Wonder Woman and friends

Thanks to photo chutney for the picture of Wonder Woman and one of her "friends."

"We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead."

I've been consciously avoiding talking about the Jeff Robinov debacle and how it does or doesn't affect a possible Wonder Woman movie. If you don't know about it, Nikki Finke -- who broke the story -- has the details. Essentially though, Warner Brothers' President of Production Robinov allegedly made a statement that "we are no longer doing movies with women in the lead." Warner Brothers has denied that he made the statement, but it's led folks to speculate about whether it's not a true statement in practicality, even if it's not a written policy.

The reason I've been avoiding it because I don't like to speculate about that kind of thing. I'm all for other people doing it -- in fact, I find that kind of fascinating -- but I don't enjoy it myself. It just gets me ticked about stuff that may or may not be real and I like my blood pressure where it is. If Robinov did say it, of course it's stupid and he should be appropriately disciplined. If he didn't say it... well, I think a close eye still needs to be kept on not only Warner Brothers, but all the Hollywood studios to see what kind of female-led movies they're coming out with. Not a Big Brother kind of eye, but an Interested Consumer kind of eye.

None of this is new though. In fact, I already blogged about it four months ago. The only reason I'm bringing it up again is that the discussion around it has now become a news item (or at least it was two weeks ago, which is how far behind I am in my blog reading). Even the angle on how it affects a potential Wonder Woman movie is a moot point. Even if Warner Brothers was a bastion of feminist movie making, it still follows that the development of the beleaguered Wonder Woman movie will be affected by audience reaction to Wonder Woman in the Justice League movie. I don't see that Robinov's views or WB's policies are going to change that.

Wonder Woman casting news rumors

The latest names thrown into consideration for the role of Wonder Woman are Christina Milian (who will appear on an upcoming episode of Smallville) and Shannyn Sossamon (Moonlight). I'm not fond of either choice from a visual standpoint. Milian has a young, cutesy look that I don't think is appropriate; Sossamon looks too frail. Wonder Woman needs to look like she can kick my ass.

Mahfood's Wonder Woman

Which may be a large reason why I'm not especially fond of Jim Mahfood's interpretation of Wonder Woman for the Wonder Woman Day auction. I love the confidence she displays in the piece, but she doesn't look physically powerful enough. Wonder Woman isn't just a confident woman. She's an Amazon.

But back to casting: Emily Deschanel as Wonder Woman?

Not really, but it looks like the star of Bones is a fan.

Street reaction to Wonder Woman

Valerie D’Orazio, another fan, proves how iconic Wonder Woman is.

Who is Wonder Woman?

Amy Reads didn't have to think as hard as I did about who Wonder Woman is; she knew it all along: "I never felt the need to ask, 'Who Is Wonder Woman?' because I already knew. She was us all. She is me, this Girl-Child turned Woman, this once-wearer of secret identity under banal school uniform. Wonder Woman is, above all else, the potential for greatness."

"Canary needs to learn how to lead."

Changing the subject to Black Canary, Silver Bullet ran an interview with Justice League of America writer Dwayne McDuffie in which McDuffie talked about Canary's leadership ability. I can't read the Silver Bullet site at work for some reason, so I found out about the interview via the CBR message board. I'll let you read his comments for yourself, but I'm impressed (though not surprised) that McDuffie's spent some time thinking about Canary as the leader and how that might work out. I'm looking forward to seeing his thoughts played out in the series.

"'…if I could just…if I could just…there!' Aaaaaand stab." (Green Arrow/Black Canary SPOILERS)

I'm not a Judd Winick fan, much less an apologist for him, but I actually buy his explanation for why Canary stabbed Green Arrow in the throat rather than use a non-lethal tactic. Yes, his Star Wars analogy is lame and yes, his point is that he essentially had to fudge the story to make it work, but I think that his explanation holds up. Especially when you consider that Canary didn't actually believe it was Ollie in the first place.

I also notice that Winick's "Of course we weren't going to really kill Ollie" speech possibly sheds some light on his statement a while back that they were considering "killing" off Black Canary. A real death for either character doesn't make sense. Ollie was just recently resurrected and, figuratively speaking, so was Canary (thanks to Gail Simone and others). Even though Winick doesn't mention it in his explanation, it's not hard to connect the dots and figure out that the original plan was for Black Canary to be kidnapped by the Amazons and have Ollie go looking for her. And while I think it would be really cool that the Amazons wanted Black Canary, having her search for a kidnapped and captive Ollie is by far the more interesting story.