David E Kelley Is Reinventing Wonder Woman As A Run Of The Mill Superhero For TV
Wonder Woman isn’t just another crime fighter. A member of the mythical Amazon tribe, Wonder Woman comes to what she calls Man’s World to bring peace. Which doesn’t stop her from being a formidable warrior.
At least that’s more or less how it’s always been in DC Comics (Wonder Woman has been rebooted a zillion times, but the broad outline of the character more or less always stays the same - she’s an Amazon come to the regular world). But that’s not good enough for David E. Kelley, whose pilot script for a Wonder Woman TV series just got picked up by NBC. Kelley has reinvented the character as such:
a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.
So basically he’s stripped away the elements that make Wonder Woman interesting and turned her into Ally McBeal Meets Batman. Or at the very least shoved her into the same mold as about 90% of all secret identity superheroes.
I could be overreacting - there’s nothing in that synopsis that specifically says that Diana Prince can’t be an Amazon. But the whole ‘modern woman’ thing really sounds like a 180 degree turn away from the comic book Wonder Woman. That said, there was an extraordinary run of Wonder Woman comics in the late 60s where Diana lost her powers, bought a mod clothing boutique, learned martial arts and had espionage adventures.