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

Jill Thompson's writing and illustrating a graphic novel about her own take on Diana's early days and will be coming out in September.

That's great. I had heard about it last year, but I was worried that it had been shelved permanently for whatever reason. Glad that's not the case.

So that's Legend of WW, WW E1, WW Year One, and now Jill Thompson's book.

Wow, Diana's finally getting her share of origin books.

Legends Vol 2. has been green-lit. Great news for fans of that take on the character.

Spoke with Yannick at the East Coast Comic Expo (while he was sketching Diana in the front cover of my copy of Earth One).

Some interesting things:

- He's never met Grant Morrison and barely spoken to him. It's all E-mail!
- His scripts are incredibly sparse, leaving a lot of page layout and interpretation to the artist (Though is he strays too far from Grant's vision there's a "suggestion" to redo from time to time).
- The original Earth One had a lot more crazy over the top bondage and dom/sub stuff, but it was GRANT who scaled it back when his Mom took ill and the story became more about the child/mother bond. He supposedly took pages to his mother's bedside to show her.
- Grant really wanted to push a lot of buttons, including the Diana in chains on the cover. He said the more controversial the better.

I really don't do as much with Wonder Woman as I'd like to admit. When it comes to DC's Trinity, I've always gravitated more towards Batman, though I realize I show a more vested interest in WW's world than I do Superman's regardless of the difference in issues I own.

My biggest interest in Wonder Woman goes straight to the Golden Age stories, mainly because of the variety and insanity of her rogues gallery. Blue Snowman, Zara, Hypnota, Queen Atomia, King Neptune...

I have zero knowledge in Wondy's Silver Age stories except for Wonder Girl, and in regards to the Bronze Age, I... I actually enjoy her "Mod' days although I do believe getting rid of her powers was stupid. Beyond that, I'm only familiar with some of the stories concerning the first Silver Swan.

I have only a few issues from the Perez era. One part of the Silver Swan arc, the death of Myndi Mayer, and the death of Lucy Spears (Jill Thompson autographed it for me). I'm more interested in trying to find all the issues of the arc where Diana had to work at that taco joint when she was broke. I've invested more time in finding all the issues of the Dark Angel arc from John Byrne's run because she's my favorite WW/Titans villain, despite how badly Byrne wrecked Donna Troy's backstory.

I realize when it comes to Wonder Woman my interest has been more for Donna Troy than Diana, and I consider Donna a Titans character first and a WW character second. I wish Donna's stepdaughter Jennifer could've had the chance to be Wonder Girl. It would've been fun to have a new Wonder Girl who was a follower of Donna instead of Diana. Admittedly, my interest in the idea stems also from how much Cassandra Sandsmark grates on me due to her consistently poor handling over the last decade.

I've been nothing but disappointed in the lack of Wonder Woman Elseworlds there are, compounded by how Diana usually gets treated in Elseworlds.

I've only read Gail Simone's run in trade format. The only story I recall and enjoyed was the Queen of Fables mini arc concerning that awful movie they were making of Diana.

I never went near the Nu52 series, not during Azzarello's run and especially not Finch's run. At this point I'm thoroughly sick of Diana dealing with mythological characters like Zeus and Ares because they've dominated so much of Diana's time. I'm giving Rucka's stuff a chance because he's implying the Gods she's been dealing with in the Nu52 were impostors.

I love Legend of Wonder Woman and I'm surprised at Renae De Liz's consistently good work despite of the stigma that was beginning to surround her and Ray Dillon. Earth-One was a MAJOR disappointment.

Now that sounds like an interesting twist, and Rucka is pretty accomplished at writing strong women. I thought the mythological gods were interesting at first, sometimes funny, but it wore thin after a while. Rucka will have to come up with a good excuse for how non-gods (if that's what they are) could have deceived Diana.

The Rebirth issue was all about the inconsistencies in Diana's backstory and was the most self aware of the new beginning issues besides the ones associated with Wally West. She's aware that her backstory keeps changing, from her "child of clay" to "Zeus' daughter" to the "beloved daughter of the Amazons" to "child of scorn because of her unnatural birth." There's even a page that clearly references the pre-Flashpoint stories.

Rucka starts off implying the current Gods are fake when Diana crumples the helmet of Ares in her hands, which she claims should be impossible. After she leaves for "Olympus," the helmet melts into this disgusting black gunk.

SK, I disagree. Wonder Woman was a character that really didn't make much sense. Her powers weren't well defined. How strong was she? How fast? Plus, her connection with the Greek gods raised a lot of questions. Were the gods meddling on Earth? What were they doing? What exactly was their agenda?

Getting rid of her powers - and severing her from the Greek gods and Paradise Island, made a lot of sense to me. The "mod" stories were - IMHO - the best of the original 350 issue run. I don't think Diana was ever more interesting than she was here. The stories got much better. As soon as she got her powers back, the stories went right back to their normal sub-standard level.

My understanding is, her powers were returned because of pressure from the feminist movement. This confounds me. Diana had no superpowers, yet she was fighting crime and kicking butt. She seemed a very empowered female.

As a totally new character, I am sure the feminist movement at that time would have loved the character. But to take a super-powered character (even if the exact limits were nebulous. I mean even Superman's strength fluctuates) and make her a normal, even if bad-ass woman isn't really empowering. It is depowering literally.

I will agree that WW did suffer from a lot of bad writing.

After the Golden Age, didn't her stories stagnate into her having to choose between boyfriends? Then there was the Artemis era when Diana had to wear that God awful jacket and short shorts combo. John Byrne made Donna Troy's backstory even more convoluted by dehumanizing her via saying she was just a reflection of Diana brought to life. Then there was all that time she spent getting judged for having to kill Max Lord.

Quislet, I don't really understand how Wonder Woman got popular. Those early stories were difficult to get through. I have some of the early stories, and they're pretty tough to enjoy.

I think the bondage in her Golden Age stories helped make her popular.

SK: After the Golden Age (and the death of William Marston) her stories did get about choosing boyfriends and other domestic problems. But then so did Superman & Batman. A lot of 50s Superman was about Lois trying to find his secret ID and/or marry him. Batman became a whole lot less gritty; having sci-fi adventures even. It is here we have Batwoman as the woman who wants to marry Batman; and that lovable imp Bat-Mite.

Oh of course I know that. I just felt like her stories during that era, to my knowledge, might have been a bit blander compared to Batman and Superman. I'm not well read on her Silver Age adventures so I admit I could be wrong.

I imagine they were.

Superman had Mort Weisinger & Julie Schwartz who cared about the character. And Batman had the boost from the TV show. I think I have read that Batman (the comic book) was on the verge of being canceled until the TV show happened.

One of the only Silver Age WW stories I have is a retread of Giganta's origin where it involved Doctor Psycho making her obsessed with getting Steve Trevor. But that wasn't the case at all when she originally debuted, was it?

Don't know. I know when Marston was writing her, WW was more about bondage and females in charge. After he died, I imagine the new writers had more conventional ideas about male and female roles.

To know more about Marston, I recommend Jill Lepore's book "The Secret History of Wonder Woman"

I read into Marston's original stories that there was always the underlying theme about consent.

Diana's sisters thrived as a civilization because they were sexually openminded. There was always talk of how they were submissive by choice.

Diana's rogues gallery were made up of women who didn't believe in choice. They were sadists and tyrants who tried controlling men and women against their will through brute force, hypnosis, coercion, and drugs. And of course there was female misogyny as well. You had women like Dr. Poison who actively tried to aid Imperial Japan during the war despite how little freedom women supposedly had in that country at the time (I really hope I'm not coming across as racist and inaccurate). And then there were the women who had to use masculine identities to find strength like Poison, Hypnota, the Blue Snowman, and King Neptune, as if to say women who are forced to deny their femininity in order to gain power are self-hating and doomed to be miserable.

And I'm not referring to women who choose to adopt masculine clothing or identities because it's what they feel comfortable in, although I realize that's also how it sounds like. I mean women who feel they have to hide behind masculine personas even if that's not who they are. Also kind of perpetuates the belief that only men can be powerful.

I'm open to admit I might be wrong.

I was rereading the "Once and Future Story" one shot Trina Robbins and Colleen Doran worked on, and I am just now realizing the character "Etain" was a reference to Etta Candy.

So I know there's been a lot of talk about the movie trailer (which was effin awesome) and the Morrison OGN, but I have to direct this thread back to the current Wonder Woman series. Forget whoever Rucka replaced, forget Cho off the covers, forget all of that other crap that isn't relevant to the printed page. Because Wonder Woman has been nothing short of stunning thus far!

Rucka is firing on all cylinders like he hasn't done in an age, and the art by Nicola Scott and Liam Sharpe (alternating issues) is face-meltingly awesome. Both stories, the past and the present, are fantastic. I'm hooked.

Wonder Woman hasn't been this good for me in a long, long time.

I remember that you enjoyed the Azzarello/Chiang run that launched the New 52, Cobie. Do you still look back on that fondly? If so, how do you feel about it basically being swept away, if I'm understanding correctly?

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and certainly longer than I enjoyed most of the new 52 (in fact, it may have been the last one I was reading IIRC). The problem was that ultimately the story just seemed to drag out issue after issue. Eventually, it had gone something like 30 issues or so and I just couldn't keep up with it.

I think this super long form storytelling was Azz's way of trying to keep it more in line with a Vertigo type of story. But when I read it month to month, I need more of a payoff on a monthly basis, especially with a superhero story.

The highlight though was Cliff Chiang's artwork, which was stunning. And, in hindsight, I think more than a little bit of my enjoyment came from Chiang's artwork making Azz look better than he really was putting out.

In regards to it being swept away: frankly, I just don't care. About three months ago I had reached my lowest ebb ever with DC and superhero comics in general. And I was at the point where I considered not even buying them anymore. This nadir was so low that when it comes to any continuity of the last (5) years for any DC title, I don't care if I ever see it again (and on the reverse, I don't care if it remains in place).

Coming full circle, I can say that as much as I liked the start of the last version, this version is already a lot better. And that is because the story-telling sensibilities are much more in line with what I want from a comic book. The prior relaunch was more of a "best of what's out there" while this is more of a "right in my appetite". Does that make sense? This just *feels* like what I'm looking for right now from a Wonder Woman comic, or a DC superhero comic in general--plus its got phenomenal writing and art.

Still absolutely loving this Wonder Woman run, which is a contender for best series. The recent issue, which was an interlude focusing on Dr. Barbara Minerva before she became the Cheetah, is probably the best Cheetah story ever told. (We talked about her recently in the main Rebirth thread, so I thought I'd follow-up here).

The Cheetah is a character I've always been ambivalent about. I know she was over-exposed in recent years, but I passed up on all that stuff. Here she is complex with many different sides to her, and she may be my second favorite character in the series (behind Diana).