Oops, I forgot Plastic Man: The comedy hero who still fights evil effectively enough to qualify as a “superhero”, but who’s primary intent is to be funny and absurd. Often a parody or a failed attempt at another archetype, the truest comedy hero can still be used with a straight face for more conventional superheroics. See also The Tick, The Legion of Substitute Heroes, The Mask.
I also thought of another iconic hero.
Robin- The sidekick is an odd archetype, as a sidekick hardly ever works without the mentor hero around, and thus rarely has a solo title and storylines. Indeed, the sidekick is often merely a junior version of the older hero, and used as a hostage by the tale’s villians. Still the sidekick provides an important role in superhero comics, and is undeniably powerful in its impact on popular culture. The sidekick stands in for teh reader. I could never be Batman, but I could be Robin. See also Tonto, Jimmy Olsen, Kitty Pryde.
I gotta call foul, here. You’re just splitting the hairs less finely than we are. It reminds me of that discussion about 'There are only 11 stories in the world." “Oh, yeah? I say there’re only 7!” “Really, gentlemen? In fact, there are only two!”
Ultimately, we boil it down so far as to say there’s only one heroic icon - the Hero. The Hero fights for humanity despite his/her personal problems.
But that’s zooming out way too far. And I think you’re doing the same by excluding the Occult Hero, and similar. IMO.
I think we’re basically in agreement here, actually. Although in one or two instances I ignore primacy in favor of characters whose very creation is historic in the first place.
Mmmm-mm. I think we might have to agree to disagree here. Almost every major superteam from the Avengers to Authority has at least one character who’s specially equipped to deal with magic, and VERTIGO has damned near built a whole imprint around it.
We aren’t in doubt the category exists, just who best exemplies it. I still say Luke Cage deserves the recognition since he was the archetype the others followed-- both at Marvel and DC — the first street fightin’, cussin’, oversexed macho man from the get-go and then tamed down. Woverine started off comparatively tame and got scuzzier. Punisher started off as a nutjob sniping jaywalkers and got deadlier. Because Luke Cage doesn’t go around killing every villain he runs across, he still seems slightly more heroic to me.
Well, at least we’re up to SIX categories.
Uhh… you DO realize if you insist on this last category you’re ignoring your own premise…? “I’m not talking about specific character traits, origins, or power sets, but grand core concepts that are universal among comics and easily recognized even outside of comics fandom.”
You’re probably being faceitious again, but you know doggone well not every female superhero fits the Wonder Woman mode.
Well, even if you don’t agree with my cunningly reasoned categorizations for Iron Man, the Flash and Green Lantern, the Spectre, the Spirit (who’s NOT, by any means, a Batman clone… I mean, really.) I think just talking out our theories of categorization has a lot of merit.
Is there some reason neither of us chose “Mutant” as a unique superhero/antihero archetype? You might be tempted to lump them in the “Other” category but I think their fight for survival and acceptance might be reason enough to put them in their own category. Charles Xavier would best fit this iconic mode.
Maybe I’m not sure what exactly we mean when we’re saying “icon” then.
Actually, based on what you said, I think I do need to reevaluate my stance. I’d actually go as far as to say there are four or myabe five iconic heroes. I think the Hulk is different enough from Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man to be counted as iconic, and certainly he has a place in our pop culture consciousness. I’d also possibly allow for Plastic Man, although that’s getting a little iffy based on how long he’s been out of the public eye (which I still consider an element of being an iconic hero).
I’m still going to have to say no to Wonder Woman though (which I don’t like to do, since she’s one of my favorite heroes). I really can’t think of anything she brings to the table that Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or the Hulk don’t besides being a woman, and, well, I don’t even think she’s a particularly positive example of a female hero either. And again, I think two strikes against her are that she’s been out of the public eye for so long and that her character right now is a huge mess. In the Golden or Silver ages, I’d have said she was iconic.
With Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Hulk, and Plastic Man, you’ve got the good cop hero, the bad cop hero, the reluctant, angsty hero, the monster, and the comedy hero. I think everyone else pretty much falls under those catagories or is a mixture of them.
I think the biggest problem with Wonder Woman as an iconic hero is that she was so obviously created to further a political agenda. Up until probably the Crisis, she was never really defined as a person. She was basically a package for feminist propaganda. The bracelets were originally conceived as being made out of the chains with which “men” bound the Amazons. Her powers, up until recently, seemed to be whatever the writer needed her to be able to do at any given moment. (Threading a needle underwater was cool, though). And the hairdo, the original Golden Age hairdo, was just atrocious.
If she had been created as an actual strong personality with a well-defined set of powers and modelled on either a historic or true mythical/legendary female warrior (like, oh, say, Bodaceia, and did I even spell that close to right?) instead of some nebulous idea of an Amazon created by a guy who didn’t seem to have all that great a handle on Greco-Roman mythology, well, she probably wouldn’t have even been created until the late 1960’s, but she would make it as an iconic hero based on something more than “she’s a girl”.
The Asbestos Mango, you just said what I think is wrong with counting Wonder Woman as “iconic” better than I could have myself. She’s not really even a character, she’s just kind of this empty vessel that writers fill with whatever they need to at a given time.
She can be an interesting character, but there’s nothing that really defines her. Certainly not in the way you can sum up Superman’s personality, or Batman’s, or Spider-Man’s. And I think that keeps her from being an icon, or at least for any other reason than being a girl.
Have you two read ANY modern Wonder Woman comics? The Patterson/Perez revamp? Ross and Dini’s “Truth?” Her Morrison-era JLA appearances? Crisis? Legends? KINGDOM COME? Trinity? The Lynda Carter TV show? The JL cartoons?
… I say yer both nurtz, Wonder Woman’s actual personality and powers have bumpkus to do with her status as an icon, and a ‘political agenda’ – empowering women! – is just as strong a motive for her creation as as Superman’s assimilationist/messiah complex and Plastic Man’s whimsy. If you want to rank her as somehow less than an icon than Supes, Bats, Spidey, etc. – Hey. Go ahead. That’s your perogative and opinion. To say that she was once iconic in the Golden and Silver Age and suddenly backpedal on that status in 2004…? To dismiss her entire backstory by saying, “she doesn’t bring anything new to the table,” and ignore her continuous 60 year publishing history by claiming “she’s been out of the public eye for so long” reveals an ignorance about the character that’s either willful or untutored. If you’re going to make claims like that, at least back them up.
EVERY fictional character is an empty vessel that writers fill. This is especially true of shared universe fictional characters of corporate comics like Marvel and DC, where it’s damned near impossible to have one creator be the sole contributer to a character’s publishing history.
Seriously. The only “problem” here with Wonder Woman is one you two seem to be making up yourselves.
Hey, Wonder Woman is one of my favorite heroes because of the potential she has when someone knows what he’s doing with her. As such, I’ve read a ton of Wonder Woman, including everything you mentioned (I think Trinity was a really crappy portrayal of her, btw; and Crisis? She got zapped and “killed” off-hand in one panel, which I think says something about her importance vs. Superman and Batman; and I think Morrison is a good example of a writer treating her as a generic powerhouse).
But even in all of those things, her persona is wildly inconsistent. Is she a politician or a superhero? Does she kill or doesn’t she? Okay, she has the political agenda of “empowering women”, but what exactly does that mean? How does she work toward it? Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn’t. Like I said, with Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk, you can make certain asumptions about the way they’re going to act and the things they’re going to stand for. Superman is going to be the boyscout, Batman is going to be the detective, Spider-Man is going to be angsty, Hulk is going to be angry, etc.
I’m not really sure you can say about Wonder Woman. She stands for feminism? Sort of, I guess, insofar as she’s a woman. And even if she does, I’m not really sure that the feminist hero gets a spot among the other icons. I don’t disagree that she’s an important character (I’d gladly place her on a platform right below that of “icon” along with characters like Captain America and Thor), but I don’t really think she’s an icon at this point. I guess you could make a case for her being an icon as the political superhero, but I’m not really sure that works either.
Yeah, but I don’t think a comic book really counts as being in the public eye these days. Heck, aside from an appearance in that 80’s Superman cartoon, Justice League is really the first time she’s made a major appearance in a non-comic medium since the Lynda Carter show. She’s not an obscure character or anything, but I also don’t think she’s recognizable to the extent that Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or the Hulk are (that’s also the reason I have a problem counting Plastic Man among the icons).
I might also add that the only reason she has her unbroken 60 year publishing history is because DC would have lost the rights to her character to Marston’s estate had they ceased publishing her book.
For the most part, she doesn’t. Most of the time she’s treated as little more than Superman With Boobs. DC likes to tout her as one of their “Big Three”, but in practice that’s rarely the case.
It’s not clear, reading this, whether you’re aware that Superman and the Spectre share a common creator/writer in Jerry Siegel, so some thematic overlap should be allowed. Insert “derivative” for “rip-off.”
Spectre’s status as an archetype doesn’rt come from the expansive nature of his power, but from his link with gory death every time he uses it. During his heyday, according to Jules Feiffer in The Great Comic Book Heroes, he couldn’t just put on a costume and go fight crime. He had to be murdered, every issue, every time he wanted to draw on his ghostly abilities. Not sure how he squared this with the Justice Society meeting schedules: “C’mon, Clancy, a quick shot to the head. I’ll be okay, I swear! Hey, I’d do it for you, man!”
shy guy. In Crisis, the original Wonder Woman was dispossessed by history, so the gods had her ascend to Olympus. Like Earth-2’s Superman, a special place was made in her honor before she disappeared into history. Earth-1’s Wonder Woman was devolved into clay and came back into the retconned DCU history months later.
Writers don’t know what to make of Wonder Woman: her iconic stance as the epitome of female empowerment, truth and the exquisite contradiction of being an Amazonian warrior for peace is so badly communicated that even her fans say stuff like, “I guess she stands for feminism.” IMHYUCO, the most consistent interpretation of Wonder Woman is her post-Crisis characterization in Waid’s KINGDOM COME and KINGDOM and to a lesser extent her own title. For her own inspirations, look to Lucy Lawless’ Xena; Princess Warrior and certain of Alan Moore’s interpretations of Promethea. You can also see Dr. Marston’s own take on his creation here.
You acknowledge that DC likes to tout her as one of the big three but rarely treats her that way. Granted, her sales simply do not reflect her legacy (neither does Supes’), but you can’t have it both ways. She’s a comic book icon, her company acknowledges she’s an icon: her fans, her public, are comic book readers, not Tv and movie fans. The phenomenon of superhero fans who don’t read superhero comics – the original source material – is a fairly recent one. You’re either in the public eye since 1942 or you aren’t. Continuous publication counts. New interpretations of the character outside the comics media is merely incidental.
DC Comics owns all rights to Wonder Woman. The wishes of Marston’s estate don’t factor.
I keep pointing out how Wonder Woman’s sex appeal and mythological history was something new to the table, as was her outsider perspective to ‘man’s world’ and her lasso of truth (and if you want the real truth, all that postwar bondage imagery) – your disregard for these innovations doesn’t invalidate them.
Krokodil. I’d like to claim I was at least vaguely aware of Jerry Siegel’s post-Superman comic book creations but in truth I was not thinking of that when I typed that earlier post. I was thinking of other derivative superheroes based on Superman (from Mighty Mouse to Supreme); of course, any given comic book creator has the right to attempt his own derivative characters, although doing so too often makes one seem like a hack
True, Earth-2’s WW did get better treatment. The fact remains that the purportedly important Earth-1 WW got all of a panel and a page of epilogue for her send-off.
So how exactly can she said to embody these values if she almost never exhibits them? I agree that she was well-written in Kingdom Come (although I don’t think anyone was well-written in Kingdom, which I think was garbage), but a single Elseworlds story seems to go against the trend of writers not having any idea what to do with her. Superman doesn’t just puportedly have a boyscout mentality, he actually exhibits those traits. Wonder Woman is supposedly a feminist, but aside from her being a woman, you wouldn’t know it most of the time.
Superman also carries, what, 4 titles regularly? WW has never had more than one.
As for DC claiming she’s an icon, well, that’s more of a marketing move than anything. If they didn’t tout her as one of their Big 3 every once in a while, you’d hardly know she was supposed to be that important (whereas they actively present Superman and Batman as almost holy figures).
But they used to. WW almost certainly would have been cancelled because of abysmal sales during the 1950’s had it not been for that little fiat.
So “sex appeal” is grounds for being an icon? I disagree. And if we’re looking for the sex appeal icon, why is it her and not, say, Phantom Lady?
And her mythological history? The mythology in her backstory is mostly incorrect in the first place and irrelevent in the second. If we’re looking for a mythological icon, why not Thor, who actually makes use of his mythological roots? Her outsider’s perspective I could maybe buy, but I don’t think it’s different enough from Superman’s to warrant her icon status.
And what really keeps me from seeing WW as an icon is, aside from the couple you mentioned and maybe a few more, she hasn’t really influened the creation of very many other heroes like her. Certainly not to the extent that Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man have. In fact, those three have even led to the creation of more female heroes than WW is responsible for. I mean, how many female heroes are really modeled after Wonder Woman in any way aside from skimpy outfits?
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I’d still keep 3, maybe 4 heroes as icon, with characters like Wonder Woman, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Green Lantern, etc. on another plane.
shy guy. Whoa, buddy. Before we agree to disagree, let me respond. You made some good points. I deserve rebuttal, yes…? Your statements can stand up to mine?
Please don’t hold up Thor as a good example of comic book mythology done well. Marvel’s treatment of the actual boorish, full-brearded, red-headed, flying goat-cart-travelling, married Thor of the Norse sagas–who did NOT speak pigdin Elizabethean English – and their own blond well-shaved boy is laughable. Her flawed mythology definitely isn’t irrelevant – the 80s revamp saw to that – but some writers choose to ignore it. Those changes aren’t any more weird than how Superman kept confronting survivors from Krypton in the 50s and 60s – suddenly “the last son of the doomed planet Krypton” was surrounded by his peers. Wonder Woman’s mythology isn’t any more incorrect than Superman’s psudeoscientific space origins, the likelihood of Captain America’s suspended animation actually working.
KINGDOM was in-continuity, in order to introduce Hypertime to the DCU, ths making KINGDOM COME indirectly revelvant.
There’s a correlation between being a top tier character and a superhero icon, but sales success isn’t one of it. It’s the seven behaviors I noted on page one. The comic book audience --histrically, adolescent boys – has NEVER supported a female character with concurrent ongoing titles… except maaaAAaybe Vampirella over at Harris Comics and the **Betty and Veronica ** permutations over at Archie. The real revelation is not that Wonder Woman hasn’t carried more than one title successfully, but is one of a few characters that has done so for almost 60 years.
Many superhero titles had flat sales in the 50s because of Fredric Wertham’s crusade against horror and gore comics, until the industry self-regulated and turned itself around. Even Batman was almost cancelled.
Whether you call it sex appeal, glamour, cheesecake or what have you, sex was (is) definitely an intergal part of her iconic status. Wonder Woman directly influenced the creation of these female characters: Marvel’s Valkrie. Power Princess of Marvel’s Squadron Supreme. The villianous Power Woman of DC’s Crime Syndicate. The DC 1,000,000 Wonder Woman of Justice Legion A. Astro City’s **Winged Victory ** and most probably Cleopatra I and II. With Supreme, Warrior Woman, aka Image/Awesome’s Glory. Also, Xena, Princess Warrior. Not to mention her former sidekicks Wonder Girl, Artemis and when Hippolyta took over Wonder Woman’s role. No, not as many as Batman and Superman but not an insignificant number, either. I might argue at least a kinship with the whole slew of cheesecake white jungle goddess women from the pulps of the late 30s and 40s… folks like Sheena, Nyoka, Bomba and Tarzan’s Jane. They stayed in the jungle; Wonder Woman ventured out into man’s world.
It’s a mistake to pick on one or two three character traits and then dismiss them as not being unique … it’s not the individual characterizations that are important, it’s the confluence of specific traits, together, at the beginning of the character’s history, that makes the character both archetypical and iconic.
… this is another point I differ with folks. I see the terms “Superhero Icon” and “Superhero Archetype” as being basically synonymous. There are MANY distinct superhero archetypes, and while I suppose they can be winnowed down to just four, it’s just more accurate when it’s around ten or so.
Oh, absolutely. We could even start a Wonder Woman thread if you want.
I think you make good points, although I’m going to have to disagree with one specifically: the number of heroes Wonder Woman has genuinely inspiried. It seems like many of those you mentioned (Power Princess, Wonder Woman 1,000,000, and Super Woman of the Crime Syndicate) are more or less supposed to be Wonder Woman. To me it seems like the difference between, say, Superman inspiring the similar yet distinct Captain Marvel vs. someone saying “we need an evil Superman” and creating Ultra Man or “this team is basically supposed to be the Justice League, so…” and creating Hyperion.
And I think this is where we just disagree. I don’t find her combination of traits / motivations behind making her / level of influence as enough to land her a spot among icons like Superman and Spider-Man. But important? Unique? Sure.
shy guy. We don’t need a Wonder Woman thread… I’m dead bored with the character myself, although I did collect the first three years of her revamp.
To your other point… obvious analogue characters are fair game. If those characters are selected as being in other companies’ versions of DCU’s Big Three, it tends to bolster my position that Wonder Woman is an icon, too. Consider also Zealot from Image’s WildC.A.T.S. and the unnamed female emissary from Warren Ellis’ PLANETARY #10.
Besides, you can never quite tell when a derivative character will get catch on and become a character all their own. Swamp Thing, Miracleman and TOP TEN’S The Seven Sentinels were incidental derivatives of other characters until Alan Moore got ahold of them.
(Of course you COULD point out there’s no equivalent to Wonder Woman in either Ellis’ or Millar’s The Authority, in which I’ll mumble and grumble and pissed you so slyly skewered my argument and then try my other tactic, which is to try to plausibly argue that Jenny Sparks is really an Amazon.)