CT: On The Developments in Wonder Woman

[espanolbot]

NSFW For Referencing a Person Who'd Require a NSFW wiki-search.

By Me


The new improved Etta appeared in the new issue of Justice League as Steve Trevor's assistant, who Priapus is and what he did in Ovid's Fasti do not bear repeating.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

to be fair the suddenly thin and african american (which i think is awesome) Etta Candy is probably inspored by the fact that she was going to be played by Traci Thoms in the aborted series.

I also have to giggle at the whole "not observant thing" i could totally see that happening..

also i am a shamed to admit it... I know SOME of the story of Priapus (the obvious *ahem* part...) but don't know the part that this is referencing *goes off to wiki*

[espanolbot]

Oh, new Etta is awesome, though it seems amusing that she's also been slimmed down, like Amanda Waller.

[shadowpsykie]

yeah... i am hoping that is becuase of Ttaci Thoms, either i will now be hearing HER voice as i am readin my comics... and that is a very good hting...

also... having now looked up Priapus on wiki and checking out that story... i giggled at the word puns "Pripaus" on thier "asses"

though. now i am not sure WHAT she meant by that...

[espanolbot]

Well the Amazons haven't really had any difficulty finding mythical creatures in the past, so...

[shadowpsykie]

oh no i just mean... what would they do to the boys... i mean i don't think they were as.. ahem... gifted as priapus... besides he was the one doing the ummm smashing of the donkey...

oh i think i am TOTALLY over thinking this....

[espanolbot]

A little bit yeah. *laughs* She just meant that they could have just killed them.

[shadowpsykie]

oh okay... so they would have been the asses.... sorry i was... there were SO many images in my head....

[espanolbot]

Woulda been a bit of a weird thing for the Amazons to do, even by Ancient Greek standards.

[shadowpsykie]

yeah i know... again, i love greek mythology and pride myself in knowing a great deal about it...but there are so many and so many interpretations and alot of minor stories that its hard to know them all... so i was confusing the action for the rest of the story and then my brain went from there...

[shadowpsykie]

ugh... apparently i can NOT spell today...

[filthysize]

Also, to be honest, every single "Etta" I know in real life is African-American.

[auggie18]

Really? Huh. The only people named Etta I know in real life are old white women, one of which is my grandmother.

[kenn_el]

I always think Etta James.

[greenmask]

GUESS where I learnt about Priapus?

You got it! Harry Potter pornfic.

Second panel: I lol'd.

[espanolbot]

Thank you. ^^

Not sure why, but I always imagined that Diana was like Lisa Simpson as a child. Dunno, to me it just fits.

[blackruzsa]

I found that porn fic. Ao3?

[greenmask]

I forget what Ao3 means..!

[blackruzsa]

Archive of our own xD But maybe we're not thinking the same thing. Unless it was Snape/Dumbledore.

[greenmask]

AdultHermione/Snape (weird non-canon phase), actually.. The fourth unforgivable, ULTIMATE BONER CURSE, which Hermione cures and then cures again.

Ain't nothing new in fiction, huh?

[blackruzsa]

There's some kind of fanfic uni-mind going on out there, indeed.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

Wait. They have a large number of male slaves, yet when they want to become pregnant, they go out to find men and kill them? Given that they're the product of Greek myths that weren't shy about a bit of incest here and there, aren't they missing an obvious solution?

[lascoden]

The Amazons aren't the one with the slaves, they give the male children to Hephaestus.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

I forgot that, but the amazons could still borrow the slaves for a day or two each year. It might even make them more productive slaves.

[icon_uk]

Since the slaves are all related to at least one of them, that might lead to inbreeding issues.

[espanolbot]

Plus, if they wanted to continue the tradition of killing the fathers after sex, then they'd end up with the Furies after them or something for killing blood relatives.

[cainofdreaming]

You know, kind of a coincidence though only tangentially related to the Amazons since I do not know if their history with him is the same in NuDCU, I happened on an issue of Deadpool Team-Up with Herc in it that touched a bit on that subject. Mainly Herc's kids, and their demise at his hands or due to his neglect.

Furies weren't actually mentioned, but it got me thinking if either of the big two has done a story on that vein. Or even if it was touched in the original myths.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Since one man can impregnate more than one woman at a time, if you start with enough male slaves, you could quickly build up a fairly large pool to draw from.

I could be wrong, but figuring out whether or not it would work involves more thought than I'm comfortable giving the subject, but before my brain shuts down on this, I am wondering why, even if she didn't notice large groups of Amazons going off to have sex with sailors and kill them, she didn't notice large groups of pregnant Amazons a few months later.

[xammax]

I actually like this issues revealation and the way this book is going. Its proving something I've thought for a long time, Diana is the only non-asshole in her books.

[tauruschick12]

Really? You think Donna, Cassie, Hippolyta, Phillipus, Artemis, Vanessa, Etta, Steve (both versions), Julia, Nu'bia, Ferdinand, Leslie, Zola, or any of her other supporting characters that's she ever had are all assholes? o_O

[his_spiffynesss]

I learned about Priapus from the Pantheon webcomic (NSFW)

[pallas_athena]

I clicked, and now I seriously love that comic.

[jeyl]

So, to summarize the Amazons of this story...

- They're murdering psychopaths.
- They're too dumb to forge their own weapons.
- They're man haters to the nth degree.
- They can't produce a single independent thought that doesn't involve sex and/or violence.

The fact that Diana is the only reasonable character (to a degree) in this book adds another point to that list.

- Amazons cannot produce positive thinking individuals unless they have sex with a white male god from space.

Not only does this origin make Wonder Woman totally male dependent, but the main story line screams "Wonder Woman vs. the Female Gender!". She has no female allies outside of the damsel Zola who's pregnant with a son of all things, and Diana's number one villain is Hera, who's literal title is "Goddess of women". I do not understand how DC takes their signature female super hero and puts her in a world where all women are crazy and only men are the trustworthy good guys.

[jlbarnett]

to lazy to forge their own weapons. After all they didn't always trade the male babies for weapons, so they must have made them themselves back then

[akodo_rokku]

I don't think trading for weapons made by the *God Of Making Weapons* makes you dumb or lazy.

[golden_orange]

Yeah, that's kind of like saying you're lazy for buying a Ferrari instead of making one in your own garage.

[espanolbot]

Claiming that Diana is only who she is due to her (incredibly lousy) father is oversimplifying a tad isn't it? It totally ignores any personal character development that she'd have undergone as an individual, as well as free will and the fact that it implies that Diana can't be a good, freethinking person because that's who she is.

It's kind of like saying that the reason why the Batman antihero Anarky only wanted to bring down the establishment was entirely due to his biological father being the Joker, when he had his own socio-political ideas on the subject and only learned who his father is late in his own series.

Or it smacks of that unpleasant time in DC's history where everyone who is immediately related to one or more villains by blood are also evil be default, even if they've always attempted to be good before hand. For example, Cass Cain, Rose Wilson etc. etc.

And there are several other reasonable characters in the book, there is Hermes, Zola, what'shisname the Jason Stratham demigod bloke etc. etc.

And making Hera a villainess (or at least very, VERY shorttempered character) also isn't something new considering the mythology and protrayal in things such as Hercules' only legend. The fact that she's more in line with her mythological version IS somewhat new to the WW books though, as previously she's just been something of a stern influence in the background with Athena being the more forwardly mobile of the goddessses.

[md84]

Oh yeah, Hera is not a very nice goddess in the Greek Myths, and her harassing one of Zeus' children by other women is very much in-character.

If Diana being the daughter of Zeus really had any influence on her morality (and it doesn't), then she ought to be WORSE. Zeus could be a real jerk when it came to his pursuit of women and the occasional boy.

[espanolbot]

She'd be Wonder Woman as portrayed in All Star Batman.

[jeyl]

"Claiming that Diana is only who she is due to her (incredibly lousy) father is oversimplifying a tad isn't it?

Well, it's the sole reason why she's here in the first place, isn't it? Even Hippolyte made that point abundantly clear. And I don't see any other Amazons traveling to the man's world like Diana does.

"And there are several other reasonable characters in the book, there is Hermes, Zola, what'shisname the Jason Stratham demigod bloke etc. etc."

I never said there weren't any reasonable characters. I said that the only reasonable characters outside of Diana who can actually do anything are all men. The only other female character is Zola who is the damsel that must be protected and at this point needs rescuing. Basically, Wonder Woman is the only competent woman in this whole entire story who can actually do anything.

[tsunamiwombat]

I gotta concur with everyone else on the "god of making weapons" point, but completely agree with you otherwise. This is a complete subversion of everything Wonder Woman is supposed to be: feminine empowerment (this does not necessitate male de-powerment, it's just that it's supposed to be about WOMEN being AWESOME without men around to muck into it, an image of a utopian society free of patriarchy). The Amazons and Themyscara are -important- in that image because the original creator wanted to prove it didn't just work on a personal level, but on a societal level (the gentleman genuinely believed women would/should rule the world eventually) and because he felt a positive, nurturing environment was one of the great things matriarchal rule would provide society.

The DCnu Amazons aren't empowered, they're charictures, masculine nightmare scenario's in line with the ancient legends of Amazons as horrible monsters who are horrible because they're WOMEN WITHOUT A MAN TELLING THEM WHAT TO DO AHHH!

Aweful, aweful bullshit

[lascoden]

I don't see this as saying the Amazon's are bad because they don't have a man telling them what to do. I would say that in order to have that message, they would have to show that a patriarchal society would be better, which I don't really see anywhere in the story.

[tsunamiwombat]

It's not directly stated but that was always the insinuation in classical society - Amazons were a threat to masculinity by virtue of their independent agency.

It's not directly stated here either, but their greatest hero is such because she is the daughter of the ultimate abusive patriarchal figure, Zeus.

[jlbarnett]

Actually it is explained why Diana doesn't know. They only do it three times a century. Which is way to rarely, but they probably had to throw that in to explain why Diana hasn't done this herself

[espanolbot]

Depending on how old Diana is though, she still might have been around the last time that they did it.

Besides, she might not have been one of the Amazons that volunteer/are chosen to do this, if only because although they lied to her about her father, they probably didn't want a lot of similarly god-empowered individual running around. Particularly if Diana happened to bear a male offspring, which would then result in a probably very annoyed superpowered person with a hate-on for the Amazons at large.

[jlbarnett]

Hippolyta lied about her father, the rest of the Amazons apparently bought the clay story, they insulted her about it.

It's unlikey she's old enough to have experienced it because three times a century averages out to eery 33 years and no current DCU hero is older than mid 20s.

It seems likely to me that's why such an odd length of time was chosen

[icon_uk]

Batman is surely a bit older, since Dick is only 21 and there has to be SOME age gap between them.

[jlbarnett]

I bet if pressed they'd say he's only 28 or something like that.

[rdfox]

...meaning that at the OLDEST, Bruce was entrusted with Dick as his ward at age 15? Nope, not buyin' it.

[icon_uk]

Aparently word of god in the DCnU is that Dick now didn't become Robin until he was 16, (so Bruce would have been 23 or so (if the age differential thing is correct).

I beieve that Kyle Higgins has basically scoffed at the absurdity of Dick being that old when he started, is is trying to ignore it as best he can.

Odd how YJ at the weekend had Wonder Woman take Bruce to task for getting Dick started in costumed crimefighting at the age of 9, and it still sort of worked.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

How did WW's mom hide 9 months of pregnancy?

[salad_barbarian]

I don't know how they did it in story (if there even was an in story explanation) but it is possible to hide. First it's not obvious for a bit that a woman is pregnant. After that it's just a matter of her being The Queen and if she doesn't want to come out of her room or be seen then who's going to challenge her?

[eyz]

So...the new Etta Candy's kinda like the new Amanda Waller, right?
Between these two and the new Sivana... all I can come up with is: >SIGH

[starwolf_oakley]

A DCU fanfic I read had Bruce Wayne explain that Diana and other Amazons go through intensive combat training because they get their powers from Greek goddesses... and a LOT of those goddesses are associated with love and fertility.

"Face it Clark, if the Amazons didn't undertake that incessant preparation for war ... they'd all be pregnant by Thursday."

http://m.fanfiction.net/s/3046464/1/

[tsunamiwombat]

Maybe. But...from what men?

[icon_uk]

That's a mite... demeaning as a concept, no? To suggest that women can't control their own sexual urges and need to sublimate it in violent physical activity?