While at DragonCon this year, I commissioned a sketch from artist David Wong.  I’d seen some of his work in the past at DragonCon and was impressed.  He doesn’t draw comics for the primary publishers, but he appears to make his living off his art.

I just received my commission in the mail.  The image below is Blue Devil (in his classic gear) versus Doctor Fate (with his signature ankh shield).  Both are in my ‘top five favorite characters of all time’ and both happen to be magical, so I thought an image together would make sense.

When I asked for these two characters I didn’t think about the fact that the color scheme would be a bit limited.  Both characters primary colors are blue and gold.  It’s a happy accident that having only two main colors created a nice sense of balance in the sketch.  Also, I feel the artist did a good job using various blues and orange highlights to bring out texture and shading.  Nicely done.

I think the sketch came off pretty well.  The only part I’m slightly disappointed in is Blue Devil’s face.  It just doesn’t seem quite right.  Other than that it looks pretty good.  Doctor Fate looks great!  In an ideal world, Blue Devil would have been sketched by Paris Cullins and Doctor Fate would have been sketched by Walt Simonson.  One can dream…

Next year I gotta figure out a way to get a sketch of Firestorm, Aquaman, and Flash all together.  Hmmm… if only George Perez was coming next year.

Did you notice that Chuck Dixon included one of the ‘Bloodlines’ parasites in his last issue of ‘Batman & the Outsiders’?  Seriously, dude.  I wouldn’t lie to you.  Check out ‘Batman & the Outsiders’ #10.

So do you think that was Dixon’s way of flipping DC the bird, or do you think he was building a story utilizing a completely unexpected antagonist, or perhaps did DC make him include the ‘Bloodlines’ parasite and that is what finally made Dixon quit?  I personally opt for the second.  That’s a pretty bold move drudging up a villain that comes with so much crappy baggage.

If you are not familiar with the ‘Bloodlines’ story that ran through the DC Annuals back in 1993, then you can read about it on Wikipedia by clicking here or at the DC Database by clicking here.  After you finish reading up on ‘Bloodlines’ (or finish digging around in your brain to remember this story), prepare yourself to feel a little queasy. ‘Bloodlines’ really wasn’t a very good story.  There were certainly some clever things that came out of it, but overall the storyline was pretty awful.

Needless to say, I was shocked when one of those parasites showed up in ‘Batman & the Outsiders’.  I imagine Dixon was building to something, given the way it was written.  It’s a shame that Dixon isn’t with DC anymore.  He really was taking his DC books in interesting directions.  I’m bummed that we won’t find out where he was going with the ‘Bloodlines’ parasite, the re-tooled OMAC, and Elongated Man & Sue as the ‘Ghost Detectives’.  It took a writer as good as him to make these types of plotlines interesting.

The first comic I bought as a collector was Secret Wars issue #2 back in sixth grade.  Some of you may recall I wrote a post about this experience back in June.  Before I begin my rant, I want to be sure you understand that Secret Wars issue #2 should in no way to be confused with a completely separate nine-issue comic book limited series entitled Secret Wars II.  That’s important.  Don’t forget that.

The original Secret Wars 12-issue limited series was a solid story and a huge success.  So of course, it spawned a sequel.  Secret Wars II was about the entity that instigated the first Secret Wars, the Beyonder.  The Beyonder visits Earth in search of enlightenment and inevitably comes into conflict with Earth’s superheroes and the cosmic entities that exist in the Marvel Universe.  It’s pretty much universally accepted by fans that Secret Wars II was a poorly executed and poorly written series.

Marvel Comics has announced that in February they will release a new hardcover — Secret Wars II Omnibus.  This omnibus will collect all nine issues of the Secret Wars II mini-series, as well as several of the related crossovers.  All told it will reprint 46 comics, be 1168 pages, and retail for $99.99.

Okay, hopefully you’ve taken a second for all that to sink in.  So I can now say…

WTF, mate?!?!?

Are you serious?  Secret Wars II for $100?  Are they out of their friggin’ minds?  Seriously, dude!  This is an abysmal comic.  In fact, you can pick up almost every issue of Secret Wars II in your local comic book shop for less than $1 an issue (some of the crossovers can be more expensive).

The comics collected in the omnibus include: Secret Wars II issues #1-9; New Mutants #30 and #36-37; Captain America #308; Uncanny X-Men #196 and #202-203; Iron Man #197; Fantastic Four #282, #285, #288 and #316-319; Web of Spider-Man #6; Amazing Spider-Man #268 and #273-274; Daredevil #223; Incredible Hulk #312; Avengers #260-261 and #265-266; Dazzler #40; Alpha Flight #28; Thing #30; Doctor Strange #74; Cloak and Dagger #4; Power Pack #18; Thor #363; Power Man and Iron Fist #121; Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man #111; Defenders #152; Deadpool Team-Up #1 and Quasar #8.

It’s fair to say that while the primary book Secret Wars II was awful, some of the crossover issues were pretty good.  There were really two categories of crossovers.  Crossover issues that REALLY connected to the Secret Wars II plot, and crossover issues that barely paid lip service to Secret Wars II.  For example, while New Mutants #30 was a good comic, the Secret Wars II plot point was resolved in three and a half pages.  Obviously Secret Wars II was not integral to the plot of this comic.

Some comics that tied-in to Secret Wars II really benefited from the connection.  My personal favorites were Web of Spider-Man #6 and Amazing Spider-Man #268.  These comics form a two-part story in which Spider-Man has to deal with the collapse of the skyscraper that the Beyonder turned into gold.  While the Beyonder makes no appearance in these issues, the story does spin directly out of Secret Wars II issue #2.  There are some great moments dealing with moral issues in this one.  The government secures the building made of gold because it’s worried about what the influx of this quantity of gold could do to the world economy.  Spider-Man witnesses the Kingpin receiving pay-offs from government agents, while he himself is shot at for trying to help people.  So in a moment of frustration, Spider-Man takes a golden notebook from the skyscraper.  The moral issue becomes whether Spider-Man has the right to take the gold as compensation (especially since the Kingpin is making a profit from the government).  It’s a well written story by Danny Fingeroth and Tom DeFalco, and is a great example of what classic Spider-Man stories should be like.

A few others worth mentioning are:

• Daredevil #223 written by Denny O’Neil and Jim Shooter in which the Beyonder gives Matt Murdock back his sight.
• Thor #363 and Power Pack #18 in which they battle Kurse, an extra-dimensional Dark Elf whose powers have been amped by the Beyonder.  This is an unlikely, but nice team-up written by the husband and wife team of Walter & Louise Simonson.
• Incredible Hulk #312 written by Bill Mantlo may not have tied closely into Secret Wars II, but was one of the most influential single issues in Hulk’s history.  This story explores in-depth Bruce Banner’s back-story and the horrible relationship he had with his father.  This issue influenced both Peter David’s run on the book and the Ang Lee film.  And it featured art by Mike Mignola prior to his Hellboy work!

There are some other good Secret Wars II crossovers (like the Uncanny X-Men books), but the ones above happen to be favorites.  All of which you can pick up online for a handful of dollars right now.

If you are considering ordering the Secret Wars II omnibus, ask yourself… why on Earth would I pay $100 to read a few good comics and a whole bunch of crappy ones?!?!?!   I recommend you just pick a comic shop (brick-and-mortar or online) and purchase a few of the good crossovers from their back issue selection.  Save your wallet and your brain the pain of the omnibus.  Remember, friends don’t let friends buy bad comics.

Marvels was an award-winning publishing sensation in 1994 that made Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross into stars.  Coming in December is the long-awaited sequel, Marvels: Eye of the Camera by Kurt Busiek and Marvel-newcomer Jay Anacleto.  Now this is a comic worth getting excited about folks!

Marvels examined the Marvel Universe from the perspective of an ‘everyman’, news photographer Phil Sheldon. This street-level series portrayed ordinary life in a world full of costumed supermen, with each issue featuring events well-known to readers of Marvel comics as well as a variety of minute details and retelling the most infamous events in the Marvel Universe. In addition to the strong storytelling, the book featured amazing photo-realistic renderings by Alex Ross which took the comic book reading community by storm.

Here is the description of the six-issue mini-series Marvels: Eye of the Camera from Marvel Comics …

News photographer Phil Sheldon’s back, with the man-on-the-street’s perspective on the big events of the Marvel Universe, from the Avengers, the all-new X-Men and the Secret Wars to Dracula and the Werewolf By Night. But this time, Phil’s world is going to be rocked not just by superheroes and super-villains — but by something far more personal, as well.

This sequel has been in the works for a long time.  Originally it was scheduled to come out in early 2004 (as noted in this Newsarama interview with Kurt Busiek from 2003).  Fast forward nearly five years later and it’s finally ready to hit the shelves!  According to Tom Brevoort, it’s been slowly worked on all this time; they didn’t stop and start, they just didn’t do a lot quickly.  When asked if the plot had remained the same from their original 2004 plan, Brevoort said yes, you could almost go back and reprint the article from five years ago.  Therefore go ahead and read the 2003 Newsarama interview with Kurt Busiek for more details on this series.

Marvels: Eye of the Camera looks to be another phenomenal comic from Kurt Busiek.  In addition to Marvels, Kurt Busiek has written his own fantastic series called Astro City which often features superheroes from the perspective of the ‘everyman’.  Busiek has a special talent for believably showing how superheroes can impact the normal life of the man on the street.

In regard to the artwork, some of you may be thinking that without Alex Ross it won’t be any good.  Admittedly, I was concerned myself when I saw he wasn’t attached to this project.  However, if you look at the three cover images here, I think this project is in good hands with Jay Anacleto.  While he’s different from Ross, Anacleto appears to do a very good job mixing photo-realism with superheroics.

Personally, I almost missed hearing about this series altogether.  Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but I haven’t seen much publicity surrounding this book.  In fact, the only promotion I’ve seen was the listing in the Marvel Previews catalog.  Surprisingly, it didn’t make the cover (instead we got ‘X-Infernus’ & ‘Punisher War Zone’) and no ads.  If I didn’t catch the listing buried on the bottom of page 41, I wouldn’t have known this was coming out at all. I’m not sure if the lack of promotion was simply an oversight from Marvel, or if they are hesitant about this series for some reason.  I imagine Marvel is worried that without Alex Ross this new mini-series might fail.  Or perhaps they are concerned about this book shipping on time.  During an August interview with Brevoort, he indicated that Anacleto was halfway through drawing issue #5.  Sure hope he can finish in time.  If he took five years to draw four and a half issues, who knows how long it will take him to finish issues five and six.

I am sincerely looking forward to this series.  I recommend to everyone who has read Marvels to at least give this book a shot.  If you haven’t read Marvels… then you’re broken.  Plain and simple. Go buy a copy right now and come back when you are fixed. 

Visit us here at ONCE UPON A GEEK tomorrow when we talk about another publication from Marvel that is equally as memorable as Marvels, but not remembered nearly as fondly…

The new cartoon “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” is beginning to look like awesome!  Check out this teaser trailer below.  The music has me totally groovin’!  If you can’t see the embedded video, click here.

How cool does that look?!?!  I know many of us believed this cartoon would be for little kids (like the “Super Friends” action figure line), but I gotta say after seeing this trailer it looks pretty interesting.  For most of us geeks, nothing will ever compare to “Batman: The Animated Series”.  However, I think this show has a chance of being great with a different kind of Batman.  At first glance, it looks like this cartoon will embrace the kookiness of the 1960’s TV Batman, and meld it with modern action and fun superheroics.  How can it not be awesome with fantastic guest stars like Green Arrow (Van dyke-less), Blue Beetle (the new BB), Plastic Man, the Atom, Red Tornado, and Aquaman?

I’m willing to give this new cartoon a chance to win over my heart.  And if the music in this trailer is indicative of the music in the series, then it had me at “Hello”.

My thanks to EDP over at “I don’t read my blog either” for posting this video and making me realize how cool this series could be.

Just a heads-up… I’ve been horribly negligent and haven’t mentioned the podcasts I’ve appeared in recently.

The Unique Geek Issue #76 features the usual gang as we discuss what we were looking forward to at DragonCon 2008 (obviously recorded prior to the event).

The Unique Geek Issue #78 features audio recorded while the Unique Geeks were on-site at DragonCon.  We recorded the audio by just putting a digital recorder down and forgetting about it (most of the time). So you will hear a bunch of background noise, but there is some good stuff in there. This is one of those ‘casts that you just play in the background while doing any number of more important things. You can hear exciting things like how much to tip a “special” masseuse, Ravenface and myself arguing about Star Wars (I was right!), and Jon making coffee.

Views from the Longbox Episode 51 & Episode 52 feature Michael and I giving our recap of DragonCon 2008.  In these podcasts we discuss things like the dealers room, why Laurell K. Hamilton is awesome, why Mai Tais are now the official drink of the Unique Geek, art sketchs we commissioned, what happened Sunday night after Michael left,  and the unfortunate death of Michael’s grandfather while we were at the con.

Be sure to check out these podcasts and the rest of The Unique Geek & Views from the Longbox podcasts.

I try to be positive and encouraging in my blog, rather than negative and pessimistic.  However, there are a few things that simply bother the heck out of me.  One such thing is the Marvel Comics superhero named “The Sentry“, the golden guardian of good with the power of one million exploding suns.  Goodness gracious, why can’t this character die or simply fade away into obscurity?

The Sentry was introduced in the year 2000 and is essentially the Superman equivalent in the Marvel Universe.  I’m not going to cover his whole background here; you can read all of that over at Wikipedia.  The primary difference between Superman and the Sentry is that Superman has his act together.  The Sentry is a psychological wreck.  In general, I think that’s an interesting concept - What if Superman came to Earth but suffered from mental breakdowns?  There are some fascinating stories that could come out of that idea with some really dense plots.  However, the writing for the Sentry character so far has been so lackluster that most fans simply are waiting for him to go away.

I never got to read the first Sentry mini-series, but I’ve heard it was decent.  In the mini-series it’s revealed that the Sentry was one of the premier heroes of the Marvel Universe back in the day (along with the FF, the X-Men, Spider-Man, etc).  Due to a series of circumstances, the memories of everyone in the world were altered to forget about the Sentry.  So when he returned in 2000, it was quite confusing for him and the others that began to remember him.  That’s actually an interesting plot.  It seems very feasible to me that one of the kooky 1960’s stories featured planet-wide memory alteration.  In fact, it was such an interesting concept that DC Comics did almost the exact same thing back in 1994 with a JLA character named Triumph (six years before the first appearance of the Sentry).  Considering how crappy Triumph turned out, you’d think Marvel wouldn’t have bothered to steal the idea.

After the first mini-series, the Sentry joined Brian Michael Bendis’ “New Avengers“.  As one of the most powerful individuals on the planet and a member of the foremost superteam, the Sentry managed to do just about nothing over the course of a couple years.  Then came the second Sentry mini-series, which was one of the most painful comics to read… EVER.  It was really, really bad.  Next, for no apparent reason, the Sentry joined Brian Michael Bendis’ “Mighty Avengers” and has continued to contribute very little.  And finally, Marvel has recently started a new mini-series entitled, “The Age of the Sentry“.  While the new mini-series has a new writer and a retro feel to it (see picture right), I just can’t bring myself to read another Sentry comic.  I’m voting with my dollars on this one and I hope many other fans will do the same.

While the Sentry could have been the deciding factor and resolved many Marvel Universe stories (such as “Civil War”, “World War Hulk”, and “Secret Invasion”), he seems incapable of setting his mind to anything during times of extreme stress.  When he does finally commit to being involved in these world-threatening events, he ultimately contributes very little.  Personally, I think this is a writer’s crutch so that the Sentry doesn’t just sweep in and fix any problems the writer has created for the heroes.  At first I could buy into the fact that the Sentry didn’t get involved for whatever reason of the day.  Now that it’s happened a few times, I think it’s just ridiculous.  The Sentry could actually be a cool character, but time and again he’s been reduced to a coward or an indecisive flake.  The Sentry also has some subplots that could be interesting… the operative word being “could”.  These subplots include: his mechanical assistant CLOC, his repetitively-resurrected wife, and The Void (Sentry’s dark half/alter-ego).  Again, less-than-stellar writing has made these subplots more bothersome than fascinating.

Brian Michael Bendis seems keen on including the Sentry in his Avengers titles, so I gotta think he has a plan for the character.  Since the “New Avengers” title began back in 2004, the Sentry has pretty much been surplus to requirements.  So maybe Bendis is planning to shock the readers with some big revelation or action regarding the Sentry.  For example, maybe the Sentry’s destiny is connected with the “Secret Invasion” storyline.  When Bendis started the “New Avengers” title he had already begun to map out what would eventually become “Secret Invasion”.  Perhaps one of the reasons Bendis has continued to carry the Sentry character is that he’s integral to the “Secret Invasion” series.  Who knows?  One can dream and hope.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the Sentry was simply a Skrull or died in the penultimate battle with the Skrulls?  That would be many kinds of awesome.

Now it’s fair to say that I’m about a month behind on reading my comics.  So if Sentry has done something interesting in that time, I’ve missed out.  However, my Sentry-Sense hasn’t been tingling, so I seriously doubt they found anything worthwhile for him to do other than cry in the corner.

If I had my druthers, Marvel Comics would either kill the Sentry or simply make him go away.  Considering how little he’s added to the Marvel Universe, why does he continue to hang around?  Can’t he indecisively meander off to the Avengers Has-Been Home?  He could play checkers with Silverclaw and shuffleboard with D-Man.  Wouldn’t that be nice for his golden years?  (pun intended)

I’m not the only one who feels such frustration about this character.  The folks over at Old-Wizard.com did a great piece on him in August entitled, “Worst Character Ever?” The guys at iFanboy did an article in June entitled, “The Sentry Problem: Void Where Prohibited“.  Both are definitely worth a read.  And finally, I wish the owner of the URL http://www.killthesentry.com/ would get that site up and running.  I’d be a big supporter.

I picked up my copy of the Iron Man DVD on Tuesday from Target.  If you haven’t seen the packaging yet for the “Ultimate 2-Disk Edition” from Target, it’s SWEET!  There are several different retailer exclusives, but I personally like the Target version best.   The DVD package itself is shaped like Iron Man’s head!  How cool is that?!?!?  See the pictures below.

Other retailer exclusives include comic books, access to exclusive digital comics, bobbleheads, a DVD featuring the first episode of the new animated series, and more.  You can find a complete list of the exclusives at SuperHeroHype.com.  Special features included with the “Ultimate 2-Disk Edition” include: deleted and extended scenes, a “Making of” documentary, a “History of the Hero” feature, a segment on visual effects, Robert Downey Jr’s screen test, the actor’s process, still galleries, and more.

When I sat down to watch the movie again, I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy it as much.  I was completely over the moon for the film when it was first released.  On occasion in the past I’ve really enjoyed a geek-related movie, only to find myself suffering from a “geek hangover” upon second viewing.  That was not the case this time!  This movie still rocks!  It starts with a bang (literally in Afghanistan) and keeps a hold of you all the way until the end.  Jon Favreau directed a comic book masterpiece here.  This is definitely my favorite comic book movie yet!  Robert Downey Jr really is the perfect Tony Stark; suave, focused, handsome, and can really act the rich playboy.  I also really like Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper.  She’s not exactly like Pepper from the comics, but she did a fine job as Tony’s girl Friday.  It doesn’t hurt that she looked really hot in this film.  While I wasn’t thrilled with Terrance Howard as Rhodey the first time I watched the movie, he’s growing on me.  I can’t wait to see him as War Machine!  And Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane… just wow!  Who would have guessed he could pull off such a menacing villain (and bald too!).

Two minor characters worth mentioning are Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau).  I really liked the unassuming character of Agent Coulson.  Once he got his chance to shine it was great.  On top of directing an outstanding movie, Favreau was also fun to see as Hogan.  In Daredevil he played “Foggy”, in Iron Man he played “Happy”.  Sounds like he’s collecting his own seven dwarfs cast of roles. 

The special effects in this movie were completely seamless!  It was very difficult to tell what was CGI and what was costume.  I’ve also been negligent in complimenting the script.  What a well put together story with lots of action, drama, and humor!  If the script had been lousy, these great actors and fantastic special effects wouldn’t have been able to save it.  I hope they get the same script writers back for Iron Man 2!  I’m looking forward to the “Demon in a Bottle” storyline.  Finally, check out the deleted scenes on the DVD… there is more on the Stark Industries airplane with the sexy stewardesses!

To sum up, “Iron Man” truly is an invincible movie!

After watching the movie again, it makes me want to bust out some of my old Iron Man comics.  I was a pretty big fan of ole shellhead back in the day.  I have over 130 issues of his comic; I collected pretty regularly from 1985-1987, 1992-1993, and 1995-2003.  My personal favorite era was the 1985-1987 stuff, which a lot of the movie was based on.  Just check out the cover to Iron Man #200 from 1985.  Awesome stuff!

Forget DARK KNIGHT… Forget HULK… Forget IRON MAN…

This is the superhero movie everyone SHOULD be talking about…. 

A recent post on my friend Erika’s blog, “I Don’t Read My Blog Either“, got me thinking about the character of Wonder Woman.  Quick aside before I get into WW, I gotta say that is a brilliant name for a blog!  Hats off to Erika on that!

Here we go… I don’t think very highly of Wonder Woman. There… I said it.  I know that as the predominate female superhero icon it’s politically correct to stand up for her.  Well, I don’t really feel there has been that much to stand up for in a long while.

I do like the core concept of Wonder Woman. However, I don’t really get excited when she shows up in a comic nowadays, and there are tremendous chunks of her back story I really couldn’t care less about.

Things I like about Wonder Woman

I love the old TV show with Lynda Carter.  I’ve liked certain periods of Wonder Woman’s comic.  Surprisingly, I enjoyed John Byrne’s run even though that particular run has the most convoluted continuity as he attempted to “fix” Wonder Woman’s history.  I love Wonder Woman in the Justice League cartoons.  I love that Wonder Woman is super-fly hot.  I love the rare occasions when she’s allowed to kick ass in the Justice League comic book.  I love her in “Kingdom Come”.

So ultimately, I do like the character of Wonder Woman.  I just don’t care for how she’s been developed in her own comic for the past few decades.

Wonder Woman’s Profitability

Wonder Woman is clearly DC Comics #3 character from a marketing point of view. Walk into Target any day of the week and she will have the most merchandising (right behind Superman & Batman).  So from that perspective, Wonder Woman is a success.

However, in regard to comic book sales she’s usually a poor performer.  The Wonder Woman series is always struggling to get readers. According to the September issue of Diamond Comics Previews, Wonder Woman was the 57th highest selling comic for the month of June 2008.  That makes her comic DC’s 13th highest selling title.  That puts her behind the Superman books, Batman books, JLA, JSA, Green Lantern books, the Titans books, and even the abysmal “Superman/Batman” book.  She barely beat Booster Gold and Batman & The Outsiders.  Not very impressive sales figures if you ask me for your #3 character.  And this is during a period when they’ve got comic book superstar Gail Simone writing the book.

Legend has it that if DC Comics ceases publication of the monthly Wonder Woman comic book, the rights of the character revert back to the creators estate.  This would explain why DC has continued to publish this comic without fail for so many years regardless of its profitability.

Character Positioning

In recent years, DC has been spinning Wonder Woman to be part of their “Trinity” of icons; Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.  To anyone who’s been reading DC Comics for while, this concept feels really forced and rings hollow.  I don’t like being hit over the head repeatedly that Wonder Woman is one of the pinnacles of the DC Universe and yet she doesn’t have the stories to back it up.  You look at Superman or Batman stories and fans can point to a handful of outstanding stories immediately (”Dark Knight Returns”, “Killing Joke”, “What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow”, “Man of Steel”, etc..).  Can Wonder Woman fans do the same? I know George Perez’s run is highly regarded, as well as Greg Rucka’s.  But were they really that great, or just better than anything anyone had done with the character before?  And can you point to a particular story (six issues or less) within that run that you could hand to a non-comic book person and have them be blown away?

Alicia Ashby over at Topless Robot really argues this point better than me, so here is a link to her post, “10 Reasons No One Cares About Wonder Woman”.

So DC wants Wonder Woman to be their #3 character, yet comic book sales are poor… what should they do? …

Rework the Comic Book Version of the Character

As I mentioned, I really couldn’t care less about the majority of Wonder Woman’s back story. I’ve been a reader of Wonder Woman at different points over the past 25 years. Even with collecting at various times, I still don’t care about much of her mythos.  I think one of the big hurdles is that her origin isn’t very approachable for an outsider.

I personally think DC would be better off re-booting her completely. Keep the look, keep the powers, keep the lasso, keep the warrior princess idea, keep Paradise Island, but dump everything else (i.e. the Greek mythology connection, twin-sister garbage with Donna Troy, time traveling mother who was in WWII, being created from clay, etc). If you don’t know about Donna Troy being Diana’s mirror duplicate, or Hippolyta’s time traveling trip to WWII, then you are better off for it.

DC should spend some time researching why exactly Wonder Woman merchandise sells so well.  Take that feedback and roll it into the character.  Do Wonder Woman lunchboxes sell because of her ties to Greek mythology?  I don’t think so.  Figure out the reasons for her success in merchandising, and make those the core concepts of the character in the comic book.  Ignore the rest of her back story and fill that in with new ideas that are approachable to new readers.

I’d be okay with some radical changes too. For example, if they made Wonder Woman native American instead of Greek, I’d be fine with that. The key is to stick to the core concepts of what makes the character popular and make the rest more approachable to new readers.

PS: I’m looking forward to the upcoming direct to DVD animated movie starring Wonder Woman.  I’m hoping they will take how she was in the Justice League cartoons (as well as “New Frontier”) and incorporate those bad ass traits.