Scans_Daily

So, the JLA 80-page Giant.

Well, here we are, after admittedly quite a hiatus, with the final repost of my Cheetah series. This overlaps the prior Pfeifer chapter a lot in terms of publish dates, and actually all falls before the Salvation Run stuff as far as the in-universe timeline goes, but chronologically and thematically it's more recent, it's essentially consistent with the most recent Cheetah, and being the take in JLA, it's probably the one that's going to stick with the average fan for a good while regardless of anything Gail might yet do in the Wondy title, so "current" it remains.

Which is depressing, but more in a mildly melancholy way than the frustrating VU stuff or the outright stupid Pfeifer Cheetah. Because while this Cheetah is still clearly of that same ilk, she's at least got some nuance to her beyond the mindless cardboard sociopath, and a bit of a suggestion of what she once was.





I have no further chapters to promo the way I usually do after the cut, but dedicated Cheetah fans, if there are any left after this tremendous fall from grace, may be interested in checking out the current Grand Unified Theory of Cheetahs, which achieves the extraordinary by reconciling all seven chapters of this series into a single coherent character arc by dint of massive unsupportable fanwank.

And we're back; this time with an installment so ludicrous I can't even work up any real ire for it. I'm just left shaking my head in depressed bemusement, wondering how it all went so wrong. I mean, it's not that getting Cheetah a little cross-DCU exposure is a bad thing in principle, and even the basic formula of "catwoman + cat woman = double the feline fun" does seem sensible at first, cursory glance. Enough, even, that we've seen it not once, not twice, but three times with this incarnation of Cheetah at least - very impressive considering that a) Selina's not even remotely connected to Wondy, b) she's not even really exactly a *hero* and c) barring Injustice-type "everyone and their mother who was ever a bad guy is there" crossovers, her fights with Selina are the only times Cheetah's ever gotten coverage outside Diana's book. Ever.

Of course, "cursory glance" is a pretty pathetic thing to hang a story on, and it all falls apart like a house of oversize novelty cards after the Batmobile crashes into them the second you take even a fractionally deeper look at the characters involved. But Pfeifer and Loebs never let continuity or consistent characterization stop them before, and dammit, they aren't about to now.





Next up, we find out why Cheetah's wearing stupid pants, with post-ICk JLA and v3 WONDER WOMAN. Yeah, I know. But hey, at least there's pretty Dodson art.

It's kind of odd to say, but up till this point, the Cheetah has actually had a certain consistency to her. I mean, obviously, in four different chapters we've had four completely different characters, but every different take on Barbara Minerva has actually followed pretty reasonably from the one before, enough that you can actually trace a coherent thread of development through the whole thing - you can see where WML got his reluctant ally from in Perez, you can track Jimenez' calm mastermind to Byrne's deliberate restoration. There have been wild shifts in character, yes, but nothing truly out of left field (Boy!Cheetah excepted, but he doesn't reflect on Minerva herself). You can always pretty much figure where any given emphasis sprang from.

Yeah, that was apparently too good to last.





Next up, somewhat less annoying but possibly even more stupid: Cheetah as portrayed by Pfeifer, with bonus Jeph Loeb. Because apparently the purpose of this series was to torture myself and then spread the pain to you.

I actually lied when I started this series; Cheetah doesn't show up in every run of Wonder Woman. Luke never touches her (or any other Wondy rogue, barring his own obligatory reintroduction of a Golden Ager), so for our next take on Cheetah we jump ahead to Jimenez' run and a tale that can probably be most accurately summed up, both in its content and its absurdity, by two words: Boy Cheetah.

Now last time, I called this story "confusing," which isn't entirely true. Provided you know who Fury *is*, how her powers work and how she's involved with the Wonders, and are able to keep track of a story told in two-page installments over the course of twenty issues, it's actually pretty straightforward right up until the very end. And even then it's more plot-hole-y than genuinely hard to follow.

However, the fundamental point of it seems to have been "let's get rid of Barbara Minerva, Cheetah works so much better as a man," which... what? I mean, I'm the first to admit the woman's been a little inconsistent as a character but seriously, what?





Next time: Rucka and Johns compete over who can annoy me more. To no one's surprise, Johns wins handily.