Tantrums & Tiaras....

Out of the three DC big guns Wonder Woman always get dealt the short straw. She is too often portrayed as just a female Superman. Apart from a few powers the two have very little in common.

Supes is the boy-scout super-hero, the font of all that is good and true to which all other heroes have to measure up. Batman is the vigilante doing what he has to keep his city safe, however ruthless it makes him look.

Diana, on the other hand, is an amazonian warrior princess. She's not even human technically, and she doesn't pretend to be. She isn't bound by the same rules of conduct as Supes and Bats. When writers play up this contrast we get to see why Diana was born to be one of the big guns!

Greg Rucka gives us this Diana in Wonder Woman #219. The Diana who's a warrior princess. The Diana who has fought countless bloody battles across countless centuries. The Diana who's not squeamish about jamming her thumbs into an enemies eyes when his heat vision starts pissing her off:

Try looking at my rack now pig!

Sure even here, she's still one of the good guys. When she's not trying to scoop out Superman's eyeballs she's trying to break him free of Max Lord's telepathic control.

For those that don't know this issue was part of the whole icky OMAC Project hoopla* (which wasn't so great). One time JLA benefactor Max Lord, has decided super-heroes suck and they should all be wiped out for the good of mankind. So he uses his spiffy new telepathic powers to make Supes throw a tantrum and sics him on Wonder Woman.

Throughout the fight Diana fends Superman off, trying not to hurt him as best she can. Until she gets bored. Big Blue repeatedly punching her in the face is getting irritating so she makes him stop:

Elton John's got nothing on me

That is cold. Not even Bats would have the balls to do that!

With Supes bleeding profusely from the neck Diana can focus all her attention on Max. Under the thrall of her golden lasso he tells her that the only way he'll release the Man of Steel from his control is over his dead body.

Diana's response - 'Okey Dokey':

It's was Diana's over-enthusiasm that lost that job at the chiropractor's office

This is the stuff that we should be seeing from Wonder Woman. An amazonian princess doesn't need to be playing by the rule's of man's world. She should be saving it despite itself - and if that means snapping a few necks here then that's just dandy.

Supes, Bats and co - should just be glad she, and that tiara of hers, are on their side!

* I'm still trying to repress the OMAC Project and the crazy things they did to Max Lord (wasn't he a cyborg one time?) but this issue I liked.