BLUNDER WOMAN!

William Moulton Marston - Wonder Woman's creator and inventor of the lie detector.

        The other day I had an exhilarating conversation about Wonder Woman’s twin. Specifically, how satisfying it would be if Wonder Woman, Diana of the Amazon, warrior princess from a mythical queendom, had a twin sister who was a complete mess. 

This sister, unlike the dark-skinned Nubia (of precarious political correctness) who appears occasionally in DC comics, would be the equal and opposite reaction to Diana’s perfection – her strength wearying, her speed a vulnerability – often devastating private property not safeguarding public welfare in Man’s World.

She fights in arcane, piddling theaters; she’s obsessed with cutlery design, biodynamic colons, public education and the ocean floor – which, being super-powered, she can visit. She’s agitated and haggard, with high cholesterol and insomnia. Her tiara often boomerangs back into her face. She shows up at Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor’s door with mustard in her hair and one of her gold wrist cuffs missing.  

She is: Blunder Woman.

In the comics, Wonder Woman can remove her gold bracelets, greatly amplifying her powers, but then she goes insane. Blunder Woman is half-there all the time. She’s neurologically atypical. Without getting diagnostically specific, Blunder Woman’s maladjustment, her strange habits and melancholy can be measured scientifically.

She’s a hero with an uncommon experience of the world, whose altered mind belies her abilities. More Lionel Essrog of Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn or Haddon’s young hero of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – naturally peculiar – than the Dark Phoenix, Venom and other characters overwhelmed by power or an alien force, brainwashed, tortured or stricken with amnesia.

A brain hero like Blunder Woman reflects where we are culturally with science. The brain is the visible frontier. Sufficiently advanced technology, funding, popular and media interest have coalesced in this neurological moment. Disciplines like ecology and archeology are studied with comparatively diminished fascination and support.

For the most part, super heroes and villains were conceived in two dimensions and have retained observable simplicity and purity in the present. Elevating the untidy complications of the mind into the superhero hall allows us to deal with neurological mysteries in the context of infinite dramatic sagas, if we elect to.

We choose our heroes. We draw attention and resources to causes we believe in and, for humans, genetic and environmental variability has been the truest never-ending story.

Blunder Woman is my hero because she represents the brain’s possibilities, power and fragility. She’s a picture of the imperfect: difference-celebrating, vice-affirming and excuse-offering. She’s also a perfectionist cautionary tale – think, the dark, flawless Black Swan (film or ballet) – and an uncomfortable reminder that regardless of genius, talent or victory, some deficits, whether they’re seen as such or not, are permanent.

Superheroes appear when we need them, in narrative fiction and real life. Wonder Woman arrived at super speed to save the day with her lasso of truth in 1941 at the beginning of World War II, two decades after the 19^th amendment enfranchised women – a conscious embodiment of traditional strength, wisdom and femininity. In 1999, humanity’s hacker messiah showed us we could be free, have faith and fight for love in the new technological millennium, in The Matrix. There’s a fictional hero for almost every social concern.

Fiction is art, but like science, entrepreneurship and activism, it’s part of the work we do to address the problems of our times. The struggle is to achieve, win and not to repeat battles. We raise heroes so that, one day, we’ll no longer need them.

Given trends in neuroscience, gene therapy and biotech, it’s not preposterous to imagine a more genetically homogenous population down the line. Neutralizing or removing genes and protein receptors linked to disease, borrowing traits and abilities from other species – perhaps even the cleansed, synthetic futures of sci fi nightmare – how far we are from these possibilities varies, but they’re all on the table.

We’ll continue to use technology to make humans healthier. This troubles me because historically unhealthy people (particularly neurologically unhealthy people) have done amazing things. Extraordinary mental faculties pair with severe mental and physical abnormalities. The frailties of our species (as it is today) contribute to a diverse population and a volatility that incites passion and inspires creation.

Reduced genetic variation and fitter populations will alter the trajectory of our world. It’s pointless to ask, with hands outstretched to a silent sky, if it’ll be an improved world. Better to be part of its creation. Exploration is inevitable. Don’t fear Gattaca. Genetic destiny is a partial truth.

But who are the heroes of the healthier, homogenous future? Certainly not Blunder Woman.

Heroes belong to the worlds they protect. Comic book stories continue decade after decade (1) because they’re entertaining adventure stories. Villains and circumstances are updated – sometimes completely re-written, as Wonder Woman recently was – and heroes rise and fall in popularity. I grew up with Kitty Pride, Martha Washington and Tank Girl. They also persist because (2) superheroes are as immortal as the human qualities they embody. With near religious explanatory suasion, they stand for: courage, loyalty, resilience …

Will these traits be as important in the future? Will we crave adventure when our brains interface directly with Wikipedia? After psychopharmacology births unimaginable, safe mind-expanding drugs? Will we need superheroes at all?

I don’t think we’ll see the end of them. At minimum, they’ll serve as reminders of who we were – the flavors of our cultural past. Pick your favorite. Not knowing what future heroes will be like is kind-of exciting. Whoever they are, I expect fans will feel the same fondness for them that I feel for Batman, Buffy, Blunder Woman and so many others.