All twisted up in AmazonTown

...I realized that there are two, possibly more, ways I could go after I sculpted that laser-etched, surgically sharp title of mine.  And by "ways" I mean things far more arcane than leftwise and righticle.  Perhaps even more confusing than upsides and southdown.  Yes - there are concepts more esoteric and unknowable even than those.  We're talking full-on Lovecraftian geometry up in here.  The two things that I was mostly thinking about are however, somewhat related and so with that in mind (and also the fact that literally no one can stop me from writing whatever I damned well please) it has come into my brainsauce that I shall cover both topics.

They have to do with content.  Media, even.  The consumption and reportage of the same and the various interpretations of classics that modern audiences find themselves exposed to.  See that?  If you didn't know any better you'd almost think that sentence made sense.  You'd be hooked - wondering what it is that this obvious savant has to say relative to the 21st Century Media Culture that saturates our lives.  Well, lords and ladies (and, I suppose, poo-covered peasants), let's get right down to it, shall we?

First, Smallville was a pretty popular show.  Say what you want about it, but it's a thing that did well for DC Comics try to keep the worst superhero in the universe relevant.  It cemented ratings for the fledgling WB network (and then the CW) and gave the world Kristen Kruek - or however the heck it is she spells her name.  These are pretty decent accomplishments.  Things to be proud of.  They even almost made people so interested in DC properties that there was an Aquaman live action series of the same vein.

Aquaman, for the love of all that is holy.  Now, it would have been called Mercy Reef and if there's any justice in the world would have been more of a sequel to Baywatch Nights and less about Aquaman but unfortunately that didn't happen.  What happened instead?  Arrow.  It's about a guy who shoots arrows at stuff.  For justice?  Well, for some damned reason anyway.  It's marginally fun to watch and marginally successful in ratings and (I imagine) advertisers.

Naturally, of course, that leads us to the newest project in that vein that's been announced.  Amazon.  (See - it's starting to tie back in to my topic.  It took us a while, but we got there.  It's like Oregon that way.  But with less dysentery and oxen.  At least I hope less of those things.)  Amazon will tell us a modern, up to date, edgy version of everyone's favorite woman named Dianna Prince ever - Wonder Woman

Lynda Carter remains skeptical.

The thing that confuses me about this is the basics of Wonder Woman's origins.  And no, I don't mean the bondage fantasies of her creator - although an episode in which she loses her powers because "her hands were bound by a man" would be hilarious and I would watch the heck out of it.  Not in a creepy way, because the girl in question would be over 18.  I mean, in a way that I wouldn't necessarily want Ladytoa to be in the room with me while I was watching it, but not a super creepy way.  Maybe like 45% creepy.  It's not even a plurality of creep.  STOP JUDGING ME, SWAN!

What I mean is simply this - Wonder Woman's life before she started flying invisible jets and pulling crazy dominatrix stunts on the criminals of the world was boring.  She was either A) created out of nothing but clay when someone got lonely and lived as the only child in a realm of immortal, intelligent, perfect, peaceful, wise women (yeah, alliteration!) or, B) really, some variation thereof.  I mean, she comes from a place literally called Paradise Island for the gods' sake.  I don't think you can reinvent that too much.  Unless you're calling "Paradise Island" a housing project deep in the worst bowels of New Detroit something that has a name like that would not give itself over readily to a lot of seedy crime, nor have much of a driving need to combat the same.  Wonder Woman only works when she's left her origin behind and is out busting heads and stopping Nazis from stealing our milk (True story - and one of the greatest comic book villain plans ever).  She's out to understand Man's World and teach her super-intelligent, immortal sisters about what the world has been like in the 2000 years since they've been hidden away in a perfectly protected, completely benevolent society.

I think a well-done WW series could be awesome for the geeks of the world.  Try to show people out there that not everyone who enjoys comics only cares about the ladies for what they can get out of them (yes, yes, we would sort of need to remove the crazy bondage overtones, but luckily those have been mostly out of the comics since, like, the 80s).  I just don't know that a stripped-down origin story works as well for this character as well as it did for some others.  There's not really "Wonder Girl" stories (yes, Donna Troy.  Yes, Cassie Sandsmark. No, let's not get into that right now) that matter at all.  It wouldn't be interesting to watch Dianna discover her powers because she was trained in how to use them pretty much since birth.  Watching her hang out and receive a Classical Greek education just doesn't sound like riveting TV to me.  That said, I'm going to watch at least the Pilot Episode when it makes it to the air.  Hopefully I'm wrong.  Maybe it will start In Media Res.  Maybe, like Namor, she'll wake up with amnesia and need to relearn about herself? I don't know.

Going Leftwise from there - Amazon.  The company (AMZN) that is.  Specifically, Amazon Prime.  That stuff is legit and it blows my mind in a way that for some reason Netflix never really did.  Maybe it's because you get the shipping upgrade for their physical stuff in addition to their streaming options.  Maybe it's because their Prime-eligible free streaming is pretty robust for something that they're not charging you for.

Or maybe, and this is probably the most likely, it amazes me because I'm an old man.  Not quite tottering around in diapers old, but the transition away from physical media and into a streaming consumption model really hit me when I saw the way Amazon was handling this.  Sure, Netflix had streaming but it was originally an add-on that sort of became more convenient.  Hulu has streaming, but Hulu sucks unless you pay for Hulu Plus.  Amazon is just like, hey, you paid me for this one, completely unrelated service, would you like some free access to stuff along with that?

And the answer is yes.  Without a doubt yes.  I will continue to purchase and collect physical media for as long as that's a thing that exists (I like to *own* things, not just the right to watch those things) but it no longer bothers me as much as it used to to see it go away.

I think I'm done with my rambling for now.