Test Pot

Wonder Woman has no villains.

It's something i hear all the time, and often from talented people that i otherwise respect enormously.

I find the statement to be really annoying. It's a lazy thing to say, and people keep saying it to the point where the myth is being perpetuated and people are starting to think of it as truth.

I think the first time it really bothered me was when it was said by Joss Whedon. I mean i love Joss and think he is an incredible writer, so it frustrated me that he either couldn't be bothered to do his research, or wasn't willing to use a bit of imagination to see the potential in Wonder Woman's rogues gallery.

In fairness as i said before he isn't alone in this... everyone from Gail Simone to Nicolas Winding Refn has said the same thing.

It was the comments from Refn that made me want to write about the issue.

A Wonder Woman movie at some point is inevitable, and i would like to think that whomever ends up directing the thing will make an effort to do it right.

Wonder Woman has some of the most fun and inventive and memorable villains in comics. Of course she has her share of ridiculous villains too, but even those have the potential for greatness with a little thought and effort. I mean for instance look at how deeply silly most of the Flash's villains appear to be, and yet his rogue's gallery is rated right up there with Batman's or Spider-Man's by your average comicbook fanboy.

Remember there are no bad characters, only bad writers.

I wanted to do something like an open letter or something. I wanted to write something that people might stumble across and find informative, and that somehow might go a little way towards redressing the balance of ignorance.

At least that is the idea.

So here are Wonder Woman's best villains, along with some of my thoughts on them...

Ares

Ares is Wonder Woman's most important enemy. In the roman form of Mars he was the character's first real villain in the comics, and has been a major part of every version of her origin story. He represents everything Wonder Woman opposes... violence, anger, hate, bullying. I find it frustrating when people say Wonder Woman has no arch enemy like the Joker or Lex Luthor, when clearly it is this guy. You can't ask for a more fitting or compelling arch enemy than the god of war really.

And he has to be one of the finest villains a writer could ask for.

Ignoring for a moment how powerful and scary this guy is, there is the fact that he can serve as a metaphor for exploring a whole bunch of issues... the nature of violence and aggression, the war of the sexes, fate and free will. A half decent writer should be able to find plenty to say through this character.

Also there are a number of fascinating mythological/historical connections that are begging to be explored further. Ares is the father of Hippolyta in mythology for instance, which if carried over into the comics would make him Wonder Woman's grandfather. Ares is also the main deity worshipped by the "real" Amazons historically. I think there's a lot of mileage in those ideas.

A pet peeve of mine is when deities are shown as pretty much just regular people wearing white robes and sandals and squabbling amongst themselves. I don't see anything mysterious or interesting about that. It's old and boring. Worse still is the deities-living-amongst-us approach where they wear jeans and have tattoos and work in Burger King. It was a novel idea when Gaiman was doing it in Sandman, and it was even still kinda novel when Whedon was doing it in Buffy, but now it appears everywhere and it is old and boring trying too hard to be edgy and interesting.

I don't wanna see Ares in an Armani suit.

I think Ares needs to be taken the other way. We need to see less of the guy. Make him sort-of like Sauron from the LotR movies... a menacing presence that is felt rather than seen. And when we do see him we see a huge armoured monster of a man with a sword of flame and a voice like thunder. More mysterious, primal, threatening.

I see him as old and angry and fucked off that the world is moving on without him, and i see him becoming wilder and more primal the angrier he becomes... like a wounded bull or something.

And finally there is the bonus that Ares can be linked to a number of other Wonder Woman villains and characters, such as the Silver Swan and Nubia, in ways that i think would make those characters more interesting. I think for instance a Silver Swan who is corrupted and given powers by Ares is a little more credible than one who has cybernetic implants and a huge pair of completely impractical mechanical wings.

In the comics Ares is never allowed to be as cool as he could/should be. In the comics Wonder Woman will always play second fiddle to the more popular characters like Superman or Green Lantern, and so her villains will never be allowed to be more powerful or more threatening than theirs. Which is a shame, as Ares should be able to swallow Darkseid or Sinestro with one bite.

In a movie you wouldn't have to worry about such restrictions tho.

Paula Von Gunther

I feel bad for Paula Von Gunther.

Ares might have been vital to Wonder Woman's origin, but throughout most of the 1940s/1950s he tended to work through henchmen, and it took him a while to really come into his own and be a threat in his own right. I think it is safe to say that throughout the early comics Baroness Von Gunther was Wonder Woman's "true" arch enemy.

And that sucks, as she is almost completely ignored today.

Of course it is difficult to work nazis into modern stories convincingly, so i can see why most writers leave her on the shelf. On the other hand characters such as Captain Nazi and the Red Skull still pop up regularly in comics, and Mike Mignola used the nazis very effectively in Hellboy. Cryogenics, time travel, bitter old wrinklies hiding out in South America, neo-nazis... i'm not sure how best to approach the issue, but it can be done.

And i think it should be done, as Paula was a fun character. A deliciously nasty and slightly kinky spy, she was a brilliant inventor and a ruthless mastermind.

Paula is also a perversion of everything Wonder Woman stands for. I mean she is strong, confident, independent, and technically the embodiment of the feminist ideal, but she channels all that into hate and violence. In that sense she makes for an ideal "evil Wonder Woman" character.

Another idea that might have some mileage is the fact that modern Germans want nothing to do with nazism... the nazis had their time and the world has moved on without them... there is no place for them today. Which is something they have in common with the Amazons.

A smart move would be to bring in some of the conspiracy theory nonsense that surrounds the nazis... about how some of them fled to South America, or were absorded into NASA and various major industries, or went on to control some of the most powerful and influential businesses and institutions in the world... and then there is all the secret experiment and supernatural/mythology stuff to work with too. A lot of potential there.

You can also link the character to various other Wonder Woman characters, such as the nazi Red Panzer and Gundra the valkyrie, to create even more opportunities.

Wonder Woman needs more "intellectual" and science-based villains to balance out all the mythology. I think Paula fits the bill perfectly.

Red Panzer

A lot of what i said about Paula Von Gunther also applies to the Red Panzer, so there's no sense in repeating.

Basically this character is a nazi version of Iron Man. A guy in a robotic suit of armour tricked out with all sorts of nasty weaponry. I think what makes this character worth dusting off is that, in additon to being a genius mechanic/inventor and therefore intellectually threatening, he is also one of the few Wonder Woman villains that is powerful enough to be credibly physically threatening. And of course the robot armour offers a cool visual opportunity.

I think a neat idea with this character would be for him to be a shrivelled little old dude kept alive inside this suit artificially. As if the only thing keeping him going is literally his hate and his intelligence/technology.

Cheetah

Cheetah is a mess to be honest.

In one form or other the Cheetah has been around in the comics since the 1940s, and is Wonder Woman's most well-known villain arguably. Some fans even think of her as Wonder Woman's arch enemy.

Basically there are two versions of the Cheetah.

Originally the Cheetah was a mentally unstable socialite called Priscilla Rich who had a breakdown and fixated on killing Wonder Woman when she upstaged her at some charity event or something. Priscilla had no powers and dressed in a silly Cheetah outfit for some reason. When non-comicbook-reading peeps think of the Cheetah they are thinking usually of this version of the character, as this is the version that appeared in the Superfriends cartoon and was exposed to a wider audience outside of comics. Priscilla was briefly succeeded by her niece Debbie Domain, but that was short-lived thankfully.

In the 1980s Wonder Woman and her villains were all revamped extensively. A new Cheetah called Barbara Minerva was introduced, and this one was a vain archaeologist with the ability to change into a were-cheetah... an ability given to her by an African plant deity. Seriously. Barbara was succeeded by a guy with no penis, but that was short-lived thankfully.

I think with this villain the first thing you have to do is consolidate and simplify. Priscilla is a fascinating character with lots of mental issues and neuroses and stuff for writers to work with, but as a villain her abilities and look are weak. Barbara on the other hand is a dull character with fantastic abilities and a look that is really creepy. It isn't hard to see where i'm going.

I would choose Priscilla as the Cheetah, as she is the original and i think she is entitled frankly. Give her Barbara's abilities and background in archaeology and she would be extremely interesting and full of possibilities.

Of course this new take on the character would need a new origin, as the plant deity thing is just ridiculous. Googling i came across a North African cheetah deity called Mafdet. Apparently Mafdet was the first feline deity, being much earlier than even Bastet and Sekhmet. She was an avenger and goddess of execution, ripping the hearts out of wrong-doers. Now not only is that far cooler than some plant thing, but it makes a lot more sense and creates more opportunities by opening up North African and Egyptian mythology for future stories.

Incorporating Mafdet the Cheetah could now become a vain and arrogant archaeologist who is unstable mentally. Maybe she suffers some slight from Wonder Woman for whatever reason, either real or imaginary. And then while robbing a tomb in North Africa she is somehow turned into a were-cheetah avatar or champion of Mafdet or something. Cheetah then uses her new abilities to become some sort of monstrous vigilante and enter into a psychotic rivalry with Wonder Woman.

I have no clue how TPTB would set about introducing any of this stuff into the comics, but there are always ways y'know? And i do think this or something similar needs to happen with this villain, because as i said before she is a total mess and kinda silly.

It would be easier to do this in the movies of course.

Also i think it would be ideal for Wonder Woman to have a villain that is motivated almost entirely by the sort of hatred that comes from envy and vanity.

Dr Psycho

I love Dr Psycho cos the guy is so damn vile and creepy.

Another one of Wonder Woman oldest enemies, he has been appearing in the comics since the 1940s and has changed surprisingly little over the decades.

Psycho is a psychic medium and occultist who hates women passionately. He can influence people psychically and force them to do or think or see whatever he chooses. He kidnaps women and tortures them pschologically and physically for long periods of time, often forcing them to do humiliating and degradging things until he breaks them. He kept his fiancee slave in this manner for many years. As a medium he is also capable of manifesting physical forms using the ectoplasm of his victims, which is both cool and creepy.

What could be more perfect for Wonder Woman than a villain that is all about lies and misogyny right?

Psycho has a lot to offer in terms of threat. I mean he can screw with Wonder Woman's head and he can turn almost anyone into a henchman or an assassin, and those are situations she can't just punch her way out of the way she might normally. Also his ability to create ectoplasmic forms means he can be a threat physically. Imagine Wonder Woman fighting off a half dozen massive ectoplasmic brutes the size of the Hulk for instance.

So much stuff to work with there.

Giganta

Giganta is ridiculous but fun.

In a lot of ways she is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with the Wonder Woman comics. I mean she started out with a silly but serviceable origin: she was an ape artifically evolved into a big brute of a woman by some nutty scientist and his nutty invention. Giganta was big and strong and aggressive, but she couldn't become an actual giant and she had no actual powers or anything.

And then the character appears in the Superfriends cartoon, and the folks behind that decide she needs to be more powerful, so they give her the ability to grow to giant size and make up a really lame origin about magic dust or something. It catches on with the viewers and now people expect Giganta to actually be giant y'know?

So TPTB decide to make the comicbook version more in line with the cartoon version, but the comicbook origin doesn't account for any powers and the cartoon origin is just crappy. A new origin is cobbled together that tries to tie everything together, and fails miserably. Now Giganta is a scientist suffering from some blood disease. Instead of putting her energy into trying to find a cure or something she decides to transfer her consciousness into Wonder Woman's body. It inevitably doesn't work, and she ends up transferring herself first into a gorilla, and then into a circus strongwoman with the totally unexplained ability to grow to giant proportions.

And someone at editorial thought all this was a Good Idea.

I suppose what i'm saying is that Giganta needs a new origin badly. I have no idea what that origin might be, but maybe whoever is tasked with the gig could try looking into adrenal gland experimentation, which is suggested in The Science Of Superheroes as an alternate method for the creation of the Hulk. Or something.

Anyway once you get past the origin this character is a lot of fun. Maybe not much of a challenge intellectually, and i'm not sure she would be able to carry an entire movie or comicbook arc as the sole villain, but who doesn't want to see a 100ft woman knocking over buildings and stomping tanks and all that? Giganta has size and brute power going for her, which makes her a major threat in ways many of Wonder Woman's other villains are unable to be.

Giganta is Godzilla with boobies.

Also there's no saying the character has to become dumber the bigger she is. At the end of the day in some versions of her origin she is a scientist, and smart enough to invent whatever the heck caused her condition, so a decent writer could come up with more developed motivations and ambitions and schemes for the character.

And her condition does suggest opportunities for tragic storylines and themes that might be a little more dramatic than just smashing and stomping.

The Swan

Another character that is a total mess. I feel like i'm repeating myself, but this is how it is with Wonder Woman villains.

Originally the Silver Swan was a ballerina called Helen Alexandros, and she was an ugly duckling. Angry and bitter she struck a deal with Ares: for as long as she served the war deity she would be made beautiful and strong and able to fly, and if she was able to kill Wonder Woman she would be allowed to stay that way permanently.

I tend to omit the "silver" when referring to this version of the character, to distinguish between her and the later cybernetic versions.

In the 1980s a new version of the character was introduced called Valerie Beaudry. Valerie was horribly deformed and was manipulated into taking part in an experiment which made her beautiful, but which also turned her into a living weapon with hypersonic abilities and a big clumsy pair of artificial wings. After a while Valerie sorted her head out and turned her back on villainy.

Vanessa Kapatelis was the most recent version of the character. Vanessa was a supporting character in the comics since the 1980s and was like a little sister to Wonder Woman. It would take forever to explain how she became a villain, so lemme just say that she was secretly subjected to mental conditioning and numerous surgeries over a long period of time by a bunch of villains working together, eventually becoming a sort-of psychotic cyborg with a big clumsy pair of artificial wings.

Now all three versions of the character are promising, but two of them are saddled with big clumsy pairs of artificial wings. I think the wings are ridiculous... and furthermore the origins of the later versions of the Silver Swan don't really explain how the characters are able to fly.

I think the Helen Alexandros version is the most elegant and cohesive take on the character, and that this is the version the movies and comics should be following. All of her powers are plausible if you claim they work magically. Also Helen is the only version of this villain that is actually a genuine villain... the other two were manipulated into it and went on to reform and be decent people. Currently this means there is no active Silver Swan in the comics, which is absurd as this is one of Wonder Woman's most popular and well-known villains. In order to bring back Valerie or Vanessa the writers would need to keep coming up with increasingly unlikely excuses. Much simpler to just use the original y'know?

Also Wonder Woman is often referred to as the champion of Athena, so with Helen as the champion of Ares i feel there is a nice symmetry.

Of course all three versions are all about bitterness and resentment and loneliness and (moreso with the first two) the shallowness of modern culture and the pressures that women feel to be thin and pretty, so there is a lot there for a writer to sink his teeth into dramatically.

Dr Poison

Poison was Wonder Woman's first actual costumed villain.

Originally the character appeared to be a creepy grinning guy dressed as a surgeon, but it turned out that was just a "clever" disguise and the doctor was in fact the beautiful Princess Maru, an axis saboteur and spy.

Much later in the comics a new version of the character was introduced half-heartedly. Apparently she was the granddaughter of the original... but TPTB didn't bother giving her a proper origin or anything and she was just there to make up the numbers in the new incarnation of the supervillain team Villainy Inc.

Recently Ben Caldwell reinvented the character for his run on Wednesday Comics. Princess Maru was now an ultra-nationalist right-wing terrorist who, in a nod to the disguise-wearing gender-bending antics of the 1940s version, was rocking a tattooed androgynous heroine-chic look and disguising her face with a gas mask. It was an inspired design with a lot of thought and research behind it, and unsurprisingly i think this would be the best version of the character to move forward with.

In all incarnations Dr Poison has no unusual abilities other than being an expert in poisons and toxins, which doesn't make her much of a threat on her own physically. I see her as more of a thinker and schemer, and most writers should be able to conjure up some pretty major threats involving poisoning water supplies or causing viral outbreaks or creating hordes of zombies or something.

And of course with Ben Caldwell's version the character does have an entire paramilitary organisation to call on, in the form of the Black Dragon Society, which does make her somewhat more physically threatening.

In terms of drama and themes Poison is all about corruption and impurity, which again is the opposite of Wonder Woman.

Also pretty sure she is racist, or else why join an ultra-nationalist organisation?

Poison is one of my favourite characters cos she is so odd and creepy. It's a real shame that she isn't treated with due respect in the comics, but hopefully that will change some day.

Circe

Circe frustrates me as she has so much potential but is rubbish in the comics and appears far too often. One could be forgiven for thinking she is Wonder Woman's only enemy.

Originally the character was based on the Circe from Greek mythology. In mythology she was a witch living on the island of Aeaea who turned men into animals using potions and incantations. In the comics the character was much the same, except that at some point in history Hippolyta somehow banished Circe to a distant planet called Sorca. It was the 1940s and that shit happened all the time in the comics back then.

In the 1980s the character was rebooted and the stuff about Sorca was dropped in favour of sticking closer to the Greek mythology. Circe was now also a worshipper of Hecate the witch deity. I suppose TPTB decided she should be more powerful or something, as for some reason Hecate decided to transfer her soul to Circe and make her some sort of demi-goddess-thingy. Oh and there was some prophecy that made her think Wonder Woman was destined to kill her, unnecessarily explaining why the two became enemies.

Circe in either version is a sadistic man-hating witch basically.

I think what i find most annoying about this character is that all this fantastic mythology is there for the writers to play with, but they don't seem to research anything, so all of the character's schemes and enchantments are generic and boring and often silly.

I mean for instance the character isn't even Greek.

Circe was a princess from Colchis, which was an ancient kingdom near the Black Sea. It's like saying the Celts were Romans just because the Romans wrote about them sometimes. It might seem like nitpicking, but the two cultures are very different and this affects everything from what the character wears to which deities she worships.

Colchis was considered to be a wild and pagan place by the ancient Greeks, full of magic and mystery. It was where Prometheus was chained to a mountain for eternity. Circe's brother was the keeper of the Golden Fleece, which hung in Colchis in the sacred grove of Ares. It was also the area some of the Amazons were said to have come from.

And then there is Hecate, the witch deity. Also not Greek. Much older and more interesting. Apparently the Greek deities were afraid of Hecate and took care to show her respect and not offend her in any way. Circe's association with her could lead to some fascinating opportunities and allow the writers to work with magic and mythology that is a little more colourful and mysterious and exciting than the familiar and often boring ancient Greek stuff we see normally.

I see Circe as being a bit like an evil Kate Bush, or Helena Bonham Carter's Bellatrix Lestrange or something. Absolutely nutty after all that time alone on her island, and really bloody creepy.

In a lot of ways the character is like a twisted and bitter version of Wonder Woman... they both come from ancient cultures that the world has moved on and left behind, both come from the same region near the Black Sea originally, both live on mysterious islands hidden away from the rest of the world, both are princesses, both are "feminists" in their own way. It is logical to assume Circe might be angry that the new world embraces Wonder Woman while she is forgotten and alone on her little island, which has to be humiliating for a princess right?

So Circe has a lot of potential to be a much more powerful and interesting enemy.

Fury

Okay technically this character isn't a villain.

Again this is going to get very messy.

Originally Fury was Hippolyta Trevor, daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, who inherited all of her mom's abilities and became a superhero. And then in the 1980s TPTB decided to scrap everything and start over with a new continuity. As you've probably noticed already this is where a lot of the problems surrounding Wonder Woman's villains stem from, because they didn't put a lot of thought into the new continuity.

Anyway for some reason they decided to keep the character around after the reboot, but they were starting over from the beginning with Wonder Woman so it was impossible for her and Steve to be the parents of this character that was in her twenties already. And so the writers created Helena Kosmatos, her new mommy.

Apparently Helena was a Greek woman whose brother collaborated with the Italian Fascists and was responisble for the deaths of their parents or something. Helena swore revenge and somehow struck a deal with one of the Furies, the spirits of vengeance from Greek mythology. And to cut a long story short, she ended up becoming possessed by this spirit, which would transform her into a blood-crazed monster whenever she became angry.

It's this version that i think would work well as a sort-of villain. A decent woman with a monster trapped inside her... it's tragic and full of possibility.

And the visuals could be amazing.

Just modernise the origin a little and ditch the daughter.

Interestingly tho, and speaking of the daughter, the original Hippolyta Trevor went on to become a central and fascinating character in Neil Gaiman's Sandman. She sets in motion the events that lead to the death of Dream, and is the mother of the child that becomes his successor. It's a frustrating truth that Wonder Woman villains are often some of the most compelling and popular characters in comics... just not in Wonder Woman comics unfortunately.

And that's all for now.

I didn't realise this thing was going to turn out to be so long.

I had to split the list in half, so there's another ten coming in the next day or so hopefully.