About That Wonder Woman Sequel...

Wonder Woman surprised everyone by being a good movie. Especially since it's a follow-up to a very polarizing movie - Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I liked both films, but a lot of people possibly prefer WW as a standalone, an eye in a tornado that is DC Films. What do I mean by that? It's the only one everyone likes in that stable. For now. Justice League is coming out soon.

Let's stay with Wonder Woman for this post. Development on the sequel is happening. Gal Godat is coming back to star, Partty Jenkins is coming back to direct. But what will the story be?...The wartime setting had been kicked around as a backdrop for the first film for decades - as far back as the 90's, when the short list of possible candidates for the lead included Sandra Bullock, Lucy Lawless and the fan-favorite choice, Catherine Zeta Jones. Now..just because this first movie was set in WWI doesn't mean Wonder Woman 2 should be set in WW2. I liked the rumor about a 2nd and 3rd film being set in different decades leading up to the present. Or they could rip-off the approach used by Marvel Studios' Captain America films by embedding the sequels deep into a bigger storyline that connected with other sequels. One thing for certain: forget about the comics. This Wonder Woman is purely a new incarnation created for the screen; they name-dropped a number of comic book creators in the credits, but they're just being polite. There are no good/great Wonder Woman stories from the comics. Similar deal with Marvel's Thor and Captain America; you could argue that Winter Soldier and Civil War are based on storylines from the books, but only loosely; I still believe the best Thor story was the one where Loki turned him into a frog...

And it's only in Thor: Ragnarok where it looks like the studio is embracing the character's Silver Age for the first time, after the very drab-looking Thor: The Dark World and a lightweight, derivative Thor, this is the first time we get the movie Thor wearing his Helmet, albeit a stylized version of it. This film looks good enough to copy..

Here's my idea: I don't know if Greek mythology has an equivalent of the Norse Ragnarok, but I think sticking Wonder Woman in a parallel to that would be really cool. Her rogues gallery has Circe and The Cheetah - 2 villains that counter nicely with Hela and Loki. I remember John Byrne had Etrigan the Demon guest-star in some issues from his tenure on the Wonder Woman comics, so with there's a good counterpart of the Hulk who Wonder Woman could fight and later team-up with. I keep hearing about a live-action Justice League Dark film in development, so having Etrigan appear with Wonder Woman...is really good for business. Plus, whoever is cast as Etrigan's human counterpart Jason Blood will get to have dialogue with Godat, to make up for the absense of Chris Pines' Steve Trevor, so it won't just seem like special effects, special effects, special effects. The only casting choice I have is Ana de Armas as The Cheetah; I'm not sure which take on the character they'll use, but she's Wonder Woman's most-popular adversary..kinda like an MMA fighter version of Catwoman. Ana de Armas is kinda the new flavor of the month on the heels of Blade Runner: 2049, so she'd be interesting...the way it might not to interesting to see someone more familiar in the part.

What's the plot? Whatever the basic plot of Thor: Ragnarok is. The Cheetah is impersonating Hippolyta so that Circe can takeover Paradise Island/Themyscira..which kinda reminds me of the island from Shakespeare's play The Tempest..so who says Zeus/Merlin/Shazzam/Prospero didn't camp there? Did I just link Zeus thematically with Merlin and Prospero and am I the first to have suggested this? That's a fun mystery/subplot that could link these disparate characters nicely. Why the heck not? Ares was shown to be alive and well - before Diana killed him, of course - why not reveal Zeus as Merlin/Shazzam/Prospero and Circe (Miranda) as his illegitimate daughter, intending to restore her birthright by conquering the Amazons?

So after all the bread and circuses of Diana beating Etrigan in an arena battle, the Cheetah is revealed as impersonating Hippolyta, so Circe drops in, then Diana & Etrigan team-up as they're chased, i.e., hunted throughout Themyscira by mind-controlled Amazons led by Circe and Cheetah...as both parties search for some big MacGuffin...a rock shaped like a thunderbolt, the "Orb of Bachfyre" - thesolution to where Hippolyta went...and it turns out to be...a Mother Box! Hippolyta was kidnapped by Granny Goodness to train an army of female furies to conquer New Genesis! Hippolyta gets swapped with Circe and Cheetah in the Boom tube and Granny Goodness enlists them as her new furies...because who cares about Lashina, Mad Harriet and Stompa?..although I can see Aubrey Plaza as Lashina or Mad Harriet...and so the film ends as the next step in the buildup to the ultimate confrontation with Darkseid and makes Wonder Woman's corner of the DCU more central to the film universe's shenanigans.

That's my idea...now I wonder what Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League are about..