^ Indeed :D
I wouldn’t mind experiencing some of that ‘Amazon mating play’
Especially from Diana ;D
Whenever anyone asks what the best part of writing Wonder Woman was, I get a little stumped. I knew it was a big deal to write THE female superhero, the archetypal badass female adventurer. I knew it would be tricky, I knew it would require a ton of planning and care.
But I didn’t know it would be so goddamn fun.
Hippolyta. Phillipus. Etta. The white apes. Theymiscira. Artemis. Alkyone. The Circle. Achilles. The Amazons. Dr. Psycho. Cheetah. Wonder Girl. Donna Troy.
It was a difficult, often frustrating assignment, and the readership is SO intense and hardcore that even minor perceived missteps were treated like the work of the devil.
But lord god, it was also so much FUN.
I loved working with those wonderful, amazing characters, playing with that mythology. And I think it is more female than almost any mainstream comic of the last couple decades. A lot of great male writers write wonderful female characters, and bless them all, but THIS Wonder Woman was going to deal with the real thing, the real female experience. And what that means, in terms of society. It was about sisterhood, motherhood, jealousy, empathy, birth, death, blood, pain, opression, loyalty, transformation, identity and joy.
Maybe the most fun I have ever had writing comics.
And the most fun, if I had to narrow it down, to write was the early days of Tom’s and Diana’s (sadly doomed) courtship. Tom was being inexplicably written as kind of a dick, and I didn’t understand why, so I tried to bridge that interpretation with his original one, and explain his recent dickery a little. But it was lovely to see what it would really mean for a fairly normal guy to try to date a princess/goddess/warrior/superhero. And Diana’s askew sense of humor and Tom’s plain speaking quality made that an absolute pleasure. When Diana comes to the hospital to announce that she is courting him, and later, when Hippolyta gives him her approval to date Diana, those are two of my favorite scenes I have ever written anywhere.
I miss a lot of characters I don’t write any longer, but to this day, it’s tough to see a great Wonder Woman drawing and not want to go back and write her again.
Heartwarming Tearjerker of the Day: Four-year-old comic book fan Anthony Smith is deaf in his right ear and has hearing damage in his left. He also refused to wear his hearing aid (which he calls “Blue Ear” because it is blue), because “superheroes don’t wear hearing aids.” So in a long-shot attempt to help her son, Anthony’s mom emailed Marvel for ideas.
“She didn’t know a specific person to write to here at Marvel, and even figured it might get caught in our spam filters, but she sent it in anyway, because that’s the kind of great parent Christina is,” said Marvel editor Bill Rosemann. “And it was her inspiring effort to help her son that touched so many of us here. As a fellow parent of a toddler, I can understand where she’s coming from, so I forwarded the email around the rest of Editorial, asking what we could do to help, and like when Cap yells, ‘Avengers Assemble,’ the gang leapt into action.”
Not only did Anthony receive an image of the superhero Hawkeye, who lost 80 percent of his hearing back in the ’80s and wore hearing aids — Anthony also received a drawing, by Nelson Ribeiro in Collected Editions, of a brand-new superhero: “Blue Ear.”
Now, with his hearing aid back in, Anthony is able to “fight battles and help people.” His preschool, for hearing-impaired kids, recently hosted a superhero week to inspire the students to overcome their limitations.
DON’T miss the video. It’s the best thing you’ll see all day.
[death+taxes / robot6]
A gay marriage, a disabled superhero, AND the Avengers all in the same month? Marvel must have some real-life superheroes on the payroll.
(via metaneira)