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Curtis, Neil. "Wonder Woman’s symbolic death: On kinship and the politics of origins." Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 8. (2017): 307–20. Added by: joachim (7/8/17, 3:38 PM) |
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| Resource type: Journal Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2017.1279198 BibTeX citation key: Curtis2017 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Wonder Woman", Azzarello. Brian, Gender, Kulturpolitik, Superhero, USA Creators: Curtis Collection: Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics |
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This paper examines the wholesale rewriting of Wonder Woman’s origin story in a run written by Brian Azzarello that started in 2011 and finished in 2014. The new origin story made Diana the daughter of Zeus and did away with her matriarchal birth and lineage that was the cornerstone of the character. The paper argues that Wonder Woman was an explicitly feminist intervention from the beginning and that this piece of retroactive continuity completely undermines the political possibilities of Wonder Woman as a character. It also considers this move in light of the current context in superhero comics in which great advances have been made in the representation of gender and in the employment of women writers and artists. The paper concludes by arguing there is a tragic inevitability to Wonder Woman’s demise in that anything that truly threatens an alternative to patriarchy must in the end be tamed. Finally, the paper makes use of Greg Rucka’s Hiketeia to illustrate the problem of Wonder Woman representing an alternative law.
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