I actually am rather annoyed how SMALL her family is, even compared to Aquaman it’s rather small. I wish she had a more extended family, cause it seems to be her, and a Wonder girl. If even that. Someone can bring up Artemis and Nubia, with Nubia getting more of a push, and Donna and Cassie and Yara getting some spotlight but… it feels very tiny for a woman who should have a huge wonder family. Maybe not Batman or Flash big, but come on, she’s an equal to Superman and Batman. Her extended family DESERVES to be equal as well.
I am a fan of the wonder woman family even though some of the stories were trippy it seems in present day there is a new wonder woman family with two wonder girls and Donna troy. Yes I remember the mistake from the writer of teen titans did with taking wonder girl Donna troy thinking she was a separate entity by wonder woman 147 you would think there was a Donna troy so the writer of teen titans added her and Donna troy was born 😊 ps that meddling hipollyta all her fault btw bring back egg fu campaign begins here lol😅
Not a fan BUT... BUT BUT BUT... forgot where I read it but these impossible tales comes off the heels of Wonder Woman being accused of being lesbian propaganda from Seduction of the Innocent, so to reduce interactions between Wondy and other amazons (or any other woman period, but that is also bc Robert here isn't fond of the Holiday Girls) this is the scenario he came up with so she can have female-centric angle to her stories without encouraging homoeroticism. I don't remember the exact details of their argument but I thought this odd version of self-reliance being accidentally feministic is kinda interesting... even if the writing doesn't really deliver that for me.
Lol he just wrote whatever sometimes. He's got some great quotes about writing for 12 year olds. They're so flippant he compares comics and booze saying they're both disposable entertainment one for adults the other for kids.
@@ShadowWingTronix On Green Acres, Mr. Haney was the con artist salesman who would say literally anything...I wonder if somehow the two are connected, like maybe one of GA's writers knew some comic book people.
So Hippolyta basically invented "Deep Fakes". This reminds me of how the "Super-Sons" stories in the 1970s were eventually explained away as a computer simulation that Superman and Batman were running. For reasons. I think the take-away here is that Hippolyta desperately wanted more children, but apparently Aphrodite wasn't up to animating any more statues, so she had to take matters into her own hands.
I mean, we'd later find out she wasn't careful enough with one of the statues (the one for Nubia back when that was her origin) so Aphrodite probably wanted to see how well Hippolyta could raise the one she didn't lose.
NGL I knew of the "Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot adventures all being Diana led to Donna Troy" bit but I always presumed it was time travel shenanigans as the original context. Hearing the real context is far more convoluted and insane than I could've ever guessed lol
You know I didn't expect Donna Troy's whole existence to be based on that one time Wonder Woman's Mum used Ancient Amazon Photoshop to do a Fake Family Vlog during her prehistoric era trip... But that's Silver Age for you
@@Shamazya That show is a surprisingly great place to incorporate a lot of out there ideas. I'd love to see Hippolyta and Livewire get into a war for viewers.
Hippolyta sounds like the kind of woman who, if she didn't have Diana, would sit alone in a studio apartment, drinking tea and drawing herself into her favorite Cathy comic strips.
One of the weirdest things about the Wonder Woman/Girl/Tot trio is that all the younger versions know what their future will be. And Hippolyta is happy to have the younger versions know that in the future, Diana will be Wonder Woman. Yes, they have the magic sphere and can see the future. So, the younger versions dress in versions of Wonder Woman's costume. But the problem is... Wonder Woman's origin has Diana competing to become Wonder Woman, with Hippolyta forbidding Diana to compete. Even though both Hippolyta and Diana know that Diana will become Wonder Woman. They've already seen the future.
Is this still running on the golden age origin where hipolyta just shrugs when wonder woman unmasks? Like she might be worried but it's fate so she's fine with it. If that's the case I can see her not caring the younger versions know. I agree it makes little sense hence why later versions have hipolyta actually ve angry over it.
@@gregcourtney751 Yeah, pretty much although there's also a Golden Age story where Hippolyta in the past sees the future with Diana as Wonder Woman, so the origin of both Golden and Silver Age Wonder Woman makes little sense with these retcons.
Egg Fu was one of the most iconic villains of that era of the Wonder Woman title. I read those Silver Age comics when I was a kid, in the early to mid 60s. Of course, only later did I become aware of the casual racism of the characterization, but then again, Iron Man's foe The Mandarin displayed pretty much the same casual racism. Many titles did. Heck, some levels of racial distinction allowed Superman to kill people, as long as they weren't racially human, back in those days. I was challenged during the late 60s to confront those lessons in my own mind, and separate such fictions from my attitudes towards real people, but make no mistake, it was a challenge. Still is, with such things you always have to maintain some degree of vigilance.
I for one love this whole mess simply because of how fantastically mundane the explanation is. Anyone can write a time travel story, or have it end with "It was all a dream!" But you need some sort of mad genius to introduce the idea of editing film to create a story within a *non-film* medium. It reminds me of the scene in Spaceballs where they get a Spaceballs VHS tape in order to find out what happens next.
Supposedly, the Wonder Girl stories were what were keeping tge series afloat at the time. They may have also been what established the idea of Paradise Island as being Wonder Woman's "Metropolis" rather than her "Smallville". Because with all the Wonder Girl stories, Paradise Island seemed more established than any of the places Diana went in "Man's World". Regarding the "Impossible Tales" sisters, I think what made them feel more like sisters than the same character three times is they had such notably different personalities. Wonder Woman was mature and dignified. Wonder Girl was spunky and determiined. And Wonder Tot was a mischevious little scamp.
Completely ignoring what the last writer wrote (or acknowledging for the sole sake of saying “turns out that was bogus, THIS is the TRUE true story!) and making up your own stuff (continuity be darned) is truly a time-honoured Wonder Woman tradition.
Well most of this was Robert Kanigher who also edited. He didn't care how anything was written even his own stories. He was the worst writer she ever had.
Between Hippolyta's edited movie somehow changing reality, to the bit where the characters confront their creator and the possibility of dying if they're "retired", it'd be interesting to see a modern writer do a Grant Morrison-esque look back at this weirdo era.
11:47 I do want to note here, that in greek mythology hippolyta‘s fate was different in different stories. Her being killed by Heracles in the heat of a hera induced battle is just one version.
Poor Donna- she can't even successfully be removed from stories, she can't keep an origin, and she can't even keep her own backstory for herself. Remember how they killed off her ex, their baby son and her stepdaughter in a car accident? Well, they used the exact same plot for Jane Foster in Thor when they made her hold the hammer. Yes, her inconvenient ex and their toddling son went over a guardrail. No wonder that kid in Gamera wanted to prevent car accidents - in fiction, they're even deadlier!
Sadly part of the reason Donna gets so shuffled around is because.. Diana gets so shuffled around. They keep rebooting and "fixing" Diana and forgetting that she has a supporting cast, so when they do that.. they create ripples that cause Donna to be caught in.
One imagines that Hippolyta and Steve Trevor probably felt pretty safe during the "chopping block" scene in Kanigher's office, compared to the others who were also there.
The idea of Amazon island as a space outside of time where Diana experienced different periods of her life simultaneously while interacting with 2 versions of herself that she basically treats as sisters is sooooo trippy and fascinating. Like what are even the implications of being partly raise by literally yourself? how does your perception of yourself change when you’re also your own older and younger sibling? What is it like to have different memories of the same events from 3 different perspectives?? Like imagine Wonder Girl genuinely liking Wingboy or Merboy while having the knowledge that she literally can’t end up with neither of them simply because that’s not what Diana will do. Does that create….resentment??? Self hatred??? Honestly forget the time continuum, the psychological and philosophical implications alone are mind boggling
It was that 'desk drawer' moment that more or less doomed the Wonder Woman franchise, so far as I'm concerned. Wonder Woman is, famously, one of DC's 'Big Three', and if you look at the other two members of the Three, Batman and Superman, you see a more or less continuous through-line from the Golden Age right up until the Crisis, when they got revamped. Sure, every era had characters and situations peculiar to it that got phased out or ignored during the following eras, but it also had ones that stuck - both characters' most iconic villains, for example, are still the ones from the Golden Age; plus, there's a ton of Silver Age Superman stuff that still informs the character today, such as Jimmy Olsen's signal watch or the Bottle City of Kandor. Sure, a lot of this stuff got dumped with the Crisis, but it keeps coming back; it's a huge amount of accumulated lore that directly affects how we view the characters today (Arkham Asylum, for example, didn't make its first appearance 'til the Bronze Age, but it's now nigh-impossible to think of Batman without it). Not so with Wonder Woman. She never got a chance to accumulate a similar storehouse of lore, because her collection of it got interrupted before it really got going. Her Golden Age original stories were a pretty good start, and while the Kanigher era was chaotic and contained a lot of stuff that contradicted them, it was still built on their framework - but then there's that 'desk drawer' moment, and just like that, all proper accumulation of lore stops dead. If he hadn't done that, chances were that elements of his run - Wondy's crazy mythological suitors, the bizarrely over/underpowered villains like Multiple Man or Mouse Man, etc. - would have gone through the refinement process of the years, and ultimately entered the collective unconscious in the same way that the Fortress of Solitude and the Batmobile have. Instead, the reset button got hit just as Wonder Woman was getting going, and that set the tone for her entire career up 'til now. The only consistent elements in the series that have remained since then have been Wondy herself, the island, a few villains and (sometimes) Steve Trevor; all the rest is constantly changing. Wonder Woman went back to the Golden Age like two more times after that; she went 'mod' and lost her powers and costume; she got a flying fortress-base, then lost it; she hangs her tiara in New York, no, it's Washington DC, no, it's Boston, no it's Gateway City; goodness knows where it is now - prominent supporting characters come and go like there's a revolving door; most of her villains are big deals for about five years, then vanish; her mother is evil; now she's not; now the AMAZONS are evil, but not really, and on and on and on and on and ON. She's an icon, yes, but it's HER that's iconic, not anything or anyone associated with her - her mythos has never really found its feet. And no; of course that's not ENTIRELY due to Kanigher shoving those character pictures in a drawer - there were other factors, before and after - but that was the last nail in the coffin, in my opinion.
The weirdest thing about the answer to the letter about Hippolyta and Hercules is that they don't say they prefer to write happier stories - they say they prefer to write about 'her during happier times'. Implying that, yes, Hercules does still kill her but these stories are set before that happens?!
I'm just thrown off by the fact the amazons, no Hippolyta made early Photoshop and editing live action footage rotoscoping... Wait, they have cameras?!
I have an interpretation that makes this all make sense: Wonder Woman's mother is a Moroi, one of the Fates from Greeks mythology who snip and weave strings into reality. She's doing that with film and changed reality around her
That is a truly great retcon and helps explain why Diana is adept at wielding the lasso as a weapon of truth, and is able to overpower gods. Divine on both sides.
I always thought the "Wonder Girl pining for her lost father" story was very weird because Wonder Girl is Diana and we all know that Diana didn't have a father (she was created from a clay statue). So, why would she even think she had a father?
Except around this time tgey actually did do an origin issue for the Amazons in which Diana did have a father. His name was Prince Theno, his only appearance was in Wonder Wonan #105. The new origin just didn't stick. But it shows that even back then, people had trouble with the "molded from clay" origin.
I think it's amusing that when you said Morpheus, my first thought was "From Sandman or Greek Mythology?" I know these stories predate the Sandman comic, but the fact that is where my mind went, especially since he was from DC Vertigo.
They actually addressed the Hippolyta/Hercules thing in a DC/Marvel crossover - WW Attacked (Avengers) Herc as the "Despoiler of Hippolyta", where as Hercules flippantly replies, "If I recall, she rather enjoyed the whole encounter". 🤣 The cool thing about that is that it establishes that Hercules IS indeed part of both franchises in the greater 'Omniverse'.
Wonder Woman always had a cool, "breaks the mould," vibe ( courtesy of it's libertine creator, Mr. Moulton). But, as a personal aside, I'll always think they should have left Wonder Girl's first full origin story, in the Wolfman/Perez New TT alone. It was some brilliant, impactful writing.
DC's editing in the 60s was horrendous, but the worst was Wonder Woman where panels side by side would contradict each other, sidekicks had to be retconned, and they literally forgot the title was turning 200.
"We prefer to write of her during happier times" implies that Hyppolita was killed by Hercules in the context of Silver Age DC Comics as well & Wonder Woman stories featuring her are in denial. There are so many levels of falsehood within their admittedly fictional tales!
Why is Hippolyta, queen of the amazon and practically a greek goddess, so obsessed and capable in video and photo editing? Why is there a library full of films on Paradise island?
The explanation for the Impossible Tales is needlessly convoluted. They’re Wonder Woman movies. That’s all they needed to say. They’re fictional movies within the Wonder Woman universe. And they do say that, but they also all this extra stuff on top of them, and it takes a very simple premise and framing device and turns it into a giant mess. The intro to the Impossible Story could’ve just been Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor going on a date to see a Wonder Woman movie instead of the cave paintings and the whole explanation about Wonder Woman and her mother editing family movies together to make it look like they were all together or something.
The fan reply illustrates the problems of the era. The fan club reply letter is supposed to be from Wonder Woman but the response is out of character. It's signed WW but there is no effort in the text to respond in character as Diana.
I've long felt that after the end of the Golden Age, DC really didn't know what to do wit Wonder Woman, a situation that more or less continued up to the Perez revamp. (And pretty much picked up again after he left the book.) Also, I hope this is leading into an overview of Donna Troy's confusing history.
Sasha, in today's video, I heard your Canadian accent for what seems to me to be the first time. Specifically, in your pronunciation of "golden," for a moment I thought you had said "Goulden" and was wondering if that was the name of a DC editor or writer, lol! Such things make your videos even more delightful, keep up the good work!
they were named season 2 & 3 of Gilligans Island also had episodes revolved around them Professor turned into a "Zombie" as well Mary Ann pretending to be Ginger .
Please do a video on Wonder Woman '66 (a.k.a. "Return to the Golden Age"). WW #156 and #159 through #171, the ones that re-introduced Golden Age villains Paula von Gunta, Minister Blizzard, Cheetah, Giganta, and Dr. Psycho. My personal favorite year (or so) of Kanigher's run. After the first half-dozen stories, the issues start to waffle back and forth between "Golden Age" and "modern" Wonder Woman stories until #172, which is another revamp again.
Also hot take (maybe more like like warm really...) ...supposing Hippolyta has an unrealized magic power where things she creates become real and alive. Kind of depends on the original 'made from clay' origin for Diana but when the Queen makes something, life eventually gets breathed into it. Hence, her film edits became real, eventually.
Hippolyta’s hi-jinx here make a lot more sense if you assume this photo/video editing tech is new, and Hippolyta is just really getting into it, like middle-aged moms who use TikTok a lot
Someone recommended this video to me. My biggest take aways; "The type of fan comics attract. It tends to be the person who likes answers, enjoys internal story logic and nods to past events. In laymen's terms, nerds." Children, by their very nature, ask a lot of questions anyway, but yes, even when they grow up the type to keep buying the comic book are going to keep asking questions! Internal consistency is a nice thing to have for that reason. "Being an editor is important." Sometimes I cut writers some slack for things an editor really should have caught. Having an editor in the first place implies a writer is free to let their thoughts flow with the reassurance someone else will stop them and point out when they stop making sense. Water filters are supposed to increase the number of sources one can drink from. "Note that Wonder Girl's picture is on top? It's too late, that cat's out of the bag, you can't put that back in, the universe is broken, because of poor editorial oversight and communication! This launches Donna on a quest for an origin that will span decades." Donna Troy's origin, once she finally had one written, shouldn't have even been that hard to "fix". As I understand it, Wonder Woman's powers either come from marital arts and mental training, or goddess gifts that basically amount to giving blood. In either case it shouldn't be the kind of thing amazons should be able to copy and paste into Donna Troy with a laser, otherwise they should all have Wonder Woman level powers. Diana beating all the rest in the contest to be Wonder Woman is a plot point. She took to the training better or was more gifted by the gods than the others. The Titans of Myth escaping Tartarus and trying to one up the Olympians by making Wonder Woman's sister into their own champion, a fine enough "fix" for Donna being more or less Diana's equal. Diana and Donna refusing to fight, beyond good natured sparring, because their sisterly bond is more powerful than the old grudges of old gods, that's touching. Titans and Olympians learning from the adopted sisters and starting to reconcile, that could go on for months, maybe years, before it got old! Thousands of years in jail is a lot to move past, but they can start! Wonder Woman's quest to create a better world continues to progress!
This video was amazing with Silver Age goodness! Who cares what Harley is doing this week, when ya got The Wonder Family being chased by giant versions of themselves with butterfly nets and being trapped in a future zoo by giant aliens/and/or super evolved humans. Good times. That's what it's all about!
One more thought: It could be said that, being based in Amazon/godly magic using a technique like that to 'create an adventure', Hippolyta caused a reality leakage that turned the whole silly notion real until a literal Deus Ex Machina had to be invoked.
So they can actually travel through time? In that case I guess they could have showed the cavemen the movie for some reason. Originally Hippolyta formed Diana out of clay so it's not much crazier if she somehow brought Wonder Tot and Donna Troy to life from celluloid, if the creators had gone that direction. It is at least interesting how these stories anticipated the invention of deep fakes.
This is so confusing. Like these events happened at three different times in Diana’s life, and her mother just happened to be recording it every time? And somehow got Diana to talk to her future self as if she was really there. It makes my head hurt trying to understand it. Also hated that trope back then of having small children in comics talk so weird. Saying things like, “me sorry”. I never heard a child talk like that.
If Bob Kanigher confused the hell out of readers who were going over these stories with a fine-tooth comb, it's no wonder that Bob Haney couldn't figure out what the heck he was up to. I mean as soon as Wonder Girl took over for a couple of solo stories of her own, with no obvious reference to the stories taking place in the past, you couldn't blame a casual reader for thinking she was a separate character from Wonder Woman. Besides, the more important factor here was that Haney needed a girl to break up the sausage-fest in TEEN TITANS -- and Mort Weisinger didn't like "his" character (Supergirl) being used by other editors/writers. But thank whatever comic-gods there be that Haney DID "make a mistake" (whether or not on purpose) because it led to Donna Troy, a classic DCU character.
OH MY HERA! Even just your video of you describing the issues feels like you describing the plot of a David lynch film to us😂. What the hell is even that!? This makes Kara trying to pair her cousin with Helen of Troy or Lois trying to hook up with Jor-el seem like the most normal events. And the letter of the young reader brings up also another obvious question to DC: "you have so much mythology canon that you can incorporate to the wonder woman comics, why do you decide to complicate things so much?". Suddenly the introduction of mod wonder woman starts to make sense 😅
I feel like Queen Hippolyta taking all this footage and editing it to make stories to entertain people with no thought for how it impacts her daughter(s) was a huge inspiration to Kris Jenner.
Silver Age WW were the first vintage single issue comics I ever owned & still have a special place in my heart. Love that finally this Diana is getting her flowers. (just confirmed the Silver Age omnibus doesn’t omit the final 4 panels from issue #124). 💐
Silver Age Wonder Woman suffered because they just didn’t know how to write a strong heroic woman character while still having her conform to the supposed societal norms of the decade. The impossible stories created characters that fans wanted (Wonder Girl) but did so in the silliest ways possible. This is why in some ways the changes made By O’Neil made some sense at the time.
The whole "Manno, Merboy, and Mer-Mite being brothers" situation shouldn't be held onto too tightly, since Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, and Wonder Tot are occasionally referred to as sisters. So don't think for one moment that Merboy is a separate character from Manno anymore than Wonder Tot is a separate character from Wonder Woman.
@@CasuallyComics But I'm 100% sure that one of the Wonder Girl stories has Merboy called Manno. It's the one where he takes her to his version of Atlantis.
I'd rather Tom King did an Impossible Tales backup starring Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot instead of Trinity and the Guys, but almost anything would be better than Trinity
Mean you don't like Wonder Woman having an obnoxious snob of a daughter and the journey of how Trinity went from sweet kid to brat who trapped her babysitters in torture chambers?
Was it common for Hippolyta to be called Wonder Queen back then? Because I've never heard her called that and the title just makes me think of that point in the Post Crisis Timeline where they liked to say that she was the Wonder Woman in World War 2.
Are You A Fan Of The Wonder Family?
I actually am rather annoyed how SMALL her family is, even compared to Aquaman it’s rather small. I wish she had a more extended family, cause it seems to be her, and a Wonder girl. If even that. Someone can bring up Artemis and Nubia, with Nubia getting more of a push, and Donna and Cassie and Yara getting some spotlight but… it feels very tiny for a woman who should have a huge wonder family. Maybe not Batman or Flash big, but come on, she’s an equal to Superman and Batman. Her extended family DESERVES to be equal as well.
I feel like the Wonder family could be bigger, I just have a hard time figuring out who would be in it, besides the obvious choices
I am a fan of the wonder woman family even though some of the stories were trippy it seems in present day there is a new wonder woman family with two wonder girls and Donna troy. Yes I remember the mistake from the writer of teen titans did with taking wonder girl Donna troy thinking she was a separate entity by wonder woman 147 you would think there was a Donna troy so the writer of teen titans added her and Donna troy was born 😊 ps that meddling hipollyta all her fault btw bring back egg fu campaign begins here lol😅
It's fun, it's wacky, it's out there. Why wouldn't I like it?
Not a fan BUT... BUT BUT BUT...
forgot where I read it but these impossible tales comes off the heels of Wonder Woman being accused of being lesbian propaganda from Seduction of the Innocent, so to reduce interactions between Wondy and other amazons (or any other woman period, but that is also bc Robert here isn't fond of the Holiday Girls) this is the scenario he came up with so she can have female-centric angle to her stories without encouraging homoeroticism. I don't remember the exact details of their argument but I thought this odd version of self-reliance being accidentally feministic is kinda interesting... even if the writing doesn't really deliver that for me.
"Lemme invite my family!"
"Oh, your mother and sisters?"
"Nah, the two video-edited versions of me, but much younger."
Donna Troy exists because Bib Haney thought that continuity was something that happened to other people.
Lol he just wrote whatever sometimes. He's got some great quotes about writing for 12 year olds. They're so flippant he compares comics and booze saying they're both disposable entertainment one for adults the other for kids.
Comics are like booze, ha! See, they really were contributing to the delinquency of kids.😂
@@CasuallyComicsI just lost some respect for Bob Haney.
@@ShadowWingTronix On Green Acres, Mr. Haney was the con artist salesman who would say literally anything...I wonder if somehow the two are connected, like maybe one of GA's writers knew some comic book people.
Direct quote: "Who can remember all that stuff?" Which I kind of admire.
I am now convinced that Hippolyta would run a family vlog TH-cam channel.
😂😂😂
Living out an invisible van with the Wonder Family?
I wonder how many of the villains would subscribe to it.
So Hippolyta basically invented "Deep Fakes". This reminds me of how the "Super-Sons" stories in the 1970s were eventually explained away as a computer simulation that Superman and Batman were running. For reasons.
I think the take-away here is that Hippolyta desperately wanted more children, but apparently Aphrodite wasn't up to animating any more statues, so she had to take matters into her own hands.
I mean, we'd later find out she wasn't careful enough with one of the statues (the one for Nubia back when that was her origin) so Aphrodite probably wanted to see how well Hippolyta could raise the one she didn't lose.
"Forget it Jake, it's Silver Age DC."
Lol it's a good thing I wasn't a fan in the heyday of the letters era cause I would have been so annoying.
The editorial genius of Hyppolyta was way before her time.
NGL I knew of the "Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot adventures all being Diana led to Donna Troy" bit but I always presumed it was time travel shenanigans as the original context.
Hearing the real context is far more convoluted and insane than I could've ever guessed lol
Missed opportunity for Sasha to splice together footage in different wigs.
_Maybe she didn't want to pull a 3 Jokers and have 2 more Sasha's acting at the same time...._
I choose to believe that even today Donna Troy is still the product of Hippolyta's amazing editing skills.
😂😂😂😂
You know I didn't expect Donna Troy's whole existence to be based on that one time Wonder Woman's Mum used Ancient Amazon Photoshop to do a Fake Family Vlog during her prehistoric era trip...
But that's Silver Age for you
What I'm getting is that Hippolyta really want to be a filmmaker.
She should have been a marvel character. If I'm remembering right, that version of Hercules was an actor and could have been her in.
That'd be fun to incorporate into something like DC Superhero Girls!
@@Shamazya That show is a surprisingly great place to incorporate a lot of out there ideas.
I'd love to see Hippolyta and Livewire get into a war for viewers.
Hippolyta sounds like the kind of woman who, if she didn't have Diana, would sit alone in a studio apartment, drinking tea and drawing herself into her favorite Cathy comic strips.
Cathy. That’s a deep cut. She was just like John Arbuckle minus the orange cat.
JD Vance just hates her.
One of the weirdest things about the Wonder Woman/Girl/Tot trio is that all the younger versions know what their future will be. And Hippolyta is happy to have the younger versions know that in the future, Diana will be Wonder Woman. Yes, they have the magic sphere and can see the future. So, the younger versions dress in versions of Wonder Woman's costume. But the problem is... Wonder Woman's origin has Diana competing to become Wonder Woman, with Hippolyta forbidding Diana to compete. Even though both Hippolyta and Diana know that Diana will become Wonder Woman. They've already seen the future.
Is this still running on the golden age origin where hipolyta just shrugs when wonder woman unmasks? Like she might be worried but it's fate so she's fine with it. If that's the case I can see her not caring the younger versions know.
I agree it makes little sense hence why later versions have hipolyta actually ve angry over it.
@@gregcourtney751 Yeah, pretty much although there's also a Golden Age story where Hippolyta in the past sees the future with Diana as Wonder Woman, so the origin of both Golden and Silver Age Wonder Woman makes little sense with these retcons.
"This isn't about the cultural insensitivity of Egg Fu. Not today."
But when, Sasha? When?
Egg Fu was one of the most iconic villains of that era of the Wonder Woman title. I read those Silver Age comics when I was a kid, in the early to mid 60s. Of course, only later did I become aware of the casual racism of the characterization, but then again, Iron Man's foe The Mandarin displayed pretty much the same casual racism. Many titles did. Heck, some levels of racial distinction allowed Superman to kill people, as long as they weren't racially human, back in those days.
I was challenged during the late 60s to confront those lessons in my own mind, and separate such fictions from my attitudes towards real people, but make no mistake, it was a challenge. Still is, with such things you always have to maintain some degree of vigilance.
@@DougVanDorn John Byrne brought back EggFu in his Wonder Woman run.
Grant Morrison brought him back in 52
And Amanda Connor used him as a supporting character in Harley Quinn.
Mary Richards mentions loving that Egg Fu cover in a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode.
I for one love this whole mess simply because of how fantastically mundane the explanation is. Anyone can write a time travel story, or have it end with "It was all a dream!" But you need some sort of mad genius to introduce the idea of editing film to create a story within a *non-film* medium. It reminds me of the scene in Spaceballs where they get a Spaceballs VHS tape in order to find out what happens next.
"When does this happen in the movie?"
@@ianfinrir8724 "Now!"
Oh, that's not what I thought Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot was at all. I was fully under the assumption that they were time displaced versions of Diana.
In hindsight, being the "logical" solution in a Silver Age should have been a good indicator that wasn't going to be the answer.
That's honestly how I explain it as the TL;DR.
As you said, without this era, we wouldn't have Donna, and that would be terrible, especially since Donna is one of my favorite characters.
I think it's cute that Hippolyta is really into editing and filmmaking. More characters should have random hobbies
Supposedly, the Wonder Girl stories were what were keeping tge series afloat at the time. They may have also been what established the idea of Paradise Island as being Wonder Woman's "Metropolis" rather than her "Smallville". Because with all the Wonder Girl stories, Paradise Island seemed more established than any of the places Diana went in "Man's World".
Regarding the "Impossible Tales" sisters, I think what made them feel more like sisters than the same character three times is they had such notably different personalities. Wonder Woman was mature and dignified. Wonder Girl was spunky and determiined. And Wonder Tot was a mischevious little scamp.
Completely ignoring what the last writer wrote (or acknowledging for the sole sake of saying “turns out that was bogus, THIS is the TRUE true story!) and making up your own stuff (continuity be darned) is truly a time-honoured Wonder Woman tradition.
...though in the case of the Wonder “family”, I’m not too sure what they could have done since from the word go this whole thing incoherent mess.
Well most of this was Robert Kanigher who also edited. He didn't care how anything was written even his own stories. He was the worst writer she ever had.
Between Hippolyta's edited movie somehow changing reality, to the bit where the characters confront their creator and the possibility of dying if they're "retired", it'd be interesting to see a modern writer do a Grant Morrison-esque look back at this weirdo era.
I do love how hard it went into "these characters were killed from being wiped out of existence" no punches are pulled.
And that was the last time Donna Troy had to deal with confusing origins or complicated retcons… lol
11:47 I do want to note here, that in greek mythology hippolyta‘s fate was different in different stories. Her being killed by Heracles in the heat of a hera induced battle is just one version.
thank you for calling Heracles by his Grecian name ,The Romans really convulted his name sorry im mythological nerd as well
Poor Donna- she can't even successfully be removed from stories, she can't keep an origin, and she can't even keep her own backstory for herself. Remember how they killed off her ex, their baby son and her stepdaughter in a car accident? Well, they used the exact same plot for Jane Foster in Thor when they made her hold the hammer. Yes, her inconvenient ex and their toddling son went over a guardrail. No wonder that kid in Gamera wanted to prevent car accidents - in fiction, they're even deadlier!
Sadly part of the reason Donna gets so shuffled around is because.. Diana gets so shuffled around. They keep rebooting and "fixing" Diana and forgetting that she has a supporting cast, so when they do that.. they create ripples that cause Donna to be caught in.
@@JanArrah To say nothing of a writer making her his waifu.
@@JanArrahI definitely agree. Cassie n donna stay getting caught in these reboots. Luckily for Cassie tho she wasn’t a canon error to begin with
@@malachibaskette908
Hippolyta: Canon? Isn't that something that makes the sound of Judy Garrick's codename?
10:19 Imagine if this suddenly turned into a really meta psychological story of Carol Sue realizing she doesn't even exist and is just part of a story
One imagines that Hippolyta and Steve Trevor probably felt pretty safe during the "chopping block" scene in Kanigher's office, compared to the others who were also there.
The idea of Amazon island as a space outside of time where Diana experienced different periods of her life simultaneously while interacting with 2 versions of herself that she basically treats as sisters is sooooo trippy and fascinating.
Like what are even the implications of being partly raise by literally yourself? how does your perception of yourself change when you’re also your own older and younger sibling? What is it like to have different memories of the same events from 3 different perspectives??
Like imagine Wonder Girl genuinely liking Wingboy or Merboy while having the knowledge that she literally can’t end up with neither of them simply because that’s not what Diana will do. Does that create….resentment??? Self hatred???
Honestly forget the time continuum, the psychological and philosophical implications alone are mind boggling
It was that 'desk drawer' moment that more or less doomed the Wonder Woman franchise, so far as I'm concerned. Wonder Woman is, famously, one of DC's 'Big Three', and if you look at the other two members of the Three, Batman and Superman, you see a more or less continuous through-line from the Golden Age right up until the Crisis, when they got revamped. Sure, every era had characters and situations peculiar to it that got phased out or ignored during the following eras, but it also had ones that stuck - both characters' most iconic villains, for example, are still the ones from the Golden Age; plus, there's a ton of Silver Age Superman stuff that still informs the character today, such as Jimmy Olsen's signal watch or the Bottle City of Kandor. Sure, a lot of this stuff got dumped with the Crisis, but it keeps coming back; it's a huge amount of accumulated lore that directly affects how we view the characters today (Arkham Asylum, for example, didn't make its first appearance 'til the Bronze Age, but it's now nigh-impossible to think of Batman without it).
Not so with Wonder Woman. She never got a chance to accumulate a similar storehouse of lore, because her collection of it got interrupted before it really got going. Her Golden Age original stories were a pretty good start, and while the Kanigher era was chaotic and contained a lot of stuff that contradicted them, it was still built on their framework - but then there's that 'desk drawer' moment, and just like that, all proper accumulation of lore stops dead. If he hadn't done that, chances were that elements of his run - Wondy's crazy mythological suitors, the bizarrely over/underpowered villains like Multiple Man or Mouse Man, etc. - would have gone through the refinement process of the years, and ultimately entered the collective unconscious in the same way that the Fortress of Solitude and the Batmobile have.
Instead, the reset button got hit just as Wonder Woman was getting going, and that set the tone for her entire career up 'til now. The only consistent elements in the series that have remained since then have been Wondy herself, the island, a few villains and (sometimes) Steve Trevor; all the rest is constantly changing. Wonder Woman went back to the Golden Age like two more times after that; she went 'mod' and lost her powers and costume; she got a flying fortress-base, then lost it; she hangs her tiara in New York, no, it's Washington DC, no, it's Boston, no it's Gateway City; goodness knows where it is now - prominent supporting characters come and go like there's a revolving door; most of her villains are big deals for about five years, then vanish; her mother is evil; now she's not; now the AMAZONS are evil, but not really, and on and on and on and on and ON. She's an icon, yes, but it's HER that's iconic, not anything or anyone associated with her - her mythos has never really found its feet. And no; of course that's not ENTIRELY due to Kanigher shoving those character pictures in a drawer - there were other factors, before and after - but that was the last nail in the coffin, in my opinion.
The weirdest thing about the answer to the letter about Hippolyta and Hercules is that they don't say they prefer to write happier stories - they say they prefer to write about 'her during happier times'. Implying that, yes, Hercules does still kill her but these stories are set before that happens?!
Surprised there wasn't a Wonder Grandma in the Wonder Family. 😂😂😂
I'm just thrown off by the fact the amazons, no Hippolyta made early Photoshop and editing live action footage rotoscoping... Wait, they have cameras?!
You didn't know Amazons invented wrist cameras?
0:34 I was looking at the dialogue, and didn’t know there was a golden age golden age Harlequin, Molly Mayne.
I have an interpretation that makes this all make sense: Wonder Woman's mother is a Moroi, one of the Fates from Greeks mythology who snip and weave strings into reality. She's doing that with film and changed reality around her
That is a truly great retcon and helps explain why Diana is adept at wielding the lasso as a weapon of truth, and is able to overpower gods. Divine on both sides.
I like this angle of Hippolyta being a master propagandist. They should bring that back, its funny.
In the vein of "Super Sons" I think we need a "Wonder Tots" series starring a time-traveling Wonder Tot and superbaby Clark.
RIP The Glop 😥
RIP Manno the Mer-Man 😭
I always thought the "Wonder Girl pining for her lost father" story was very weird because Wonder Girl is Diana and we all know that Diana didn't have a father (she was created from a clay statue). So, why would she even think she had a father?
Except around this time tgey actually did do an origin issue for the Amazons in which Diana did have a father. His name was Prince Theno, his only appearance was in Wonder Wonan #105. The new origin just didn't stick. But it shows that even back then, people had trouble with the "molded from clay" origin.
I suppose it would have been against the Comics Code for the editor to just respond: "Suck it, kid!" (But you know they wanted to).
I think it's amusing that when you said Morpheus, my first thought was "From Sandman or Greek Mythology?"
I know these stories predate the Sandman comic, but the fact that is where my mind went, especially since he was from DC Vertigo.
I mean, the only reason Gaiman didn't use it as a story point is because he ran out of time. He loved the DC mythology.
They actually addressed the Hippolyta/Hercules thing in a DC/Marvel crossover - WW Attacked (Avengers) Herc as the "Despoiler of Hippolyta", where as Hercules flippantly replies, "If I recall, she rather enjoyed the whole encounter". 🤣
The cool thing about that is that it establishes that Hercules IS indeed part of both franchises in the greater 'Omniverse'.
Hercules is always getting in trouble for stuff that jerk Heracles did.
Which crossover?
@@oliveragag8576 Probably the Avengers/JLA one.
Wonder Woman always had a cool, "breaks the mould," vibe ( courtesy of it's libertine creator, Mr. Moulton). But, as a personal aside, I'll always think they should have left Wonder Girl's first full origin story, in the Wolfman/Perez New TT alone. It was some brilliant, impactful writing.
So is Kanagher part of a pantheon of all-powerful in-universe editors along with Grant Morrison from their Animal Man run?
Film producer Hippolyta is wild.
Somebody hire Hippolyta for all the Hollywood movies that change direction midway through production.
Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot. Wonder why? Wonder no more! Thanks, Sasha!
DC's editing in the 60s was horrendous, but the worst was Wonder Woman where panels side by side would contradict each other, sidekicks had to be retconned, and they literally forgot the title was turning 200.
"We prefer to write of her during happier times" implies that Hyppolita was killed by Hercules in the context of Silver Age DC Comics as well & Wonder Woman stories featuring her are in denial. There are so many levels of falsehood within their admittedly fictional tales!
Maybe Queen Hippolyta will one day restart her independant film making career in the DC Universe....
I certainly want so after this video!
Why is Hippolyta, queen of the amazon and practically a greek goddess, so obsessed and capable in video and photo editing? Why is there a library full of films on Paradise island?
Gotta love those hideous glasses that were so popular in the ‘60s for some reason. I think my Mom and both of my older sisters had them.
The explanation for the Impossible Tales is needlessly convoluted. They’re Wonder Woman movies. That’s all they needed to say. They’re fictional movies within the Wonder Woman universe. And they do say that, but they also all this extra stuff on top of them, and it takes a very simple premise and framing device and turns it into a giant mess. The intro to the Impossible Story could’ve just been Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor going on a date to see a Wonder Woman movie instead of the cave paintings and the whole explanation about Wonder Woman and her mother editing family movies together to make it look like they were all together or something.
The fan reply illustrates the problems of the era.
The fan club reply letter is supposed to be from Wonder Woman but the response is out of character.
It's signed WW but there is no effort in the text to respond in character as Diana.
It was a Wonder how this gotten solve
I thought Joker origin story was just as 3x confusing
I've long felt that after the end of the Golden Age, DC really didn't know what to do wit Wonder Woman, a situation that more or less continued up to the Perez revamp. (And pretty much picked up again after he left the book.) Also, I hope this is leading into an overview of Donna Troy's confusing history.
Because just giving Diana a couple of younger sisters wouldn't have been as exciting, I guess.
No, they should've given her a long lost male cousin.
No, that would make too much sense
How else the readers were to learn about Queen Hippolyta's mad movie editing skills?
There wasn't enough clay for sisters.
There needed to be a fourth, Elderly Wonder Woman! She could've been called "Wonder Witch!"
Or a middle-aged one called Wonder Mom.
In which we discover Hippolyta 's mom is one of the Fates.
Justice for the Glob! He did nothing Wrong!
Sasha, in today's video, I heard your Canadian accent for what seems to me to be the first time. Specifically, in your pronunciation of "golden," for a moment I thought you had said "Goulden" and was wondering if that was the name of a DC editor or writer, lol! Such things make your videos even more delightful, keep up the good work!
I love the recent Wonder Woman videos. Can we get more? The Perez reboot, her Elseworlds stories, etc, etc.
16:54 Wonder Girl looks like an obsessed stalker in this panel.
I have never had a waking nightmare about Wonder Woman before listening to this episode
I don't care how many times the letter pages assures us, I,'ll never be convinced Wondertot was popular.
0:39 I SWEAR I've seen this image recreated for Harvey Birdman. And if not, it should have been.
Biiiiiirdman lol
Get ready to feel my power...of Attorney!
At this point I'd take DC just saying "After Diana left Hippolyta got empty nest syndrome and adopted two kids"
"Etc."...The Professor and Mary Ann (a.k.a. "and the rest") know that pain all too well. Perhaps they should start a support group.
they were named season 2 & 3 of Gilligans Island also had episodes revolved around them Professor turned into a "Zombie" as well Mary Ann pretending to be Ginger .
Please do a video on Wonder Woman '66 (a.k.a. "Return to the Golden Age"). WW #156 and #159 through #171, the ones that re-introduced Golden Age villains Paula von Gunta, Minister Blizzard, Cheetah, Giganta, and Dr. Psycho. My personal favorite year (or so) of Kanigher's run. After the first half-dozen stories, the issues start to waffle back and forth between "Golden Age" and "modern" Wonder Woman stories until #172, which is another revamp again.
The True Origins of Donna Troy!
The letter s is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Also hot take (maybe more like like warm really...) ...supposing Hippolyta has an unrealized magic power where things she creates become real and alive. Kind of depends on the original 'made from clay' origin for Diana but when the Queen makes something, life eventually gets breathed into it. Hence, her film edits became real, eventually.
Hippolyta’s hi-jinx here make a lot more sense if you assume this photo/video editing tech is new, and Hippolyta is just really getting into it, like middle-aged moms who use TikTok a lot
Someone recommended this video to me. My biggest take aways;
"The type of fan comics attract. It tends to be the person who likes answers, enjoys internal story logic and nods to past events. In laymen's terms, nerds." Children, by their very nature, ask a lot of questions anyway, but yes, even when they grow up the type to keep buying the comic book are going to keep asking questions! Internal consistency is a nice thing to have for that reason.
"Being an editor is important." Sometimes I cut writers some slack for things an editor really should have caught. Having an editor in the first place implies a writer is free to let their thoughts flow with the reassurance someone else will stop them and point out when they stop making sense. Water filters are supposed to increase the number of sources one can drink from.
"Note that Wonder Girl's picture is on top? It's too late, that cat's out of the bag, you can't put that back in, the universe is broken, because of poor editorial oversight and communication! This launches Donna on a quest for an origin that will span decades." Donna Troy's origin, once she finally had one written, shouldn't have even been that hard to "fix". As I understand it, Wonder Woman's powers either come from marital arts and mental training, or goddess gifts that basically amount to giving blood. In either case it shouldn't be the kind of thing amazons should be able to copy and paste into Donna Troy with a laser, otherwise they should all have Wonder Woman level powers. Diana beating all the rest in the contest to be Wonder Woman is a plot point. She took to the training better or was more gifted by the gods than the others. The Titans of Myth escaping Tartarus and trying to one up the Olympians by making Wonder Woman's sister into their own champion, a fine enough "fix" for Donna being more or less Diana's equal. Diana and Donna refusing to fight, beyond good natured sparring, because their sisterly bond is more powerful than the old grudges of old gods, that's touching. Titans and Olympians learning from the adopted sisters and starting to reconcile, that could go on for months, maybe years, before it got old! Thousands of years in jail is a lot to move past, but they can start! Wonder Woman's quest to create a better world continues to progress!
This video was amazing with Silver Age goodness! Who cares what Harley is doing this week, when ya got The Wonder Family being chased by giant versions of themselves with butterfly nets and being trapped in a future zoo by giant aliens/and/or super evolved humans. Good times. That's what it's all about!
Seems like a lot of 4th wall breaks many years before it was done in She Hulk.
One more thought: It could be said that, being based in Amazon/godly magic using a technique like that to 'create an adventure', Hippolyta caused a reality leakage that turned the whole silly notion real until a literal Deus Ex Machina had to be invoked.
So they can actually travel through time? In that case I guess they could have showed the cavemen the movie for some reason. Originally Hippolyta formed Diana out of clay so it's not much crazier if she somehow brought Wonder Tot and Donna Troy to life from celluloid, if the creators had gone that direction. It is at least interesting how these stories anticipated the invention of deep fakes.
I never really knew how deep the WW rabbit hole went so this is all new material to me. Thanks!
This is so confusing. Like these events happened at three different times in Diana’s life, and her mother just happened to be recording it every time? And somehow got Diana to talk to her future self as if she was really there. It makes my head hurt trying to understand it. Also hated that trope back then of having small children in comics talk so weird. Saying things like, “me sorry”. I never heard a child talk like that.
I have most of the covers that feature those characters. I have always loved them since I saw one on the rack when I was a kid.
If Bob Kanigher confused the hell out of readers who were going over these stories with a fine-tooth comb, it's no wonder that Bob Haney couldn't figure out what the heck he was up to. I mean as soon as Wonder Girl took over for a couple of solo stories of her own, with no obvious reference to the stories taking place in the past, you couldn't blame a casual reader for thinking she was a separate character from Wonder Woman. Besides, the more important factor here was that Haney needed a girl to break up the sausage-fest in TEEN TITANS -- and Mort Weisinger didn't like "his" character (Supergirl) being used by other editors/writers. But thank whatever comic-gods there be that Haney DID "make a mistake" (whether or not on purpose) because it led to Donna Troy, a classic DCU character.
So coming out of this we had Diana as Wonder Woman, eventually Donna as Wonder Girl ... but what of Wonder Tot?!
We don't need anymore continuity defying walking paradoxes.
Nothing of value was lost.
Sasha you made my day by giving Wonder Tot some love. Thank you!
your videos are so fun to listen to while I draw!
The sign carrier at the 20:28 mark looks like he could be a young Rorschach from the Watchmen.
OH MY HERA! Even just your video of you describing the issues feels like you describing the plot of a David lynch film to us😂. What the hell is even that!? This makes Kara trying to pair her cousin with Helen of Troy or Lois trying to hook up with Jor-el seem like the most normal events. And the letter of the young reader brings up also another obvious question to DC: "you have so much mythology canon that you can incorporate to the wonder woman comics, why do you decide to complicate things so much?". Suddenly the introduction of mod wonder woman starts to make sense 😅
...oh no I've gone cross-eyed.
"Ye better start believin' in Impossible Tales, girl... Ye're in one!"
I feel like Queen Hippolyta taking all this footage and editing it to make stories to entertain people with no thought for how it impacts her daughter(s) was a huge inspiration to Kris Jenner.
Silver Age WW were the first vintage single issue comics I ever owned & still have a special place in my heart. Love that finally this Diana is getting her flowers. (just confirmed the Silver Age omnibus doesn’t omit the final 4 panels from issue #124). 💐
Sipping my hatorade, I'm picking the option "more maligned!"
Lol let the hate flow through you
Hipployta's Editing Skills are the Work of An Enemy Stand
Silver Age Wonder Woman suffered because they just didn’t know how to write a strong heroic woman character while still having her conform to the supposed societal norms of the decade. The impossible stories created characters that fans wanted (Wonder Girl) but did so in the silliest ways possible. This is why in some ways the changes made By O’Neil made some sense at the time.
I didn’t know digital alterations like that happened to older comics. I need a future video on other changes like this
The whole "Manno, Merboy, and Mer-Mite being brothers" situation shouldn't be held onto too tightly, since Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, and Wonder Tot are occasionally referred to as sisters. So don't think for one moment that Merboy is a separate character from Manno anymore than Wonder Tot is a separate character from Wonder Woman.
The merboy with Wonder Girl is later named Ronno and hangs out with Manno lol it's such a mess I love it.
@@CasuallyComics But I'm 100% sure that one of the Wonder Girl stories has Merboy called Manno. It's the one where he takes her to his version of Atlantis.
If it was before 124, that would make total sense. For a bit they tried to make it make sense and then just stopped.
I came here for answers and I'm leaving with questions. Great vid, Sasha
I'd rather Tom King did an Impossible Tales backup starring Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot instead of Trinity and the Guys, but almost anything would be better than Trinity
Mean you don't like Wonder Woman having an obnoxious snob of a daughter and the journey of how Trinity went from sweet kid to brat who trapped her babysitters in torture chambers?
Beyond omega level : Hippolyta 's editing skills
i am loving the rocket pop hair highlights :D
Those 3 martini lunches took a toll in the DC offices back then.
Was it common for Hippolyta to be called Wonder Queen back then? Because I've never heard her called that and the title just makes me think of that point in the Post Crisis Timeline where they liked to say that she was the Wonder Woman in World War 2.