Red Pillers: Making Thor a feeemale will accelerate our society's plunge "down the rabbit hole of feminization."

*clears throat*
Regarding Superman and Wonder Woman… Yeah, both can fly, are super strong, more or less invulnerable and so on, but these are really common super powers. Lots of superheroes and superheroines have them, so this really doesn’t make WW a “female version” of Superman. (TVtropes call these kinds of characters “flying bricks”).

Wonder Woman in the golden age, when she was first introduced, was supposed to have no inherent super powers; she was really strong and fast compared to normal human beings due to having done special physical training that only the Amazons knew about.
Later Wonder Woman was made out of clay by her mother Hippolytha and granted both life and super powers by the Greek gods (who are real in the DC universe; the Abrahamitic God is also real, though, plus the “new God” panteon invented by Jack Kirby and various others). She’s not quite as fast and strong and invulnerable to physical attacks as Superman. On the other hand, she lacks his vulnerability to Kryptonite, magic (yeah, Superman can be attacked by magic; there is magic in the DC universe too) and psychich attacks (since there’s also people with PSI powers there). She used to have a really stupid sexist weakness which was that she turned powerless if a man bound her bracelets together, but they dropped that later on.
That’s “regular” Wonder Woman, or Diana. As people already mentioned upthread, she was depowered for a while, but got her powers back, and she has a secret identity which is Diana Prince.
Her mum Hippolytha was also Wonder Woman for a while.

Superman comes from the planet Krypton. The very first explanation for his superpowers was that “evolution had gone further” on Krypton than on Earth. Later, that explanation was changed to Krypton having a higher gravity. Therefore, Superman’s body was more dense, and could withstand, say, someone trying to stab him with a knife, or even a bullet fired from a gun (but big weapons could still hurt him). He was also much stronger than a human being, could run faster and jump higher. Later on, it was added that Earth having a yellow sun, as opposed to Krypton’s red sun, gave him all kinds of powers. For decades, it was a rule of the DC universe that there were suns of all kinds of colours, and moving from one kind of sun to another one may give or take away super powers for various creatures.

Later still, the explanation went like this: Kryptonians have evolved to suck up solar power directly and use as energy for their bodies. The sun on Krypton was a red, very dim one. The sun of our solar system is simply way, way more intense than Krypton’s, so that Superman’s body becomes super-energized, giving him all these powers, in our solar system.

A female version of Superman would be Supergirl. Now, there have been a number of heroines going under that name, but the classic one is Superman’s cousin, who has the same power set as he has.

I believe that Walt on Breaking Bad was always a terrible, very narcissistic person, based on what information we have about his youth.

I agree wholeheartedly! I’ve always watched Breaking Bad the same way I watched The Sopranos — with the understanding that I’m watching a show where the main characters are antagonists and villains. And, without spoilers at all, I believe the creators make it very clear when they have Walt admit that everything he did was for his own pleasure, because he liked it, not because he was trying to provide for his family or anything like that. Walt was a piece of shit from the beginning, and he just found a way to express his monstrous nature through crime.

I’m loving this thread. Most of my knowledge of the DC and Marvel canons is second hand (BFF and my husband are the true comics connessieurs) so I can’t add anything relevant to the discussion. But I love watching everyone else debate it.

I got called a traitor to my Norwegian ancestry because I didn’t object to Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall.

Putting aside the trolly racism for a moment, I’m astonished at this because I can’t imagine being upset at Idris Elba playing any character. He is amazing, he should be cast in all the things!!!

If people are going to do that with British accents and non-toff characters I wish they’d use regional accents, just for fun, so you’d have what sounds like a Mancunian and a Glaswegian having an argument in the middle of Paris.

I would watch the hell out of that.

I wouldn’t describe it as a show about a good person going bad, so much as a show about a bad person who isn’t afraid of getting in trouble any more. It’s kind of unsettling that he managed to gaslight half the audience. Even after the finale, there are still fans who insist that he “did it all for his family”. Amazing.

And magnesium elegantly sums up the reason why I’m so averse to watching “Breaking Bad,” which I haven’t even been able to articulate to myself. I thought my reluctance stemmed from the Dad with cancer angle (that’s how my father died). Nope, it’s really a revulsion to the idea of watching a narcissist unchained from societal expectations running wild. I feel better about rejecting the cultural zeitgeist now, thanks!

True, Seraph! Whereas various anthropomorphic gods in the DC universe are very concrete, the Abrahamic God tends to be vague and never personally take part in events, and serve as a kind of, um, “over-God” over the others. AFAIK, the relationship between God and “the source” from the new god stories is never really explained either… Possibly they’re the same thing? Or does anyone know more?

Also fun fact is that one of the heroines whose gone by the name of “Supergirl” was a human who had merged with an angel into a super-powered girl.

It’s perfectly possible, AFAIK, that Wonder Woman could take out Superman even if she’s not quite as physically strong. There are a few elseworlds stories (like Kingdom Come) where Superman and Captain Marvel end up fighting, and they tend to be presented as equally strong. But in actually continuity, I can’t unfortunately remember exactly where now, but it’s either in Grant Morrison’s JLA run or his Final Crisis, probably JLA, Captain Marvel knocks down Superman because he needs to go on a mission and for various reasons need to stop Superman following him along. When Green Lantern asks Captain Marvel how that was possible, Marvel responds that it’s because he’s powered by magic, and that’s a vulnerability of Supes.

Superman’s power suite is so common that in Aaron Williams’ PS238 series, one of the characters calls herself 84 because she’s the 84th super with those powers.

@ Falconer – Wonder Woman can be pretty gritty and edgy even in her normal incarnation. Of DC’s Big Three, she’s the only one who considers killing an option (if a last resort), rather than a once-in-a-lifetime source of angst.

Jumping in on Wonder Woman discussion.

Before New 52 reboot Supermen and Wonder Woman had a big fight.
He was mind controlled and full out trying to kill people. First he almost killed Batmen then he attacked Diana.
She was holding back because she didn’t want to kill him or hurt him too much and she still won. It wasn’t by a beat-down but by skill and strategic thinking (at one point she used her ability to talk with animals to distract Sups with some birds).

About the New 52: I hate it.
They first changed WW’s origins. She’s no longer made from clay, her mothers love and desire for a child and blessed by Ancient Greek Goddesses.
Now Zeus is her father and the whole clay story was just to deceive Hera with. 🙁

And Amazons who before the reboot when away from the world to their magical island to escape men and abuses they suffered when Hercules enslaved them?
Now they are all rapists and killers.
In new comics we find out that Amazons go out at sea, board ships and then rape and kill the sailors. That’s how they make children.
All that not being enough, then we see that male babies they have are traded for weapons to Hephaestus. There to be raised and to serve as slaves.

Oh, and WW is now also a god of War and in relationship with Supermen.

In short; don’t touch the new 52 with 10-foot pole. I did and I regret it.
I have very low expectation when it comes to DC (it wasn’t so long ago when they had a art contest with “draw Harley Quinn Naked, Killing Herself” thing) but the way they went about WW comics sill shocked me.

@seraph4377 It’s interesting how out of DC’s big three WW is the one who has the most traditional warrior type mentality.

@Dvärghundspossen Usually if WW and Supes are fighting the winner is generally the one who gets the first shot in. Superman is generally more physically powerful than Wonder Woman, but she is vastly more skilled of a fighter and has a bunch of magical odds and ends that can hurt Big Blue. She’s kind of the midway point between the physical powerhouse of Superman and the non-powered but crazy skilled and prepared Batman.

Of course all that can change depending on who’s writing.

And on another tangent is anyone else loving the new direction they’re taking with Batgirl? Hipster Barbara Gordon who enjoys being a vigilante seems like all sorts of fun.

@Catherine: Okay, never gonna read new WW then. I have read Grant Morrison’s “Superman’s early career” stories in Action Comics from new 52, and I also thought the story of how JLA first meet each other was a pretty entertaining read. Actually, it made me a bit curious to read the 52 WW… But I really don’t think I’m gonna do that now!

However, I do think it’s a bit funny that they brought back Kara Zor-El as Supergirl, with a back story that keeps it the case that she’s a teenager whereas Supes is a grown-up, and Supes grew up on Earth whereas she grew up in Kryptonian culture, only like a hundred times less stupid than the original back story.
Original back story of Kara Supergirl: When Krypton blew up, a large chunk of the planet flew off into space with people and buildings and everything on it, and also a bubble of atmosphere that magically stayed there. Also enough warmth, apparently. Kara, cousin of Supes, was born on that planet chunk and grew up there. Once she was a teenager, that chunk of planet was finally becoming unstable, and her parents sent her to Earth in a rocket, where she met Supes.
New 52 back story: Kal-El/Superman and Kara/Supergirl were both put in rockets toward Earth when Krypton was about to explode. Superman was a baby, and Supergirl was a teenager. Supergirls rocket somehow malfunctioned so that she drifted around in space in a state of suspeded animaltion for like twentyfive years. Then she came to Earth.

It’s weird that they didn’t originally think of this possibility for a “teenage Supergirl who grew up on Krypton/grown-up Superman who grew up on Earth” relationship.

Supes has gotten fighting training from various individuals (including Muhammad Ali) over the years, which makes him better than other flying bricks who are completely dependent on their powers, but yeah – he’s no warrior.

Part of his problem, if you want to call it that, is that his fighting style is based on not hurting people. I recall a Batman issue where Superman was being controlled by Poison Ivy, and Batman was keeping him at bay until he could be freed, all the while thinking that if Supes was using his powers to their full potential, he would have been a red smear on the wall in the first second of combat. The few times that we see him click the safety off – like the time in Final Crisis when he found out that Batman had been killed – we’re reminded that, nice as he is, he’s actually a terrifying, nigh-unstoppable alien monster.

Yeah Supes is no joke when it comes to fighting skills he’s just not as skilled as say WW or Bats. It’s like comparing a regular skyscraper to one of those Dubai monstrosities. At the end of the day both are still very large. That said it is always fun to see Superman flip the inhibition switch to off when he’s fighting one of those cosmic level threats. One of the Justice League animated series or maybe a movie had a great bit where he was fighting Darkseid and started talking about how difficult it was to move through the normal world since he had to be so constantly aware of how easy it would be for him to accidentally break just everything. I think the exact comparison was that he felt like he was in world made of wet cardboard, but he was saying how it was almost a relief to really get to lace into someone like Darkseid with his full strength because it wouldn’t just instantly kill him.

Ninja’d by pendraegon!