Wonder Woman smashes box office records

Any time :slight_smile:

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Excellent. It’s a good movie, and if its success means there will be more superhero movies starring women, or just plain more movies starring women, then good!

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Makes Etta’s line about how only a woman without a tummy would ask why you have to hold in your tummy even funnier. Also, color me amazed that DC put a comic character like Etta Candy in one of their movies and refrained from making fat jokes at her expense. I want the post-war adventures of Etta and Diana hanging out and kicking butts.

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Hmmm… i haven’t been to see a DC film since man of steel and that put me off for a good while so i think i’ll have to make the effort for this. I’ve enjoyed all the marvel films to varying degrees though, maybe because they’re not full of grimdark adolescent machismo.

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This is my one big regret about this film – not enough Etta. And with the death of Steve Trevor and the director saying the next film will be a more contemporary story set in America, I guess that’s all we get. But I’d much rather just see more Etta & Diana.

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Don’t forget powergirl, hawkgirl, and the entire female membership of the Legion of Superheroes.

Their names are relics from the 50s and 60s. You have to realize that comic books are extremely conservative when it comes to character names, costumes, etc. It took, what, 70 years for superman to stop wearing red trunks outside of his blue suit, long, long after the 30’s circus strongman costumes it was paying homage to were dead and forgotten.

DC realizes that the “girl” label is woefully dated, which is why they have de-aged the characters in recent incarnations, to try to justify something that they know is wrong but don’t have the courage to change yet.

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cc @Grey_Devil

Actually many of the -girl names as well as -lad and -boy were used to differentiate the younger or sidekick character from the primary hero. Part of the specifics were around their power levels. So Aqualad was not just younger than Aquaman, but also much less powerful.

Hawkgirl has been known as Hawkwoman depending on the version within DC comics timelines and properties. One point often brought up is “Why didn’t Batgirl become Batwoman when she got older?” Well, for one, the traditional batgirl (Barbara Gordon) was paralyzed and wheelchair bound in the classic timeline and never kept adventuring in a costume, instead becoming Oracle. Additionally going back to Silver Age and on there was a Batwoman in the DCU, but she used the name Huntress (She was a transplant Earth-2 version).

Your point is absolutely true that many names are leftovers and comics are loathe to change names just as they are to change costumes because its part of their identity and brand. There are examples of this going on for both genders in comics between man/boy and woman/girl.

I would discount the Legion also known as Legionnaires. They were in fact all teens and many of them had girl/gal boy/lad names. It was not gender specific, definitely age specific.(cosmic boy, matter-eater lad, saturn girl, lightning lad, superboy, supergirl, etc etc).

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Good point on the “power level” thing. I think age does play a part in it to an extent but yeah, definitely a hold over from another time in comics.

Not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things i guess, but as i said before it’s something i ponder on occasionally.

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I think we all ponder it. And we should also remember that comic books offer ageless heroes in many cases while we absolutely age. For every Dick Grayson who grows up in comics and becomes Nightwing, there are chracters like Beastboy who seemingly never ages and has been a teenager for close to 30 years.

Interestingly enough…this is more a DC issue than Marvel. Most marvel characters when using gender specific monikers do use man and woman. Spiderman, Spiderwoman, Ironman, Powerman.

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Seems you are doing the spinning here. Wonder woman, with a budget of 150 million, made only just barely less on its opening than Man of Steel, with a budget of 225 million. Despite both of them having ad spends proportionate to their budgets.

Therefore, the ROI, to date, for Wonder Woman is far better than the ROI for Man of Steel was after its opening weekend. And ROI is what matters when it comes to whether or not there will be a sequel, etc.

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I think this is true of movies in the cinema as well. Hollywood movies are like a giant guild/union/cartel which exist foremost to create jobs in Hollywood. So budgets get more and more inflated and producers and distributors more risk-averse - but that is only but one possible business strategy. Instead of gambling on one $150 million project which everything depends upon, why not default instead to ten $15 million projects? Encouraging people to do more with the budgets they have will stimulate creativity. And more smaller projects yields more choice.

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She-Hulk would make wonderful colour for the MCU. A superhero lawyer with a real humorous streak. What’s not to like?

Squirrel Girl would be a riot. Her existence would break the MCU though, and I’d hate to see her nerfed.

Mind you, I still think that the Captain Marvel film needs a post credit scene to set-up the Kamala Khan - Ms Marvel movie. Now that, I’d throw money at.

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Deep Weird. But, wealth begets wealth, in all its forms.

Oh. So I wasn’t just imagining that.

I am currently enjoying a headcanon daydream of Etta and Diana forging their way through the 20’s and 30’s. You think it’s a coincidence women got the vote and more comfortable clothing right after WWI? :wink:

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The Captain Marvel movie they’re making now is Carol Danvers (played by Brie Larson) so you’re not far off.

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I’m excited for Captain Marvel because that opens the door for Ms.Marvel (Kamala Khan) to hopefully follow soon after.

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It is part condescending and part just cheesy naming from the 30s through the 60s (and beyond). Wonder Women isn’t much better in the cheese category - right up there with Batman and Superman and Aquaman and Spiderman and Iron man, and etc, etc, etc. I mean really in early comics they pretty much all had their gender and/or a color in their name. They were kinda stuck in a schtick for a long time.

Though those names have nostalgia and a long history, so I don’t think we will see Batgirl and Supergirl go away, but I bet we will continue to see more diverse naming.

*singing:

“All the world was waiting for yooooooou… And the powers you posseeeessss…”

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I’d rather see a few others before we get to Elektra. A Storm solo movie, maybe even Jane Foster as Thor. Spider-Gwen? I dunno, I’m just not that into Elektra. I was actually thinking earlier today that Marvel is actually behind DC on big name, strong, solo women superhero comics. DC has Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl (ok, she’s not really solo, maybe). Marvel doesn’t have a female character as iconic as Wonder Woman, and maybe not even as iconic as Supergirl. Captain Marvel/Ms Marvel is the closest, but she’s not quite at that same level, at least as far as name recognition among the general public. The best known Marvel women are part of teams; Storm, Black Widow, Wasp, Jean Grey. I know they have some newer characters, like Miss America (America Chavez) but I don’t think she has much name recognition yet. Still, why not pull out someone no one knows for a movie?

Kamala Khan is the reason I started reading and collecting comics again, so nothing would make me happier.

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