Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Wonder Woman

Totally agree. Just read #4. The visuals are spectacular. This rendering of Diana is fierce and majestic, yet contemporary. Great cliffhanger.

#5: Poseidon's makeover struck me as unintentionally (perhaps?) humorous. And Hades, I think, briefly appears. Then again, the makeovers of the gods hasn't been as big a hit with me as with most other readers, juding from reviews and comments I've read here and there.

I've been thinking about this disconnect. I think it started with Apollo. I liked the visual well enough, but was put off by the evil, or at least 'dark grey' nature of his characterization. Why is Apollo depicted similarly time after time? In novels, mostly, but as well as comics? I don't get it. Apollo would've been the most straightforward heroic update. Is that why? Sometimes, easiest *isn't* a negative. Someday, somewhere I guess I'll read an Apollo-in-the-current-times book or comic that captures my fancy.

Ah, well- I don't dispute the quality of the work; the 'horror' aspect to the Greek gods themselves (as opposed to their squabbling offspring/relatives/rivals) is just a take that doesn't tickle my trigger.

I do like Hera, though. Probably because she's the goddess I least had/have an image of.

Why is Diana in London? Has she lived in the US at all? It's a minor thing that puzzles me and keeps me from fully enjoying the stories.

New guy- Lennox. Claims to be Diana's half-brother. He's cool and all, but he's no substitution for Donna Troy. Can't tell yet if he's a 'good' or a 'bad' brother. If Donna does turn up, Diana's experience with Lennox will color Diana's receptiveness to Donna.

A Wonder Woman suspicious or leery of her Wonder Girl might be an interesting dynamic.

I agree about Apollo - I don't see him as burning up his oracles.
He was portrayed as a god of healing and life in the Greek myths and I prefer him as such, especially with so many negative and cold, god actions and personalities.

I'm not sure why Posiden wants Olympus since he has the oceans, which cover most of our world and most of the life here.

Zeus has more children than Diana and Lennox, of course - there's Hercules (one of the 12 highest on the Pantheon as voted by the gods), Apollo, Artemis and Athena, to name a few but probably the greatest.

Diana may be considered the 'last' though, if Zola dies.
I had a thought about Zola's child, perhaps it's Zeus, in hiding?

I didn't like the art much this time, #6, but I read it over multiple times to try to really understand the story.

Did Diana, Hermes, Lennox and Hades light, bind Hera to her home, effectively 'blinding' her?
That would keep her from finding and killing Zola and the baby, right?

And Hades is trying to hold Diana to the 2 gods, one queen idea/bargain?
Doesn't Hades already have a queen/wife, the goddess of Spring, I forget her name?
The Greek gods weren't known for multiple wives, lovers yes, wives no.

Persephone. Another Greek god that gets amazingly little play- in any media. Goddess of the spring who's married to the god of the afterlife- for half the year. Who knows what she's up to the other half?

I think I don't really want to see this creative team's take on her. She'll probably be a talking haystack with a maw that leads straight to hell (since that's what this Hades is calling his realm- despite the fact that the Greek mythological version was really nothing like the Christian hell).

Apollo was the god of light and the sun, truth, plague, music and poetry, as well as healing. Guess the 'plague' part caught the creative team's fancy. :rolleyes:

Yes.
It was like all of the discussion about Power Girl a few years ago and the only part Geoff used was the boob window and her attitude problem.
sigh

I've always liked Persephone. Her mother, the Harvest goddess, name again ?, is the one who graciously gave up her position on the Pantheon for Hercules to take.

The goddess of Spring was enough, and SHOULD have been enough, for Hades. She brought life and light and laughter to his realm. She stayed 6 months, all through spring and summer, leaving at the fall solstice, IIRC.
When she wasn't with him, she was up here with her mother bringing warmth, color and bounty to everything on earth.
So, she should be doing good stuff.

It's too bad that we don't see any of the positive gods and goddess besides Hermes, especially Diana's traditional patronesses Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis, the AAAs of Olympia.

And I'm sorry that Diana feels that her life was destroyed.

Persephone/Prosperina's mother was Demeter/Ceres.

But I think Hestia (goddess of the home and hearth) was the one voted off the island so that Hercules could become one of the big 12, 'though. Hard to remember, which of fifteen or so gods were one of the twelve Olympians tended to change depending on who was listing them...

Hestia would be a rocking patron for a superhero. She's the goddess of the home, the walls that defend and contain, as well as the hearth-fire. Some combination of flame powers and force-field powers would fit (or perhaps the ability to summon defensive walls or transform / animate surrounding matter into protective barriers)

A Shazam-analogue that derived powers from the six Olympian goddesses, Hera, Aphrodite, Hestia, Athena, Demeter and Artemis, could be all kinds of awesome.

When I was a child, I didn't find a lot of sci-fi/fantasy books and authors in the school library. We were too small of a town to have a city library, that I remember.
So, the Greek/Roman/Norse myths were my major sourse of imagination, until I hit middle school.

I've read so many that they might have become confused, that and the Romans adopted the Greek gods, which mucked about a lot of the stories.

Hestia was VERY important in the Roman world, IIRC, so she may have been reinstated and the other one nixed.

We have the Renaissance influence and interpretations, too.
And I'm no scholar on the subject, just an interested fan.

I think that all of the mythological gods and goddesses were wonderful superheroes or supervillians; especially the later ones, second and third tier!

Shady, I had the same fascination as a kid, especially the Norse gods. I found the concept of Ragnarok so different that if always got me to learn every minor role each god played in it.

I clearly remember being a kid and learning that the Roman deities were the Greek ones renamed; this perplexed and intrigued me to no end.

Yes, the Norse were fun.
I wanted to be a Valkyrie for a time.
I liked Frigga and her apples, too.
I was fascinated by Ragnarok, too, and the Rainbow Bridge.
sigh

Then, Marvel started Thor.

Ah, fond memories!

The second tier Greco-Roman goddesses, if anything, were even more interesting than the Olympians! Hecate - magic and witchcraft, Selene - the moon, Nike - winged victory, Tyche - good fortune, Eos - the dawn, Iris - the rainbow, messenger of the gods, Eris - discord and strife, etc.

And yeah, Valkyrie was always my favorite Defender. She had the whole Asgardian thing going on, but wasn't quite as over-the-top powerful as Thor, making her seem like a better team player.

Freyja, with her stewardship over the Valkyries (and status as a Vanir in King Odin's court), along with her seithr magic traditions, falcon-feather cloak and lion-drawn chariot, always fascinated me.

The same dieties were also worshipped under yet another series of names by the Etruscans, more or less. Nethuns was Poseidon was Neptune. Fafluns was Dionysus was Bacchus. Tinia -> Zeus -> Jupiter, Turan -> Aphrodite -> Venus, Turms -> Hermes -> Mercury, Uni -> Hera -> Juno, etc.

The Olympians got around!

Thor, Zeus, Herakles, Ares, etc. get so much play. I'd love to see more of gods like Skadi or Freyja or Artemis or Hermes. A heavy-hitting divinely powerful *archer* or *speedster* super-hero would be a huge changeup to the usual 'big strong dude' comic-book god-of-myth fare.

Members of the Egyptian Ennead (Set!) or Celtic figures like Morrigan or Brighid or Manannan or Nuada barely get any play, by comparison to the Greek and Norse, and the Sumerian / Babylonian / Aztec / Mayan / Chinese / Japanese / etc. pantheons of dieties are hardly ever touched.

Tons of fascinating figures abound, many of whom would make spectacular heroes or villains or just supporting characters.

The Wonder Woman title, I don't know if you read her Set, is using Hermes and Eris/Strife pretty well at the moment.


I'm not sure who Lennox is supposed to be, whether he's a little known original character (or someone I don't recognize) or if he's one that's made up by DC.

And I never really cared much for the Defenders or Valkyrie, per se, I just want to be one of them. They were a little like angels to me when I was a kid. And they got to ride winged horses. They had hounds too, didn't they? Horses and dogs were passions of mine when I was growing up.

Is Freyja the same as Frigga?
She seems a lot more interesting than the keeper of the Tree of Life for the Norse gods!


Wonder Woman has had other pantheans in her books in the past: Hindu and Christian, for example.
I think I've seen them use Aztec legends, too.

The interesting thing about Roman versus Greek mythology is that the Romans pretty much super-imposed the Greek myths on their pre-existing pantheon of gods and goddesses. So, with some gods more than others, you can actually separate out the distinctively Roman elements as they existed prior to the Greek influence. I'm sure there's a bunch of interesting books to be written (or perhaps that have been written) on that topic.

Frigga (or Frigg) was the wife of Odin and mother of Balder.
Freya was one of the Vanir who came to live in Asgard (along with her brother Frey and their father Njord) as part of the exchange of hostages that ended the war between Asgard and Vanaheim.
The custodian of the tree that produced the Golden Apples of Youth was a goddess named Idunn. She was one of the Aesir, but she was married to Bragi, the god of poetry, not to Odin.

Thanks for clarifying that point!

I don't have any books on the Norse gods and it's been so long ago that I read their stories.
sigh

I'm still having trouble typing, more that usual, tonight.

Lots of interesting discussions going on here! As some of you may know, I went to graduate school for Roman History, though I admit it was not that heavily focused on Roman religion, as fascinating as that was. Something else else that has always stuck out to me is that the Romans had a specific religious ceremony they would conduct before they would conquor a neighboring city or peoples. Within the ceremony, they would essentially invite the local Gods to join the Roman pantheon, and if the ceremony was completed, it would be assumed the Gods accepted (especially if they were then victorious). It had a really incredible effect on the morale of the Romans and their enemies: the Romans saw the other deities as recognizing their superiority and wanting to live within Roman culture, and the Roman enemies, if subsequently defeated, would see this as their own deities abandoning them. It's an incredible concept that takes a little while for the magnitude to sink in.

Set, as Shady mentioned, Hermes and Eris are getting all kinds of good screen time in Wonder Woman these days.

Shady, I also don't recognize Lennox and I'm assuming he's a new character.

I really liked how WW & company decieved both Posedion and Hades in the recent story-arc; that was well played and then the following consequences which are coming up (regarding Hades) is a natural extension. It's interesting to see Diana caught in having to essentially play unfair to solve one problem, causing another that she now has to solve.

I continue to love the re-imagined personages of the Greek deities here (unlike Todd). I've grown so sick of how they are usually presented in comic books that totally rethinking their visuals and keeping their personalities raw and viceral is really doing it for me. Everything thus far also seems to fit within the broader understanding of how the deities were seen in Ancient times, albeit from a different perspective.

Of all the Wonder Woman series over the years that I've sampled, this is the most interesting - largely because of the gods (very Greek Street, although I abandoned that series). I just wonder where it's going to go - will it be a on-going series of stories in which Diana has to deal with the interference of her god-relatives in human affairs, or will they recede into the background?

I'm enjoying the facts presented that Diana ISN'T an ambassador from the Amazons and that she has a father, a direct and powerful being, even though he's missing.

That's interesting info, Cobie, abouit the Romans taking on stealing dieties, especially if they won.

Greeks just had the various gods choose sides in conflicts.
The Romans had such egos!

Yet they valued some forms of humility- especially in the pre-Empire centuries (the period that's most ignored by fiction-writers... I wish DC would reintroduce Alpha-Centurion or the Son of Vulcan or someone and have them come from Rome's ideologically best years.)

I want Donna Troy back- maybe as the Roman gods answer to Diana? Or Trojan goddesses? Yeah, the Trojan ones. And Cassie could be associated with the Roman versions. Nubia for the Egyptians... Artemis for the Celts (renamed Morrigan or something, I guess).

Did anyone else find Poseidon's debut funny? What about Hades?

Mega-seconded!

I haven't read the 52 version of the Titans yet, but I think Cassie is in it.
I just don't know if she has a connection to the Greek gods, Zeus in particular, or not.

And we might have seen Nubia and Artemis as Amazons already, but I think that they weren't named, IIRC.
Did the Amazons get turned into snakes?

There's going to be another Wonder Woman on Earth 2, which comes out in a mont or so!

I like the Jim Lee design, even though she still has a strapless bustier to fight in.
sigh

Still lovin' this book!

The Amazon sons story was sad but something that they historically seemed to have done.

I hope Cupid sticks around. I like him, even though his power seems to have a monkey paw quality to it.

#7 was 20 pages of perfection!

This revamped version of WW is the first time I've been able to read an entire issue of WW w/o falling asleep half way through.