Road to a Nintendo OS 1 Feb 2016 7:34 AM (9 years ago)

Collect, curate and display… for yourself 30 Oct 2015 3:03 PM (9 years ago)

Got a large image folder backup on your hard drive? Read on!

In the earliest eras of the internet, when people would go online and search for images. Why? cos videos where insanely large for a 56kbps modem connection. These images you would download, save on out hard drive or floppy and then maybe re-upload to your own geocities/angelfire, site.

This need to accumulate and curate you images has always been one of my biggest fascinations among online activities. Why people feel the need to create, curate and showcase random peaces of the internet galleries not merely as a backup practice, but as an unique expression of individuality. People could put their hearts into these pages to show through other art or pieces of memorabilia and fashion… who they are.

However if you have been online for a while too, you know, nothing on the internet is eternal. And geocities died and you changed hosts and lost all the data. Accounts get deleted because users, being naive, upload renaissance paintings that happen to feature and naked child ( I kid you not). Through my life not only had geocities disappeared… but got banned from we heart it and had so far 3 tumblr blogs deleted. So uploading my 3rd parties image collection for reference online hasn’t been that easy. When services like, Pinterest, FFFFound, we  it, pinterest and tumblr are your best friend and your sworn enemy, you are forced to take up the habit of making a nice and clean hard copy of all those nice images you love seeing, just like the 90’s… except floppys won’t cut it… and flash drives can’t be relied on… and who on earth burns a DVD these days?

I have a folder with pictures downloaded since the late 90’s, that’s over 30.000 images I have…. and that doesn’t even include porn. Maybe I’m a hoarder… maybe you are too, and if so you know having this huge folder with files are really a nightmare to organise let alone look at. I check mine almost constantly cos I need it for reference, inspiration or just passing time.

Fortunately there are a few “softwares” that help you with this sort of thing.

Here we’ll give a look to a few for mac!

FoIve purchased and reviewed some of the most popular… My criteria and thought are based on

Interface /  Icon.  I think interface is important because what you are keeping here are not your personal photos but the art you’ve collected over the years. So the aim of the app is to make your art look good, and be easy to browse.

Features: Since most of this images are to be browsed, auto sorting, tagging is a must. Also tools that help clean up are a plus, like finding duplicates or allowing me to clean up my folder from things I don’t want anymore (ej live folders).

Sync. Finally because the cloud is here to stay, I find it useful that my images could be syncd among devices. I’m not talking here about.

Pixave by LittleHJ

Looks:

With an Icon and interface that is completely seamless to the new OS X look, Pixave is a gorgeous app, it displays the thumbnails of your images beautiful, and has some customization options.

Some of the features I use most are a bit hidden away, like the star rating system. Which should be readily accesible.

Sorting images from  the “all” view is not possible… which means sorting within different collections has to be done one collection at a time.

With most of the competition now abandoned, Pixave really stands out as it looks really modern and is regularly updated.

Extraordinary  Features:

It has color filter tool which doesn’t quite work, but its there, it doesn’t allow you to sort images by colors on the over all view of your collection.

It has a star based rating system that feels a bit clunky but it works.  You have to create a smart to collection if you want to sort through Strarred images.

It has Wonderfull editing system, and embedded sharing functionality. As it handles videos, you can convert em to gifs easily.. An Image crop tool would be great, as well as a video trim ability.

Most extraordinary of all it has a duplicate find options, which is great when updating the image backups you have from Tumblr. This was the reason I bought it.

Keeping it N*Sync:

It has iCloud sync functionality and promises a soon-to-come iOS app… which I am really hyped for!

SparkBox and Pixfeed by IcyBlaze (discontinued)

 

Looks:

I Love the Icon and interface somehow makes the images added look really nice.

For some reason it doesn’t use OS X preview function but its own… which i find odd.

Then it has some wonky controls, for example, One is not able to zoom in on the image by scrolling (or pinching). if I want to see some image in detail i have to click the zoom icons.

Extraordinary  Features:

It  has a Smart folder that woks by date only… which isn’t really that helpful.

Has websnap and browser plugin. to add images straight from the web. Useful if using the tumblr backup jammy or capturing a lot of images off a board.

The best feature by far tho is that it sorts by colors very accurately which I love, even by hex color values.

Keeping it N*Sync:

to phone via paid app directly. But thats awesome… even tho it can’t be done through itunes, and has to be done via wifi. And you need to disable the sleep function on you phone if the transfer is for a large library like mine.

It creates its own library so none of the changes made there apply to the actual backup. Also means Deleted images from the app don’t gett actually deleted from the hard drive.

Price: its 19,99 + 4,99. While the paid iPhone app might seem just greedy, i do like that my reference images are somewhere else in my phone, apart from my actual personal photos, so not having them in my camera roll is a plus. The wifi transfer the app offers just isn’t fast/reliable enough, I would like it to use apple’s iCloud instead for syncing but… then you might need to put more cash for larger iCloud storage.

PixFeed (discontinued)

Formerly known as Drool, this app was separately an image aggregator for social networks such as Instagram, Facebook… but then decided to add some basic functionality, from Sparkbox, as a paid add on so the app could also manage pictures on you hard drive. However it lack the color sorting function is why I decided on purchasing Sparkbox for a full review instead of this one.

If Icyblaze decided to merge both apps into one… and allowed batch download/backup your tumblr likes/posts, flickr photos/favourites, Instagram photo/likes, dribbble shots/likes… This would be a heck of an app, they could even go crazy and add DeviantArt, Pixiv and Pinterest support. But until then. Otherwise its just an excuse to not use the browser… and if you are paying, Sparkbox is the one to go for.

Note: Unfortunately I think they stopped development of Sparkbox one in favour of Pixfeed, tho none have been updated in a while. Pixfeed at the time of writing has broken functionality when dealing with dribbble and Facebook accounts.

Pixa by Shiny Frog

Looks:

Ugly icon… I’m sorry… but  the green pipe just shows me off..

However the app if fairly decent, as far as the GUI goes its very nice looking and has a dark theme, but my images somehow don’t look as pretty on it as i would like.

I love that you can sort by image size and  has a zoom view and can extract hexadecimal color values.

Extraordinary Features:

The app has a built in Screen shots tool. Tho not sure if it necessary I like OS X screen cap tool already.

Tho the app does sort images by color, it works by using Auto tags . It has 10 predefined tags… and its sorts images into one of those 10 colours… which is both too broad and not very accurate.

Also has Size based auto which might come in handy for some tags might come in useful… but when I’m looking for a specific image its easier to just think what color it was.

Sync:

It syncs your library to dropbox which is cool… and you use drop box for this. B

What I love most its that has live folders instead of its own library so whatever changes you make to the library also happen on you image folder on your hard drive. Next you could sync that folder you phone using iTunes or whatever.

 

 

Price: $30 USD, but often bundled with other apps… ironically often with the following app.

Ember by Realmac (discontinued)

Looks:

It has a nice icon that integrates with yosemite perfectly… and this one uses OS X preview. The app looks beautiful and like Pixfeed you can integrate RSS feeds from sites like Dribble, so from the go you can have some really great inspiration images just there.

Extraordinary Features:

Has basic edit tool for pics, which might come in handy.

Sorts by color but you can’t choose the color you want to see… you have to create a smart folder for each color you are interested in looking which can take time.

Has a tool that takes screenshots and web snapshots but it can create videos from screen recording!

Oh and yeah… it can also handle videos!

Keeping it N*Sync:

It creates its own library of images, but unlike Sparkbox. It has an auto import feature so any images added  will be adde there too and any you delete will be deleted… just know ion you hard drive they will take twice the space.

Aso since its in its own library but has no iOS app you can’t sync this one on your mobile directly or with iTunes. You ca n however have your library on drop box and access it on any macs you have with Ember installed… cool but not great if you have library as big as mine.

Bonus mention: Clipstart by River fold

Looks:

It had a beautiful Icon and then they changed it for the current one… which I don’t really care for. A yosemite integration is highly anticipated.

The app looks ok, a bit a outdated but holds its gross just fine.

Extraordinary Features:

The app allows you to make some basic edits to vids.

When consolidated The app has a useful duplicate finder, so you don’t waste space with twice of the same file.

Keeping it N*Sync:

The app cases both live folders and has the option to consolidate all alive folders into its own library.

Has a video share export that supports Flickr, which unfortunately is not working right now.

Price:

At $29 bucks is on the pricey side… but if you have a lot of clips that are just for storage and not to make movies. This might be the way to go… cos iMovie its a bit complicated for managing large video collections that are meant to just sit there and not become something else. This is basically what and iVideos app should be.

Note: After contacting with the author, A new version of clipstart is in the works that will fix flickr integration.

Conclusion

There is no perfect app. Tho I believe there could be if you mixed all of these together.   Having a separate libraries from the folder you make your image backups in makes most of the apps excessively large. Managing videos is awesome, which is why I now Pixave is the best of the bunch, which means I can keep both my art assets and XXX material. It also included two of my wish-list features. One, It has the ability to Upload your backup to the cloud, and while its doesn’t allow you to re post it on social media (like we it or Tumblr) and its amazing. And two, it has a duplicate finder that keeps my library really slim.

I few things I would add in my dream app, would be to simply support more image sharing sites, within the app. And have the ability to backup all my activity from them… nothing in the internet is eternal. And having my curated likes/faves/reblogs lost… its just a shame.

I would love it if the image could use google images search functionality and suggest or identify the source of the source. Right now, using this reverse image search is how I track the author of a picture I really like and its not credited. Also while at it -using also google images  AI to generate tags automagically would be… epic.

 

Now, while I get to learn to develop apps… or better yet (but even more unlikely)  meet some cool developer who wants to develop my ideas so we both get rich, you can try one of these apps and enjoy you hard copy backup of everything you’ve downloaded from the webs!

Rowing down the Styx: The history of Wonder Woman (not being) featured in the media 26 Aug 2015 11:40 PM (10 years ago)

You can download it as a pdf here or 

Introduction

Ah the 90’s… I remember going to my aunts country house during vacation and catching up with all the gossip of entertainment, which i guess is not what yo you see, over there, far out in the country there was no internet, and no TV only some dubiously recent magazines that piled up from the years of guests going over and leaving them behind. So you during the day I would go outside on the grass and catch up with Cromos (stickers?), Jet Set and Caras (Faces)…. you know, the classics.

I remember there was one, a really old one that featured and article about Lynda Carter as wonder woman and featured a full page spread of her in the outfit… I cut it out and pasted it on the board of my bed… this one.

But I digress, despite most magazines being gossip from celebrities and royals. I remember from time to time, some news regarding the next batman flick, and even on rarer occasions there would be some new regarding a superman movie would show up. This was weird an oddity. In the 90’s no one really cared for DC comic movies (even less marvel if you can imagine that), except Batman nothing else seemed to matter  in that area. But when Tim Burton from Batman decided to do his version of superman, that was in the news, it never happened tho, for years bits a new came around, about Nicolas Cage getting the part, or Tim Allen being Brainiac or something… For the longest time there were news and news. But no movie. it never happened. That’s was my introduction to the meaning of the words “development hell”.

It was in these magazines around 2001, when I too first heard anything about a Wonder Woman feature film, and was widely rumored that Sandra Bullock would be playing the role. It also never happened.

I’ve been waiting 14 years now. The rest of the world has waited a lot longer.

When my mom came to my apartment the other day, she couldn’t help but notice the not-actually-that-insane amount of geek memorabilia that adorns every corner of my crib. Aston point she casually asked if my favorite superhero was Superman. “ no, its not mom” I answered “its Wonder Woman for sure”.

-“Well all I see are supermen everywhere…” she retorted.

There is, I admit, a painting of Superman (I believe by Fernando Millán ) hanging on my living room,  I have also displayed the New 52 “we can be heroes” Justice League set which includes both Wonder Woman and Superman on the table, a Kingdom Come Armour Wonder Woman figure on the library, the Amecomi Wonder Woman statue on my desk… and there’s even a Wonder Woman brightly displayed on the superpowers Hall of Justice box I have on the TV room. But despite Wonder Woman three timing Superman among my collectibles, she didn’t see her…

And it bugged me then…  Why would I come online to rant if it didn’t?

But I fear people, like my mom, don’t see Wonder Woman. I mean if you are into DC Comics or working for DC Comics, when you talk about the “big three”, she comes to mind right?. when you talk to anyone about heroines doesn’t she rise above all other?  She does! But she is not anywhere… not in the past and rarely, and for some time now, people have been asking… well where is Wonder Woman? In fact its been asked so much… and by so many, that there is actually a documentary inspired by the absence of the super hero in current media for decades. Yet still no wonder woman movie yet. There is one in development right now (as always since 1999).

But I have decided to go a bit further, do research and try to come up with some sort of explanation for this present absence of the character in people’s minds. And stumbled upon a notorious absence in TV, movies and visual media in general. Looking back I realised something. Superman and Batman are media franchises Wonder Woman is not… and the more I looked into why she wasn’t, more questions arose?  Was it plain machismo in our society? was it really an uninteresting / not profitable character? was there hints of a course?

The only way of knowing is by going back, play historian and see how it would have been like if wonder woman, had joined her fellow members of the trinity in the media and why she actually didn’t .

The Golden Age

In the 40’s, with the boom of super heroes, Hollywood  (cos its inevitable to refer to the movie industry by a proper name) took notice and of course made the most of the phenomena. Batman got a serials in 1943 and so did Superman in 1948, these as part of a really big trend of comic book to serial adaptations, that included captain America, The green hornet, Zorro, the shadow, Captain Marvel… etc. Yet  wonder woman didn’t have one. Why?

Imagine a vintage Wonder Woman suit, with a ruffled skirt and old time bathing suit. A serial at that time that would have propelled Wonder Woman to early heights of popularity just as Batman and Superman’s serials did for them. It would have been as controversial as popular it seems… You might argue that in the 40’s women in action leads where uncommon, but thats just not the case, one of the most famous is Linda Sterling, she starred in in the The Tiger Woman (1944) playing Nyoka, a jungle heroine in a sexy leopard outfit.

 

You might even argue that wonder woman were just too weird and full of bondage in the era… but The tiger woman had its share of bondage included.

 

So its not that wonder woman was too sexy…. or to fetish. In fact, during the latter years of the war, having a sexy woman hitting Nazi jaws seems like the best idea ever for propaganda films. And imagine having some pretty 40’s actress traveling abroad to visit the troops and boost morale, it seriously would have been the perfect movie serial at the perfect time.

The wonder woman movie serial that never was by Scott Blair (on the right) along side the posters of the Batman and Superman serials that were.

Upon closer examination however, Nyoka is very well covered herself after all while Wonder Woman is after all very scantly dressed. it’s the 40’s after all. I mean this was censored for being too sexy:

 

Rita Hayworth scenes in “Gilda,”  made many censors rise up in rage when it premiered in 1946 (She LITERALLY dances and removes her gloves to later slap some guy with them).

Imagine the outrage of an even more revealing women punching men to the floor… I guess for any studio was just to much of a risk. My guess is that no one was brave enough to pull it off, and I can’t argue that a more soberly clothed Wonder Woman, even with Nazi ass kicking action would have been quite the same.

In an interesting note DC comics published in the 90’s a mini-series titled: REAL WORLDS, these explored, grounded “real world” stories (of what you might call earth prime type of stories). In the issue: Wonder woman Vs. the red menace the story (which you can check out the art here  | Or buy here) revolves around the scenario of a wonder woman serial placed at the early 50’s post war america. Its quite touching and both melancholic and well… real.

So what the big deal of Wonder Woman not being featured in a golden age serial? well… I’m not sure, it might not be important all, after all the big boom of super heroes movies nowadays centres around heroes that wren’t created till the 60’s or later; but the truth is that when the Superman radio show aired in the 1940’s. Batman was the one who guest starred regularly in it. Maybe because  Batman had stablished an image outside comics and Wondy had not? Maybe she had no media persona people into superheroes would recall? a presence to make her appearance on radio significant or beneficial? According to The Superhero Book by Gina Renée there were attempts as early as the 1950s to get Hollywood to create a live-action Wonder Woman serial, But the tide was probably against it. Also in the 50s, anti-comic crusader Fredric Wertham accused Wonder Woman of being a lesbian with a “a sadistic hatred of all men.” which I’m sure that didn’t help her case into the silver screen.

The Silver Screen

The 50’s was not the best time for superheroes, or comics, in general. If you’ve watched ANY retrospective on the history of comics, you know it (heck they mention it in almost every featurette included on a DC Comics property DVD) If you don’t, they were being persecuted by the government and judged by the public as the biggest bad influence on youth since… well since ever, comics were really the first youth oriented medium in way. During the 50s we  there was a need to shift the roles of woman back to a more traditional setting after the war… see many women had to fill the jobs of the men that had gone to fight, and they eventually came back… but the most important gift of the good old fifties was TV!

At the beginning of the decade Superman was the first and pretty much the only one to move onto TV in this decade (1952-1958), probably because of the success of the radio show. A show that at some point even featured Batman and robin on some episodes, however, with the witch hunt of superhero comics, Batman was ironically not the most popular of the bunch, he was deemed a rather bland character to feature on TV: he had no powers and most of his adventures took place at night (a big no no for the early days of TV). His biggest foe is a non lethal clown, Catwoman had been erased from the comics because she had to much cleavage and a whip… oh yeah and he was probably, not only gay but, a bit of an ephebo…  So yeah, no Batman for the 50’s due to simple lack of popularity; plus there was Zorro who embodied most of what batman did but had that popular old western feel.

But what of old Wondy? She unlike batman had no radio appearance on the superman show for some reason. My bet is that Wonder Woman, although much like superman, wasn’t really supposed to be out there kicking Nazis by now, so it didn’t make much sense, and in the back of the mind of many, her Nazi kicking magazine covers stuck; now she was supposed to go back home let the men take over like all women folk did.

Looking at the wonder woman of the fifties is very unique cos she never quite got married and held a clean house hold with trevor. Not that they didn’t try:

But overall, she didn’t move onto longer skirts and baking. She remained a scantly dressed superhero (also a good bet why she didn’t move onto tv).

It would take 8 Years, for DC to have another live action TV series after Superman. That series was Batman (1963-1966) and despite Batman being quite unpopular in the comics then, the series becomes insanely popular, general consensus being that while the show was children safe  it was full of sexual innuendo for the adults to see.

It seems during this time, and thanks to the 60’s sexual revolution, that William Dozier the creator of the batman TV show stumbled onto the discovery that superheroes could also be sexy which in the long run would mean, they could be marketed to adults. And so it was that Catwoman saved Batman from oblivion by being “sexy as fuck”.

Now with the success of all these sexy girls and whacky, surreal villains and stories, wouldn’t you think wonder woman could work to?! after all she is sexy and whacky as hell, And William Dozier thought of it too. He commissioned two Pilots for Batgirl and for Wonder Woman!

Wonder Woman 1967 Screen Test / TV Pilot

They recorded only 5 minutes of a 41 page script. and those 5 minutes are the weirdest piece of TV you can encounter. From what I can gather, it was written by MAD comedy writers Stan Hart & Larry Siegel and the series was called  “Who’s afraid of Diana Prince?”. In it Diana Prince is a young woman who is not a very dashing looking girl that lives with her over bearing mother who insists she should have a boyfriend and a healthy life. However Diana is also Wonder Woman, wise and fast but not as beautiful as she thinks. Apparently Diana thinks she becomes a beautiful woman when she becomes wonder woman… but really is not. This makes for a really kind of cruel comedy. With Diana acting all confident and sexy in the misogynist 60’s when she really is not. Steve trevor is mentioned and we one can assume will be Diana’s unrequited love interest. In essence this Wonder Woman is “Ugly Betty” (the original one not the crappy US remake) with a jewish mother stereotype thrown in.

I can just imagine Steve Trevor’s expression of exasperation at seeing this shabby Diana coming on to him at every chance, even when he doesn’t really need her help and he not daring to put her down because he needs her as Wonder Woman, I can picture his chauvinist co-workers making fun of him. Then he would need Wonder Woman and… awkwardly he has to conquer her, make her think he loves her. She is thrilled and then as the series progresses he starts to actually like her and fall for her because she is so confident. Finally she would learn after battling some petty enemy that she is actually not the sexy bombshell she thought she turned to at all, and understands that Steve was only courting her back as a ruse and to use her. He realises he can´t live without Wonder Woman, and persists and tracks down the real Diana and tells her he doesn’t care he loves her and proposes she realises she is as valuable and lovable as she was being wonder woman all the time and accepts. Now because its unthinkable to have an unattractive couple on TV,  Aphrodite would then grant her the real gift of beauty and she and Steve live happily ever after.

If 60’s TV’s were making breakthrough and a comment on beauty conventions and gender roles, I would have said this was a great idea. But if the Batman series serves as an indicator it would probably mean that the series would not move forward but be a repeating sketch of a poor young unattractive Diana flirting with Steve and being the butt of all the cruel jokes every week.

They had the template set by Batman why couldn’t they just use it for wonder woman? The pilot casts the very attractive and amazon looking Linda Harrison as Diana’s delusional version of herself, we see her on the mirror as Diana checks herself out. That was a good cast! But in the era of Bond girls and the such, really I can’t see how Diana could have carry on a campy comedy inspired series without it being a joke. It would be 7 years later, when we got a Wonder Woman TV Series! that lasts 3 seasons (1975-1978)

Why did that one work? My opinion. Well they allowed themselves to do it wrong first. The 60’s pilot is only 5 minutes short… they made an attempt but they really didn’t try.

Years pass and by the 70’s Wonder Woman was an unrecognisable character in the comics, she had no powers, no costume and owned a boutique. The feminist movement was outraged by this. And this attention to the character with the women liberation movement must have sparked the interest in the character. In 1974 Warner/ABC created a TV Movie pilot for wonder woman, Originally Angela Bowie (David Bowie’s wife) had been considered for the role of Wonder Woman for the upcoming ABC-TV movie but lost the part for her refusal to wear a bra.

The role of Wonder Woman later went to the tennis player Cathy Lee Crosby. In the movie, Wonder Woman, who is also known as Diana Prince, is called in by Steve Trevor to fix a hostage situation regarding some infiltrated CIA agents who are at the hand of criminal mastermind Abner Smith, played by none other than god-mother-fucking Khan (Ricardo Montalban)! And man what a Villain he is. Now in this version of Diana and Socialite Diana, she spends better part of the movie in Paris, dining with her enemies and avoiding deathtraps all while in the comfort of the most tacky 70’s hotel ever portrayed on TV. All this while having the most delightful and fancy chitchat. Halfway through, we are revealed Abner has allied with rogue Amazon warrior, Angela which leads to the most action packed girl on girl action America daytime TV could allow (Javelin hand to hand combat!).  The movie really starts three thirds in, when Steve receives a special delivery in his office, a crate with a fucking donkey inside! The donkey, shockingly, becomes the cornerstone of the movie, as it’s the medium in which the Ransom has to be paid. Steve Send the donkey off with the ransom and Diana Flies from Paris in her unseen Invisible Jet to Alba Nevada to stop it.  (Both the audience and Montalban are denied the opportunity to see the plane which makes me wonder if it was going to remain unseen through out the series.

Eventually Diana catches up with the damn donkey after surviving more deathtraps and arrives riding it (That’s right Diana actually makes an entrance riding a donkey in this movie) to confront her  amazon sister gone rogue, Angela. Once she is lazily defeated, she moves on to the real baddie Abner Smith, who really is as charming as Khan. After what’s like 15 minutes of pleasantries between them, Diana re states that she has no intention of letting the Smith keep the ransom money and uses on of her bracelets to blow up Abner’s Helicopter launch pad (Yeah those are one dangerous peace of jewellery to wear) yet Abner makes an exit via an inflatable boat. Diana goes after him in a motorcycle and jumps in the river and swim up to him. As to the reason why Abner didn’t just knock her unconscious with the row and continue his way is revealed in the Cop Car scene that follows where he declares his undying love to Wonder Woman right before being shipped to jail. The movie ends with a pretty soaked and shivering Diana covered in a white towel as Abner seems confident they will meet again.

Now I for one, enjoyed listening to Montalban most of the movie, he gets all the crappy lines just right. I would have loved to see him appear again, having his love towards Wonder Woman inspire him to construct wacky plans to lure her, then in a further episode become an unexpected ally,  only to finally have him kill Steve Trevor and rise as the ultimate Wonder Woman foe and die himself trying to destroy her.

In truth, the pilot WAS poorly written, Montalban is only heard and his face obscured most of the movie and only appears on camera for the third act, which is a really lame villain reveal as we know its Khan right from the opening titles sequence. Wonder Woman had an awkward outing here, her most memorable moments include she riding a donkey and calling room service to overcome a deadly snake. Yet it has in some measure enriched the mythos. You can actually see Cathy Lee Crosby’s Wonder Woman in more recent comics, making cameos.

The TV series, was the first comic faithful adaptation of the character. Everything from the amazons, the island, the costume, invisible (inflatable) plane, Steve Trevor and Etta Candy is there.  It also gave us the first live action Wonder Girl, not the comics version of course (no one in their right mind would go into something as complicated that), The show introduced so many thing to the mythos us to some cool things like but Drusilla

The show also introduced so many thing to the mythos like a completely unnecessary K-9 like mascot named IRAC, Skater Wonder Woman, Diving Wonder Woman and most important of all the transform Spin!

The show managed to mix the powerless fem fatal spy  with the classic amazon. By having us see Diana in two different time periods, the Second World War and the 70’s

My only “but” with this series is that none of the comic books villains except one, make an appearance (Veronese Van Gunther in case you are wondering).  It did give us one recurring villain: Andros, a form of Oan type alien representative sent to earth to destroy it if he finds humans to dangerous for the good of the galaxy.

 

I think if you play geek god and watch it all history from above, DC kinda had a  a memorable live action TV Series for their “Trinity” characters per decade,  during the 50’s (superman) 60’s (batman) and 70’s (wonder woman)… all accompanied with their respective rise in popular merchandise and tie-ins. right?

The superman TV shows had the 1940’s Fleischer animated serial aired in syndication well into the fifties.  By 1966 when the bat-mania hit, it really pushed ABC to keep the tie ins and commission Filmation animated studios to work on segments based on the properties now televised in prime time properties. These meant a  Batman and Robin animated series to tie-in, and a superman series that included a Superboy segment with Krypto the super dog.

In fact these tie in series were so popular, that lead Filmation to develop yet another series with DC’s then most famous character. Wonder Wo… no, wait…  Aquaman! and eventually even some Flash, Green Lantern, Atom and Hawkman short series. Actually everyone BUT Wonder woman.

By te 60’s Wonder Woman has never been in the air… so in the 60’s is kind of un known territory to do a female centred action animated series. Specially if take a look at the way stories seem to work within Filmation, which was very standardised.

Watching just few of each, it becomes evident they used templates. There was the Batman template inspired from the live action TV shows, zany and campy. One sidekick and one crazy villain.  They had a Superman template based of the radio show and live TV counterparts with a stand alone hero, with secret identity fight Sci-Fi monster / evil genius of  the week.

Both these templates were worked for all other superheroes. And man, if they didin;t fit they wopuld make them. Not this means all their personalities are interchangeable ( even more than in the comics of the era) Their powers are also exchangeable, solo heroes can do pretty much anything superman can do solo: The atom flies and has super speed for example and Hawkman uses a ray gun that woks just as well as any heat vision along with flash who also exhibits flying and super strength. Those NOT using the Superman template are using the Batman template, and so they ALL have sidekicks, Flash has Kid Flash, Aquaman has Aqualad,  Even Green Lantern had to be created a sidekick so it would fill the template (Kairo the Venusian boy).

My guess, is that it is possible since there was no immediate predecessor to how to write wonder woman stories… there was no template for wonder woman animated shorts.  In closer inspection will reveal that actually they avoided heroines on their line up in general, Mera (Aquaman’s wife) makes a few, brief (and rather embarrassing) cameos in Aquaman, in a more of a Lois Lane damsel in distress type of situation. And Hawkman instead of borrowing the Batman template and having Hawkgirl as a sidekick uses the Superboy/Krypto template and has an eagle sidekick named Skreal.

Even when they did some Justice League episodes… there was still no Wonder Woman! Aquaman was only included in the title of the segments, but the fact wonderwoman wasnt even ther… well its just unbelievable.

Here’s my rendition of how that might (and should) have looked like:

One can’t help but imagine endless ways they could have always just adapted one of their templates to Wonder Woman. Maybe wonder woman could have had wonder girl as a sidekick a la dynamic duo, or maybe create a Wonder Boy for her (oh my imagination). Maybe she could have a pet unicorn and fit the Superboy/Krypto template.

Interestingly enough, when they did the Teen Titan Episodes… they did include Wonder Girl (wtf?). She was arguably portrayed as the most competent and powerful member of the team. Unfortunately, she was also subjected to lots of “doll” and “chick” jesting. According to comicbook journalist Darren McNeal It seems a wonder woman series was in the plans. Allegedly there were pilots planned for not only wonder woman but Metamopho and Plastic man as well but with the Bat-mania being so catchy they decided to focus their efforts on batman alone.

Suggested evidence of this planned Filmation wonder woman pilot, seems to have made it to the View-Master Superheroes reel “Peril in New York”.

Click here to see a bit more!  

Filmation wouldn’t get a chance at animating the character until 1972 when she would guest star in an episode of the Brady Kids tie-in animated series.

(very gif-able moment) Man… She drops like a rock!

Evidence also suggests got over their cold feet and went on ahead with female action leads, but not having the DC license they made their own superheroes instead of borrowing DC’s. Filmation did get to do an animated Isis series, She-Ra Princess of power and even a Spiderman-like female hero called Web-Woman, so I guess they weren’t against doing super heroines in the long run,  it seems that for whatever reason Wonder woman just missed the chance again.

After the Live action TV series aired, seemed like it was only fair the Wonder Woman would have had an tie in animated series. But alas, it did not happen… In America, that is. Why, its anyone’s guess, the series was such a big deal overseas, the theme song was remixed and sold as a disco hit in France The theme song was sort of a hit in France and all the way in the other side of the world, Korean animator Kim Cheong-gi produced the Anime “Run, Wonder Princess!” 날아라 원더 공주 ( 走れワンダーコンジュ)

I’m not sure if it’s a serialised TV movie or an actual series, couldn’t find any episode list, just a “series opening”. True they didn’t bother acquiring an actual license. But really they barely bothering changing the character at all. She has the spin, the colours, and even has a crush a military man and astronaut version of Steve Trevor. She battles The Red Empire enemy of the series Taekwon V.

The anime had a VHS release, but aside from that, and not being very fluent in Korean (not that Google is very fluent either) there is very little info on it. Here a couple of interesting art I found. Including what seems production art and a 2nd volume of a manga where it seems she turned blonde and got a costume change.

날아라 원더공주 – 1978 김청기 감독

Wonder Woman wouldn’t make her first official ongoing cartoon appearances till the Super Friends premiered, and kept going for 9 seasons (1973-1986). But Superman was also being heavily promoted in the movies, and Batman batman had yet another solo tie-in animated show during the 70s which mean that during the 70’s both got twice the mediatic exposure. Even spider woman had an animated TV show that heavily borrowed on the success of the wonder woman TV shows.

Interesting fact, when the series needed the development of new teenaged sidekicks to accompany the justice league, it was made so that Marvin White, was actually recruited by wonder woman, as he was the son of the original Diana Prince. Meaning he is technically Wonder Woman’s protégé.

 

Shortly after the end of the Wonder Woman TV series, there was finally a talk for a Superman: a feature length color movie! The second ever to feature one of its main characters. We now think it takes forever for anyone to deliver a new DC movie, but the truth is its has always been that way.

While Batman had a theatrical movie during its Bat-mania craze, it was close to 12 years till Superman premiered in 1978 that DC heroes finally became a movie franchise. This Superman movie was clearly more inspired in the classic 1950’s Superman of the comics era, while in turn the 1950’s TV series in turn was more oriented to the 1940’s Superman. It did not portray the Superman of its own day. By the 70’s Clark had quit the planet and was by then a TV news anchorman for example. The movie was followed by 3 sequels and a supergirl spin-off during the next 7 years with the final one being released in 1986.

3 years later they took a crack at a Batman movie (1989),  here Tim Burton made dark re interpretation of the original Batman 60’s series. The movie was a success and 3 sequels followed during the next 8 years with the Last one being Batman & Robin (1997). The movies increased the tone of the Batman 60’s camp in each sequel but adhered more of the comics lore of characters than the superman movies ever did, even borrowing characters from the contemporary Batman animated series.

Logic would dictate that by 1999 they would have had a crack at a Wonder Woman Movie. But no.

If Superman had 80’s, Batman the 90’s… Wonder Woman would not have the 00’s, why? I think we have to go back:

In 1986 the Super Friends ended, the longest running show to feature any DC superhero, and right after it did (in 1988), Superman turned 50 years old. To celebrate and since the Superman movies series had ended a couple of years before, warner needed new stuff to capitalize on, so it commissioned, a Ruby Spears animated mini series and new Superboy live action TV series premiered, it lasted 4 seasons (1988-1992).

When Batman turned 50 the next year (1989) and the Burton movie premiered that same year, only 3 years after Super Friends ended. it was accompanied by a semi tie-in Animated series by Bruce Timm.. you know, the one that was super successful.

But by the time Wonder Woman turned 50 in 1991 and there was nothing. And there should have been:

Its not that they did not think of anything. In 1990-92 Mattel noticed how well Filmation’s She-ra and Sailor Moon were doing and noticed that had been 17 years since her last solo appearance in any media (3 years since her actual last appearance on TV in  the Superman 50year animated series). So they contacted Warner Animation and DC and prepared a new Wonder Woman! They hired the artist whose art had adorned the successful Superpowers line and had him design the characters. The started animation, which apparently got as far as some story boards and then… They pulled the plug.

Unfortunately, the whole thing collapsed not long afterwards — I can’t trace the actual fatal blow, but my guess would be that they couldn’t find any takers for their proposed cartoon (animated shows geared towards girls are virtually unsellable — even today I know of cartoons being shopped around that no-one will produce because “conventional wisdom” dictates that shows geared towards girls will fail).

A pilot was made. It included some test animation, character designs and even some live action segments, which was actually showed at a comic convetions/toyfairs in 1993.

It’s also possible that orders were so low on the toy line Mattel decided to pull the plug […] In fact, a Feb 93 article in the Wall Street Journal calls the line “an unusual venture” because of  Mattel’s attempt to do a female action line, which at that point hadn’t been seen for several years. To help clarify things for those who might have been made nervous (and to think Xena would appear just a few years later!), a spokeswoman for Mattel stressed that the line would be nonviolent and that Wonder Woman would have “lots of hair to comb.” But lots of hair couldn’t save this Wonder Woman. – Sarah Dyer. “Action Girl”

As Wonder Woman and the Star Riders collapsed, Batman began getting  movies every 3 years. After Superboy ended in ‘92, Superman got yet another live action series with Lois & Clark. This time a sort of drama series that focused in the relationship of Clark Kent and Lois Lane rather than in the super heroic exploits of Superman. Sort of a superman soap opera,  and while the man of steel was not enjoying the multimillion success of Batman in the movies and had its own difficulties getting a new movie, the series lasted 3 seasons (1993-1997) and it managed to influence warner animation to create a new animated series (again at the hands of Bruce Timm) a series that went on for another 3 seasons (1996-2000).

By 1997 after Lois and Clark finished its run, series creator creator Debra Joy LeVine pitched a Wonder Woman show in the same vein. And it made perfect sense, females in leads where everywhere in the 90’s. There was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, AllyMcbeal, Star Trek: Voyager, Sheena the Jungle girl, not to mention Xena! There was crave for this strong female leads and it was the right place for Wonder Woman.

“[In the new series] she was a Greek history professor, a young and very bright woman having a hard time juggling her personal life with her work. In this case, of course, her real work is being an Amazon warrior. It’s, like, “I’ll save the world, come home, pop a Lean Cuisine in the oven and watch the soap I taped this afternoon.” In many ways, she’s like a real woman, a real person. There’s a lot less holier than thou, out to fight for truth and justice, and more or less the fact that she’s here, she did come from Paradise Island, she was sent by her mother who the gods spoke to and said you have to send an emissary. So she came here and that’s sort of what she’s supposed to do as Wonder Woman, but she’s trying to live a normal life as Diana Prince, Greek history professor, as well. […] is not a show that’s totally about her fighting the bad guys, and certainly not, as it was in the comic books, where she has to fight monsters. No monsters here. I think what worked on Lois & Clark is that it was really 50/50 or 60/40 relationship and stuff going on between them versus the bad guys they had to deal with. I guess if you were to compare this to something, it would have to be Ally McBeal meets Xena. She can be like Xena and beat a group of people if she has to, but the drama of her life as a single woman living in Los Angeles is probably the priority here.” – Debora Joy LeVine (via voices of Krypton)

Eventually a script was written and casting began… and then it was canceled. The official reason was given that the producers couldn’t find an actress as good as Lynda Carter.

By 1997 however a Justice league TV Series pilot was filmed,  Interestingly There was a Pilot for a Justice league series developed.Yet this version of the justice league did not feature any of the trinity members. Probably due Superman film being developed by Tim Burrton, Batman V with George Clooney also in pre production and the Debra Joy LeVine Wonder Woman series being in development.

Justice League of America 1997 (9)

Now its hard to argue that Wonder Woman should have been part of that. But hell, flash got TWO 90’s TV incarnations, Martian Manhunter, Ice, Green Lantern, The atom, and Fire got at least one. Plus its just a matter of time before this one gets a Warner Archive DVD release… and those are fun.  It would literally be 12 years off the air in any form until  Bruce Timm started developing a Justice League animated series which include Wonder Woman in its roster (The show went from 2001 to 2006). That’s over a decade of the character not being anywhere in any media.

 

When Batman ended his 4 movie run at the box office during the 90’s Wonder woman had been off the air, in radio, tv and cinema for a decade. The Lynda Carter tv show didn’t spun off a cartoon to air, and after the super friends ended, any projects involving the character for tv would stale or fail. Wonder woman could hardly fall back on recent merchandise sales and media presence to justify a multimillion movie deal investment.

It was around 2001 the first time I heard anything about a feature film on Wonder Woman, and was widely rumoured that Sandra Bullock would be playing the role. Things got really interesting when I learned that the guy who made Matrix was to produce the movie (Joel Silver)!! awesome 00’s news right?

Things looked even more promising when in the following two years several high profile screenwriters where tied to the project, John Cohen (Minority Report.), Todd Alcott (13 Ghosts) and Becky Johnston (Seven Years in Tibet)

From this early 2000s movie versions only the Todd Alcott’s script was eventually leaked. Here’s how it goes:

The story to everyone’s surprise actually presented two Wonder Women: Diana Prince and Donna Troy.

The story begins with the super-hero’s career already underway,  and opens with “original” heroine Diana Prince as a sort of cross between Superman and James Bond, a secret agent who can fly at the speed of sound (yes, that’s one of Wonder Woman’s powers here so there was no need for an invisible jet)  and has super-strength. The script suggests a Wonder Woman costume more like Donna Troy from the post crisis comics. Both Diana and Donna wear skintight black catsuits, black boots, and Wonder Woman’s signature gauntlets. Diana Prince also wears a snug, fur-lined flight jacket over her catsuit during the opening sequence in the Alps. Both  are described as having raven-black hair, dark eyes and they both have “cupid’s bow lips.”

Soon the story becomes about how Donna Troy comes to realize that she’s the new Wonder Woman. The tale is set in the corrupt Pacific Northwest metropolis of Gateway City, Donna having dreams where she’s living out events that actually happened. Specifically, a violent altercation at residential Marston Tower between a woman (whom we know is Diana Prince) and a man (who is involved with the villain’s dastardly scheme). Donna’s dream is actually Diana’s perspective of the fight as it transpires, Diana is a top-secret agent for the DIA (the Defense Intelligence Agency), who stole some important item fundamental to the villains plans, but she was injured in the brawl at the Tower and is now missing. Beckoned to the crime scene by this dream, Donna raises the suspicion of dogged police detective Mike Schorr.

Long story short: Donna finds that she has suddenly and inexplicably gained super-powers and that she’s somehow connected to the mysterious Diana Prince. (Diana’s origin is related about halfway through via a brief, expository “out of body” visit to the paradise island of Themyscira, and then also discovering Diana’s hidden lair where she also finds Diana’s (for lack of a better expression) “warrior princess” outfits, including one that bears a more passing resemblance to the classic Wonder Woman costume. Diana’s Amazonian outfits and Amazon architecture in general are described as somewhere between ancient and futuristic in design. ) Donna quickly comes to terms with her newfound powers and her Amazonian destiny, and confronts Dr. Psycho’s minions in a series of public altercations that leads to her being dubbed “Wonder Woman” by the press and has now become the target of hi-tech arms manufacturer Dr. Peter Sychopoulos (a.k.a. “Dr. Psycho”) who needs to recover an item that Diana Prince stole. Trying to Locate Diana (and the Item) becomes the goal for Donna and her new sidekick/potential lover Mike, as well as for Dr. Psycho.

Dr. Psycho’s sinister plan  involves a doomsday weapon of sorts so finding Diana is REALLY urgent. This draft ends with a the original hero and her successor to team-up in the last act and not too subtle set-up for a potential sequel.

I can really see this movie being more in the vein of X-Men / Daredevil than that of Spiderman from the early 2000’s. Te dark suit and mixture espionage and technology. Despite whatever revisions the script went through production never really begun and the project fell apart, with Sandra Bullock leaving the project and going on to win an Oscar at some point.

Later script writer Todd Alcott would recall:

True story: I’m in a story meeting for the ill-starred Wonder Woman project and I’m laying out Wonder Woman’s fundamental backstory — formed out of mud by her mother Hippolyta, meant to be the only female created without the help of Man, wears silver bracelets to remind her of her sisters’ enslavement, etc — and the producer cuts me off and says “Okay, first thing, there ain’t gonna be any Greek mythology in this movie.” Making a Wonder Woman movie without any references to Greek mythology is like making a Superman movie where Superman is not the Last Son of Krypton or a Batman movie where Bruce Wayne’s parents are alive and well and residing in stately Wayne Manor.

By 2003 Laeta Kalogridis, who had some reputation of working in Birds Of Prey TV series (not great since it lasted only 13 episodes.) was attached to the project, and apparently delivered a script… THEN rumours regarding “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” former cast members (such as Christina Carpenter and Sarah Michelle Geller) started popping up as possible candidates for the title role… and rumours where not that far-fetched cos it was soon revealed that Joss Whedon himself, the creator of Buffy was actually hired to pen the Script from scratch.

Why would Joss Whedon be perfect for wonder woman is really something that can’’ b put into words. you just gotta watch his shows and movies.

Unlike Kevin Smith’s script for Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, none of Whedon’s writing for the film has leaked so far,  But what we know about Whedon’s vision is the following:

She sort of traveled the world. She was very powerful and very naïve about people, and the fact that she was a goddess was how I eventually found my in to her humanity and vulnerability, because she would look at us and the way we kill each other and the way we let people starve and the way the world is run and she’d just be like, None of this makes sense to me. I can’t cope with it, I can’t understand, people are insane. And ultimately her romance with Steve was about him getting her to see what it’s like not to be a goddess, what it’s like when you are weak, when you do have all these forces controlling you and there’s nothing you can do about it. That was the sort of central concept of the thing. Him teaching her humanity and her saying, OK, great, but we can still do better.

• (via Vulture)

The idea of wonder woman really seeing herself as a citizen of the world really talks to me…. but  this was all we got… and seriously is just too little, cos it went on for four years! and as the time passed the internet kept on rumouring possibilities for the role to basically every famous female actress around (some as terrifying as Jennifer Lopez) fan-casted. By the time the first draft was handed, every newcomer and well established actress in Hollywood had been tied to the project, my favourite being Evangeline Lily (Lost).  even Lynda Carter shared her interest in doing a cameo for the film at some point.

 

Extremely early concept art for Joss Whedon’s wonder woman

By 2007 From out of the blue, Joel Silver bought a new script that was floating around by Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland and Just days later Whedon confirmed he had abandoned the project.

I have no idea the status of the movie and, honestly, I never did. I was told they were very anxious to make it. I wrote a script. I rewrote the story. And by the time I’d written the second script, they asked me…not to. [Laughs] They didn’t tell me to leave, but they showed me the door and how pretty it was. Would I like to touch the knob and maybe make it swing ? I was dealing with them through [producer] Joel Silver who couldn’t tell me what they wanted or anything else. I was completely in the dark. So I didn’t know what it was that I wasn’t giving them. I’ve moved on.

• comicbookmovie.com

Strickland’s script was eventually leaked and reviewed by BOF (batman on film) shortly after and alongside LatinoReview.com rated it “Almost Perfect”.

It’s 1943 and World War II is raging. Steve Trevor is described as being “…tall, handsome son of a senator, but made it on his own.”  a spy and he’s spying on the Nazis. But before we meet Trevor, we get a quick history lesson on the Amazons and how they made their way to Themyscira years ago. Wonder Woman is described as “…barely twenty; she’s beautiful, with long black hair.” And based on the way she’s introduced, she’s one badass Amazon.

Coming back home Trevor crash lands a Nazi concept jet in Themyscira that he stole from back in Germany. The Amazons find him and Diana saves his ass. Of course, they end up fleeing the island and head off to the good ‘ol US of A in the invisible plane.

The second act provides us with the set up for the rest of the film. Diana and Steve partner up to defeat the Nazis (who of course are bastards) — who are up to even more no good in addition to being up to the typical Nazi no good usually depicted in such films. They head to Germany and a good portion of Act 2 is set in Berlin. Also, Diana has her own reason for helping Steve and fleeing to America with him. I won’t spoil it, but it has something to do with the Nazis being up to the extra no good that I previously mentioned. It is during the second act  we are finally introduced to “Wonder Woman.” Her costume is a]combination of her Amazon battle gear and the American flag, the costume we all know as Wonder Woman but slightly more combat ready.

The 3rd act consists of a no hold’s barred battle between the good guys (Wonder Woman, Trevor, Amazons) and the bad guys (the Nazis). The battle takes place on Themyscira (seems they have something the Nazis want) which is how and why the Amazons get involved. While the ending is indeed the conclusion of this story, things are clearly set up for a sequel.

The studio, however, did not want a period peace and asked Strickland for another script but placed in current times. Even with such a script, the Wachowski were in negotiations to Direct but dropped out over creative differences.

Ultimately, the film was put on hold so that the studio could pursue the Justice League: Mortal film. Here there was first time a cast for Wonder Woman was announced since Lynda Carter. Megan gale was to play the part, but the movie fell apart.

Eventually Silver lost the rights due to a combination of a lack of development and the writer’s strike of 2007. The film rights reverted back to DC who up to date has negotiated with various writers and directors but never made any official announcement regarding anything that maybe have been put into any stage of production.

The absence of a wonder woman movie seems to me really was a turning point for the future of DC comics adaptation in movies. When the movie was announced by Warner Brothers in the it was on the eve of their revival of Batman in Batman Begins, and after the success of X-men and standing on the success of the earliest Marvel films. X-Men and Spiderman.  Expectations were low if not inexistent, but as Time passed. Things happened.

1st. are Catwoman and Elektra. Those two movies bombed in the box office and both had female super heroine leads. This kind of set a very poor standard and easily scares off both producers (who don’’ want to invest) and property owners (who don’t want their lucrative franchise tainted).

1.  By the time Whedon left the project (to do a little flick called Avengers) of the three DC movie ventures that had made it to the box-office (Superman, Batman and Green lantern) only Batman Begins was a success and was set up into a trilogy. That movie had a, no super powers, little costumes, realistic world setting philosophy… something the character of Wonder Woman is not easily associated with.

By 2008 once wonder woman rights had reverted to DC, Bruce Timm who was now a legend in super hero animation managed to convince Warner to let him make PG-13 version of the DC characters in the form of a direct to video animated movie.

Warner animation had produced direct to video animated movies during the 90’s as Tie-in’s of the Animated shows, Batman and Superman, the movies did so great that when the animated shows ended, They continued making movies with DC characters and each would stand on your own. The first to be released in such manner was the Death of Superman, and was followed the next year by Gotham Knights.. and despite the absence of wonder woman having any appearance on tv or movies on her own for what was 30 years, r in 2009, The Wonder Woman Animated Movie came to be.

The movie came out to positive reviews and is the forth highest grossing DC animated movie of their 19 releases. However in 2010 Bruce Timm announced that There wouldn’t be any more Animated releases for wonder woman.

‘Wonder Woman’s’ sales started out extremely slow and then over time were eventually able to catch up to probably ‘Justice League: New Frontier.’“ said Timm. “The Exec’s decided because it wasn’t able to sell quickly right away, whereas ‘Justice League’ was, that there wouldn’t be any more female super hero films right now. We were developing and hoping to get started on a ‘Batgirl’ film based on ‘Year One,’ but because of ‘Wonder Woman’s’ slow sales start, that won’t be happening now

Why?! Oh god Why?!!

The reason for this I will touch on the next part. The Most horrible step into Hades: Tartarus AKA. The Wonder-Embargo.

 

So by The end of the decade, wonder woman managed to get an animated direct to video feature film and the promise there would be no more.

The reason for a decision like this I think is what would become The wonder woman embargo.

The long production status of the wonder woman movie and TV series had an impact in the character. As the characters rights were tied to Joel Silver or ABC r whoever was working on a project. DC’s way to protect the character was to avoid it being distorted, and try to keep it uniform with whatever main media representation the character got. So this resulted in a weird deal for all DC properties. But I think wonder woman suffered the most.

Since  Superman and batman were pretty active franchises in the 90’s. They had animated series to tie in with their popularity. These Animated series by Bruce Timm eventually featured other heroes such as Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Zatanna and even the Creeper guest starred in some episodes,  Yet wonder woman never did. When Superman the animated series ended in 2000 It seemed then that only a wonder woman Animated series would be in order… But instead a new Batman TV series was picked: Batman beyond (1999-2001)… and even then in this new Batman Beyond seres there was and episode aired that featured the justice league but Wonder Woman was absent and in her place appeared Big Barda.

Producer Paul Dini explained:

“There’s kind of a licensing problem:  if we wanted to do Wonder Woman as a series, we could do that, [but] if it was a guest-shot, it was a little more problematic. I don’t really understand it—it just turned out to be easier all the way around [to use Big Barda in the Batman Beyond episode ‘The Call’…] we love Wonder Woman—Bruce [Timm] did that great design of her, which is now a maquette at the Warner Bros. store. At some point, we’ll do Wonder Woman…we just need to fight that battle when we get to it .”

• Paul Dini on Wonder Woman (circa 2000)

Yet regardless of the complications it might bring to simply Cameo wonder woman in the animated series of the time. Its clear the option to make a solo an animated series was open but not taken.

Superman returned to TV in 2001 with the TV Series Smallville, which lasted 10 seasons and several Heroes from the DC Universe guest starred in it. Some as obscure as star girl and as campy as the Wonder Twins. But wonder woman never did. It was widely rumoured she would and that the producers wanted to. But all we got was some faint references and Lois Lane wearing her costume… which I can only imagine they had prepared for the actual hero but realised they would never use.

In fact neither wonder woman nor batman ever made an appearance due the rights being tied to movie productions.

in 2001 a Justice league animated series premiered, and this one was close to not featuring wonder woman at all. Bruce Timm admitted in an interview shown on the first season DVD that he initially ran into some legal issues once he told Warner Bros.  that he wanted to use Wonder Woman for the series (probably the same Paul Dini mentioned). He was eventually successful in being able to use the character for the show, which makes me think. Wonder woman could be used in the justice league, because she was an Integral part of it, Not a just a guest in it. However later other animated series ran into similar road-blocks preventing the use of both the Wonder Woman character as well as established Wonder Woman supporting characters.

Concept art of Justice League roster that would have not included wonder woman.

When justice league premiered the character had been off the air for 12 years. A whole generation of children who had not been exposed to the character in any mainstream form. (I cant count comics as mainstream since in the 90s with the rise of the internet and TV going on strong for about 50 years comics had clearly become a niche medium.)

In 2003, midway through Justice League, a new animated series featuring the Teen titans also premiered and as expected this one did not include Wonder Girl who had been part of the teen titans line up since its inception.

When the Justice League guest starred in YET another Batman tv series. (batman now beating both superman and wonder woman animated series by 3) Wonder woman was not part of the team.

I think DC comics rights to wonder woman, as explained by Paul Dini might be one of the main the reasons why the character is hard to bring around.

While batman has used superman series in media to grab some attention to himself, wonder woman has not been so lucky. Like it happened on the Radio show in the 50’s, and now in this era of superhero animation, superman (and others) got more media exposure by being able to cameo and guess star.

The embargo scenario that might have been playing since the 40’s might have existed as a protection devised by William Moulton Marston, to ensure the feminist character he created was never going to second fiddle to any of the existing male heroes. That she was going to be able to stand on her own.

By 2009, in the comics, Wonder woman was being transformed and re written and was wearing a new outfit which caused a lot of controversy and media discussion of the character. Interestingly that same year David E. Kelly partnered with Warner and NBC to produce a wonder woman pilot for a new TV series.  David E. Kelly’s was most famously known for his success has been in the realm of legal dramas, and that really made sense to me, after all Wonder Woman is an ambassador.

The pilot centres in Diana (of) Themyscira/Wonder Woman’s efforts to link Veronica Cale to the distribution of an illegal steroid that gives its user super-human strength and endurance, but can cause death through repeated use; it is also learned that earlier “experimental” versions of the steroid created hideous mutations in Cale’s test subjects. She has been wonder woman for a long while, and she tries to do this, Diana is growing frustrated with having to maintain a “perfect” image to the outside world, the legal complications that hinder her as she tries to bring Cale to justice, and her strained romance with Steve Trevor, she had reluctantly broke up with Steve on account of her new responsibilities as a crime-fighter. At the end of the episode, Steve comes to her in his new capacity as a Justice Department attorney – and, to Diana’s chagrin, he has married someone else.

The series seemed to be to have a show focusing of the diplomatic conflicts, difference of politics, feminism, and clash of ideals Diana faces as she comes to Man’s World. The pilot was not completed in time due to VFX complications and was leaked online only to receive an alarming bad press of what was obviously an unfinished product. Unsurprisingly the pilot ended up not being picked up.

David E. Kelley would later say

“We made mistakes with ours,” he said. “My only regret is we were never given a chance to correct them. We had a lot that was right about it and a great cast. In time, we could have fixed what we had done wrong, we just didn’t get that chance.”

We produced it at warp speed and it’s a special effects show and it took more time than we were able to give it. We [would have been] able to give it more time and extended it had we been picked up. Just learning the storytelling — the genre was very different for me and I had a lot to learn; my learning curve probably would have gotten better. I’m sad we didn’t get to do it but I do believe it can work for the CW. They’re smart to try it.”

Concept art of future unproduced episodes of David E Kelley’s series

Its somewhere around 2010 that the wonder woman embargo finally ends. It was never official,  something must have changed,  Batman had yet another animated series by the end of the decade called: The Brave and The bold. That featured lots of DC characters. Wonder woman missing for most of the series until in its last season she was featured in a couple.

Then in 2010 an original video animation based on the revised SuperFriends franchise by Fischer Price.  Tho despite being a heavy homage to the Challenge of the Super Friends season of the 1970’s, she only appears in the title sequence and not in the actual show.

On the animation side, wonder woman would appear on a semi regular basis on the animated series young justice animated series that eventually included wonder girl too. Surpisingly the show became wildly successful among young females, which lead to its ultimate demise. Whats that you say? That’s right, they canceled a super hero TV show because to many girls where watching it.

in 2013 Cartoon Network decided to explore more of the DC characters via animated shorts, that included animal man, amethyst, batman, etc… wonder woman got her her first own solo animated shorts… three episodes aired.

DC Nation – Wonder Woman – Part 1 (full)

Unable to secure anyone to produce or write her solo movie, wonder woman made her debut  in the silver screen for the first time in 2014 when she was revealed to join batman and superman in The Lego movie. Making that movie her first official big screen debut.

During these days The CW announced that a new Wonder Woman Pilot titled: Amazon. It was poised to explore the origin story of Wonder Woman’s alter ego Diana of Themyscira. The network announced in September 2012 that it was teaming with Grey’s Anatomy’s Allan Heinberg to develop the story. The script was redeveloped in May, with Heroes writer Aron Eli Coleite taking a new stab at the story, and the network was poised to take the project to pilot for a potential off-cycle pickup. But that no longer will happen.

CW president Mark Pedowitz told The Hollywood Reporter, that while Amazon will not move forward he was open to taking a second stab at the iconic Wonder Woman character if the right material were to come along.

“It all depends on the script. We were very careful with Arrow, and we’re being very careful with Flash,” Pedowitz said of the Stephen Amell series and Grant Gustin Flash pilot in the works at the network. “These are iconic characters, so we’re going to be very careful with Wonder Woman. You only get one shot before you get bit.”

By 2014 Batman ended his second movie series with The Dark Knight Rises and in 2012 Superman released its reboot movie franchise with “Man of Steel”.. which despite the heavy criticism secured a sequel a sequel that would feature both Batman and Wonder Woman alongside him.

Making her first live action debut in the movies looking like the glorious warrior she is!

While I think there should be a scream for victory here, for the character will finally make its first live action movie debut in 2016. It just seems like its kind of a muted victory, outweighed by the amount of corpses of dead projects and the thought of loss opportunities. And while there is a solo movie is in the works for her (as always) it just seems like too little to late. Or as better ilustrated by hitokiridriver over at Reddit… (here with a more accurate -tho not less heartbreaking- update).

According to Greek mythology, the islands were reserved for those who had chosen to be reincarnated thrice, and managed to be judged as especially pure enough to gain entrance to the Elysian Fields all three times.

Now that I have visited the entire history of wonder woman in the media, I can conclude this:

Wonder woman is thought of by the public as symbol more than a character, but what is worrying, is that as symbol, she is not the one most people think she is… And that really scares everyone.

Essay detailing train of thought follows.

1. Wonder woman was not created, she was crafted.

To the questions: Why is there no wonder woman movie? Tv series? animated series? radio show? webcomic? video game? Why if she is consider part of the “trinity” like superman and batman, does he get so significantly low media exposure?

We should remember how is it that wonder woman ensured her place among the dc “trinity”? what has placed her above others like Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern.  You see, during the golden age,  when superheroes arrived there were no expectations, no restrictions but those of the unknown. Comics as medium, largely unexplored. That’s why things like superman were allowed to bloom. They could be as violent, sexualized and self righteous as they liked; its this non-censorship state, I think, that allowed kids and teens those days to get invested in this medium so fast and.

Superman was sincerely un apologetic to do what he (and therefore its creators) thought was right, without any physical restraint, no matter the problem faced, weather was a bully in school, a husband beating his wife, organized crime or corruption in a third world country. There was just freedom for the character toddle with it as he saw fit. Batman on his hand wouldn’t doubt to kill villains, or punish any wrongdoers, violate any kind of law.

Sexually things were free of judgment, no one caught on that having a 15 year old living with a rich grown man in manor would imply something, while no one caught one that the Superman/Clark Kent double life might have served as a façade to sexual Sadist/Masochist role-play, superman might have or not enjoyed being cruel to wrong doers but he obviously enjoyed being whipped and submitting to an don’t like type girl like Lois Lane in the bedroom (man she is an emasculating bitch at times).- The latter seems to be an intentional sexual subtext that co-creator Joe Shuster imprinted in his character). So if you ever see someone questioning why Superman, would let himself be treated like a (for lack of a better word) a bitch by Lois or let himself be ridiculed publicly by the likes of Steve Lombard or Whitney Fordman, the answer could be simple: It turns him on. –

What is interesting is that while those two characters were not part of constructed medium with an ideological agenda during their creation but merely put out there for self indulgence, sheer entertainment  or for lots o’money,  Wonder woman creator William Moulton Marston did see the medium with a ideological agenda. He wrote about comics influencing kids, and there fore generations.  He did saw potential for these ideas to be spread in the comics and created Wonder Woman to increasingly play on the sexual and gender ideas that were being consumed by mostly boys those day.

And with that in mind, I don’t think its wise to deny the inherit sexual tension the character was created with. Marston is now known as not being a sexually traditional man, but at the time he created what was the quintessential sexually non traditional character. In wonder woman there are a lot of non-traditional sexual elements, there’s of course, the girl only inhabited island, a lot bondage and binding bracelets, but there is also a lot of gender role-play and mixed messages. Women are portrayed as superior human beings at times, as docile and sub servant others. Not only that, their superiority is displayed through their willingness to be submissive when the story demands it and at the same time with punching bog strong men when there is no choice.

This means wonder woman lets herself be bound quite often yes, with “lets herself” being key to that sentence, its almost her device to solve the situation she gets into, because Wonder Woman always breaks free and conquers the obstacle and goes on to doing a lot of ball busting on the bad guys. This constant submission and subsequent self liberation and display of strength plays on the senses of transgression of any reader, and at the same sends a mixed message to everyone who reads that 1940’s wonder woman, even today. Its puzzling, intriguing and completely non-traditional.

It would be my guess that this play on the senses, of watching this woman being in this completely extra ordinary situations during the 40’s was at least part of what caught the attention of the public then. This was her success and her biggest obstacle. This intentional transgressions by Moulton would be of course be a big no-no if translated to other, well established media such as the movies. Because wonder woman was designed to symbolize a new status quo of gender roles in society, and maybe even in the bedroom.

Now, you might be thinking, cos I am, that a society as patriarchal like the USA of the 40’s, it would not tolerate a wonder woman movie serials how was the character allowed to survive?That’s because wonder woman was a Trojan horse disguised as a patriotic symbol.

So you could sum up DC’s trinity like this:

•1. Superman: Created by teenagers, artists, original and fresh.

•2. Batman. Designed as monetized version of the same idea by a business man and a creative artist who knew who to shape it and sell it.

•3. Wonder Woman. Crafted by an academic, a scholar, that uses the naïve original idea, and carefully manages to promote an ideological agenda.

•All other DC superheroes from the golden age are mostly a derivate version of the trinity, not only character wise but intention wise.

Its no wonder why so few of woman super heroines of the golden age survived, other even more gender-role bending characters such as the Black Cat were lost into oblivion. Moulton had the brilliant idea of dressing up her agenda driven female super hero in the American flag, why? to play on the patriotic feelings of the public as the second world war raged on. Once the USA entered the war, wonder woman gained even more popularity, maybe even more that some of the others, because unlike heroes like Batman and superman, green lantern, or flash her costume screamed patriotism like no other in the National Comics roster… That made the character become alive.

What made the character remain and become part of the trinity till today. is a combination of factors. First is that part of her ideological agenda made it so that when Moulton sold the character to DC, he made sure it would not be left to die and live on, even after the patriotic war inspired phase had faded; there is a little clause that states that DC comics  has to publish  at least 4 comics of wonder woman a year or they lose the rights of the character. That sustained the character through the ages, DC not risking losing it, has never ceased publication of the character.

The other reason wonder woman, has always been in, with the trinity, is that she “symbolizes” women, and that after all is the other 50% of the market. Having the long publication run made it the first choice to make it the GIRL among groups of heroes. She was the first female member to join the JSA (even if as secretary) and later the only female founding member of the JLA.

While there are other merits to elevating Wonder Woman  to “trinity” status like, she was the character that introduced the concept of parallel universes (yeah historically she discovered the freaking Multiverse!) the fact remains that she is the first and most successful female Superhero and quite frankly the only one on her own right (since she is not a derivate from a male hero like, Batwoman, Batgirl, the Huntress, Supergirl, Power Girl, Zatanna, Jade, etc. nor she was antagonist or companion to a male superhero like Black canary or Catwoman).

From left to right: Supergirl (based off superman), Zatanna (Based on Zatara   the magician), Wonder woman, Black canary (former Johnny Thunder villein/sidekick), Batgirl (based off batman), Hawkgirl (based off hackman), Wonder girl (based off wonder woman) 

2. Wonder Woman is not generally thought of as a Character but mostly as a symbol

The thing with symbols is that they exist in context. Without it they mean nothing. Everyone thinks Wonder Woman represents women and feminism.

For years she has served as the prime example of “there are women superheroes’” but also has been the scape goat of everything that does not suit that agenda.

Feminism as a movement, can be thought as a waves as the set of ideas it represents has evolved. 

The first wave that represents the recognition of woman as citizens, is not exactly the cause wonder woman fights for, she is not leading the campaign for the right to vote, or to end household violence. In many aspects wonder woman gives this wave of feminist ideals as a given.

At the moment of her creation wonder woman,was in fact ahead of her time, she represented 2nd wave feminism ideals when women world wide had recently conquered the first. The second wave demands total equality in choices and opportunities, same salaries and cultural freedoms. Wonder woman was a pioneer of the second wave, She is equal to Superman, power wise, Amazons in her stories are a second wave feminist civilisation where all women are equal, they have all kids of jobs in society, the scientists, leaders and warriors.

Third wave of feminism, seeks now to eliminate differentiation of women in society, It proposes that the concepts and ideas of what constitutes feminine/girly/womanish are actually socially constructed… and apply to everyone regardless of gender or race. Everyone that identifies with this concepts should be treated equally.

The problem here is that Wonder Woman represented the ideals of the second wave feminism at her birth, but with the death of her creator she was pushed back to one wave; during the fifties she merely represents women as able to exist in this medium of superhero comics. She is being feminist still by being part of the community, member of the justice league and all, but definitely reverted.

In the 70’s Wonder Woman was re-imagine by Dennis O’Neil, who decided to change the character right to its foundations, and he decided to do with the character something that had not been done before, for this, he thought about what could be done that had not been done before. This resulted in him  working the character not only past the first wave feminism ideal s  but even past second wave, he saw the character as not superpower by nature, she had to fight on her own.

Dennis O’Neil wonder woman is more character focused than any wonder woman generation before him, he was not following a feminist agenda. She wasn’t making her statement as equal to the other super powered heroes. She was being a character that was dealing with a situation like any male or female character would.

This creative move, I would say, is  the first example of third wave generation feminism. The reasoning of Diana being no longer wonder woman, because she was made to be, but as a real person that made herself wonderful, regardless of her gender or birth condition, applies to everyone. In this series she was no longer a demigoddess, she had no amazon sisters and no super powers. She had to learn to fight again, and the fact that her mentor was a man was irrelevant, because she was as capable a woman as the next man. More importantly the story and the character of Wonder Woman had moved on for the first time in decades since its conception, Steve trevor died and anew state quo was embraced.

Unfortunately, this time being ahead of its time,  when the feminist second wave movement was taking place in the real world of the 60’s and 70’s was looking for symbols of female empowerment, and the original 2nd wave wonder woman was… well, nowhere to be found. There was criticism.

This emotional, hard working, independent, convoluted wonder woman was not what the feminist movement needed to symbolize equality at the time her stories were written. They saw a mopy non-powered boutique-owner secret spy… no matter how interesting the story might be,  the feminist movement very openly denounced that what was once a symbol of female empowerment and equality had been totally de-powered and made different.

Its clear now that the wonder woman they objected most was that of the 50s and 60s which while fully powered was submissive and relegated, she worked as a fashion model, movie star, and a “lonely hearts” columnist for a newspaper. And was content with just being recognised as existing. They should have protested that and not the 70’s version that while unpowered would look for a machine gun.

The truth is, if superman had lost his powers, closed his fortress, had Lois die in his arms, trained to be a super spy and opened a his own underground independent sports store,  it would have made one of the most interesting superman periods ever!

Things being, that after the outrage of the feminist movement at this de-powered wonder woman, that was not in tune with the current feminist move, lead to what I believe was one of the most hurting things that can happen to a media franchise. Wonder woman was restored to her status quo to prove to women that they could have an equally super heroine the ranks, a totally equal superhero like she was created to be.

The consequences of this restoration, that took place not because of an artistic decision, but because of an imposed ideological agenda, set the character not forward but back. The public’s demand for a static wonder woman marks a cornerstone in the way she is perceived and would be treated by the public on. This need for a 2nd wave symbol, stablished that, more than a character in a story, wonder woman could not deviate from the symbol she had been conceived to be.

Media franchise characters have highs and lows. Fans and people are free to point them out. Superman Musical TV special? Legends of the superheroes?  Superman and Batman have gone to really disappointing places, and susceptible because there is a need to play with their status quo. Either by having children out of wedlock or resigning a nationalities, having a mullet or losing their briefs. But their characters remain fascinating; Wonder woman doesn’t dare often to go there, because it might be offensive, demeaning, retrograde. Wonder woman is not a 3rd wave feminist often because there is a demand for her to be what she was created to be, but authors who actually treat the character and fans who read it do demand it.

Regularly during the years and specially since the rise of the internet people have looked every so often to Wonder Woman as representative of women in this overly manly populated medium of comics,  and come out often disappointed. She has become the scapegoat to many of the illnesses in the comic book industry to the point she nearly represents everything that wrong, rather than what’s right, to symbolize “the lack of” or “the abuse of” women in the medium rather than the presence of to women in it.

Putting it in pictures, here’s what people think wonder woman represents and what they hope to find. Completely out of any context of what the story might be.

and then when they look at what people reviewing in the media are complaining about  this is what in the media, they come across with this wonder woman, and leave shocked! again regardless of what the context for this might be.

The need to keep the character as a symbol, also applies to the fact she was created as part of a propaganda scheme. In fact the character is so associated in the minds of people as a symbol of patriotism  that during her 2010 reboot by J. Michael Straczynski when they changed the characters status quo and more importantly the outfit, this was the headline:

Fox News:

“Wonder Woman may have finally been given a pair of pants, but has she been stripped of her patriotism?The new and allegedly improved Wonder Woman (a.k.a Diana Prince), has been given a head-to-toe makeover by artist Jim Lee, replacing her signature American flag decorated briefs with skintight black pants and purging the super hero of all her trappings of Americana.”

Wonder woman was under the scope because she deviated from another symbol she was thought to be. A patriotic symbol.

Its hard for people  to accept that Wonder woman got her outfit because because its creator wanted to sell an idea of a powerful woman and exploited the patriotic sentimentalities of the time to accomplish it. That’s not to say Marston wasn’t a patriot, he surely was, but its clear his reason to create wonder woman weren’t directed towards the war efforts, he wanted powerful women in a new uncensored media. Nothing of the character besides its costume speaks to patriotic ideals.

First, there is the fact that Wonder Woman is a Greek demigoddess and not an American. Greek. That means that she probably even has an accent when she speaks. Then there’s the fact that the within the story she picks her costume more because Steve Trevor coincidentally was American than because she adhered to American ideals, one could argue had she arrived in Russia, her costume wouldn’t have changed much (the USSR flag also had a star) The fact remains that, unlike Superman, she was not created to uphold Midwest American values but instead to“bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality.”

Geekosystem was smart enough to name some of the reasons why Fox news SHOULD call the character unpatriotic.

• She’s not American.  She’s from a small magical island utopia. She probably counts as an illegal immigrant.
• She’s from the worst kind of hippie commune: an all female hippie commune that preaches free love and sexual equality.
• She’s a polytheist.  The Greek gods breathed life into a clay form, and thus Diana was born.  She regularly calls on the strength of Greek goddesses in battle.
• She’s pro-gay rights. Ok, so I don’t know if this has ever been confirmed by a comic, but I defy anyone to come up with a compelling reason why she wouldn’t be.  The Amazons are a race of all female immortals from ancient Greece.  You cannot convince me that they would have a taboo about such things.
• She’s pro-the UN.  Her mission, ultimately, is to be an ambassador, bringing the Amazonian way of life to Man’s World.
• She’s a pacifist.
• And, perhaps the thing that sets her at odds with Fox News most of all, she reveres the truth, no matter its content.

By 2011 when the new 52 wonder woman rebooted once again, the controversial pants were removed and a more traditional costume was used, but the changes of the character where even more radical to those of the 70’s.

What also was motioned a lot during the time was an unnamed DC comics source that claimed the wonder woman costume was changed to market the movie over seas. While its true the way the world looks at The US since the 40’s has changed and that this characters were reflection of American culture of the 40’s these characters have been around… a lot. Hundreds of authors and millions of readers have appropriated the characters into their childhoods and cultures.

There’s that Korean wonder woman anime for instance. From a personal perspective I can say I love these characters and never in 13+ years of reading comics felt them “foreign” to my mindset. Unlike Marvel’s characters who are set in distinctive American cities I haven’t visited yet, places like Metropolis and Gotham are common abstractions of cities with buildings that can belong anywhere in the western world. Unlike superman and batman its true that we have seen her adventures set in actual cities of the US, but the fact that she is an illegal immigrant at odds with what she encounters always allowed for reader overseas like myself to find a way to identify.

Now in my own personal case, I grew up with a wonder woman that did not include star spangled briefs at all (Colombian toymakers must have thought it too time consuming to paint by hand) Still I never once doubted she was Wonder Woman. The high percentage of yellow (gold) in the design, makes it easy to distance yourself from the sole American flag wrapping her concept, to see it for what it really is, a golden armour: belt, bracelets, breast plate and tiara adorned.

The first animated wonder woman ever did not include the stars on the briefs either!

Finally one could naïvely think, that she is also a symbol of  “women who buy comics”, “”female geeks” or more realistically what we should call “girls” as in opposite to “boys”.

People think from a product / marketing point of view, that she is symbolises of  the character you sell to girls. That she represents a demographic. That everything made by companies, toymakers, animation studios that regards wonder woman is designed for girls.

But the truth is no one is really jumping at the young female market with wonder woman, there seem to be no attempts whatsoever to make her a “girly” appealing character. She was refused the treatment other female heroes have, like She-Ra or Sailor Moon, she doesn’t have a shojo series or a recognisable doll line.

There is an interesting theory here: FEMALE SUPERHEROES’ WORST ENEMY? TOY SALES

A reason for the lack of merchandise might be that boys buy more toys than girls. It was certainly true in my house, I was the only boy of 4 and still outnumbered my sisters toys a stretch. But then again there was not wonder woman on the media that could grab their attention. Its really just a matter of a  self fulfilling prophecy. I won’t do wonder woman toys, cos she is nowhere to be seen, and she is nowhere to be seen cos she does’ sell enough toys.

So the market for wonder woman is really men and boys, and while it might seem impossible there are known cases of female leads in media franchises directed at men. These merchandise can be sold to them in three ways. As an action figure, as a nostalgia item and as a mild erotic fantasy icon.

But as far as female superheroes go, the character isn’t really marketed to as an action figure.  Since the 70’s the only mainstream children toys and dolls released have been under an ensemble. Because she is part of “The justice league” action figures  or the “Supefriends”. Society might still be chauvinistic, and having boys play with a feminine toy is just not widely accepted.

In fact just google: “wonder woman toys and you’’l see most is not actually a toy, but statues. The words “collector” and “limited” editions heavily emphasised in whatever official licensed Wonder Woman product you can encounter.  Some are rather beautiful looking and it does come out at a decent regular basis. But its clearly not targeted at young boys.

Once we clear dolls toys and action figures what we are left with is the generic merchandise that features wonder woman art. shoes, shirts and accessories.

And all these accessories will show you that most feature that beautiful retro-looking art. Probably directed to long-time fan boys and girls who grew with the TV show and are making a nostalgia buy.

You would think that wonder woman, bad publicity as a befallen feminist icon would  leads to think she maybe is perceived as a teenage boy wet dream rather than a Barbie doll, but I wonder how many boys are actually fapping to wonder woman; but never mind what amount that might be, its clearly not massively marketed to young horny men either.

There have been recent attempts tho, like your ame comi wonder woman statue and comic, that plays with their characters with the classic over sexualised Lolita complex. But the sleep pillows, dating games, henry statues, that characters from japan have been subject too… i nowhere to be seen.  Can you imagine a wonder woman RPG dating game? This is way to forward thinking for a character everyone thinks is directed towards little girls.

Parents feel awkward buying the stuff for their sons, company don’t make stuff for the girls, young men are not sold the image they want to fall in love with, and older men are stuck  on pricy merchandise from the little stuff actually gets out based on things the character did long time go.

3. What wonder woman should be.

I realize, we might have a deeply misinterpreted, under developed character in the media alongside a deeply confused audience. The evidence is in the number of posts, articles, and websites claiming for a wonder woman movie, and the completely brash, negative, nitpicking and overall offensive reviews, columns and articles regarding any wonder woman media production weather it saw the day or light or not. At the top of my head you can read the scoop article on star riders by Sarah Dyer, which tho admittedly fascinated by the line was also downright pessimistic by saying

“I cannot see how this line or show, could possibly have done well, or actually have even been done well — the proposed mixture of Etheria-style action and adventure with modern-day teenage existence just does not seem workable. And a failure on this level could have really hurt the marketability of female action characters for quite some time, so I’m sorry to admit that I’m actually kind of glad that WW and her pals never made it to shelves. ”

The reviews of the 2011 wonder woman pilot were vicious, like on Gawker who started their review by saying:

“The few who had seen the failed pilot for NBC’s Wonder Woman — a proposed series about the DC Comics super heroine from Ally McBeal-creator David E. Kelley — said the network had laid a pterodactyl-sized egg. Campily, laughably terrible. Which didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone.”

Or io9’s review by Charlie Jane Anders:

But the thing you don’t expect from this pilot is how tone-deaf it is about superheroes, and how smug and brutal Wonder Woman is. You get the impression, watching this thing, that nobody has ever really read a good superhero comic, or gotten the slightest idea why superheroes work.

There were of cause some favourable reviews, but even in these, they were mystified about something they found solid… even reaching for the inexpressible and uncomprehendable. like the one by iFanboy, which concludes:

Overall, it’s not a total surprise that NBC passed on the show. While the pilot is really solid and lots of fun, it wouldn’t blow anyone away and when you’re talking about a show that would be as expensive to produce as this one, the first time out of the gate it has to be spectacular. To steal a line from a friend who also saw the pilot “I’d still like to see more but it’s missing something. It sounds corny to say, but I think it needs a little magic, a little WONDER.”

A little WONDER? What the hell does that mean? I think they want something exceptional from t, but exceptional work, is hardly the result of luck or magic. You can get exceptional content out of Batman, because it’s a character that’s been worked over and over for the past years, there definitely is somewhere to draw “magic” from… but expecting “wonder” for character that’s been dead in that media, and in the hand of artist for over 30 years?

This trend of over-expectations goes as far as the articles that talk about the 90 series pilot. The Comic code would say

“ it just sounded awful! LeVine had been instrumental in making Lois & Clark a success, so she clearly had made some good choices with that character, but as far as Wonder Woman went it sounded as if she was deliberately moving away from the comics and the Lynda Carter show; the two elements behind Wondy’s continued popularity! BUT WHAT IF? If there had of been a TV series based on Wonder Woman during the 90s then… then… erm…aw hell, there shouldn’t have been one! And if there had have been, then Xena actress Lucy Lawless should have played Wonder Woman.End of discussion.”

the Todd Alcott script of the early 2000’s that was leaked to IGN, was reviewed it like this:

“I suppose if I was a die-hard Wonder Woman fan I might have been mortified by this “re-imagining.” Instead, I was just left with a greater ambivalence about the project. This story recycled already overdone genre elements that recalled far too many (better) comic book and adventure movies. ”

I can go on and on looking for reviews of wonder woman in the media and find the same thing  all over the internet regarding basically ANYTHING that has attempted feature Wonder Woman.  There really isn’t any positive feedback or hype that surrounds the character, nothing to motivate casual spectators, consumers, children, mothers, fathers, geeks, creatives or creative directors to move on and toy with this character.

Wired Magazine published an in-depth interview with writer J.J. Abrams some time ago about his life and career. In one part, Abrams talks about how the internet killed off any chance of his “Superman” script being made into a movie…

“In some cases, spoilers don’t just prevent the intended experience of something, they prevent the very existence of it. Case in point: I had spent close to two years working on a version of a Superman script for Warner Bros. Then an early draft was leaked, reviewed, and spectacularly decimated on a Web site that I still adore and read daily. It wasn’t just that the review was bad. Which it was. I mean, like, kraptastically bad. And probably deserved (I’m the idiot who made Lex Luthor a Kryptonian). What was so depressing wasn’t just that the thing being reviewed was an old version of a work in progress. What killed me was that the reviewer – and then readers of that reviewer – weren’t just judging my writing. They were judging the movie. A movie that was barely in preproduction and many drafts away from final. A film that ultimately never got made – in small part because that review, and subsequent posts, made studio decision makers nervous. The fact is, that Superman film might have been awful. Or it could have been something else. We’ll never know.”

You can read the complete article at Wired.com

Makes me wonder what exactly is the role of internet in the development of movies, such as Wonder Woman. It’s the misinterpretation of the character as a symbol that has set the expectations of everyone in the wrong direction. The reason why creative can’t deliver products that producers want to make.

Its clear to me that wonder woman was intended to be a feminist agent in the new medium of comics, but the context of both have changed, feminism has a new agenda and comics are not longer a new medium. Wonder woman could be a great character if they she were allowed to be what she was supposed to be, a new symbol, for new ideas, if she could evolve and subvert the established superhero model alongside any associated paradigms. If she was allowed to transgress conventions like she was designed to be.

By allowing her to be a 3rd generation feminist icon, there should be no worries if there is a female audience or not, or weather she portrays woman in good or bad light, she should be treated like any other male superhero and allowed to be explored… it really almost incomprehensible that they have decided in recent years to cancel shows like young justice, because more girls than boys where watching it, specially while simultaneously, my little pony was gaining more and more strength  popularity because more boys where watching it.

Wonder Woman was also meant to blend in with popular feelings to deliver that agenda and allowed her to survive, if the patriotic colors are or aren’t what is popular right now, let her ditch them or embrace them as it suits her. She was designed to accommodate to man’s world, both literally and figuratively. I would let her do it.

I see we find ourselves with a Wonder Woman that has been living some kind of a lie for the past 30 years; And producers, writers, industries or the public are not to be blamed. It’s the entire ecosystem that surrounds the character that is just not clear on what the character is. This confusion has her stuck in an out of context symbol, not being allowed to be explored and become part of the culture.

When I read Cliff Chang’s and Azarello current run of the Wonder Woman book. Which makes some fundamental changes to the character origins, not to impress, or revamp, sell o make statement but to genuinely explore both literally and figuratively my proposed statement: Wonder woman should finally free from her public’s expectations both as a character in a story and as a fictional figure. In the rerun neither Diana nor Azarello are worried about what wonder woman might symbolise, she is not subject to what she is supposed to be or apologises what she has done. In it she also found out she has  been “lied” to about who she is, and it mirrors the reality of the reader who has been lied about what wonder woman supposedly represents.

I started writing this article a long, long time ago, it was proposed as my communication graduation thesis, then wanted to public it as a mini website, I followed the development process of the movie for year on a blog, and then evolved to a youtube script. and finally decided to publish it as it is, to make sense of the confusion that surrounds this character for which I personally cared for a long time, only to finally come to the realisation that it barely really exists now days. Will the character ever be as prominent as people, designed it, want it or expect it to be? That wont happen unless there is room for experimentation, diversity and more importantly not taking the character as seriously as it has.