by Edgar Miraculous Dyer
If we ask ourselves, "What is an Amazon?"...
What do Amazons do, and why? What is their story? What do Amazons symbolize or represent to us? Besides woman, what do we think of, when we think of the classical myth of the Amazons? Only then, can we ask ourselves…
What would the Amazons hate or fear most of all, ..in an enemy?
I would wager, from my four and a half decades of reading and watching Wonder Woman stories, in comic books and on television, that most of her writers and editors ..have never asked themselves, these questions. The purpose of asking them is to define what Amazons are, and what they aren't. Incidentally, we see the DC Comics' Amazons, champions of peace, love and freedom for ALL mankind, differ from the Amazons of myth, ..who were primarily freedom-fighters and champions of justice for women, who were oppressed by the man-ruled city states of ancient Greece (Thrace, Sparta, Troy, Athens, Thebes, etc).
Then, we ask ourselves the same questions about the daughter of these DC Comics Amazons, ..Wonder Woman? If we're honest, Wonder Woman's natural enemy, the one she was born to fight and protect us from, emerges from defining who she is - her mission, motivation, etc. - and contemplation of the colorful mess, that is her rogues gallery. Like Ellen Ripley facing the Xenomorph Queen, in James Cameron's Aliens, ..theirs is an enmity, which writes itself, right out of the narrative box! Crack! Boing!
For my money, Ares or Boo Berries, as I like to call him, ..is not the archenemy.
I don't think the Amazons, classical or DCU, are as dreadful or scornful of war, as of war's courtiers: conquest, greed and the rest. The proof of this is the Amazons' worship of Athena, the just and fair war-maker, who is fully embraced by them. Furthermore, when I ask myself these questions about Wonder Woman, I don't imagine cheetahs or witches costing her much sleep!
I'll play along, because James Tynion IV did such an exceptional job, with his Circe story, ..but, I don't think Wonder Woman fears magic, above all else, either. In the context of his Justice League Dark stories, we can make his Wonder Woman, a champion of magic, being a magical being, herself. Outside of the Tynion stories, when I run through that battery of definitive questions, I don't see a witch or magic itself being a natural enemy of Wonder Woman, whose life's mission is the preservation of peace, justice and freedom. As magic is the warping or over-ruling of reality and the mortals, who inhabit it, it seems magic and it's practitioners ..are something, we plain humans would need Wonder Woman's protection, ..from.
Outside of the Tynion stories, his Wonder Woman, as champion of magic premise...doesn't quite work?
Characters, like Eviless (or Grail), Queen Clea, Superwoman and the Baroness are the most plausible bottom-liners for a natural enmity, with Wonder Woman. They are in the best positions to destroy or take away what Amazons cherish the most - namely, freedom, justice and hope for all of mankind. We can speculate how characters, like Circe, might be tweaked to constitute a natural, organically existential threat to Wonder Woman and what she is fighting for. However, in that tweaking, we betray the 'natural enemy' idea, because a natural, organic enemy doesn't need tweaking or processing.
I think Queen Clea is most certainly an antagonist, who springs fully formed, as Pallas from the skull of Zeus, and untweaked, ..out of any deep, definitive consideration of Wonder Woman. For a freedom-loving Amazon, this bloodthirsty, immortal conqueress of ancient, lost empires, needs no tweaking ..to be her worst nightmare!
What do I mean, by tweaking?
Let's say ..Amazons are afraid and hateful of eggs, because they are a childless nation, ..and eggs represent natural procreation and the continuity of life. Therefore, EGG FU must be Wonder Woman's archenemy; of course! This is the kind of tweaking to create narrative context, where none exists, that we see writers and fans indulging to justify an arch-enmity, with Circe or Cheetah. It's something of a hard-sell, when there are other super-villains, who pose a clearer threat to Wonder Woman, ..no salt, no butter...hot and straight from the box!
Who is the supervillain or (for me) supervillainess, who makes the most sense, as Wonder Woman's archenemy, right outta' the box? Boing!
That is the question, that writers need to be asking, in the pages of Wonder Woman.
Look alive, kangaliers!
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...) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.
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