Wonder Woman #07 rotting spoilers

[sherkahn]

I have to credit BleedingCool.com for this.


I've touched on the Batman spoilers today, but they start off with the revelations about Diana and her people. It's a new low for DCnU.
It's a doozy and may not sit well with most of you. Heck, the new S_D protocols may even be triggered.

Fair warning, SPOILERS AHOY.



Shouldn't we have a tag for "everything you thought you knew was wrong."?

From the article:

"Paradise Island, has always been portrayed as a preserve of women, with new generations emerging… in an non-specific fashion. Formed from clay, or girls lost at sea transported to the island. The new Wonder Woman does away with any such niceties. The women of Paradise Island now set off on the seas looking for other ships, for seamen… or rather, semen. They have sex with the sailors, and then kill them. The sex may have been consensual, but what happened after certainly issn’t. Later, those that have conceived children give birth, the female children staying, the male children… becoming hellish slaves of the infernal weaponry workshop."


"It’s a nightmarish vision made real by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, the harshness of the stories of the Gods now made flesh in a much less palatable way. And given light to the thought that somewhere, working at a lithe, forging a mighty sword, unaware of his lineage, is Wonder Woman’s brother…
"

I guess Donna is going to have a say about this other brother, and I am not too fond of this darker, seedy Paradise Island. It honestly sounds like a brothel/labor camp of the gods than an ideal community led by women, made of women, for the women.

Comments

[lonewolf23k]

And William Moulton Marston spins in his grave...

[michael_ellis_day]

I can't even begin to bring myself to imagine what he would have thought of his creation being turned into another horror story about "female sexuality is evil and kills men and turns their sons into prisoners." I can understand that people who never really liked Wonder Woman might enjoy the story and art here on their own merits...but as far as the character and concept go, this is an utter travesty of what her creator intended.

[venatosapiens]

That's very in keeping with the noir/horror aesthetic, and I wouldn't necessarily object to it if this were in a different universe with a different character. But this is Wonder Woman we're talking about here, right? This is supposed to be one of the great civilizations of the DC Universe. And this book is supposed to be one of the flagship books. I don't get it.

[majingojira]

Just because they're a great civilization doesn't mean they're all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, more often than not, Great Civilizations are either the exact opposite of have some very nasty skeletons in their closet.

[majingojira]

Given that this series has dived into the darkness of the original Greek myths and will have no nicing up of anything, I honestly don't have a problem with this turn of events. It's in tone with itself at least, and provides some catharsis for the events at least.

That it ties slightly to my own fanish crossover head canon is an added bonus.

But I can see where it would rub people the wrong way, though.

[darkknightjrk]

Hell, this is still lighter than the Greek Myths--as I recalled, the Amazons outright killed the male children. At least here the Amazons gave the males to someone who would take care of them.

[tauruschick12]

Annnnnd my decision to headcanon this entire series as a dark alternative AU (such as Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth) is now official in my head.

[shadowpsykie]

I don't necissarily hate this... i mean it's sorta in keeping with the traditional greek myths, and Brian has said from the begining that he is exploring the mythological aspect of Woner Woman. I don't necissarily like it, as it is some what problematic... that said... while this did cause me to pause mid story, it doesn't, at least to me, take away from the fact that Wonder Woman is by far, next to BoP and TT, one of my favorite series' at thispoint.

[jlbarnett]

whatever the myths they sprang from Marston's Amazons were immortal, meaning there was no need for next generations meaning this does not fit the mythological aspect of Wonder Woman

[deepspaceartist]

You know, I've never been big on the whole "Community that's been isolated for thousands of years but is supposed to be a perfect paradise" thing. It always seemed to me that millenia of isolation would make any community inept at dealing with others, especially when you throw immortality into the mix. Immortality in fiction tends to lend itself towards creating arrogant assholes rather than benevolent sages.

That being said, this change strikes me as going way to far to the 'asshole' side of the sage/asshole spectrum.

[greenmask]

I am immortal!! I have inside me blood of kings newly deceased gentlemen's emissions~!!

[valtyr]

So this guy took Wonder Woman, a heroine whose important figures were her mother and her sisters, and decided what she needed was first a father, and then a brother, and also a whole hidden society of dudes in the Amazons. Amazing.

[sailorlibra]

IKR? As an Elseworlds story, I wouldn't mind it, but it's not an Elseworlds story and as such has to consider the DCU as a whole. Wonder Woman has consistently been one of the few female superheroes inspired far more by other females than males and fucked that up.

[icon_uk]

It may be closer to the myths, but I don't like Wonder Woman for the myths, I like it for the superheroics BASED on the myths. That Wonder Woman was unique as she was the first and ONLY child on Themyscira, because the Amazons were immortal and didn't procreate.

I much prefers Perez's approach of adapting the myth to the comic ethos, not this of the comic to the mythos.

[q99]

Why is he making WW's backstory more sexist, and why is this a sudden revelation to Diana if it's normal for them?

[darkknightjrk]

Well, she was born through other means, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is an aspect of their society that they don't talk about a whole lot.

[okkult3000]

I like it. Honestly, how can they present Amazons as perfect utopians in the 21st century? It's a society that excises an entire group of people in order to achieve perfection. That's monstrous. They have to be villains, or at least misguided.

[icon_uk]

It's a society that excises an entire group of people in order to achieve perfection

Depends what their motivation for turning away was.

In past iterations they turned away from men because men A) killed their past lives before they were reborn as Amazons, and/or B) Because men betrayed them and raped their queen leading to a major war.

They were then isolated by the Gods to Themyscira to guard the gates to the Underworld.

When they finally achieved contact with the outside world again, they were mostly fair and open minded towards men.

[greenmask]

I'm sure there's a lot of story and atmosphere potential there, but gosh does it make me feel tired. Is nowhere pleasant any more?

[quatoria]

In the DC Universe? No. Not anymore. It's not allowed. Even frigging Booster Gold must be stalked by death and misery now. What hope does Wonder Woman have?

[drexer]

Dropped!

Elaborating...

[drexer]

Ok, you know what I feel like I probably need to say something more, but when I first saw this I really needed to say that and then put into words why I felt so strongly about this.

Its no exageration to say that scans_daily was responsible for turning me into a regular comics reader and for helping me as person. Two or three years ago I was hooked into reading one or other comic in the DC universe through some reference on a forum and I went on a piracy-binge through everything that seemed interesting to me. It should be noted that this wasn't exactly a happy time for me, I was in the middle of a depression which comics helped me escape from a bit by enthralling me in fictional worlds and feelings(as well as videogames, books, movies and shows), and I often lept from one comic to another simply consuming them blindly in a geeked out blitz to feel like I knew everything about this universe. Except in the middle of it I found out about s_d and I started lurking, and reading, and engaging with myself.

Scans_daily was the first place to present me with various feminist and anti-opressive viewpoints that before I had never noticed or dismissed far too simply. Not so much by reading its links, but mainly by following the discussions that surged from the community and its readers I started to question my opinions and my outlook towards fiction in the past(which had always been a great part of my identity, the stories that I most loved). Finding a vocabulary and people which identified for me the instances of opression that I could not yet see helped me alot to identify in my past why when I wrote fanfic I had fixated on the female characters once I tried it, and why I had felt such an empathy towards shows in my childhood like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura even though I was a male; because I could see the lack of equality in all of the other shows and the token females that would rarely appear, and that inbalance made me wish for more variation and more inspired stories, even though I could hardly express that for various years to come. It was that which let me to find my local comic shop and start my buying there which to this day has given already quite a few hundred euros to DC.

Furthermore, tanks to those experiences in s_d and links that I found here to various tumblrs such as STFUconservatives/sexists/racists, that made me more confident in myself and my convictions and helped reafirm my sense of self, something which helped me along with events in real life to start picking myself up from my depression.

Along with this when inthe DC reboot the Wonder Woman title appeared, I felt quite attracted to it due to Chiang's art. Before my favourite title was Stephanie's Batgirl which let me identify with a character whose resillience and will not to give up gave me a little bit of that will as well, but even that did not help me with the problem that now that I could see prejudice, most woman portrayals in fiction and media were obvious in their prejudice(just today I saw a couple of lingerie posters in the subway whose posing made me angry at its obviousness, bodies slightly skewed to one side, with the spine bending 30 degrees to the other side halfway through and the top of the breasts slightly rising over the cusp of the bra beyond the line of comfortability) and it became difficult to find portrayals that I could enjoy both for their natural sexual appeal and identity, and for their three-dimensionality as characters. Chiang's art which is still a wonderous thing in regards to how it so magnificently portrays women helped me fill that visual void which in turn helped me stay even more secure in my own convictions and hold myself up by seeing that indeed there were ways and people capable of taking great strides towards equality.

It was by no surprise that I loved the title, not just because of the art but because I felt that here was a character with the depth I could admire and not cross the line into objectification. But here we reach this point and I know not of what to say; I wish I could keep following this title and its art, but the turn this story takes goes against everything I learned in the last years and everything I connect with and defend with my convictions. The idea that creating man-haters and man-killers is in any way an original or rational stretch to a story like Wonder Woman's goes against everything that society nowadays shows us, in fiction or otherwise; women are still thought of as lesser in science and engineering and I see examples of that condescending atittude aplenty in my day-to-day, there are movements in the US to take away reproductive rights and in my country I see news of that as if it is a reasonable thought, I hear priests talking on tv about how women should stop working and go back to taking care of the family and watch the media bend itself over backwards to accomodate their beliefs, and on International Women's Day when I mentioned that women were still discriminated against, I ended up being called dogmatic and radical. I cannot follow this title anymore, because to put it simply I am a feminist, and this just makes a mockery of the role of fiction for the betterment of humanity.

Some years ago I might have found this interesting. Now? Now I find myself feeling sick.

[terabient]

Oh look. A female-dominated society being depicted as man-hating rapists and murderers.

HOW ORIGINAL AND FASCINATING.

[valtyr]

Well, to be entirely fair they're not rapists, they just pop up and take their clothes off and the men all just bang them mindlessly without even sending out a radio signal like "Hey, we're being boarded by naked hot chicks."

It kind of reminds me of The Gate to Women's Country only without the slightly wistful attitude towards killing all those dudes.

[whitesycamore]

You know, I may have found this gruesome plotline horrible but interesting if it weren't subverting everything Wonder Woman has ever stood for and conflating feminism with murderous female supremacy.

Good Lord.

[majingojira]

Even though I don't mind the story that much, there is something that bothers me that hasn't been mentioned yet (aside from other things that bother me).

You'd think the Amazons, if they only do this once every 30 years, would have a really REALLY good screening process for this. The way it stands now it's "Hey, there's a ship! Let's take it!"

[valtyr]

Sending someone out to a sperm bank apparently never occurred to them. You can buy jizz now, ladies. There are catalogues.

Less risk of genetic diseases and STDs.

[rdfox]

And people wonder why I didn't give DCnU a chance. To sum it up:

[rdfox]

...and apparently, I can't embed YouTube video on comments here. It's supposed to be a link to Weird Al's "Everything You Know is Wrong."

[thespis]

WHAT WHAT WHAT THE HELL.

What new generations? Have I missed something? The whole significance of Diana's birth was that she was the first child to be born on Themyscira ever. The darker edge to the Amazons' longevity and their idyllic homeland is their state of total exile: while they live in (for the most part) peace and prosperity, their society is stagnant. There are no children, no new generations of Amazons - until Diana.

As a general story concept, the idea of a female race of man-hating murderous rapists offends me. As a Wonder Woman story, it's downright horrifying and goes against everything the character represents.

Goddammit, Azzarello.

[thediiem]

One of the original points from Martson's comics was that the Amazons didn't need men to reproduce. They made new babies out of clay, using techniques given to them by their god, who was Aphrodite, given Martson's ethos. This was rapidly dropped once he was no longer writing Wonder Woman, and presented Diana as being the only such child made this way, Hippolyta being given a gift/leave to make herself a child by the gods.

[fungo_squiggly]

Okay, so my first thought was, "Ew."

But I have to admit, my second thought was "DEATH BY SNOO-SNOO!"

[shadowpsykie]

But I have to admit, my second thought was "DEATH BY SNOO-SNOO!"

Tim was almost a member of that club once...

[jlbarnett]

This is bad and they should feel bad.

[sailorlibra]

Dropping Wonder Woman now.

[jlbarnett]

You know what: This is not the real Amazons of Paradise Island. THese are a tribe of the Bana. The real Amazons are isolated to this day. Hippolyta is just a name that frequantly features in their naming rituals because even if Antiope was pissed her sister didn't want revenge and was willing to beg for penance from the gods she still missed her.

Hippolyta's daughter being Diana, is either a massive coincidence or the gods being assholes by suggesting the name

[kenn_el]

Yeah, this isn't new. The reason for two queens in the Perez WW was exactly this: so that there could exist the Amazons of legend who DID do this sort of thing, as well as the Paradise Island Amazons who were quite different and begat Diana (and in some instances Donna). The descendants of Antiope and her followers lent themselves quite well to whatever stories the New U might wish to tell.

[aeka]

You know, when I first heard about "[turning] the largest population of queer women in their universe into rapists & child slavers" on Corrina Lawson's Twitter, I was seriously hoping the Amazons fitting the bill would not be the case. I click here, and worries confirmed.

Blimey. I didn't think things could get any worse with DC deciding to kill the entire Amazon population on Earth-2, and yet, here we are. Who exactly is the "new reader" DC is trying to target, again? Part of me doesn't want to know, but I have to admit, I am starting to worry now what kinds of minds are running the place. >:(

[big_daddy_d]

I remember when I was doing some research on Amazons, it was mentioned that there are times when the women would go out and find a man to umm mate with with the purpose of having a child. No strings. No commitment. If the child is a girl, she is already on her path to becoming an Amazon. If the child is male, he is simply released into the custody of his father. I'm not bothered by that, but what bothers me is DC's handling of it. Once again DC is going for the dark stuff it seems...at this rate DC will stand for Dark Comics.

P.S. - This is reminding me of the proposed ideal of Ultimate Wonder Woman where it mentions that there is a horrible secret concerning men who use to live on Paradise Island and now don't.

[q99]

-
I remember when I was doing some research on Amazons, it was mentioned that there are times when the women would go out and find a man to umm mate with with the purpose of having a child. No strings. No commitment. If the child is a girl, she is already on her path to becoming an Amazon. If the child is male, he is simply released into the custody of his father.-

Yep. I read a webcomic with Amazons who had a deal like that, and because of it, some of the local male-centric cultures loved such agreements. They get boys and Amazons get girls and everyone's happy.

[jlbarnett]

I went to DC comics site to comment, only to find the place now lacks forums and is set up with twitter and facebook crap

[darkknightjrk]

From what I've read, they closed up their comments system on their blogs because every topic quickly degenerated into "NO THE FLASH COULDN'T BEAT SUPERMAN IN A RACE YOU FUCKING DUMBASS," mixed in with a lot more words that aren't allowed in this here community. Also, the forum was apparently a troll hive.

[q99]

Someone at another place made an interesting comment:

After this backstory, even if it works for this story and Brian Azzarello's run....


... we're going to need another reboot/retcon.