How to Bring Your Wonder Boy up Gay

The name ‘Wonder Boy’ is one suspiciously absent from the current comic book world. Wonder Woman has never had a young male sidekick, and in light of the families of her respective DC trinity associates, that fact is curious in its conspicuousness. For both Batman and Superman, there is a recognisably distinct family of characters, from both sides of the gender spectrum, sharing panel time, and often their own titles, with their patrons.

Wonder Woman’s family, by contrast, has primarily been a female-only space. Along with the two Wonder Girls, fellow Wonder Women Hippolyta and Artemis, as well as Nubia, have been touted at times as members of the Wonder Family. Attempts to incorporate men into the adventuring cast of the Wonder Woman title are often hampered by their status as love interests. So, why no Wonder Boy?

Is it because of gender discomfort? By this I am referring to the gender connotations that having a young male hero inspired by a female icon like Wonder Woman might generate. In the current masculinist culture of comics in general, it is easy to see how a Wonder Boy character would be picked on for being the male sidekick of a female superhero. Yet all around the DCU, young women have and are taking up arms in the name of their male icons. Supergirl, Batgirl, Miss Martian, Speedy, Aquagirl…all of them have been at times accepted as legitimate heroines without questions to their femininity. Clearly we are comfortable with female interpretations of what were started as male traditions (though not in all cases, as Stephanie as Robin stands to prove), yet I am not sure the same would be the case for a Wonder Boy.

The recent introduction of a Power Boy is one of the only examples I can think of where a Heroine’s title has been taken and applied to a male, yet even there the urgency with which he has been disassociated from Power Girl as a namesake, and also turned into an obsessive and abusive ‘himbo’ is a worrying example for how seriously male interpretations of female traditions might be taken in the DCU. And the fact that Karen is herself a take on the Supergirl character as derived from Superman would pretty much undermine Power Boy as an example anyway. Which leaves us with…not very much.

The problem here isn’t that a Wonder Boy would be necessarily effeminate because he had a female namesake, but because it’s imaginable people would joke about it anyway, both within the text and outside it. I can just see the whispering during his first outing with the Teen Titans, or the questions about whether he’d wear a tiara too…And moreover, I wouldn’t place the line at being a questioning of his masculinity, but also his sexuality. I daresay a Wonder Boy wouldn’t just be the focus for joke about femininity, but for homosexuality as well. The way in which we live in a culture that still predominantly views gender and sexuality as collapsible categories makes it inevitable that expectations about femininity will become linked to the desire for men as a love-object, and vice versa. If Wonder Boy were questioned about his masculinity, questions about his sexuality would go hand in hand. It’s infuriating, but I daresay an annoying truth. Moreover, Wonder Woman’s status as something of a ‘gay icon’, while seemingly free from affecting her female co-stars, is something that I would hazard a guess would come to affect the attitudes towards a Wonder Boy.

Here’s the rub for me: what would be the problem if Wonder Boy were effeminate? And moreover, what if he was gay as well as effeminate. Would that be a big problem?

In an article I was reading the other day to which this post owes its title, Eve Sedgwick looks at how the image of the young effeminate male has become the spectre of the adult gay rights movement. Consistently in gay and pro-gay literature, there is a cultural emphasis and value placed on the gay male who isn’t feminine, who is masculine and takes part in a typically ‘masculine’ ontology. This move is important because it seeks to debunk the supposed link between sexuality and gender by maintaining that it is possible to be masculine and still desire men. The downside in that move, and the placing of value on this breaking of stereotypes is that the effeminate gay man becomes marginal within an already marginalized group. In psychological literature, where homosexuality has been removed from the DSM as an example of mental disorder, Sedgwick notes how there is still an apparent need to identify young male femininity as ‘Gender Disorder’. While various aspects of society have been able to move forward with regards to an open view of sexualities, the transgression of gender lines still seems to evoke discomfort, and returns to speak about what is ‘natural’.

Taking it back to Wonder Boy, if we were to introduce a Wonder Boy who is masculine and heterosexual, we would do a good job of debunking the presumed link between gender and sexuality, but we would also perpetuate the value judgement that relegates femininity in males to being an example of disorder. Because it is such a predictable outcome that a Wonder Boy would be a prime subject for questions about his sexuality and his masculinity, any attempts to contradict a stereotype would have the adverse affect of reinforcing the stereotype as something we fear.

Generally, whether or not a Wonder Boy is a big manly man or not, and whether or not he desires men, women, both or none, isn’t something that would usually concern me. However, since Jimenez introduced the character of Bobby Barnes into the Wonder Woman mythos, a character who was then not only ignored from any future issues but also met a great deal of fan scorn, I’ve been left mulling over the concept of a ‘Wonder Boy’ for some time.

For those who weren’t around for issue 188 of Jimenez’ run on Wonder Woman, Bobby Barnes was introduced as the nephew of Diana’s then love-interest Trevor, and was a young African American boy who idolised Wonder Woman and was blown away to finally meet her, receive an honorary ‘Wonder Boy’ t-shirt, and be invited to Themyscira where he could be seen sharing his panel position with Cassie as Wonder Girl. The potential for taking this optimistic young boy further in the Wonder Woman mythos and actually making him a real Wonder Boy was hampered by the fact that his uncle was killed off in the very next story-arc after Jimenez’ departure. Yet the potential for conflict between Bobby and Diana over Trevor’s death seems like a curious dropping of the ball as far as creating an interesting Wonder Boy character. Bobby could easily have returned as a newly empowered Wonder Boy to take issue with his uncle’s death, or perhaps to honour it by fighting by Diana’s side.

In any case, Bobby was forgotten from his one-issue appearance, though not without some conflict on the DC message boards. The issue of Bobby’s debut was also Jimenez’ final issue, and was a tribute to Lynda Carter. Jimenez has always been open about being a young gay man inspired by Carter’s on-screen superheroics, and how important watching the show had been for him. As a result, the strong reactions against his work, and this issue in particular, were often hard to distinguish from the general homophobia he could often receive on the message boards. Fans picked on the issue for being action-lite, and for Diana’s radical amount of costume changes throughout. It was pretty, optimistic, and some might say a little thin on content, but in the spirit of the show it honoured, it was a fun issue. Nevertheless, the readers came out in force to chastise Jimenez for fulfilling his childhood fantasies on the page at best, and promoting some kind of ‘gay aesthetic’ at worst. Attacks on the content of the issue were a thin veil for some of the homophobic abuse levelled at Bobby as a projection of Jimenez within the text, and gave a good indication for the kinds of controversy I feel writing a potentially gay Wonder Boy could arouse. The example of Jimenez’ introduction of Bobby provides another problem with the investments of a Wonder Boy; the idea that the character might become a vehicle for the politics of his creator, or will be accused as such.

As with the issues discussed earlier concerning Wonder Boy’s masculinity and sexuality, there is an almost inevitably political component to introducing a young man into the Wonder Woman mythos, one that would be difficult to avoid for any writer at the helm. If Wonder Woman is till to be considered a feminist symbol or icon, does that apply to her protégé’s, and would that include a Wonder Boy? If the double-w has become a symbol of Amazonian heritage and courage, can a man wear it and what are the connotations if so? Does DC have the current creativity and subtlety to explore those issues without resorting to stereotype; to introduce a male character with a female mentor and primary companions, without resorting to stereotypical tropes? Would the avoidance of stereotype simple reinforce them anyway? The questions I have raised above, along with the rest of this discussion, are just examples of the kind that could take place. Yet despite the hotbed of connotation, I am even more inspired that a Wonder Boy is something the Wonder Woman mythos needs, possibly because of the symbolic implications his absence currently represents.

Any thoughts?

On dying Amazons

With Amazons Attack! just around the corner, I can’t help but find myself thinking back across their Post Crisis history, specifically in terms of their interactions with the rest of the DCU, but also in terms of their more significant storylines within the Wonder Woman title. Wherever the Amazons have appeared in significant numbers in the past, it has been in the context of war, of suffering, of tragedy, and predictably with a high body count. I don’t mean that to sound flippant, in fact I find it disturbing just how often in the past we have been treated to images of hundreds of dignified, strong, intelligent and noble women being slaughtered either by each other or at the hands of the villains of the day. When I see this, it is compounded by the nameless way they have are treated, and also by the way the story of their tragedy has been extended to include yet another degradation. It begs me to ponder; do the Amazons have to die to be interesting? Do they have to die in order to appear outside of the Wonder Woman title, and what does that say for their comparative relationship with ‘Man’s World’? What does this all indicate for representations of women in comic books (when whole nations of them have to die frequently, gratuitously, and sometimes without any particular reason in order to be included in a major storyline)? And perhaps most importantly, will Amazons Attack! carry on that trend? Back when I was a frequent poster on the DC Message Boards there was always frequent discussion on just how many times you can massacre a race of women that has never numbered over more than a few thousand, and still justify that it isn’t gratuitous. Lets have a bit of a history lesson to assess why that discussion has occurred.

Back in War of the Gods, one of the few company crossovers to feature the Amazons to any significant degree, Hippolyta takes a delegation of Amazons on a world tour; their first exchange with the outside world in centuries. During the storyline Circe manages to manipulate their rivals, the Bana Mighdall Amazons into framing the Themyscirans for murder, and also turns Hippolyta into Shim’Tar. During the crossover, a few Amazons die during the conflict, and their relationship with the outside world is damaged by the incident. At the time I remember being irked by the whole thing, most particularly because of the tragic resonance it achieved in the context of their historical suffering at the hands of Herakles. Were I to know it would only be the beginning of a trend, I may have despaired even more.

Before appearing outside of the Wonder Woman title again, the Amazons went through a number of internal conflicts, struggles and invasions, in the space of only a few years at a time. In one of them, Circe yet again decided to manipulate the Bana Mighdall Amazons by sending them to Themyscira to claim the island as their own and then transporting all of the Amazons to a demon dimension where they were forced to band together in their struggle to survive.

It intrigues me here that not only are the Amazons subject to more suffering, but that Circe becomes the symbol of that suffering. I wonder to what extent this trend of tragedy might have been more noticeable had she been a male villain. In fact, during their tenure, other significant Amazon storylines involve them being manipulated by female powers, including Eris and Ariadne. Does the fact that the villains are women make the Amazons’ gratuitous miseries any less so? And do so many really have to die to get panel time?

In their next significant appearance, the Amazons are invaded by Darkseid who invades them purely as an aside in his quest for Godly power. Even the resolution of the conflict revolves around Diana’s persuading him to leave. This is another unfortunate aside in the situation of the Amazons; that they fail to appear in a context outside of Diana, and act as a blank slate for her suffering as well as their own. The body count at the end of this event is incredible, if we’re to go by the art.

Contextually, this particular event is quintessential for what makes me uncomfortable about the kinds of stories the Amazons are included in. It is John Byrne’s introductory arc, and so anything that plays out here is marred by the fact that it is important for him to make a big impression. Indeed, what makes a bigger impression than killing lots of Amazons in a conflict that has nothing to do with them? It’s gratuitous, and what’s more, it’s an event that bears no relevance to future storytelling until Jimenez uses it years later to provide his own massacre of the Amazons with resonance. More infuriating, from what I can remember, the Amazons during Byrne’s story are relatively nameless, identical and in the end ultimately void of anything composing personality, in terms of art as well as writing. The event reeks of shock-value, and provides further material to indicate the Amazons as nothing but cannon fodder in a war fought between Diana and her foes.

The penchant for big Amazonian battles gets picked up again much later with Jimenez’ run on the title, where he manages to massacre them once, and then kill off a few more later. Firstly, we have the Civil War during which the two Amazonian tribes come to blows over tensions exaggerated by Ariadne’s manipulation. A hell of a lot of Amazons die here, and their conflict is resolved with Hippolyta’s abdication and abolition of their monarchy. What matters more with this story, other than the now familiar body count, is that President Lex Luthor uses it to undermine their standing as a peaceful nation in the face of the UN, and Diana’s mission in general. It is a very well written yet horribly annoying plot point that helps to redraw that line between the Amazons and the outside world.


Jimenez follows this up by having the Amazons fight on the side of mankind against Imperiex during Our Worlds At War. In order for the Amazons to appear in this company crossover, they apparently had to barter quite a lot. Not only does Hippolyta die, but she is the only one to do so during the storyline who isn’t given a resurrection at a later date. To add insult to injury, Themyscira is completely decimated during the event, the Amazons are forced to fight alongside Darkseid, and then their sacrifices achieve little panel time other than in the Wonder Woman title anyway. And if you thought that at least this would cement their future relationships with the outside world, you would be sadly wrong. In fact you could, at this point, be forgiven for thinking DC editorial sees it’s Amazons as nothing more than an apparently exponential nation of corpses.


To overcome this, Jimenez makes an important move to representing the Amazons in a context that a) isn’t about war, death or suffering, and b) places them firmly in the DCU in a context which is cooperative, rather than one of necessary difference. He reintroduced them after OWAW with a newly replenished, futuristic, blessed, floating Themyscira (lovingly and patronisingly referred to on the message boards at the time as ‘My Little Pony island’, or the Themysciran Archipelago). This new island paradise was opened to the world as a University for cultural exchange, not just with Man’s World, but across dimensions and worlds. The rebuilding had bonded together the Themysciran and Bana Mighdall Amazons into one nation, represented by Artemis’ and Phillipus’ relatively (if not officially) joint standing as their representatives to the outside world. It was a good move in trying to provide a situation where the Amazons could appear in other comic books without having Wonder Woman attached to them, or marching in line ready for war. Had this particular progression been taken seriously, and applied in the DCU, the theme of tragedy might have been laid to rest, and provided for more varied stories concerning the Amazons, and their place in the world of Man.

But alas, not everyone agreed with that idea, and the Amazons failed to be included outside the Wonder Woman title, and quickly became subject to more massacring.

As soon as Jimenez left, Simonson decided to kill more Amazons in a confusing conflict with something called ‘The Shattered God’ and a Roman Goddess. Again, the Amazons actually play little part in the story other than as targets for a conflict that actually has nothing to do with them, and is certainly not resolved by them. Loeb does the same in his Superman/Batman arc, where the reintroduced Supergirl’s arrival is commemorated by having an army of Doomsday clones attack Themyscira, and the death of Harbinger.


Most recently, Rucka came on board and, despite being one of my favourite Wonder Woman runs, made decisions that further cemented the ‘dead-Amazon’ syndrome. Firstly, he kicked them out of the sky and into US territorial waters. The event put a quick stop to their status as a university of cultural exchange, as they became embroiled in political stalemate with the military surrounding the island. Any concessions concerning previous battles fought together, and any progress supposedly achieved by being a university was undermined by the suspicion they were still treated to by the outside world. Before resolving this, it appears constrictions of the Infinite Crisis company crossover took precedent. Diana’s killing of Max Lord rendered the Amazons the subject of scrutiny and distrust, as well as attack by the OMAC army who went about slaughtering them not just in the pages of Wonder Woman, but Infinite Crisis too. Though well-written, by now I have to say I had grown quite despairing at the sight of yet more Amazons brandishing arms at the sight of invasion, and dying in each others arms. It is only more of a testament to the trend that this conflict was not ended in triumph, but in retreat from the world altogether.

What is promising about Amazons Attack! is that, while it provides a continuation of the above storyline, it also already breaks some of the conventions of prior Amazon appearances. Firstly, it is a storyline that actually centres on them. It is a story that incorporates Diana in a central role, even crosses into the Wonder Woman title. But it is not about her, its about them. Secondly, they have become the invaders, they are going out to meet the outside world, rather than have it trample up the beach or over their philosophical space. Thirdly, it is a storyline touted as having a big impact on the DCU. The idea that the Amazons will be a part of that is a huge change from where they have been before.


Yet the question remains. Do the Amazons have to die to be interesting? Thus far the evidence from DC seems to be an unequivocal yes, and the ‘Lord of the Rings’ scale of the upcoming storyline lends itself to the idea that we may yet see more Amazons dying in each others arms. And I can’t help but wonder what message that conveys.

And I really wish they hadn’t been referred to as ‘sexy aliens’ in Pfeifer’s interview. For crying out loud…

any thoughts?

alex x


go here for an interview with series writer Will Pfeifer

and here for an interview with the series artist Pete Woods, as well as a look at some of the gorgeous art involved.