The Wheel and Axle

Wonder Countdown: one day to go in the Philippines!

And if you’re like me, it would be tonight as I plan to catch a midnight screening of Wonder Woman!

Here is the lady of the hour herself, Gal Gadot, as she speaks about the film.

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Wonder Countdown: two days to go in the Philippines!

Let’s give the wonderful Chris Pine some love as we prepare to see him bring Steve Trevor to life on the big screen!

Wonder Countdown: three days to go in the Philippines!

A hero is only as good as his or her villain, as the cliché goes. There is much truth to this. Superman and Batman wouldn’t be as interesting as they are without Luthor or the Joker. The same goes for Wonder Woman, whose rogues gallery – while not as famous as those of her male counterparts – is full of interesting characters, especially in the hands of the correct writer.

Many of them are metaphors, symbolic of the psychology and advocacies associated with Wonder Woman. Ares is the war to Diana’s peace. Dr. Psycho is a misogynistic freak. Various versions of the Cheetah, recognized as Diana’s archenemy, represent different things: the beast to Diana’s humanity, the predator to her hunter, the greed to her selflessness. The Silver Swan, in many of her versions, has always been about insecurity regarding beauty, a struggle many women relate in the face of sexist expectations. Circe represents a lot of things antithetical to Diana, including the transformation of men to beasts as opposed to the reformation Diana usually advocates.

And so on and so forth.

For the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, they’ve chosen Ares and Doctor Poison.

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Wonder Countdown: four days to go in the Philippines!

Any good movie with great protagonists also requires a great cast of supporting characters portrayed by great performers. In the case of Wonder Woman, it’s even more imperative that those supporting characters have a strong female representation as, ultimately, the empowerment of women is one of the comic book’s primary themes. Fortunately, they managed to snatch some great actresses to portray key roles in the Wonder Woman world.

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Wonder Countdown: five days to go in the Philippines!

As we prepare for the arrival of the Wonder Woman film, let’s listen to the thoughts of the folks behind this movie that’s over seven decades overdue.

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Wonder Countdown: six days to go in the Philippines!

Several days ago, they released more clips from the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. They are all awesome and make me even more impatient to see the film. The great thing about the clips is that they give us nice bits here and there, but they’re not spoiler-y. Mostly, they’re extended scenes of those we’ve already seen in prior teasers, previews, spots, or trailers (one is even just a further extended version of the alley clip).

Aunt Antiope surprises Diana but then gets her own surprise.

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Believe me: I so would watch this. Pump up the jam, baby. Pump it up.

Finally, we get the first full official Justice League trailer.

This, of course, does not count the SDCC trailer, which was also awesome but was really meant as a comicon pull. And this time, we get to see more more more.

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Because Wonder Woman is less than three months away, it’s about time they dropped a new trailer. The previous two trailers had just left me thirsting for so much more, and in the last couple of months there have been a lot of occasions of disappointingly false alarms about a new trailer supposed to be dropping “soon.”

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Aug. 28, 1917 – Feb. 6, 1994

He was one of comics’ most influential personalities. After all, it wasn’t everyday you get to co-create a characters like Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, X-Men, and several other Marvel properties.

However, as more of a DC fan, I will always remember Jack Kirby for his creation of Challengers of the Unknown (undeniably a precursor to the Fantastic Four) as well as the Fourth World characters a.k.a. The New Gods.

Truth to tell, these may not have been as commercially successful as one would have hoped. Still, despite several failed series, the Fourth World characters remain an overarching presence within the DC Multiverse. This cannot be more felt than in the popular and malevolent Darkseid (i.e. He Who Was Ripped Off By Thanos), who has arguably become DC’s primary archvillain – in the comics, in animated features, and soon, in the DC movie extended universe.

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