After the Bat-Manga, DC decided to be a little more judicious when it came to choosing who would turn their properties into Japan-friendly characters. In fact it got so precious about it that they basically didn't do anything for decades, which lead to cartoonist Ben Caldwell going out of his way to produce a pitch for a manga-ised Wonder Woman. Taking inspiration from the magical girl genre of Japanese comics and cartoons - you know, the Sailor Moon types, where young women get trusted with magical powers in order to go kick evil's arse whilst wearing fabulous outfits - he put together a Wonder Woman that would finally appeal to the proper demographic. That is, tween and teenaged girls, rather than the slightly pervy middle-aged fanboys who picked up her title so long as she kept wearing the same sparkly underpants they remember Lynda Carter prancing around in during their salad days. And we think it might actually have worked out, had DC okayed the idea: Wonder Woman as magical girl makes a crazy kind of sense, and Caldwell's art in the pitch was a fresh, fun take on the character and her supporting cast. Or it could have been a cynical cash grab at the burgeoning American otaku market which was a shallow photocopy of stuff they'd seen in Sailor Moon. We'll never know. Probably the latter, though.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
