even deliberately call back to Rucka establishing Cyber as being a WW fangirl pre-transformation, and say Cyber is deliberately crafting Godwatch as "Anti-Amazons". Really do think Cyber has a ton of potential there if someone is willing to build upon the foundation Rucka laid.

Dr. Psycho

Guess I have to say one nice thing about Harley Quinn: I'm glad her animated series made more people aware of Psycho. He's such a shit and that works great. Of course there's going to be a villain who hates Diana simply because he's a misogynist, and wants to break the uppity bitch who is talking nonsense about "rights for women". Psycho is a great foil, the exact kind of guy Wonder Woman exists to fight against, and his mental powers make for a good contrast with her physical ones. Do think he should be balanced out by having a woman counterpart on Diana's side either as an Amazon or a Holiday Girl if he's going to be a dwarf/little person. My favorite Psycho incarnation is actually Morrison's take in WW: Earth One, Psycho as a PUA works surprisingly well. Overall Psycho works pretty great as he is, just needs to get used more.

Guess I'll just throw out my controversial take on Psycho here: Given his powers and his nature I just can't not see him pulling a Purple Man at some point. Just no way can I buy him not abusing his mind control powers like that. Frankly given the type of issues Diana deals with, I don't think a rapist villain should be off the table, but it's obviously something that has to be handled with extreme care and to avoid titillation. Maybe best explored in a Black Label WW book outside of main continuity.

Mayfly

God damnit this one I'm really conflicted about. On one hand, Batman has Deathstroke and Deadshot, Superman has Lobo and Bloodsport, Wonder Woman should have a mercenary villain who is only in it for the cash as well. Mayfly is great she looks cool, she has cool guns that can hurt Diana, and she's in it for the money. It's nothing personal just business. But Steve Orlando wrote such a great issue in WW #51 where Diana actually reforms Mayfly over a period of time. Feels too depressing to just undo that, so I'd turn another one of Diana's Rogues good as compensation, and make it so that Mayfly isn't dragged back into crime by choice. Have Circe or Cale basically press-gang her into their service, Circe would do it just as a middle finger to Diana. Mayfly should always be conflicted about being a criminal again and want to leave, but is more or less boxed in by outside forces.

Minister Blizzard

Weird that this guy doesn't get more use. Diana's one of the most religious superheroes around, building Blizzard as a contrast to that feels like a slam dunk. Make him either a delusional melomaniac who thinks he's on a mission from God to freeze the entire planet as punishment for it's sins, or make him an actual contrasting champion of divinity. Blizzard serves much more malicious gods with a much more malevolent plan for mankind than the mission Diana has been entrusted with, and their fights are as much ideological as physical. If both have been entrusted with divine mandates who has precedence? Can Diana truly claim Blizzard is any less just if he truly has holy backing? Explore Diana's religious faith by contrasting it with Blizzard's, that's an underexplored topic when it comes to Wonder Woman.

Red Panzer

Dude has a shit load of alternate looks that I can see and somehow they're all amazing? How does someone who looks so cool get such little use? Anyway he's a NeoNazi, he and his fascist leagues are a perfect choice for simple evildoers Diana has to stop. Why haven't he and Gundra teamed up yet? Have them be part of the same fascist organization. Make him into a hammy Dr. Doom type villain for Diana to beat up where he only refers to himself in the third person, that would be a hoot.

Silver Swan

Right so in exchange for Mayfly returning to being a (reluctant) villain, I say let Diana redeem Vanessa. Let the Silver Swan mantle be taken up by someone else or have Vanessa turn it into a heroic identity, either way let Diana finally make up for failing Vanessa so hard in the past. Cheetah now fills that role post-Rebirth of "former female friend/confidant that believes Diana abandoned her", so I think a Vanessa redemption has a chance to stick. Feels like that's an acceptable compromise for putting Mayfly back in play in my opinion.

That should be the ultimate culmination of a lot of hard work on Diana's part however, not something that happens overnight. Would be cool to see Phil Jimenez write that story as part of a Black Label book, but regardless it's something I'd like to read.

Giganta

Giganta is simple and straightforward. She hates Wonder Woman for foiling her schemes and just wants to get rich. It works and is enjoyable, just please stop making her job all the time. Go use a Greek myth monster or one of Byrne's OCs for that role please.

Dr. Poison

Ok I think this is a rare case where Rucka's Rebirth revamp wasn't an improvement. Look at her, Poison looks cool and fucking terrifying. Roll with her being an absolute sociopath who is only interested in creating better and better bioweapons. All Poison cares about is continuing her research into toxins, plagues, and all kinds of sicknesses. There's no one she won't work with, no job she won't take, no man, woman, or child she won't experiment on to finish her life's work. Her dream is to create the ultimate poison, one utterly incurable, and who better to be a test subject upon which to test her creations than the immortal Princess of Themyscira? God help us all if Poison succeeds in achieving her goal, for the probability of her simply storing such a creation on a shelf is.. unlikely.

Grail

Look there have been a lot of attempts at making an "evil Wonder Woman" besides just turning Diana into that. Conceptually I don't have much objection to Grail. Batman has Bane and Ra's, Superman has Bizarro and Zod, "evil counterpart" is a classic component of a Rogues Gallery. Darkseid fucked an Amazon at some point and that Amazon gave birth to Grail on the same day as Diana was born? Sure, why not, I don't have any real objection to that. Diana has ties to the Old Gods whether through the blessings of the goddesses or Daddy Zeus and her mother's Amazon heritage, Grail her evil counterpart gets her powers from her New Gods/Amazon heritage. Makes for a nice simple conceptual contrast.

Problem is that Grail is a fucking mess when it comes to what her goal is. At first she wanted to kill Darkseid, then she wanted to raise him to not be an evil monster, then... I guess she changed her mind and helped him return to his old form and power? So what exactly does she want? To serve her father? You could get some mileage out of that with Diana having a loving relationship with her mother while ignoring her father, while Grail betrayed her mother to seek her father's approval. But why does she want that? Someone needs to try to untangle the mess this character has become and frankly I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Grail has a cool design and a simple origin that lets her serve as an effective foil for Diana in an easily understandable way, so I suspect she will stick around and they'll try to make something of her again at some point. Hell if she's serving Darkseid now, make her the Leader of the Female Furies, that would provide another nice contrast with Diana's status as Princess.

Ran out of images spaces so I'll make a part II to cover the last two villains I wanted to talk about: Maxwell Lord and Veronica Cale

#wonder woman #ares #dr. cyber #dr. psycho #mayfly #minister blizzard #red panzer #silver swan #giganta #dr. poison #grail #rogues gallery

365 DC Comics Paper Cut-Out Villains - One Villain, Every Day, All Year…

April 26th - Doctor Cyber

 Dr. Cynthia Cyber had been a brilliant inventor and industrialist who was secretly funding and directing a global criminal network. She has utilized her advanced technical skills to facilitate numerous villainous schemes that were repetitively thwarted by Wonder Woman. During an early encounter between the two, Dr. Cyber’s face was badly injured and scarred… leading her to hide her face behind a mask and swear vengeance on Wonder Woman. The villainess first appear in the pages of Wonder Woman #179 (1968).

#365 DC Comics Villains #DC Villains #Dr. Cyber #Wonder Woman #cut-out #paper art