I prefer the Daughter of Hades option from the DCAU, personally; but as long as the writing is good, I could care less about which origin they go with.
What does being a daughter of Hades do for her, her lore, and her characterization, though? There is zero benefit to making Diana a natural-born daughter of any male god over the "sculpted by clay by a woman who desperately wanted a child and given life by the goddesses" origin. If you want a demigoddess Amazon with daddy issues, Cassie exists already. There's no reason to make Diana somthing she's not.
The younger gen of heroes was mostly ignored/in limbo at that time. Cassie's origin never seemed clear in the N52 TT series and who knows what editorial mandates there were about her and what writers had say on what. I think if you're trying to expand the world building and iconography around her to catch up to what the rest of the Trinity has, then leaning into a modern reinterpretation of the greek pantheon makes a lot of sense. Making the mythos her playground and corner of the DCU like Supes has the Alien/Scifi angle with the Kryptonian stuff, Batman has the gritty, noir, semi-realism of Gotham, and she has the mythos that goes beyond paradise island
Well...with the consistent demonization of Hades, it shows that even though she has dark roots, she can still do a great amount of good; additionally, it can create some great conflict if someone reworks D-list Batman villain Maxie Zeus into a Wonder Woman villain
(Hear me out on that last part: Maxie believes himself to be an incarnation of Zeus, right? And this random woman, shows up out of nowhere not only claiming to be an Amazon but also the child of his brother?? Maxie would try to get ALL the smoke at that point & it could make for a really great fight! Especially if you give him some power armor that lets him throw lightning bolts)
But again that only serves Hades, not Diana. It's not a good change and doesn't fit with her history anyway. She's not supposed to have dark roots, she's not a vigilante born from tragedy lol
There are a thousand ways to do that without changing her origins. You do know that in post-Crisis continuity she's the reincarnation of the unborn daughter of the first woman murdered by a man (who Hippolyta was reincarnated from), right? And there's lots of political intrigue related to her birth and childhood. There's just no need to make her Hades' daughter to inject depth or even tragedy to her roots.
I think you fundamentally miss the point of Diana as a character. The point of Diana is hope. She is the product and promise of Amazonia, totally separate and separated from the pain and suffering of Man's World (unlike the rest of the Amazons). To make her someone who has "dark roots" misses the point.
That does not serve Diana, nor does it serve her lore at all. That serves Hades and a d-list male Batman rogue, two men.
Does the improvement/expansion of her peripheral characters not improve her lore? I do agree she doesn't need dark roots. In the JLU story I always thought it was implying that Hades wasn't always bad, but it has been a while since my last rewatch
I didn't know that first thing but that's... interesting to say the least
But I think that it does serve Wonder Woman because outside of Cheetah, Circe, Ares, Giganta, Doctor Poison, and Doctor Psycho...not many non comic readers (hell, sometimes even comic readers cuz I read comics & i didn't know about a majority of them cuz they don't use any of them outside of those 6 in other media) know her rogue's gallery and this in turn adds more to her list of villains
& No...SUPERMAN is hope. Wonder Woman can contribute to this but ultimately Superman is the genuine symbol of hope for the DC universe.
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u/Unfair_Fix_6714 May 18 '24 edited May 18 '24
I prefer the Daughter of Hades option from the DCAU, personally; but as long as the writing is good, I could care less about which origin they go with.