Armchair Screenwriter: How I'd pitch the Wonder Woman movie(s)

Who Is Wonder Woman? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So the legendary Joss Whedon screenplay for Wonder Woman has been leaked online, so I'm blatantly using this as an excuse to dredge up my old Wonder Woman movie pitch I wrote on June 9, 2009.
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A while ago, Rich Lovatt wondered whether we hadn't dodged a bullet in not getting a Wonder Woman movie. This week, Graeme McMillan over at io9 asked why Wonder Woman gets no love. Rich answered this first by saying what nobody is ever willing to admit about Wonder Woman, she's the world's most famous superheroine by virtue of seniority, rather than her actually being a great character.

Wonder Woman's origin is goofy, her powers are all over the map, and she doesn't have any great mission other than being a "warrior for peace," which is such a paradox it became a punchline -- from Batman, no less -- in Mark Waid's seminal Kingdom Come.

Batman, by the way, is the elephant in the room during this whole "Why can't we get a decent Wonder Woman?" movie conversation. Dark Knight blew the doors off the box office last summer, and in some measure legitimized superhero movies, largely on the basis of its dark, timely, political tones and Heath Ledger's post-humous Oscar buzz.

Thus, the world is primed for a high-profile, serious, major studio production of Wonder Woman. But, as McMillan pointed out in an earlier post, just because Wonder Woman is popular doesn't mean making a good Wonder Woman film will be easy. Nick Nadel over at Sci-Fi Scanner has 5 tips for making an awesome Wonder Woman movie, and I agree with four of them. Sorry Nick, but I'm keeping the Invisible Jet.

Okay, so enough stalling, what's my take on Wonder Woman?

My controversial opinion on why rebooting comic book characters isn't controversial

Beta Ray Bill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sci-fi fandom's biggest mensch, Paul "Prince Jvstin" Weimer, allowed me to ruin an otherwise perfectly wonderful SF Signal Mind Meld discussing the fallout from Marvel's recent recasting of Thor as a woman and Captain America as a black man, and to follow up with a proposed reboot of a comic book icon.

Basically, I jump right on the landmine of why comics fans who hate change are idiots, and explain why the "still pure" Batman isn't just boring, but nigh-offensive.

Thankfully, authors and experts like Seanan "Mira Grant" McGuire, Sigrid Ellis, Sara Kuhn, Erika Ensign, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Cheryl Morgan, Shira Lipkin, Michael Lee, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Andrew Wheeler, Fabio Fernandes, Erica McGillivray, Abhinav Jain, Lynn M. & Michael Damian Thomas, and my occasional podcast sparring partner Jeff Patterson are there to add a few thousand cogent words to overwhelm my fanboyish pedantry and trolling of narrow-minded Batman traditionalists.

The unabridged (and voluminous) article is available here. Don't judge my peers by their company.

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My favorite unappreciated alien invasion story

Image via WikipediaMy favorite unappreciated alien invasion story is revealed -- alongside the more cogent and/or traditional selections from Jeff Patterson, Lisa Paitz Spindler, Jamie Todd Rubin, Fred Kiesche, John DeNardo and Patrick Hester -- in the latest edition of the SF Signal podcast. Comic book nerds will probably get a jolt from my nomination, especially if you're younger than 25.

Give a listen. You'll love it or your money back.

As always my rap sheet of past SF Signal podcast misdemeanors is available here.

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From Twitter 03-03-2011

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• From Twitter 03-02-2011 http://dlvr.it/J6x5N
  
• YES, THIS --> http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2172#comic
  
• RT @BadAstronomer: Man, I'd *love* to see @breagrant as Deena Pilgrim! http://is.gd/5tGH72 I mean, c'mon: http://is.gd/gzfNKt
  
• RT @kpwerker: Photo: A book commits suicide every time you watch Jersey Shore. http://tumblr.com/xdq1nxgsug
  
• Steve Jobs' reality distortion takes its toll on truth http://dlvr.it/JB7SL
  

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Nerd Word of the Week: Day-and-Date

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Day-and-date (adj.) - A term from the film industry that describes a movie which is released in multiple formats simultaneously, such that movie theaters, home video, television and/or online video can all sell the same film on exactly the same day and date. Day-and-date projects eliminate the so-called release window between the different formats and venues. Naturally, the venues that benefit from a preferential release window -- namely, movie theaters -- don't like the idea of home video or online video cannibalizing their audiences. Others view day-and-date releases as a means of combating movie piracy by offering movies in whatever format fans prefer simultaneously.

I bring it up because: Day-and-date isn't just a film issue anymore, as both Marvel and DC comics have announced digital comic book strategies -- the latter just yesterday -- that include day-and-date releases for certain titles. This has comic retailers in a tizzy, which is why Marvel has priced their digital comics as more expensive than traditional comics, and why DC is diverting some of its digital profits to directly support retailers. The traditional book industry is also struggling with the day-and-date issue as applies to ebooks versus physical books, with fans staging Amazon one-star rating protests for books that don't offer day-and-date ebook versions. Meanwhile, Hollywood has found new ways to create day-and-date release conflicts, with some studios forcing Redbox to delay renting movies by 28 days to prop up DVD sales. Meahwhile, Paramount earned kudos for dropping the 28-day Redbox release window. Some see day-and-date releases as the future of all media. How fast we get there remains to be seen.

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Nerd Word of the Week: Silver Age

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Silver Age (adj.) - Describes a period in comic book history that saw science-fictional remakes of many famous superheroes, most of them in reaction to the publication of Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, a scathing indictment of comic books as endorsing delinquency, sexual deviance and even communism. The Silver Age birthed many inventive new characters and concepts, but is perhaps best known for the campiness and absurdity of the 1966 Batman television series, which epitomized the worst excesses of the Silver Age aesthetic.

I bring it up because: Today would have been Gardner Fox's 89th birthday. Fox, along with legendary editor Julius Schwartz, almost singlehandedly invented the Silver Age with science-fictional revamps of The Flash, Hawkman, Green Lantern and The Atom. Fox in particular was notorious for sprinkling interesting factoids into his comic works, especially from forensic scientist Barry "Flash" Allen, who often introduced these trivial tidbits as "Flash Facts." Moreover, DC Comics has recently gone to great trouble reinstalling the Silver Age versions of many characters -- including the Fox-created Hawkman, Atom, and Flash -- to some less than enthusiastic response. While the campiness hasn't reemerged, the return of these fondly remembered but often outgrown Silver Age icons is viewed by many (myself included) as a move backwards.

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Truly Trivial: Who was the first superhero to appear in Detective Comics? (Hint: It wasn't Batman)

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Seventy-one years ago this week, Batman made his debut in Detective Comics #27. Together with Superman, who appeared the previous year in Action Comics #1, the Caped Crusader helped launch the Golden Age of Comics, and thereby became one of the most recognized, enduring, and profitable fictional characters in modern history.

Not bad for a guy who inherited a two-year-old comic title that he shared with other fictional detectives.

While Superman inaugurated Action Comics, Batman was simply the latest in an ongoing series of character experiments in the Detective Comics anthology title. Detective #1's cover story involved Ching Lung, a (more than vaguely racist) ripoff of Fu Manchu, and the only enduring character to emerge from that issue was hard-boiled pulp detective Slam Bradley, who was invented by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster -- the creators of Superman. In fact, Batman wasn't even the first superhero to debut in Detective Comics -- just the most successful.

Who was the first superhero to appear in Detective Comics?

Nerd Word of the Week: Multiverse

Image via WikipediaMultiverse (n.) - Simply put, multiple universes that are linked together. More specifically, a set of interrelated parallel realities, usually involving characters that jump between universes to visit and interact with alternate versions of themselves and/or their history. While this term has been extended to any parallel universe story, like that found in The Chronicles of Narnia, it is most often associated with comic book franchises, particularly the DC Comics universe, which had its multiverse grow so expansive and unwieldy that it destroyed it in the seminal Crisis on Infinite Earths (and has since brought it back -- sort of -- in the recent Infinite Crisis).

I bring it up because: June 30 is Superman's 71st birthday -- he first appeared in his modern form in Action Comics #1, which came out on that date in 1938 -- and nobody is a better example of the multiverse than Superman, as he has appeared in more alternate versions than virtually any other character in history. In fact, Grant Morrison turned the joke in on itself, creating a Superman Squad of parallel-universe and time-traveling Men of Steel that regularly team up to battle interdimensional threats. (Just for fun, ask a Supes fanboy whether he prefers the John Byrne Man of Steel origin for Superman, or Mark Waid's Birthright; sparks will fly. Or better yet, ask him which Superman Elseworlds story is his favorite. Not superfan can fail to have an opinion. Personally, I'm a Speeding Bullets guy.)

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Showdown: Obscure X-men vs. '80s hair metal bands

Image by Satsukiame via Flickr

The X-men got big in the early 1980s. So did glam metal rock. That probably expalins why so many X-men codenames sound like the Saturday arena playbill at the New Jersey State Fair. Seriously, if you weren't a comic book fanboy, a line-up of Storm, Havok and Nightcrawler sounds like three acts that could open for Poison or Motley Crue.

Don't believe me? Take a gander down this list of 25 names, each of which is either an obscure X-man or an '80s hair metal band--and in some cases, both. See if you can tell which is with before scrolling down to see the descriptions.

Names:

1. Great White
   
2. Marrow
   
3. Petra
   
4. Maggott
   
5. White Queen
   
6. White Lion
   
7. King Kobra
   
8. Lifeguard
   
9. Caliban
   
10. Vixen
    
11. Red Queen
    
12. Omerta
    
13. Hurricane
    
14. The Stepford Cuckoos
    
15. Exodus
    
16. Nocturne
    
17. Jetboy
    
18. Penance
    
19. Stryper
    
20. Stringfellow
    
21. Nitro
    
22. Helix
    
23. Giant
    
24. Trixter
    
25. Tuff

Descriptions:

1. Great White - 80s hair band famous for the single "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" and for killing 100 or so people when their pyrotechnics display burned down a nightclub in 2003. Despite the death count, they should not be confused with the Batman villain, who appeared in the same year.
   
2. Marrow - X-man grows bone-spurs through her skin that she can rip out and throw like daggers. Is that '90s enough for you?
   
3. Petra - Both the name of both the first Christian Rock Band inducted into the Hard Rock cafe, and the name of a retconned rock-manipulating X-man.
   
4. Maggott - X-Man who has two giant pet maggots that, when they eat anything, give him super-strength. Seriously. Also the nickname for Slipknot fans, but the less said about that, the better.
   
5. White Queen - X-man Emma Frost, a diamond-fleshed telepath who used to be a villain until she started boning Cyclops.
6. White Lion - Glam metal band known for the hits "Wait" and "When the Children Cry."
   
7. King Kobra - Hair metal band famous for recording the title song from the movie Iron Eagle. Not to confused with the DC comics supervillain cult leader Kobra or the Marvel Comics supervillain cult leader, Cobra .
8. Lifeguard - X-man capable of generating whatever power is needed to solve a problem, thanks to lame writing from Chris Claremont.
9. Caliban - X-man who can sense other mutants; too bad he's a hideously ugly albino. There is a band called Caliban, but they're a German metalcore group and very much a product of the '90s.
10. Vixen - All-girl glam metal band known for the single "Edge of a Broken Heart." There is a superhero named Vixen , but she's a DC property and Justice League member.
11. Red Queen - X-man title shared by many, most notably of Madelyne Pryor, an evil cone of Jean Grey. Also an alternate universe Jean Grey. And an alternate universe Psylocke. There are a lot of Red Queens, okay.
12. Omerta - X-man of Italian-American descent from Brooklyn who, when he discovers he is super-strong and invulnerable, tries to take over the local mafia. Somehow, this endears him to the X-men, who recruit him.
13. Hurricane - Both an evil mutant enemy of the X-men as part of the Dark Riders, and a glam metal band known for the 1988 hit "I'm On To You."
14. The Stepford Cuckoos - X-men group of invulnerable mutant quintuplets who share one hive-mind, bereft of emotion. Yeah, this is pretty obviously a Grant Morrison thing.
15. Exodus - Both an early '80s thrash-metal band, and Magneto's insane, immortal, psionic second-in-command who, in an alternate universe, was a good-guy X-man. Yeah, another '90s creation.
16. Nocturne - X-man daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch from an alternate reality. Yes, there are lots of parallel universe X-men love-children. Why do you ask? Also the name of many songs and a 90s metal band.
17. Jetboy - Glam band who got famous by having three singles on The 'Burbs soundtrack, "Bloodstone", "Locked in a Cage" and "Make Some Noise."
18. Penance - X-man that was really a hollow invulnerable teenage-girl body that housed the minds of three separate teenage-girl X-men. Strangely, not a Grant Morrison invention.
19. Stryper - Christian glam metal band from the '80s known for mainstream hits "Calling On You", "Free" and "Honestly."
20. Stringfellow - X-man ally with the ability to temporarily turn your bones to spaghetti. Somehow this is scary.
21. Nitro - Glam metal band known for lead singer Jim Gillette's ability to shatter wine glasses with his voice. There is a Spider-man villain named Nitro, be he isn't a mutant or an X-man.
22. Helix - Canadian metal band known for the single "Rock You." There is a supervillain team called Helix , but they're from the DC universe and have never met the X-men.
23. Giant - Glam metal band and one hit wonders known for the single "I'll See You In My Dreams."
24. Trixter - '80s hard rock band perhaps best known for the single "Give It to Me Good." Not to be confused with the non-mutant supervillains who fought The Flash.
25. Tuff - Mid-80s glam metal band known for the popular video to "I Hate Kissing You Goodbye."

If you passed this quiz with zero errors, you're defintely a child of the '80s--one who seriously needs to get out more.

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