This is a one of (several) sides Wonder Woman, I hope we see in BvS and her solo feature. Strong, assured, and siding with personal sovereignty before what other people half a world away would think.
I generally think that New Frontier falls under the strain of setting up and telling what is a large story in a short time (77 minutes), but this is a nice quick scene with plenty of moral ambuguity.
On one hand Superman has got a point, allowing the women to kil their captors is brutal and the kind of extrajudicial thing he isn’t about. Superman is a character of empathy but also has over the years become a character linked to and searching for state approval both as a means of gaining a moral authority and keeping the public trust. He certainly would’ve freed the women but not let them harm their captors.
Also love the layering of two differing ideas of “might makes right” in this scene. Wonder Woman wants her ability to act of her own volition and with her strength right the wrongs as she sees them without state approval. She finds herself in a country torn apart by civil war, as France and Viet Minh forcese battle for control of the country. The fighting in the future Vietnam woul continue for another four years, ending in 1954 with the Geneva Conference of 1954. Innocent people always get hurt in this kind of situation.
Superman has this ability (and maybe more so) as well but attempts to place limits on it via another power (the US Goverment). But American history has a patern of this kind of imperialisim, a context Superman (and The Avengers in Age of Ultron) get placed in when openly working that way.
So who is the heroic figure here? Is it Superman and his fear of looking like a less then benevolent God. Or Wonder Woman, someone who is on the ground without want of others approval.
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