Wondy 33

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Four pages from today's Wondy.

So, the sea monsters from the preview attack the island. The amazons fight back. Ares shows up.



WHUT. She won't kill Genocide, but she will kill Ares? She can kill Ares? Since when? He's the god of war. The whole point of him is that he outclasses her as much as Clark outclasses Jim Gordon.

They're on Thalarion at this point, and Zeus shows up and is all "be a wife and mother, and oh I killed Kane."





When WML does a better Polly than Gail, something is badly wrong with the universe.



... yeah.

On the plus side, I've had to cut back on luxuries recently and I've been waffling over what titles to cut, and this makes that decision easier at least..

Comments

[thandrak.insanejournal.com]

Everything is going according to Athena's plan.

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

To be fair, it must take the shine off having a god when you can punch them in the face.

[gargoylekitty.insanejournal.com]

I just scanned these exact same pages. XP

Any who... While I saw the whole 'combine the Olympians with the Amazons' thing coming eventually, this... I have no real words for this. I mean, really? What the hell.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't sure what to make of this. If Ares is supposed to be dead, that's ludicrous. Even if he's not (and I kind of suspect he isn't), the fact that anyone even seems to think that he could have died in that manner is still ridiculous.

As for the rest, it's the sort of thing that would make Geoff Johns smile with delight.

My reaction:

[toasty_fresh.insanejournal.com]

(http://s481.photobucket.com/albums/rr174/toasty-fresh/?action=view&current=icantbelievemineeyes.gif)

[janegray.insanejournal.com]

Aww, so Kane stays dead? I was kind of hoping that jerk Zeus would somehow get killed, and somebody would use his heart to bring back Kane. Poetic justice and all that.

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

Words cannot adequately describe the sheer and horrific levels of fail and suck contained herein.

This should have ended in one of 2 ways.

The first is for the first time in their lives, the Amazons take their lives into their own hands and side with Diana and tell the gods who have just massively fucked them over to just GTFO, or at least for a bunch of them to side with Diana and in so doing finally choose their own destiny.

The other would be for Diana, as an invariable cosmic level consequence of being a mortal who slays a god, a consequence even the other gods are unaware of, becoming quite against her will, the new God of War.

[chthonicspirit.insanejournal.com]

And then Diana woke up with a hangover and swore never to touch Etta's special candy again.

[majingojira.insanejournal.com]

Somehow, I knew that Diana becoming (effectivly) an Atheist (well, Agnostic to be more specific since she just told the gods she won't worship them) would be met harshly.

But I think it's fucking awesome.

No one will notice it, but she has basically become the most high profile Atheistic Superhero in all of comics.

[alschroeder.insanejournal.com]

WW without the Olympian gods is like Steve Rogers without the flag. Maybe Gail is trying to strip Diana of everything that has meaning to her, to show us how she reacts under such circumstances---but like Steve Rogers as the Nomad, we can hope it's only temporary.

[(Anonymous)]

well I still think Wondy's BA...on a side note why is Baldy still alive? I'm really tired of her screaming dragon...

[ccsharumun.insanejournal.com]

I'm actually kind of looking forward to how this plays out.

ALSO--

Achilles looks like He-Man :D

[(Anonymous)]

Aw, shit, bluefall, did you HAVE to post the very last pages?

Goddammit. What a rotten thing to do.

I didn't think ANYONE would do that. Eight
months!

Grrrrrrr.


Gail, irritated in the vancouver airport

[zegim.insanejournal.com]

Well, I loved this issue.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

Hoo boy. This issue. This issue...

Some thoughts.

1. I'm thinking of the mythic/heroic cycle. Hero ends up separated from hearth and home, hero faces a series of trials, the hero gets torn down and suffers, but then the hero rises, there's atonement, and finally the hero returns home. I think Gail's aiming for something like that here, and this is the start of an ugly period in Diana's life that she will triumph over before returning home.
1. B. The last time I remember thinking "the writer is trying to do something Epic, in the mold of the heroic cycle" was Devin Grayson's Nightwing, with Blockbuster dying and everything. So I really hope Gail doesn't linger for too long in telling this story.

2. Ares went down way too easily. I know that part of the impact was meant to be just how abruptly he was taken out, but... he's Wonder Woman's oldest and most powerful foe. And yet killing him was as easy as killing Maxwell Lord. I think Wonder Woman's foes badly need to be built up, and I don't think this makes Ares look like a particularly dangerous foe. And since I wasn't wowed by Cheetah or Psycho in this arc either (oddly I thought Cheetah's appearance in Secret Six used her better), I don't think this did a good job building up her existing foes.

3. I'm really not loving the Hephaestus cannon, sorry. I don't get why it deserved the name "Hephaestus cannon". It was an unusually large and fancy gunpowder and cannon-ball canon. I preferred the Amazons that could fight an army of OMACs.

That said, there are definitely some things that I liked in this issue.

But... that ending. I just don't know about this. I'm completely with bluefall in saying Wonder Woman needs her gods like Captain America needs America. We're dealing with "Nomad" here. I just don't know.

[khaosworks.insanejournal.com]

Um... okay.

I haven't been reading Wonder Woman, I confess, but is there any explanation as to why Zeus doesn't just devolve Diana back to clay? Aren't her powers gifts from the gods? If she stops believing...

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

When WML does a better Polly than Gail, something is badly wrong with the universe

I don't think Polly is afraid there. She's simply stating bluefall's arguement that Diana is an Amazon and Amazon's worship the Greek gods.

[marlowe84.insanejournal.com]

De-lurking for a moment to say that I really liked the developments at the end of the issue. I just... thinks it makes for a fascinating story, and I'm really excited to see where it goes from here. I think a rift/conflict between Diana and the gods that made her is very Greek Epic-ish, and can be taken in some awesome directions. There were things about the whole story arc that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but Diana forsaking Zeus makes a lot of sense to me, personally.

[demonprawn.insanejournal.com]

Well I fuckin' loved it. and Aaron drew the hell out of it. I'm shocked at everyone's hate cause i got a huge buzz reading this. A crisis of faith storyline just seems appropriate for a character who is so deeply buried in the stuff. Is this the first time WW has abandoned the gods? I find that hard to believe seems like too obvious a story line. Like Superman wondering if he's too powerful for his own good, or Batman disconnecting with humanity or Spider-man forgetting to be responsible with power.

Ares went down easy, a little too easy. You think he's really down an out? Hell a page later and his plot continues to unfold "post mortem".

I know we got the mini Canary arc next but I can't wait to see where the gods and Amazon stuff goes.

[nevermore999.insanejournal.com]

Y'know, it's rare I disagree with Bluefall, but I really don't mind this. I'm interested to see where this goes. It's something that always seemed worth exploring to me in Wondy, that she might get tired of the gods jerking her around. It's like, a couple of times in her run a god (usually Hermes) has said "I'm not sure we deserve worshipers like you" and I've been "...They really don't do they? They gave her life and all that, but they're always screwing with her and she's always saving their asses." My mom's given me everything in the world and then some, but if she screwed with me as often as the Greek Gods screwed with Diana, I'd probably stomp out yelling "I have no Mom! I am not a !"

Now, obviously Zeus is completely coocoo for cocoa puffs here, and Di should have noticed, but I think that can be excused by how wasted she must be after all this shit happening to her. Genocide does seem to have affected her on some level. Ares, I don't believe he's really dead. Zeus thinks he is, but the guy's nuts, like I said. If it turns out I'm wrong, I'll be very disappointed, but I think there's a way bigger picture here.

Hippolyta seemes to be more less "afraid of Zeus" than "unwilling to abandon her gods and her people". What she's got here is Zeus killed a god Diana liked. Zeus has done dick things in the past, yet here Diana is flipping over this and saying she's outta here. Zeus didn't hurt Diana, so it's not like Polly herself has anything to be mad about, except Diana's suddenly all hurt and ranting and wanting to abandon her people. Well, Polly can't do that, she's the queen, she's the leader. Diana is not in any way hurt, she'll be fine on her own, there's no reason for Polly to tell of Zeus or go with Diana, because Diana never bothered to explain the sitch properly to Polly.

Diana's actions are understandable here in light of the history of the gods screwing with her, and all the trauma Genocide's put her through.

Also, I think this is temporary and it's going to lead to interesting storylines. I'm willing to wait to see where it goes before I condemn it.

But I understand why you're upset. After all the shit Wondy's been put through, her distancing herself from the Amazon's again must irk you a lot more than it does me for whatever reason. I have some problems too: Does Diana know the gods were kidnapped by Darkseid? Why isn't she surprised to see her sisters back? What's about Athena (and I think this all might be some big plan of hers)? Athena's rarely done Di wrong, why couldn't she just say "I only answer to Athena now?" Or is that not allowed or something and if you renounce some you renounce them all?

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. On a slightly unrelated note: was there ever an explanation offered for the gods' snazzy new spacesuits?

[mooppoom.insanejournal.com]

God. This arc just wore me out. I dropped it two months ago because I could not, could not take one more issue of 'mysterious manazons gather, Wondy is enraged by Genocide's atrocities and runs to fight it, but instead is shocked to find that it committed more atrocities and is too powerful for her.'

After I'd spent half a year seeing that same story repeated again and again I couldn't muster the strength to read even one more issue. If the next issue has nothing whatsoever to do with this arc I will buy it. But I am never, ever following a story like this again.

[magus_69.insanejournal.com]

I've been writing and revising my reply for quite a while now, so I'll just cut to the chase. It looks to me like Gail is breaking Diana down so she can bring her back up again. There is sense in this; no building can last if it is supported on a poor edifice, and I think we can all agree that the Heinberg/Shamazons mess is a very poor edifice indeed. Gail has destroyed that edifice so she can rebuild anew. She's doing for Wonder Woman what the Murderer/Fugitive storyline was supposed to do for Batman: destroy the faulty edifice and build something better.

Of course, M/F was a long crossover that consumed the Batbooks for months. There's only one WW title, so this will take some time to complete.

[pepperspray101.insanejournal.com]

Hm. This was painful to watch. But not because of its blasphemous oocness. But because it reminded me too much of my family situation where the menfolk of my family treat the women in my family like shit and I was the only one smart enough to say, enough is enough. I'm leaving this abuse behind. Let's see what she does now. I'm intrigued.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

you know what I'd like to see. Gods competing for Diana's attention. Also I think the Amazons should adopt what the Bana did. Take gods from a variety of pantheons.