Wonder Woman #43 Preview

[a_clericalerror]

Source.
PG's boob window? It's empowering or a symbol placeholder or something.
Helena's bare abs? She worked out a lot.
Wonder Woman's whole ensemble?



It has been explained before with the Diana Trevor story, though I guess a tip of the hat to a woman who gave her life to aid them wasn't good enough. Really drilling that in with Hippolyta wearing the flag in the scene right before this yet dropping the connection in favor of some coincidental weather and a few stars that might be Cassiopeia.

For a moment there I almost thought this was closer to the present day, ignoring the sudden break in the story, and they might actually be trashing the swim suit in favor of something less ridiculous.

Silly, optimism. Sensible clothing is for kids* (and men).

*If you know of something that contradicts this, please don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Comments

[bluefall]

Oy.

[angharad_gov]

there, there, blue. if it makes you feel any better, did you notice that io was in this flashback thing?

[grazzt]

"Silly, optimism. Sensible clothing is for kids* (and men).

*If you know of something that contradicts this, please don't tell me. I don't want to know."

Sorry, but this is just too obvious:

Dick Grayson as Robin.

[cainofdreaming]

Or just about any male character by Mike Grell.

[lady-mondegreen.insanejournal.com]

That be some wacky weather. And Cassiopeia is inspirational to the Amazons because she was so vain in her beauty that the gods punished her by chaining her daughter to a rock to be eaten by a sea monster? Or was it her going back on her deal for Perseus to marry her daughter after he saved her from the monster, and in the resulting battle got to stone after seeing the head of Medusa?

[gailsimone]

It's a wacky island. ;)

[mullon]

Everyone's bored with Pictionary night.

[victory_or_death]

Obviously they haven't tried STRIP Pictionary.

[bluefall]

Also: is that supposed to be Io?

Also also, I was trying to be good, but that line is just too facile to let it go: if a woman who looks like she "wants" to fight surely will, is it not also true that a woman who looks like she wants to sell her body surely will as well? I mean, if we're using modern Western standards and all.

[galateus]

Supervillains would never keep trying to kill her if she just looked a little more incompetent!

[galateus]

Wait, wait, wait...

Wait.

What?

So that's where the colors come from, but why a bikini?

[digicom]

And a bikini, to honor Aphrodite, because it looks hawt.

Of course, there's the minor problem that the letter W was invented in England after the Norman Conquest...

[nikeskylark]

io!!

*squee*

[protogarrett]

Can we settle on WW simply saying, "I designed it back in the 50's. Deal with it."

Or, god forbid, DC just finally settles on making her a new costume and making fans just deal with it.

[gailsimone]

That would be fine, except it really wouldn't explain the costume very well.
I think the readers who do care about this stuff deserve an explanation that
makes some sense.

[seriousfic]

Good thing there wasn't a full moon out.

I need an 'awful pun' icon.

[thebigapricot]

Have you seen how high the cut of that suit goes with some artists?

[crabby_lioness]

Isn't Simone supposed to be a good writer?

[sailorlibra]

Yeah, but... no. Her BoP run was amazing, Secret Six definitely has a cult following, and I've heard good things about her Atom. But her Wonder Woman run has had quite a few issues with it, though it was better towards the beginning.

[sailorlibra]

Plot schmot, there's Nicola Scott art! That's all I need.

[aegof]

See, I can understand the logic behind not wanting your champion/ambassador going out looking like to axe the world into better shape. That kind of apparent defensiveness is probably not a good way to make friends!

And I guess this is Simone's way of defending the bathing suit. It's still a bathing suit, though. And looking at the thing Pallas designed there and what the others are wearing makes it even harder to believe the bathing suit could've come out of Themyscira.

The suit might make more sense if we pretend Hippolyta left Themyscira for WW2 and assume she based it on the heroes she met then? I mean, so long as we're retconning stuff.
(I have been pretending this for like a year.)

[q99]

"But what if it's wet in the outside world??"

Yeah, no.

[nefrekeptah]

Every time someone tries to explain Wondy's outfit, they always hit a brick wall of "but why is it a swimsuit?!"

Besides that, though, this is some very good writing. I especially like Diana's last line; "I am politely and diplomatically informing you that I am about to kick your ass."

Re: Yeah, no.

[schmevil]

Why are Superman's underwear on the outside? Why are Batman's?

Their costumes make no more sense than Diana's.

[20thcenturyvole]

Funnily enough, Ancient Greece lost the letter 'W' sometime before Homer wrote down The Iliad - the letter was phased out of the alphabet, and then the sound disappeared from the language entirely.

I don't know why that's the plot hole that most jumps out at me, but there you go.

[gailsimone]

That's absolutely true, but it's a translation and it's the SHAPE here that is being put into the costume, something
that has never been explained before at all, really.

People can still follow the Diana Trevor origin of the costume if they like, Hippolyta is clearly
holding a flag in her hands and she definitely got that somewhere. But try explaining
WW's costume with that story to a new reader and you'd be amazed how fast their eyes
glaze over. ;)

[retro_nouveau]

Let's face it, there's no chance that the costume is changing. Explaining it further away from the flag of a foreign nation is a positive step for me. Picky bastard that I am, I want Diana in black biker shorts with white stars now. But I imagine it could have started out as white stars on a black field, but Polly said, no, let's make the stars so bright they shine on well into the new morning.

The thing that enrages me is when the costume shrinks so that her cheeks are hanging out, or you can see that she must have had a waxing a few hours earlier. I seem to notice especially when Benes does the art for the Justice League and Diana is featured. I think I can say that none of the artists for Gail's run have had Diana hanging out of the suit, and for that I'm very grateful.

Another thing that bugs me to no end is when home cities are destroyed. Never happens to Metropolis or Gotham, but it's coming up at the start of Straczynski's run for Themiscyra. To me it's like someone decided to blow up the 2500-year-old Parthenon a hundred times over. So dropping this after 600.

[a_clericalerror]

I think I can say that none of the artists for Gail's run have had Diana hanging out of the suit, and for that I'm very grateful.
Agreed. Though the problem is typically limited to artists outside of her title.

Never happens to Metropolis or Gotham, but it's coming up at the start of Straczynski's run for Themiscyra.
To be fair, Gotham had No Man's Land and I'm pretty sure Metropolis has had its share of damage in the past as well. Though I agree with the sentiment. Themyscira's been through enough. Assuming the solicits aren't hiding some fake out, and possibly even if they are, I'm not so sure I care to continue when JMS takes over.

[cygna_hime]

I'm sorry, points for trying, but no. No, that just does not work.

(First, what the fuck is Hippolyta wearing in that first bit? A more modern-day nightgown I have seldom seen.)

If you want to send a warrior, dress her in FULL ACTUAL ARMOR THAT WORKS. Not a titsplate (as distinct from a breastplate in that the latter covers the entire chest, while the former stops just in time for the cleavage). If you want to send a diplomat, then you doll her up in the most damn imposing peplos and himation you've got, jewelry to taste. (That's the time for the tiara.) If you want to fuse the two, then you make some effort at fusing the two -- say, with a nice himation to go over the armor, whatever warriors wear at formal non-military functions, the cultural equivalent of dress blues and ceremonial sword, that kind of thing.

You do NOT under any circumstances decide on a)a breastplate that leaves the whole upper chest bare and stabbable, b)panties that...have no reason to exist whatsoever, and c)neither any other armor pieces nor any other distinctively Greek/Amazon garments. It doesn't make any SENSE. What are the Amazons trying to say with this outfit? No other Amazon ever wears anything like it, so there's no sense that she's presenting an image of their culture.

It doesn't say anything, in fact, as an Amazon. And since the only possible justification for, say, the flagrant lack of either a proper chiton or some pants if you want to stretch a point, would be that there was some cultural tradition or message attached, there's no justification for the star-spangled swimsuit either. (When your woman warrior looks weirder and more designed for mocking than the actual Greek images of Amazons, you've got problems. Peplos + breastplate, people! Not that hard!)

[icon_uk]

(First, what the fuck is Hippolyta wearing in that first bit?

At a guess, a fairly standard ancient Greek chiton, a slightly fancy one, but she is queen.

[pyrotwilight]

Pfff. Just say Io drew it and really wanted to see her in it.

[gailsimone]

That is an awesome explanation. :)

[theanswer]

I point you to Tim Gunn's rational response to Power Girl's ensemble and rebuttal to naysayers.

[punishermax]

"Do we need better inspiration than this!?"

~dramatic flourish to sky~

Utter silence

"..yes? I mean...the fuck is that supposed to give us? I mean..respectfully?"

"The stars! We must create a bikini bottom with stars on the crotch!"

"God..why do we even try? First the fucking bee weapon.."

"BEES ARE FEARSOME!"

"Then we take fashion advice from a nebula. Jesus Christ what next, are we going to invade the United States?"

"......I...I think that will be all..."

[gailsimone]

Okay, THAT was awesome. :)

And if only her costume had some BEES on it!

[ravenous_raven]

Guys, just keep in mind that Wonder Woman was designed way back in the 1940's when her creator thought she was ground-breaking and a symbol of "sexual equality". Feminism changes over the years. I give any writer props for trying to explain the now-iconical outfit that I seriously doubt DC will greatly change.

On the flip side, for those more imaginative than I, how would you explain the costume? Without changing it, unfortunately (see above about iconical outfit).

[punishermax]

Diana's first trip into America she was wearing a toga ( or whatever you call those things they're wearing there) and she went o the first shop she could for a change of clothes.


Unfortunately it was a sex shop with a really patriotic owner.

[alienist]

...Am I the only one who really like Io's first design?

[schala_kid]

No, I absolutely love it.

[fifthie]

Yeah I mean obviously they couldn't reference the stars and moon and whatever on a good costume that makes sense.

[cmdr_zoom]

At this point, I wish we could finally toss the swimsuit and put her in a breastplate and pteryges. For real. Forever.

[bluefall]

Rumor has it Rucka tried, but Editorial wouldn't bite, which is why he went out of his way to make excuses to fully armor her.

I can see the argument - if you're looking at it from a solely meta perspective, a choice between pteyrges and bathing suit is a choice between "Western audience reads her as warlike and, possibly, primitive" and "Western audience reads her as a dismissible sex object," and if you're already completely used to tuning out "sex object" (and it's comics, how could you not be), going from that to "warlike and primitive" will definitely seem like a step down and a danger to the character, and something that will encourage her to be written (and read) in a way that's ever further from the effervescent ambassador of truth and peace she's supposed to be.

I fail to see how that's an argument against a pair of pants or a loincloth or some shoulder straps, though. There are a lot of simple ways to make it light years better, none of which would deviate any more from "obvious and iconic" than changing the colors and ovals of Bruce's uniform or the dozen variations of "headlining Green Lantern."

[demonprawn]

Greeks would never send there soldiers into battle with a bathing suit and only boots, bracers and some head protection.

...oh wait
Well the more civilised romans...

well maybe Marvel shows more sensibility with their ancient Greeks.

Guess I don't see the big deal of an Ancient Greek style hero with some what "Spartan" dress sence
....pun intended.

[aegof]

Hahaha.

[richardak]

More problematically, from a story pov, it is baffling and inexplicable
to newer readers. People ask, why is Diana dressed in the American flag?
And if you have to trot out the Diana Trevor story, believe me, you've already
lost them. It only works in full context--even in truncated flashback it's
extremely ornate and confusing. More importantly, I think there's some
poetry in saying that Diana is a creature of the heavens, and her
outfit represents it the way a frieze represents a culture. It's kind
of something that can't easily be unheard...once you think of the
eagle and the stars and Cassiopeia in that context, I think a lot
of baggage is removed pretty painlessly. It doesn't take away
the Trevor story...but it also makes Diana less exclusively
American, which has been a storytelling problem since before the
Perez issues. An ambassador to the world should not favor only
one nation. If she'd been wearing the hammer and crescent, or
a Muslim flag, how would the rest of the world see her, and could she
really do her mission of peace wearing those colors?

Since I am not, and and cannot imagine ever being a Wonder Woman fan, take this only for what it's worth: I think the above comment is wrong-headed. Trying to explain Wonder Woman's costume as being something other than that she's wearing a stylized American flag will not and can not ever work. As I understand it, the original explanation that Marston offered was that she wore an American flag because she had adopted America as her country, and wanted to be an American hero. That's the only explanation that makes any real sense and doesn't feel forced and contrived.

If you don't want Wonder Woman to do that, if you want her to be a globalist, internationalist hero, so be it, but the classic costume is never going to work with that interpretation of the character. On top of which, it will always come across as obnoxious to some Americans. For a hero who identifies with America and America's cause, to wear our banner honors it. From a character who does not identify with our country and our cause, it comes across as mockery. No rationalization will help that situation.

[demonprawn]

Just because of Stars on a Blue field?