Wonder Woman in Blackest Night: one panel summary

[thebigapricot]

Comics Alliance has put up what I think is a pretty accurate (and funny) 60 second overview of Blackest Night. My favorite is Wonder Woman.


And for legality, Wonder Woman and her "crush" in the Hiketeia


Tags:
char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, char: batman/bruce wayne, title: blackest night

Comments

[scottyquick]

No, then Bruce could have stolen the girl and Diana wouldn't have been able to stop him without the Furies killing her.

[bluefall]

Well, actually, Bruce would have tried to steal the girl against Diana's orders, in violation of his own oath of Hiketeia, and the Furies would have killed him.

Though given he had no intention of honoring the ritual and was merely trying to use it for his own ends with no sense of respect for what it actually was, I doubt she'd have accepted his offer even if it wouldn't end in someone's death.

[yaseen101]

[q99]

Ok, Hiketeia, League of One, and what's the third? :)

[q99]

The funny thing is, the way they treated it acceptance was pretty much assumed.

It was a real 'screw-over the protector' ritual.

[cyberghostface]

The person who Bats was after was a teenage girl who killed some men who had pretty much got her sister into some sort of pornography/sexual slavery ring, had gotten her addicted to drugs and raped her a couple of times, and then killed her and made it look like an overdose so they could get away with it.

But Batman could care less about all that, because he views everything in strict black and white (unless it's his son, of course).

[protogarrett]

Ah. And then Batman thought he could take Diana... how?

I mean, it's not like he has something like a kryptonite ring to counter her with.

[xammax]

Or the fact that she did killed those people. They were bad people but you can't run off and kill them, otherwise the line of how bad does someone have to be.

Hey I'll admit even the GCPD dropped it, but it is not normal peoples place in society to kill those who have wronged them. What I never got is why that girl thought killing herself was the answer. If you recognize the crazy guy in a Bat costume is right then go to jail. Release Diana and just go to jail. Its not like Batman was not even sympathetic in the story but he was right.

[xammax]

I bought the "She loves the earth more then anyone" argument. Really it made more sense then compassion which everyone seemed to be pushing for.

I will admit while the Batman thing was completely left field, if people here can push their crazy ass ships so can I when it gets canonical.

[warpedhand]

To be fair, he was probably operating under the assumption that because the Furies law had been defunct some several thousand years, it wouldn't apply to him. That ignores the whole "he just completed their ritual" thing, though.

[thebigapricot]

True, but I refuse to allow your logic and knowledge to dissuade me from my bitter pettiness. :)

[bluefall]

It's not so much that he thinks he can take her as that he has no choice but to try; he's as bound by his oaths and personality to seek Justice for Dani's victims (no matter what kind of men they were) as Diana herself is bound to protect Dani. Which is the whole point of the story, it's very Greek tragedy that way.

If you take it out of that framework, though, it works too; you can argue pretty easily that Bruce obviously doesn't want to force Diana into anything. He has zero chance of going through her, and he knows it, but he's got at least a minuscule chance of going around her, so why does he try to go through her both times? Because he doesn't want to do that to her. He wants a solution they can both live with that doesn't involve strongarming or betraying the culture of a respected friend. He's just not entirely conscious of that, or doesn't know how to ask for it, or some combination of the two, so he makes a self-sabotaging attempt at unilateral victory instead.

Ultimately, his vision of justice has more shades of grey than her oath, so given time to work things out, she could probably have satisfied him that a lifetime of being, basically, Diana's slave, is an acceptable punishment for her crime, and he'd have let it go. But the Furies wanted their tragedy, so they pushed Dani to suicide before Bruce and Diana could get that far.

[bluefall]

Er... compassion is "loves the earth more than anyone." According to the current ring mythos (and, well, the dictionary), nonsexual love for/empathy for/concern for the lives and comfort of others is compassion.

[cyberghostface]

Now I'm not following Batman at the moment, but isn't Damien a murderer? And right now he's playing Robin.

And obviously what happened with the girl was a very slippery slope, but I had no sympathy whatsoever for Bats in the Hiketia. If I was a police officer, and someone shot a child molester who eluded the legal system and had molested a family member of the killer, I would probably look the other way.

[bluefall]

Oh, no, I would never dissuade you from your bitter pettiness. "She's an amazon, they're space amazons, clearly, she should be one of them" is every bit as bile-inducing a piece of sexist stupidity as "look how wankable people are in this pink stripper outfit of ours, we should stuff Wonder Woman in one."

I mean, you'd never see it suggested that Peter would be a great fit for the Pistons just because the twelve disciples and the NBA are both all-male organizations. But women are girls first, people second, so gender is all they need to have in common to be considered completely interchangeable. Either as individuals* or as organizations. Further manifestation of this phenomenon seems like plenty of reason to be bitter to me. >.<

* I'm still kind of annoyed about the whole let's-just-swap-in-Canary response to taking Diana off the founding League.

[bluefall]

(Though I'd probably have gone with Hope, myself. Or will.)

(Silver Age Wondy would have made a good Sapphire, though.)

[bensanaz]

I still maintain that Earth's Sapphire should have been Kyle Rayner. With the continuity-time-compression the guy's been through, what, four True Loves in a couple of years?

[bluefall]

Don't forget Jason!

That said, it does seem like an odd thing for even Bruce at his most CE and hypocritical to spend this kind of energy on. If she'd killed, like, the Joker, I could see him flipping out, but it's much more typical for him to let the deaths of murderers go when there are innocent deaths to worry about (and when are there not?). He's never made any effort to investigate Helena, for instance, even though he'd have to at least suspect she had a hand in Cassamento's death, and it's not like he's ever tried to bring Ollie or Dinah or Hawkman to trial even though none of them have ever faced a jury over their killings, that I'm aware.

Going all-out on Dani to the point of chasing her across state lines is pretty unusual for him. (Though of course once Diana tells him to fuck off, it becomes a matter of principle.)

[sherkahn]

Nope. Part of the agreement / bond of Hiketeia is that the supplicant obeys every command of their protector without question or hesitation until released from bond. Bruce would not be able to take the girl if Diana commanded it. It's a clever move by Bruce, as it would force Diana to choose between the needs of the two of them (Batman and the girl): Does Diana value justice of the law of the land (man's law that Batman represents) vs. the justice of her ancient ways (the law that belongs to Diana's people and that the girl is using for sanctuary)? An individual seeking justice or a murderer?

Diana was smart enough to recognize the ploy and stopped it from morally compromising her position.

[thebigapricot]

I thought Diana was removed from the founding of the League due to the timing issue of the Perez reboot and the timeline of JLA Year One? Canary seemed to me to be a reasonable replacement given that she had replaced Diana in the League. Did you not like the selection of Canary or just the whole issue of them replacing Diana?

[valtyr]

Eyes of the Gorgon. It is only a training fight, but she's blind and fighting about six superheroes, including Batman, and beats them all. :)

[valtyr]

I think Bruce didn't believe in the Furies, really. In League of One he didn't really believe in the Oracle at Delphae. So he had no personal fear of being killed by Furies.

[valtyr]

Love the Earth. Don't looooooove the Earth.

[valtyr]

I think it should have been Dick Grayson.

[q99]

That was a fun one :) Though Bats stays back enough that he doesn't get too much pounding.