Especially when you got people that don't know what they're doing working on her. I first became a fan of Wonder Woman after watching animated Justice League thoroughly. I felt she was underrated and needed more attention. It wasn't until I joined this site that I realize that Wonder Woman just doesn't have the appeal that I thought she had. Most people seem to not care and the people that do care do their best to make her look bad. It makes me question if becoming a fan was a mistake. I am doing my best to be a dedicated fan but people's perspective of her makes it hard.

Your premise it's wrong, IMO. It should have been "It's impossible to make her appealing to everyone". The only thing that someone (DC) can do to reach this unattainable goal is dumbing her down to the lowest common denominator. Dumb down the origin, dumb down the personality, dumb down the supporting cast, dumb down the message... and publicize the hell out of that... thing/product. It won't be WW anymore, but... hey: best WW evah!

Downside: this way you will fracture the fanbase in a billion shards and your product will never be able to stand on his legs again. People like whatever they like and fight for the survival of what they like: putting radical different characters under the name of WW and making clear that only one will survive in the zeitgeist destroyed the possibility of a strong fanbase and, as a consequence, of a strong future for the character.

At this point being a fan of DC and WW has become synonym of "being unsatisfied/angry at DC and WW" so, at least for me yes, I regard becoming a fan as a mistake... even if it was in good faith.

One of the things that makes it difficult to make her appealing is the effort to cater to what DC thinks will offend a feminist fan, so editors are probably being allowed to stifle writers' creativity; the only two writers during the post-crisis period that appear to have had some freedom of movement without fearing feminists appear to be George Perez and William Messner-Loebs; by choice, Perez chose to appease a feminist audience, while Messner-Loebs dismissed them as a threat; consequently, Messner-Loebs' work fit my taste really well (nothing specifically against feminists, just that I think their consideration when developing a Wonder Woman story or other female characters should be dismissed because they ruin them by impairing creativity; if they developed their own character(s) that would be fine, but, presumably, they would have their niche of fans that care about their feelings, where I wouldn't intrude and they could stop intruding; if I read their work, it would be for exploration purposes to see if I found something in it fascinating, while Wonder Woman is more slanted towards a general audience and into the BDSM/bondage audience). Another thing that is making her difficult to find appealing is the effort from a male industry to try to write what they think will appeal to a female audience in a female character; this would clearly not be an issue for male characters like Batman (and Joker), Superman (and Lex Luthor), Spider-man, and Hulk; so, that reinforces the effort to avoid offending feminists. Clearly, the best writer for Wonder Woman was Marston, her creator; BDSM and bondage was very important and intended to be an integral part of the Wonder Woman character; however, if BDSM were brought back, I would imagine that DC believes this would drive a feminist fan somewhere crazy, so, because of that, they avoid, even though the BDSM and bondage is what would make Wonder Woman appealing again, and the thing that drew me to Wonder Woman in the first place. The next thing that is a problem is not making Wonder Woman's antagonists her antagonists; every writer wants to bring their own antagonists, so, this breaks up cohesion; Wonder Woman's main antagonist is clearly Dr. Psycho, yet he rarely, ever appears in the Wonder Woman comics, unlike Joker for Batman, and Lex for Superman; than, aside from Dr. Psycho, characters like Cheetah, Giganta, Silver Swan, Duke of Deception, and Angle Man end up taking a back seat; and, the writer after Marston destroyed any cohesion by introducing a new theme for more than 15 years, while the post-crisis writers have followed suit, in wanting to bring their own thing, which includes a protagonists; Azzarello totally shuffled his run in this respect, and, when he brought an antagonist, they were new (e.g. Strife and First Born), where he made clear the reason that he gave Dr. Psycho some thought, but went with First Born instead; for cohesion purposes, Azzarello should have gone with Dr. Psycho, I would probably have enjoyed his run immensely, even though he also made clear that he was specifically trying to avoid TA, and the Finch(es) in being forced to develop Wonder Woman's primary antagonists, Dr. Psycho, would not be struggle for direction at this time, assuming Azzarello chose to step away from the book. And, if we have Dr. Psycho in the Wonder Woman book for extended periods of time, one important theme that would likely materialize is gender issues, which is the theme that should be driving the Wonder Woman book, just like discrimination drives the X-men book.

why other people's opinion matters to you is the real question. fandoms are fickle, it's a universal truth ... because fictional characters evolve and change and this eventually alienates folks. I've been a fan for 40+ years and I certainly have had my WFT moments with what they've done. But how I see the character and how they portray her at any given moment don't have to be 100% inline for me to remain a fan. For instance, I think what Azzarello did with parts of her world was really horrible, but I still liked the story he told. Unfortunately Finch hasn't got the story telling skill of Azzarello and now the things I disliked about his changes stand out much more. I'm not arrogant enough to make claims like "this isn't the real WW", but I am willing to say that I want change to bring back elements from the previous versions.

End of the day, don't let the rest of us dictate why you should or should not be a fan.

It looks like the Finch(es) are mimicking Azzarello quite well, and that's the problem for me with their direction; it's like a continuation of his run; they look like they can't find direction, because they're trying to predict what Azzarello would do; their first issue was good, but, after that, they started trying to mimic Azzarello. The best run that the Finch(es) probably should have looked at was Messner-Loebs' run, as he was skilled in separating Wonder Woman from Perez and taking her into her next direction.

@dshipp17: I don't think they are mimicking Azzarello at all. They took the very bare minimum of what he did and went in their own direction. At the end of Azzarello's run we had a lot of open ended situations. Hippolyta was alive, the Amazons were moving away from their stagnation, the gods were pretty mellow with Zeke being reinstated to the throne. Finch killed Hippolyta, the manazons and ignored any progress Diana had made with the Amazons. Her gods are a pale shade of the interesting characters Azzarello showed us and her storylines are all over the place without ever actually progressing. Azzarello certainly didn't spend 3 years building to his conclusion with any expectation of whatever Finch is doing. I think she's more like Messner-Loeb than you realize ... Trying so hard to stand out that she's muddled the whole mythos beyond recognition.

I couldn't think of anything that's more a mimicry than picking up the same characters from Azzarello's run; they've picked up on nearly every single character from Azzarello's run except Donna Troy, where the others have not been picked up on because of story context likely. What you've pointed out is predicting how Azzarello should have proceeded with his story in their eyes; this run is absolutely nothing like the Messner-Loebs run, as they're trying to cater to feminist while Messner-Loebs was not (e.g. I imagine Loebs would have shown Wonder Woman in the shower in the last issue, over several panel and pages, which is more my style). Either you think I haven't read Messner-Loebs' run or you haven't or you're not being serious.

@dshipp17: picking up a few cameos from Azzarellos run is like saying Perez was mimicking Marston because he included Etta and Steve in his reboot. Finch has made no effective use of Azzarellos primary support characters, rather they introduced Derinoe and have brought in JL characters and attempted to bring in characters from past eras such as Aegus and Donna. Zola, Hera and Strife have gotten a passing moment or two, but they are by no means main cast for Finch. My comment about ML was regarding the way Finch is going about her run, not a literal comparison between them. Personally didn't think ML did a whole lot of good for WW, but his run wasn't a disaster either. Finch is quickly turning into a disaster.

And if these two are catering to feminists, they are doing a piss poor job of it.

Mimicry also has to do with theme; the theme is the continued focus on Greek Mythology, so those characters I mentioned from Azzarello's run appears in Finch's run; and those characters are clearly not there just for a cameo, if the run is still mired in the Greek Mythology theme. As I said, issue 1 was the only issue not mired in Greek Mythology, so, I had hope, following that issue.

ML did good for Wonder Woman because he reenergized my interest in the character, which was required after what took place after Marston. Doing what's good for the character is clearly a matter of perspective; I want to see the character challenged while you want the character to have a smooth ride through each issue. From my perspective, I can't tell much of a difference between Finch's run and Azzarello's run, since the first issue of the Finch run.

@dshipp17: the Greek theme has been in the book for decades. This has nothing to do with Azzarello and Finch. And where on earth are you getting the idea that I want a "smooth ride". I want her to have a good storyline with writing that is engaging nothing less. I found ML adequate but nothing more than that. He doesn't stack up against Perez, Jimenez, Azzarello or Rucka or parts of Simone but was better than Byrne and most of the rest of the short-term writers post Perez. I don't think he really contributed a ton to WW ... but as you say that's a matter of perspective. What's not is that Finch has ignored and or dumped most of the themes Azzarello was going with and has downplayed every major supporting character from the previous run wi a possible exception of Strife. Finch has emulated more from Soule's run in SM/WW than Azzarello.

That's patently false; the book hasn't been mired in Greek Mythology to the degree it has been, since Azzarello took over; with a comment like that, I'm shocked that you claim to have been following the Wonder Woman title for 40 years. If you go back to Simone's run, skip Rucka, and start with the writer before him, you would not see a heavy concentration on Greek Mythology until you went back to Perez's run; and, before that, there was no concentration on Greek Mythology; yes, Greek Mythology was apart of Wonder Woman, but, it was mostly a cursory theme; people knew Wonder Woman to be more about BDSM and DC is trying to replace that impression with this sudden forced spoon feeding in Greek Mythology.

Again, that's a matter of your taste; according to my taste, ML is second only to Marston; after that, every post-crisis writer is about equal, except Perez was probably more creative than the rest; of course, that's just off the top of my head, but, aside from ML nothing else really sticks out to me.

Clearly, Finch is very much copying Azzarello; what she's doing in no way resembles what Soule did (e.g. Soule focused on Superman's villains; that was hardly Greek Mythology).

Are you kidding me? Did you read Perez? Rucka? Simone? Jiminez? JMS? These runs were all deeply rooted in mythology. Marston created her directly from Greek mythology and while he was more preoccupied with the WWII theme, he never let you forget that Aphrodite and Mars were the main players in Diana's world. Bondage was a device Marston used to get to his point about submitting to love making you more powerful, loving authority was the theme, not bondage. Kanigher followed suit, although without anywhere near the style of Marston. Even Denny O'Neil didn't walk completely away from the mythological when he depowered her, he just made things a bit more generically mystical than straight up greek myth. While I agree that Azzarello's run was more directly about mythology than others, it's clear to even the most casual observer that Finch has dialed that back since she came on board rather than mimicked what Azzarello did.

You're getting pedantic in your arguments, no one is saying she should always be 100% about myths or that she has always been 100% about myths so drop that exaggerated line of thinking because it's just a poor attempt to be misleading ... As for Finch, I believe she has taken a path much closer to what Soule was going down right from the beginning, you're not even considering that she's showing us the same story themes of "balancing roles" that Soule introduced right at the start of SM/WW. Just because Soule didn't use mythological monsters to illustrate the theme doesn't mean it's not the same thing.

I'm glad you liked ML ... personally I found his run to be uninspired because I never felt like he really deep into Diana's characterization. It wasn't without merit, but if it had never happened I wouldn't miss it either.