By Edgar Miraculous Dyer
For a chick, with a turkey on her head, Queen Clea is one of Wonder Woman's nastier, more implacable, World War II foes and could easily be her Kurgan ..or the Ming the Merciless, she needs to define her, the way Luthor or Loki define their superheroic adversaries.
Wonder Woman - Princess Diana of the Amazons - whom I've always argued is more Flash Gordon's narrative cousin, than Superman's, needs a Ming, and she's never had one around, long enough to matter. By comparison, her other foils - Cheetah, Warmaster and Grail - seem to do little more than challenge Diana's athleticism. Diana is the daughter of a liberated nation of classical Amazons, mythical freedom-fighters, for whom love and freedom are literally a religion, ..and her archenemy should reflect that. Conceivably, Diana, who fought Nazis in World War II, should have a tyrant in her rogues gallery, who rules a colorfully bizarre, faraway place, and whose villainy threatens the freedom of all mankind - female Ming to Diana's Flash Gordon - well, Clea has been that villain, since the Forties!
Queen Clea never made much of an impression on me, initially.
In some ways, she's sort of too much - this queen of something in a big, funny hat ..and that armored bra-thing. In other ways, she's too little, because we don't really get to see her doing her imperious queen-thing, anywhere, the way we see Darkseid ruling Apokolips; so, she comes off, like a lot of hot air! In the Forties, she was the ruler of a treacherous, undersea wonderland, called Venturia; I think she needs another secret civilization or cult to rule over, to make her queen-thing relevant in the present day...
And to make her look, less like a giant, armored Barbie doll, with a turkey on her head.
As I see it, Venturia gives Clea's villainy, a little weight. I like, very much, the idea of Wonder Woman's archenemy having a dangerous, exotic world of adventure, created around her, because it forces us to ask, "What did the super-villainess do to become ruler of this crazy place?" As Flash Gordon found Mongo crawling with Lion Men and Hawk Men, could Venturia be the home of the weird creatures, Wonder Woman has shared her adventures with, over the years? With Wingo the Bird-Boy's birdmen, Ronno the Mer-Boy's merfolk ..and an Arabian-inspired colony, presided over by Mister Genie - just imagine it...
Could a resurrected Venturia be Clea's Mongo?
Clea is obsessed with the conquest of two, Atlantaean kingdoms, Venturia and Aurania, which is confusing for DC Comics fans, who readily associate anything 'Atlantis', ..with its superhero-king, Aquaman. For sake of narrative clarity, going forward, and opening up our idea of what she can be - what role she can play in the Wonderverse - I would see Clea made 'her own thing'. I would prefer seeing Clea established, as NOT being a native Atlantaean and, instead, ..the immortal conqueress of other realms, countless realms and people, ..long before she had ever settled in that fabled land.
Who knows what Clea's original form might look like?
Is she really a seven-foot tall, flaxen-haired giantess, with an ageless, immortal body? The Egyptian headdress and antiquated armaments are fine, and I even like them. They're storied and hint something of Clea's struggle to occupy her moment, in the on-going narrative - that she has literally killed or worked to be there. Does her trident enable her to psionically change her appearance, at will, ..to look like any people, throughout history, which she chooses to conquer? That might explain her obscurity, as a Wonder-villain, and lay the story-work for writers to retcon her, more fully and centrally, ..into the Wonder mythos. "Was I Livia, whispering into Augustus's ear? Maybe, Sisostris was a woman! Maybe, I'm Darkseid! Maybe, I was here, all along, like Lookee, on She-Ra, clogging up the pipes--mwua'haha!"
That's a retcon, kangaliers. See how that works?
Might it also be interesting to retcon Clea's morally fluid, adult daughter, Ptra, ..into a son? A Prince Ptra could be a wild, over-sexed, homme fatale, with the physique and provocative costumes that make him Steve Trevor's brazenly unapologetic, long-overdue rival for Diana's affections ..and lust. Imagine Wonder Woman sweating a half-naked, male Princess Aura, ..who happens to be her archenemy's son! As with Flash and Aura, Ming's daughter, ..this would raise the stakes, exponentially, in Diana's on-going enmity, with Queen Clea.
Is that something like what Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad are setting up between Diana and Siegfried (lover of mythical Queen Gudra Von Gunther), over in Wonder Woman? Maybe. Wouldn't that be sort of hot? Hands above the covers, you!
Back to Queen Clea and the turkey on her head...
To distinguish it from Aquaman's signature weapon, Queen Clea's trident given powers, unique to it. I imagine Clea, having ditched her pitchfork, altogether, made more of a female Vandal Savage sort, ..Genghis Khan in a Donna Karen suit. Perhaps, she's been the ruler of many empires, throughout time and space. Earth will certainly not be her last, ..and with so many 'queens' in the Wonderverse, can we please call her 'the Empress Clea' ..or just plain, ole 'Clea'?
Sure, Queen Atomia, Diana's subatomic galaxy foe, could also be Diana's Ming, as she and Clea share many story elements (ruling strange, faraway places, imperious attitudes, etc.) though I think it takes the Wonder Woman comic, too far into sci-fi for my tastes.
Presently, Queen Clea is more Diana's Kurgan, than her Ming, as I see it.
Like the Highlander's conquest-starved nemesis, Clea's origins are ancient horrors, rotting in the shadows of history...even before history was being recorded. Her appetite for conquest puts her on an unavoidable collision course, with a classical Amazon, for whom freedom is a creed! As with Connor MacLeod and the Kurgan, in the tremendously successful, science fantasy film series, Highlander, when Clea and Diana finally come crashing together, in a hurricane of metal and light, the battle will be an inevitable event. It will feel fated to us, somehow, ..as if written in the stars!
There can be only one, classic archenemy for Wonder Woman. Is that Clea?
Mel Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.
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