The character of Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) will be making her big screen debut for the first time in her 75-year history this week when "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" finally drops. As a member of DC's main trinity of heroes, someone probably should have gotten around to a movie version of Wonder Woman sooner, but at least we have her now.
However, it sounds like we don't have all of her. Largely considered one of the most powerful characters in DC Comics history, "Dawn of Justice" producer Deborah Snyder (and director Zack Snyder's wife), revealed in a recent interview that they are downplaying Wonder Woman's abilities a bit so she can show them off in next year's "Wonder Woman" solo film.
"Really, we did a chart with what their powers were, like what Superman's powers were, and I think you see a little bit of Wonder Woman," Snyder said. "So we get a sense of her power but we didn't want to do too much because obviously Patty's [Jenkins] going to build up to that and we're going to learn how she discovered her powers in that movie."
Both casual and hard core fans realize there may exist some redundancies in the abilities of Superman and Wonder Woman. We get that. But to introduce her half-cocked like this is an insult to her character and a reversal of WB's long held "we're beating Marvel to the punch with blockbuster female superheroes" attitude ("Wonder Woman" arrives before "Captain Marvel").
It's true that Wonder Woman's powers have gone through several reboots over the years. Typically, she has super strength, flight, endurance and speed. But since we know she'll be 5,000 years old during the events in "Dawn of Justice," why not let her unleash her full arsenal? It seems odd that she'd tap into a fuller range of powers in "Wonder Woman," a film that takes place 100 years before "Dawn of Justice," and then put them on the back burner this time around. This could be a cop out on WB's part in order to make Henry Cavill's Superman and Ben Affleck's Batman seem more powerful.
At least we only have a few more days to wait until we can make a firm judgment on the big screen version of Wonder Woman.
"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" will arrive this Friday, March 25. Wonder Woman headline her own solo movie set to be released on June 23, 2017.
Follow Brandon Katz on Twitter: @Great_Katzby
