Who's the most ass-kicking-est DC woman? 10/16 match-up

[thebigapricot]

Today's match is between two woman who have more in common than just their treatment in Final Crisis. They both appeared in comics around the same time over 60 years ago and both are get their powers from the Gods. You can vote until 8pm EST here.

In this corner a woman who has fought for good through several publishers and origins. A woman who knows the power of Shazam. A woman who deserves better than she’s gotten from comics in the past few years ... Mary Marvel

Mary Marvel beats Captain Atom to a pulp in "Formerly known as the Justice League" #2 (she's been evilized)

Mary Marvel in her "non super" state" with her roomie Bea in "Formerly known as the Justice League" Do you think Dini and Morrison read this? (Sorry for the scan condition, not my own)

Black Mary Marvel in Final Crisis #3 punching Wonder Woman

And in the other corner, a woman who is is an avatar for truth, who seeks to bring the wisdom of her people to the rest of the word and who receives her powers from the Gods ... Wonder Woman

From Rucka's run on Wonder Woman issue #210

Diana in her "non-super" state with BFF Black Canary from Gail Simone's Wonder Woman issue #34

Diana on the cover of Final Crisis #3

Comments

[shanejayell]

Wonder Woman. No question.

[taggerung301]

Diana all the way

[cuntfucius]

ABSTAINING. I want to vote for Wonder Woman, but I feel like I would love Mary much much more if the writers didn't project all of their disgusting and dim-witted ideas on to her. Like Ice and Donna Troy (as Wonder Girl), she held a personality in the DCU that set her apart from a lot of the more "rarr asskicky" girls. But now after what has happened to her? I wouldn't feel right voting for Diana :(

[jeyl]

Wonder Woman. Just try to put her in a position where she has no choice.

*snap*

I LOOOVE that. Batman is no longer the one we need to fear.

[neuhallidae]

I have to vote for Mary. Poor girl's been so shat on by canon, she needs some hugs.

[jaybee3]

Mary's getting wiped out against Diana (big surprise, huh?). I say vote for her (I did) so she isn't TOTALLY humiliated. A character that cool should have some fans.

As for Dini and Morrison, I'd wager they were the only one who hadn't read ONLY the Superbuddies Giffen/DeMatteis portrayals of her - the Countdown Mary (which was written by Dini, Palmiotti, Gray, Beechan, Bedard and McKeever) seemed like a direct hit at the image (which Giffen admitted was an exaggeration to begin with) that was presented of Mary in "Formerly Known as The Justice League" - i.e. innocent and slightly stupid/ditzy. In Ordway's Power of Shazam series she was the smartest of the Marvels and had come from a home that included murdered parents and an abusive guardian (she was no innocent). I give a pass on Morrison too since he made it clear that Mary was mind-possessed by DeSaad. Dini in Countdown however has no excuses. He knew better.

[cuntfucius]

Or the fact that she was just used as Evil/Dark Mary right after Final Crisis, too. And the surrounding jokes and inside quotes around her character from the writers disgust me, so I give no one passes :) but Morrison.

[jaybee3]

Seriously if I had been one of the writers involved with those storylines I would be embarrassed (notice none of them ever talk about Countdown in interviews now - ESPECIALLY Dini?). If you read Countdown straight through and concentrate on Mary's storyline with all the T&A shots of a minor, with all the sexual posturing/lines, with all the deliberately stupid lines they gave her ("I'm Mary Damn Marvel!"), with her being told off by characters like The Riddler(!), Jimmy Olsen, Zatanna, Donna Troy, heck even her beloved brother told her to get lost, you really have to wonder what sort of issues the writers/editors had with the character (many of whom admitted they didn't know much about her to begin with). And then they continue it in JSA AFTER Final Crisis and all the criticism they got (and they did) as if just to prove some kind of point? A strange way to run a business IMO.

[jlroberson]

I had no problem with the evil Mary Marvel, but they used it to basically END Mary Marvel, and that's wrong. She is overlooked, often, and the fact is that from day one she was the most independent(despite her name) super-heroine ever, certainly in the GA--although granted, she also reflects a certain progressive 40s view of women that sadly died about when WW2 did. What does she do with her powers when she first gets them? Kicks the asses of a roomful of male criminals, that's what. And it's not like she got her powers from Billy--she is EQUALLY entitled to them and was from day one. And I don't recall--unlike at least older versions of Diana--her ever pining over, well, ANY guy.

She is a great character for young girls because of all this--but DC does not use her that way. Fawcett was more forward-thinking than DC in this respect.

[jeyl]

"Mary's getting wiped out against Diana (big surprise, huh?). I say vote for her (I did) so she isn't TOTALLY humiliated. A character that cool should have some fans."

This isn't a poll for sympathy. This is a poll for triumph! You want to impress Mary upon me, than bestow your knowledge and fill us in on what's good and what's epic about her. Until next time, Diana gets my support for all her love.

[auggie18]

Mary's being driven crazy. We don't know by what. All we know is that she's being stalked by a super-villain and that there are voices in her head telling her to do horrible things. Suddenly, we see her steal a piece of super villain tech and use it on a seemingly innocent man.

Has she snapped? No. Instead of trying to ignore the voices, she's been listening to them and figuring out who they belong to. Deducing the work of Mister Mind, she finds the spot where she feels the least stable, finds the person who is the source of her growing instability, and uses a sonic disruptor 'borrowed' from Dr Siviana to drive the telepathic worm out of the man's head.

Mary approaches the World's Wickedest Scientist in her mortal form, staying entirely vunerable the whole time she's under his power, aware that he could kill her at any second, just to trick him into a position where she can free the old drunk pretending to be her uncle.

And, even when she was polly-anned to the extreme, knocking out an insanely strong mob monster with a flick of her wrist and beating Captain Atom almost to death, when they were in a brainwashed duel to the death.


Mary seems to get the most use out of her wisdom, but she's also a heavy hitter. When handled right, she's a hand of steel in a velvet glove. When handled wrong, well...

[retro_nouveau]

FUCK YEAH THATS MAH AMAZON!!! SHES GODDAMN EPIC!!! SHES THE SHIT!!! SHE ROCKS HELLA HARDCORE!!! SHE FUCKING KICKS SOME SERIOUS ASS!!!1!

Uh, did I say that right? So difficult to follow the way kids talk these days. I would be more like:

Yay, Diana! You can go the distance on this one! Woo-hoo! xoxo! <3!

Oh my zod, shoot me now.

[aelflar]

There`s nothing more I love than to hear a fervent fan fervently supporting his/her fandom! <33!

[grimmbear]

I have to go with Mary. I love hem both but the Marvels hold a special place in my heart and fuck morrison for all he did to her.

[aelflar]

Sigh. I wish I could vote for Mary but the whole grim`n`gritty debacle left bad taste. So Diana it is!

[njcinlbc]

Poor Mary- this beating vote wise will make what Morrison did to you seem like a playdate with Elmo! Chuck I'll take Diana for the win please

[njcinlbc]

Did not see that coming AT ALL- cant wait to see the last min polls-

[leikomgwtfbbq]

I know she'll never ever win this vote in a million years, but--Mary Marvel for me! She's my second-favorite heroine of all time--second only to Power Girl. I'm still fuming about what they've been doing with her these past several years. ARGH.

[gehayi]

This is bizarre...but, at the moment, Mary is WINNING. At 62%.

[liara_shadowsong]

Yes, I find it highly bizarre, too. D'ya think there's a glitch in the system?

[q99]

It does strike me as odd, what with all the posts talking about how Mary's being wiped out up higher.

[psychopathicus_rex]

It could be that, perversely enough, the whole 'turning evil' thing has actually made her MORE popular, because it was a VERY high-profile thing and has been discussed all over the internet, which led to lots and lots of publicity for her, which led to new fans - whether for the bad or good version of her, I couldn't say; I hope the latter.

[q99]

Yea, if this was just a 'who's more popular' poll I'd agree with you, but a who kicks the most ass poll? When a lot of people come from here and thus know how badass Diana can be? Seems odd.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Unfortunately, a lot of times these things more or less DO translate to 'who's more popular'. And while Diana is indeed badass, she has an awfully spotty history in that regard - she's pretty universally recognized, but whether or not she's actually POPULAR at any given time is debatable. As has been discussed before, the tone of her comic has varied so wildly over the course of her career that casual fans can find it intimidating, and stay away.
And yes, a lot of people who are voting DO come from here, but, well, it's not a scans_daily exclusive, y'know. The 'net's a big place.

[q99]

And if it was just Mary winning I'd think nothing was odd except that, but the reports of WW having a commanding lead then it switching is unusual. Also one thing that's suspicious is 400 votes all coming from one state (if you check the vote breakdowns).

Though, it doesn't matter a lot in any case.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Depends on which state, really. If it's a big one, like California or Texas, that's not all that surprising. If it's more along the lines of Idaho or Rhode Island, then yeah, that's a bit strange. I do agree that the lead switching places is pretty weird no matter how you cut it, but I hardly think this is the sort of thing someone would bother to sabotage.

[thebigapricot]

I wouldn't use the word sabotage. How about enthusiastic ballot stuffing? In the case of Mary vs. Diana the votes were located to a very specific source. Voting is monitored and doubled checked against state size and the checked against a second source. There were ballot stuffing incidents in two others this week.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Hrrm. Well, that does sound like convincing evidence, all right, but it's a bit weird that someone went to the trouble of unbalancing the vote for a simple fan-poll that doesn't actually affect anything.

[liara_shadowsong]

Take another look, there has been an update on the page that due to ballot stuffing, Mary's count is to be lowered by 400, and Diana's by 7. Look at PA; there are about 400 votes, and 98% of them are for Mary. Who the hell ballot stuffs almost four hundred damn votes in a fan-poll that only got a little over five hundred votes besides the stuffing? I mean, numberswise, that would be like a city election in a town of ten thousand where half the people usually vote getting nine thousand ballots cast instead of the general five thousand, with four thousand of them being identical. WTF?!

(Please note that I have nothing against Mary Marvel. She's fairly awesome when she is written well. But Diana kicks waaay more ass. The image of her with the snake? She's in the process of kicking the ass of a revived - and possibly even more powerful than before, by my approximation - Medusa. She re-killed freaking Medusa. Diana kicks enough ass that she still gets respect wearing what is often portrayed as a rather stripperific costume.)

[auggie18]

Where are foreign votes counted? A whole bunch of my friends and I all voted from Italy. If there's a thing filtering foreign votes into a certain state, I feel like that would make more sense then someone constantly switching IP addresses just to ballot stuff.

[q99]

I think they don't show up in a particular state, but there's no way that'd account for 400 of 'em in any case.

[thebigapricot]

They are counted but the poll only shows the break down of the US ones.

[liara_shadowsong]

I'm reasonably sure it's just a simple matter of the map everyone can see only displaying the breakdown of the US vote percentages, since that's where most of the people voting are doing so from. Plus, 400 of 900 votes coming from abroad (in a mainly English-speaking online community that discusses comic books which, while often beloved by people all over the world, are most easily accessible in the United States) and being pretty much 100% Mary Marvel? Not incredibly likely (that is a pretty extreme case of the whole "Germans Love David Hasselhoff" trope, if roughly 98% of those abroad choose Mary and something like 80% of the US votes went to Diana). Somebody being dedicated yet extremely foolish actually makes more sense, sad as that may be.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Clearly, we have one rabid Mary Marvel fan out there with a lack of common sense and a possible background in George W. Bush's election committee.

[thebigapricot]

People are very engaged in this tournament. And it wasn't just this round that saw ballot stuffing, it occurred in two other match-ups.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Yow. We have some devoted - and crazy - fans here.

[liara_shadowsong]

Two others? Holy moley! Don't they realize that unless it's a very close match anyways that is easily tipped by an extra dozen votes and/or they somehow get their votes to show up in many states, people looking closely at the results will figure out something is up? I understand being engaged in the tournament, I just don't understand the lack of common sense in one or more people's method of demonstrating it.

[liara_shadowsong]

Diana gets my vote, hands down.

[shadur]

I sympathize with Mary and the way she's been treated less than kindly lately, but seriously. Against Wonder Woman? No contest.

Diana all the way.

[charlemagnne]

Its not even a competition. Diana, hands down

[big_daddy_d]

Wonder Woman gets my vote.

As for Mary, I'm looking at that first panel on that first page and can't help but think of the context:

Captain Atom: "I can..still see...up your skirt.."

Followed by a very brutal beat down courtesy of Mary Marvel.

And seriously what's with the constant trend of her heel/face turn?

[auggie18]

Mary Marvel, a hundred and ten percent. I'll never forget when I first met her. An innocent, sweet girl, nice as can be. She gets attacked by a giant monster and casually backhands it into oblivion.

Love that girl.

[proteus_lives]

Diana would win but Mary would give her a good fight.

[q99]

I like Mary a lot as a character, but in badassness? Diana all the way.

[star_of_airdrie]

Diana of Themyscira. No question.

[psychopathicus_rex]

I'm going with Diana, but I do have a lot of sympathy for Mary Marvel. I think she REALLY needs a good writer to take her in hand - the whole 'turning evil' thing obviously did her no favors, but neither did the 'space cadet goody-two-shoes on helium' portrayal we see above. There's nothing wrong with having Mary be a bit naive and idealistic, but that shouldn't be the ONLY thing that defines her - I see her as a very nice, sweet person, the sort who gives blood at the blood bank and volunteers at homeless shelters and genuinely CARES about people, which is why she doesn't hesitate to kick the ass of anyone who seeks to hurt them. And then she visits them in jail with a batch of chocolate chip cookies and inquires worriedly about whether their jaws are still tender from where she punched them. A girl scout with a thirst for justice - that's her.