Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

BLACKEST NIGHT: WONDER WOMAN #1
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Nicola Scott
Cover by Greg Horn
Variant cover by Ryan Sook

Fan-favorite writer Greg Rucka returns to chronicle the adventures of the Amazing Amazon in the DC Universe's darkest hour! Black Lantern Maxwell Lord has risen and he seeks revenge and retribution for his murder at the hands of Diana. Look for unexpected changes to await Wonder Woman in the course of this series as she plays a major role in the War of Light against the Blackest Night.

Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Greg Horn), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Ryan Sook). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

On sale December 2 - 1 of 3 - 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Comments

[kingrockwell]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really want to see the variant cover. This is surprisingly not-ugly for Greg Horn, but Ryan Sook's art is just gorgeous.
And there's only one little bit that doesn't excite me about this solicit:
"Black Lantern Maxwell Lord has risen and he seeks revenge and retribution for his murder at the hands of Diana."

But, hoping that doesn't reflect the attitude in the interior (which i expect it won't), all I've got to say is :D!

[punishermax.insanejournal.com]

well...she kinda did murder him though. I mean, she snapped his neck while he was tied up and defenseless, yeah she had to do it, but it doesn't change that it was murder.

[kingrockwell]

There's no doubt she killed him, but murder is an entirely different thing.

[punishermax.insanejournal.com]

Well, if a guys breaks into your house and you manage to tie him up and get his weapon away and then you still break his neck, what is that?

[zordboy.insanejournal.com]

To say nothing of all the different ways of restraining him which were readily available that she either ignored or forgot about. I don't like my JLAers to have the battle savvy of preschoolers or the memory of goldfish. Everyone else's mileage varies, obviously.

BUT -- at the end of the day, DC *needed* to push through a ham-fisted and unforgiveably stupid storyline just for the sake of breaking up the Trinity before "Infinite Crisis". I'd argue it's funny (and typical) that they'd saddle Wonder Woman with this dramatic baggage (while leaving the other two icons intact). But bottom line is they were going to force this to happen no matter what. A shitty storyline, to introduce an even shittier storyline, which would all be resolved in an equally shitty way.

And *that* is the true tragedy of the whole rotten mess.

[kingrockwell]

Hadn't taken away his weapon. Max only dropped control over Supes to humor Diana, he was still an active threat.

[punishermax.insanejournal.com]

Then knock his ass out, you don't need to snap his neck.

[kingrockwell]

And what happens when he wakes up?

[punishermax.insanejournal.com]

Hopefully you had carried his ass far away from Supes and figured out how to keep him from doing it again. They've dealth with bigger stuff than this without resorting to neck snappage.

[kingrockwell]

And how far would that be? It was demonstrated earlier in the issue that Supes could fly halfway to the sun and still be under Max's control. As soon as Max wakes up, the thing starts again.

The most effective nonlethal solutions I've heard people present involved lobotomy or a chemically-induced coma. Beyond the fact that both of these options are unwieldly, risky, and incredibly time-consuming considering that all Max would need is a moment of clarity to stop them, but morally far more reprehensible than killing him.

[zordboy.insanejournal.com]

"And how far would that be? It was demonstrated earlier in the issue that Supes could fly halfway to the sun and still be under Max's control. As soon as Max wakes up, the thing starts again."

Follow me here.

Diana is a trained Amazon princess. She's been scoring A+ in hand-to-hand combat since she was 14. Take away her gods-given powers, and she could still go three rounds with Bruce in the dojo without breaking a sweat.

But she can't knock someone unconscious?

"She had to kill Max!" means Diana's an idiot. Which is why that shit doesn't fly. It just doesn't.

"He would've woken up!" Yes, and by that point (and the fact Diana is fast enough to play tag with Flashes, and has direct line to Oracle -- and thusly, has a direct line to pretty much half of Planet Earth and beyond) he's (a) in the Phantom Zone, (b) in a psi-shielded cell, like Hector Hammond or Grodd or every other evil telepath the JLA has dealt with, (c) in a teleport loop, (d) in the speed force, (e) had his metagene removed thanks to science/magic/whoever, (f) is facing down with Athena since Diana had her on speed-dial, (g) is listening to "!srewop erom on droL llewxaM", (h) is listening to JJ and his genie wishing his powers away. Hell, what about (i) "So Clark, you can make it from here to Pluto in thirty seconds. Be there. J'Onn and Captain Marvel will come and get you when we've sorted this out".

*sigh*

I actually could go on. Gimme half an hour, I'll have twenty more solutions for you. I did this once before and I could do it again. The point is, all of those options end the situation effectively with no execution of Lord (and the JLA have someone to interrogate over the mess! What a great idea people being taken as prisoners can be sometimes, eh?).

So don't sit there and shout, "But she had no other option!" She did. A metric tonne of them that all would've worked. Anything else is a bald-faced lie.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

Yes, but you have the luxury of that half an hour. Diana had to think on her feet something that would stop innocent people from being at risk. When she used the truth, the answer was to kill Max.

[zordboy.insanejournal.com]

Those first ten, took me seconds to think of. And I don't throwdown with Gorgons every Wednesday.

And the second people resort to, "The lasso told her she had to kill him!" as an excuse, I point out that it's lasso of truth, not the lasso of omniscience. Killing someone *is* a good way of stopping someone, but so are all those other things.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

The lasso didn't tell her, that Max under the influence of it did.

There are other things that would seem like they would have worked, of course, but within the context of the story it's clearly meant to be a black and white choice, so I think it has to be taken in that context.

Problem with that?

[nefrekeptah.insanejournal.com]

What if he breaks out of his psy-cell? And he would break out, eventually, because that's what happens in comics. And I think that Diana is genre-savvy enough to realize "You know how our villains constantly break out of the prisons we design for them, and escape from the interdimentional vortexes that are supposed to be inescapable? If that ever happens with Max Lord, then we're immediately back at square one, so do I really want to take that chance?"

What if it turns out that trapping him in the speed force or the Phantom Zone doesn't affect his psychic bond with Superman? It would be a small risk, to be sure, but once again, is it a chance you're willing to take when your mistake results in Superman killing you? Removing his powers might have the smallest margin for error, but what if he gets them back? Because that's also something that happens quite a lot in the DC-verse. Hell, Lord was bragging about how he had been digging around in Superman's head for years; what if it turns out that Max had brainwashed poor Supes so completely that Lord really didn't need his powers to control him?

Sure, Diana had other means at her disposal, but "just snap his damn neck" was the most obvious one, the most permanent one, and by far the most practical one.

Re: Problem with that?

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

Plus, a lot of those other options place Mr Lord in pretty bleedin' horrible situations. Diana's not cruel or gratuitous. When the choice is death/fate worse than death, I don't think she'll be looking to be vindictive.

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, only one of those solutions is somewhat viable, but that's still argueable.

[mxlm.insanejournal.com]

Didn't you, just a few posts up, say that she had to snap his neck?

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

It's murder. The question is whether it was justifiable or not. And you could argue that, with his control of Superman, he was still armed and dangerous so long as he was alive. But it's the deliberate killing of a person, and that's murder whether it's right or not.

[zordboy.insanejournal.com]

One which many observers would argue did, in fact, apply to the scenario.

[kingrockwell]

The jury didn't.

[zordboy.insanejournal.com]

OJ was found not guilty either. *shrug*

[nevermore999.insanejournal.com]

DIANA'S OJ SIMPSON NOW?

Here I thought OJ killed innocent people while Diana killed a terrible madman because she wanted to save innocent lives!

SHOWS HOW WRONG I WAS! :0

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

The implication is that juries can make wrong decisions. Don't have a minotaur!

[kingrockwell]

That's Kith-o-taur!