Before They Were Fractured

As we watch what happens when Fake President meets Real Crisis and wonder how much better things might play out if we had an adult in charge, let us contemplate these Words To Live By -

"They're not as important as saving the world from COVID-19 and POTUS-45 but I can actually do something constructive about them." -M.E.

(M.E. is ALWAYS Mark Evanier)

Focus on your world close at hand and you can make good use of our current Down Time, and maybe even avoid driving yourself a fraction as crazy as our fake president.

(BTW - for those who are confused as to what Obamagate is since fake president cannot explain it when asked - it's daring to be tolerably competent and make plainly obvious what a complete and useless fuck-up our current 'leader' has proven to be.)

So, let's turn away from the ongoing effort to ignore and wish away the trump flu while hiding the death toll his incompetence has caused*, and instead lose ourselves in some more friendly twisted fantasies. 

Today's offerings come to us from the man who brought us "Comics" McCormick and the Minute Movies - Mr. Ed Wheelan. Here are a half dozen of his Foney Fairy Tales for you to enjoy -

I hope that helped.

page art by Ed Wheelan from Comic Calvacade #s 15 & 20, Green Lantern #34, Sensation Comics #62, and Wonder Woman #s 19 & 21 (1946, 1947, 1948)

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*(It is VERY worth remembering that Fake President is currently pushing for punishing those who mishandled the Trump Flu crisis (see China by his words) and prosecuting former Presidents for perceived crimes.
After all this is over, those are two things we should very strongly consider, according to his own words. Make America Great Again - Prosecute Rich Criminals)

The Woman Is A Wonder, But...

Now that Wonder Woman's coming out for home video, it seems like a good time to talk about the movie, and my problems with it.

With that introduction, let me first say that i very much enjoyed the movie. It's far and away the best DCEU offering to date. I'm not saying it's a bad movie - it's quite enjoyable. And you probably already know all the reasons it's a good movie. I'm assuming you've seen it by the time you read this, because i'm not concerned with spoilers here. (Though they're actually pretty minimal.)

My first problems with the movie turn out to not be Hollywood problems, but actually recent changes from the comic book itself. And this one's just a minor annoyance.
Making Diana a "god"? She wasn't uniquely special enough before? You have to give her new labels that don't really mean much of anything other than how small is the writer's perceptions of what constitutes a god. That's a common trend in modern comics. Go back to guys like Steve Englehart, and you'll see him trying to lift the readers up to see big concepts. These days, they try to make big concepts small and drag them down to us.

The second is a bigger issue, but no surprise when i learned it was instituted by the current DC comics crew - they changed things so now Diana's powers are derived from a Man. Originally, she was empowered by Hera, Aphrodite, and the other goddesses. Nope. That's no good. We need Zeus so a man gives her power.
This is tragically typical of the sort of thinking i see from them the duds at DC these days.

So, on to the problems that can be pinned on the movie itself...
The first is simply the colour pallette. This was likely imposed by the WB/DC powers as part of the dark Elseworlds they're basing their movie universe upon. It's funny that with all the worship of the first Christopher Reeves Superman movie, they totally miss the genius use of colours. Throughout the film, we never see primary red, blue or yellow until Superman's costume appears on screen. The subtle impact of that is a profound unconcious reaction making him even more larger than life and iconic.
But, that only works for Heroes seeking to inspire, to be symbols of hope or justice. The people currently in charge are not fond of the hero concept. And so we wind up with a Diana who wears brighter red in her civilian outfits than her battle armor. The modern DC superhero costumes have colours only grudgingly, out of obligation. They'd rather have black military garb, it seems.

The next one is a bigger problem, and one that is way too common is superhero adaptations.
Wonder Woman is one of the most powerful individuals in the DC universe. She can slug it out with Superman, throw tanks, fly, etc., She's backed by the power of the gods, and can call upon an array of magickal artifacts for greater power when needed. She's Awesome!
But Hollywood writers typically either think that our heroes are weak, or the writers themselves are too weak in imagination/talent to find a victory for the hero in the story they've written. So they create a new power specifically to resolve the confrontation. This is a big, and common, problem with movie adaptations. Even that revered Superman movie gave him the power to alter time for their climax. Readers know that's beyond him - he's not a god. He's tried repeatedly to alter the past, but Time & Reality are not his to play with. (Unless, y'know, he got his mitts on the Infinity Gauntlet or something)
Seriously - these are characters who generate complaints because they're too powerful to write good stories about, and yet they keep having to make up new powers for them? And not just "Oops, we ran out of money - give him repair-the-Great-Wall-of-China-vision".
At best, it's lazy writing. At worst, it's contempt for the character.
Just Stop It!

The last one is the biggest, and is highly indicative of how far our society has fallen in this century.
The transformation of Wonder Woman's lasso into a torture device. It no longer magically compels one to speak the truth, it now painfully forces the truth from the victim, torturing them until they speak.

Just like Nazi & Soviet "heroes" would have done.