The last few weeks have been a pretty weird rollercoaster for the Warrior Nun fandom.
Headed to the Afterlife
The show was canceled back in December 2022, after two seasons on Netflix. While season one had been a lower-key affair, season two burst out of the gates with queerness. We had known that one of the nuns was queer (and another was heavily implied), but we not only got more of that queer, we got a wlw romance!
Sadly, the second season ended with Ava (the titular Warrior Nun) either dead or in another dimension (don’t you hate when that happens?) and a strong implication that she’d be back. At the time, at least we could say it wasn’t a clear cut BYQ (Bury Your Queers).
And then the show was canceled, and we were all bummed, because season two was frankly pretty banging. It improved so much from season one, it gave us depth to many characters, it expanded the world, and basically just got really good. Way better than people might expect from the name.
As Forbes put it “Netflix Cancels ‘Warrior Nun,’ Its Highest Audience-Scored Series Ever, For Reasons”.
Resurrection
Then, in June of 2023, creator Simon Barry said the show was saved!
The fans rejoiced! I was a little bummed that it was going to be three films (not ‘TV Movies’) and would likely not be eligible for the site. Still, we would get an ending, and that was great.
But news started to trickle out that was confusing at best. In June, Dean English (the producer) released a video that talked about a shared universe and more, but how this was not related to Netflix. To anyone else who was a One Day at a Time or Daredevil fan, we got worried. Netflix you see is notorious for not letting their IPs go anywhere else for around five years. How were they getting around that?
Then October happened.
It’s All Ben Dunn Before
Simon Barry (again the show creator) said he was not involved in the show. Then Amy Berg (one of the head writers) said she wasn’t either. It very quickly came to light that not a single of the writers was coming back. What the hell did that mean?
A couple days later, we found out. The film would be a ‘return’ to the source material.
Now this is where my feelings made a harsh turn. You see, somewhere in my closet, stashed with all my comics, is a copy of the original print of Warrior Nun Areala. I also have most of the initial run on Ninja High School. That’s right, kids, I actually was reading Ben Dunn’s stuff way back in the day! Back when this show was announced, I winced because I knew very well how hyper sexualized the comic was. I reasoned that Netflix would tone it down a bit, and when I saw who the lead was, I was hopeful it wouldn’t be as bad.
Yeah, I said as bad. Folks, the comic is bad. It’s a pure T&A show. Slutty nuns. And it bums me out because Dunn is perfectly capable of writing interesting, character driven works. Sure, it had Downey Ultra-Soft Core art in the 80s and 90s, but that really was a style back then (look up Rob Leifield’s Captain America Chest drawing for a snort-laugh at the screwed up proportions). Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri, over at X-Men, were at the forefront of the ‘super sexual superheroes’ art, and frankly it’s why I stopped reading their comics. That and the crossovers.
I have zero interest in a film series if it’s going back to that.
WLW Want Nun Of It
Pretty soon after the queer community sorted out what was happening, the phrase STOP USING THE WN FANDOM was all over my social media. They were using artwork from the original comics to show what they didn’t want. No pointy-attack-boobs, no super hiked up swimsuits that suggest full body waxing.
What do they want?
A continuation of the TV show, and keeping the creator and writers who made the show popular.
What are we likely to get?
A multiverse filled with T&A and all new writers.
It’s frankly depressing to see this. Producer Dean English has learned nothing from the mistake Netflix made. The reason the show was popular was because of positive and engaging characters and (yes) queer content that was relatable. They somehow managed to make a love story slip into a saga about devils and gods and resurrection, in an organic and believable way!
But they appear to be throwing all that away for the ‘source material.’
I hope, I really hope, that when they talk about the source material, they just mean the mythos and not the clothes. But what I’m expecting is that our fandom, our passion for shows where we see ourselves, is yet again going to be exploited.
Until then, keep being loud and let your displeasure be heard.
