Wonder Woman Spoilers Within...

Wonder Woman is so good. It might be the best DC movie of all time. Yes, I know it’s nerdy sacrilege to down talk how good The Dark Knight is, but Wonder Woman represents a lot more - and I’m not just talking about feminism, I’m talking about the potential for the DC universe and comic book movies as a whole.

Let’s break down what makes Wonder Woman good. First, Gal Gadot. Gal Gadot is Diana Prince in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. Gal Gadot was a good actress before this, if a little underrated. But as Wonder Woman, she hits a stride, she carries herself like Diana, talks like Diana, fights, walks, etc. just like you can imagine Wonder Woman doing. Gal Gadot is gentle, loving, compassionate but at the same time she is hard, assertive and fierce. Gal Gadot makes Wonder Woman jump off the screen.

Wonder Woman also stands for something. This goes back to a previous blog post where I discuss what superheroes are lacking these days; standing for something. I truly feel like Wonder Woman is a blessing because it teaches us that you can be fierce, hard but also loving and compassionate. Wonder Woman is a ferocious soldier, but she doesn’t fight for a war because she is entrenched in patriotism or loyalty to one side or the other; she has no concern of what her actions will do to the economy, she doesn’t care if the British win. She cares that the good guys win.

Patty Jenkins, director of Wonder Woman, also achieves a teaching that George R. R. Martin has been trying to say since 1996. Martin has gone on record as saying that A Song of Ice and Fire was written as a way to convey that evil is done through men - not some mysterious and all powerful dark lord. Wonder Woman has a beautiful and powerful moment between Gadot and the male lead discussing the choices of men. Perhaps there is no God of War influencing men and women, leading the armies and killing innocent. Perhaps men are inherently evil. Diana is so shook by this she refuses to believe. It’s later revealed that Ares is involved, but only as an accomplice; and to the British, not the Germans - showing Diana that men are the problem. And it’s done in such an elegant and powerful way that it leaves you wondering; if Ares was involved, why are there wars after World War 1?

Finally, and this may be a bit more technical, is that Wonder Woman is the first literary superhero movie that makes sense. What does that mean? In the world of entertainment, a lot of people perceive pieces of media as either commercial or as literary. Commercial pieces are made to appeal to as many audience members as possible, have serious moments, teachable moments, laughing moments, fighting moments - and they’re all tailored to a particular market. It’s made to pump out and make money. Think about James Patterson novels, the “next big” series that you’ll forget in five years or most comic books now.

The literary, on the other hand, are made slowly. With time and care. They usually cater to a specific market, teach a specific thing or have a specific meaning. Good literary writers can write about a specific thing and make it feel universal. This is largely the difference between the Marvel and DC films. Most of the Marvel films feel very commercial (that’s not a bad thing, just a different thing) while the DC films tried so hard to be literary - until now.

Congratulations Gal Gadot, Patty Jenkins and the rest of the cast and crew that worked on Wonder Woman. I look forward to seeing what comes next.

Scope, or How Little Should My Story Be?

Stories have a problem nowadays of being too big. This isn’t, inherently, a bad thing - but everyone is obsessed with being much bigger than they need to. Often, stories that are smaller in scope connect with people better and have a much heavier impact.

The biggest modern culprit of being “too big” is Doctor Who. The scope of the show has gone from making an audience care about a time-traveling alien with two hearts to throwing the pacifist into wars where the very foundation of all times and all realities are the stakes. The problem is that since it’s a successful show, and thus a successful product, the producers keep having to face the fact that those stakes need to be played up.

Upping the stakes is a common, and effective, way to keep an audience engaged from episode-to-episode. But there’s a point (all times and all realities, seriously?) where the stakes get too big, and your original stakes get lost. The purpose of the story, and the characters, get lost. Other stories have a plan to control or maintain their scope. Take the Marvel Cinematic Universe for example. Phase One was a great culmination of stakes. All the players had their own personal stories; Captain America and the Red Skull, Iron Man faced an enemy in his father’s company, and In Iron Man 2 dealt with some of the fallout from that and Thor faced his father, his maturity and his brother. Then we get to Avengers where they’re brought together to fight bits and pieces of all three of those things.

But the MCU faltered a bit at the end of Phase Two with Age of Ultron. One of the biggest problems in that movie is that it feels out of place, and the reason why is because it has a scope problem. Ultron isn’t really more dangerous or threatening in the movies. He doesn’t really bring anything more to the table. In fact, many of the standalone Phase Two movies are bigger in scope (Thor: Dark World) than Age of Ultron and even those movies suffer from that because the scope is off-kilter.

So far, Phase Three has wound those problems up. Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 are both fairly standalone, so their scope doesn’t necessarily hurt the rest of the MCU (the exception being the comparison of the first Guardians to the second). Even Captain America: Civil War was a downscaled scope, significantly more of a personal story than an Earth-threatening apocalypse - but that works because it integrated the scope of its surroundings. For as personal and small of a story as Civil War is, it makes sense to the characters and to the setting. It doesn’t need to be a huge monstrous threat to be a good story.

The final scope that I’m going to talk about is the unclear scope. For as many scope problems as Doctor Who has, the most important part of scope is the expectation. One of my favorite shows of all time, Lost, suffers from this. Many people had huge expectations about answers, mysteries, time travel, Smoke Monsters, etc. because that’s what the show presented. But the reality is that Lost is a show about people and their relationships. Yes, strange, crazy stuff happens to them - but the story isn’t about the stuff, it’s about the people.

People expected, and wanted, the scope to be massive and life-shattering, Earth-threatening and stuff like that. And, yes, they had that - but that wasn’t the story they were trying to tell.

Scope should be looked at as small, instead of large. How small can you make it while still having a deep impact? If you need a large scope for the story you’re trying to tell, the villain you’re trying to make real, or the characters you’re trying to relate - then do it. But try not to have a big scope for the sake of having a big scope.

Superheros And What They Stand For...

Superheroes used to stand for something. That isn’t to say that heroes don’t mean anything anymore, or that they don’t stand for anything. But it’s hidden under layers of marketing, 50+ years of continuity and an attempt to sell nostalgia instead of a true attempt to stand for something. Superheroes are often glorified commercialization now.

A recent conversation with another writer got me to thinking about what I loved about comics and superheroes as a kid and whether or not the fundamental joy is still there. And if it isn’t, why do I throw $30 or more a week at my local comic store (other than it being an awesome store)?

I like reading about superheroes because I like being a part of something. A lot of the stuff that I read is discussed with like minded individuals. I interact with lots of comic fans at my work (both co-workers and people I do business with), and so the conversations are great. I also belong to several comic-themed subreddits. I remember during Blackest Night there was so much conversation Wednesday nights and Thursdays when I was a kid after the comics hit the shelf. It was amazing to feel like you were part of something. This is the same joy I got from watching Lost live.

On top of that, a lot of the characters were relatable and allowed me to feel super by putting myself in their shoes. This is great for me, but a lot of people don’t feel this one is accurate. This is definitely a personal truth for me, and I recognize it’s not a universal truth. Clearly I can’t relate exactly to a space alien who’s invincible and recharges with the sun, but I did relate to growing up in a small town and learning a lot morals the same way that Clark did.

Most importantly, superheroes used to be deeper in the same way things like A Series of Unfortunate Events and Lost are deeper. On the surface, they’re very commercial products meant to sell their brand, just like comics. But they were always deeper. Lost isn’t just about this island with great mysteries and time travel and polar bears. Those are elements that help tell a story about a dozen broken people who get a second chance and how they deal with being put on an island. Just like Superman isn’t about an invincible man flying around the world beating up bad guys with no problem - Superman is about a man who struggles with his morals constantly, who tries to be a beacon of hope in a shitty world. Yea, Lex Luthor is a genius mastermind with a power suit and they have some good fights. But Lex Luthor is also a morally corrupt selfish politician who tries to manipulate people to get his way - that’s why he’s a good villain.

And that’s what a lot of comics now have lost. With 50+ years of continuity and storytelling, comic publishers are looking for hooks to sell characters that have been wrung dry. This means getting away from the moralistic tellings of old comic books and trying whatever’s new or “flashy”. And that creates a problem. If in your first arc the big threat is to the city, then your next arc has to be bigger - the thought is that if the stakes aren’t higher than your story isn’t growing. Eventually, you get to what I call the Doctor Who fallacy where your threat is so big it’s kind of ridiculous.

The reality is that a lot of the best comic stories are personal, or have an underlying moral or point instead of just saying “every timeline is at risk if we don’t X”!

I could go on about this, but instead this is where I’m going to talk about my next book. Right now I’m calling it Firestarter and it’s the start of a Young Adult Superhero series. The first draft is about halfway done. There’s a lot of superhero ideas still out there, and this series is going to capture a lot of those ideas while pairing them with interesting, modern themes that will hopefully reach a new generation of superhero fans!