Get off our lawn

[laughing_tree]

Wonder Woman #18...

Comments

[thanekos]

" Please don't break my hand. "
" No. "

[lbd_nytetrayn]

That bit kills me every time.

[super_fly]

I feel like I should remember this from something but I'm drawing blanks

[thatnickguy]

Dragonball Z Abridged!

[coldfury]

I love how they're addressing the fact that while this is Wonder Woman's fight, she has friends and she's asking for help when appropriate.

That said, it feels a bit hollow that the scope of this storyline is essentially toeing the line of "Justice League vs America" and there's no additional fallout to that. It makes sense, trying to address it would drag the storyline out and we don't really need to make this another Amazon Attacks crossover, but I do feel like the story misses something by not addressing that.

Love that her friends are there for her, though.

[windleopard2]

Would be nice if the Wonder Girls were the ones helping her.

Also, this is the first time the Amazons in captivity have been mentioned since, what, issue 8?

[superfangirl1]

I really wish. You were able to show the scans of the impostor Captain America like character.

But these scan of Woman Woman breaking Sargent Steel is very awesome display of not taking his sh*t anymore.

[beyondthefringe]

As a fan of the old school Giffen-era League, it breaks my heart to see them stomp all over General Glory's heroic lega--
eh, lol. Screw that guy. And screw Stooge Steel.

[deh_tommy]

I don’t know, I can’t help but feel bad for Steel getting hit with the Tom King treatment. This is Sarge Steel now, and from this point on it’ll likely who he’ll be forever. I’m not gonna lie and act like I was ever a Sarge Steel fan, but it still sucks to see Tom King work his mojo and irreparably break a character for the sake of his plots yet again. Heck, isn’t he in direct contact with the Sovereign? What are the chances he’s a victim of the lasso too?

[thanekos]

Sincerely, the idea that a fictional character can be " irreparably broken " by one take that people don't agree with is one of the reasons that the average level of discourse around fiction that many people contribute to is in the toilet.

[laughing_tree]

What does broken mean in this context? I'd assume it means the viability of the character, but if so, I'm not sure it tracks. There is just as much a role for morally compromised or awful people in fiction as there is for good people.

[beyondthefringe]

I'll see your statement and raise you one Hank Pym, spousal abuser.
One story decades ago, and he has never been allowed to fully recover from that take, no matter how many times someone tries to fix it. Even when the creators go on record saying it wasn't supposed to be such a dramatic event.

Now I'd call "irreparably broken" a stretch if taken literally--any writer can come along and change a character later on. They found a way to redeem Wally West, and Hal Jordan, and Hank Hall (to name a small few heroes who spent time as bad guys, willing or inadvertently).

But it's possible for one take, one story, to -influence- a character to the point where it's almost impossible to remove that aspect. Hank Pym, wife beater. Tony Stark, alcoholic. Steve Rogers, American jingoist (Ultimates)/fascist (Secret Empire). Short of reboots and retcons, some stuff can't be swept under the rug. (Especially if it escapes outside of the relatively narrow field of awareness of its origin and into the general public... Captain Fascist America makes headlines, after all.)

So I'd absolutely say that it's possible for a bad or unpopular take on a character to become the one which defines them, and if it's someone like Sarge Steel who doesn't HAVE a strong track record to fall back upon... we may very well get misogynistic government stooge Steel forever more. Just like we'll probably always have John Cena's take on Peacemaker for the next few decades.

[thanekos]

The difficulty in progressing from a given take doesn't say anything about the take itself, though - it says something about the audience, a mass of individuals that changes over time.

If you write to defend against possible negative reactions that that group can have, you'll kill a lot more interesting things than you'll ever produce. Whatever negative reactions you get should be understood in terms of those who react, and dealt with accordingly - they shouldn't be treated like they're an objective measure of some common quality of " good take " everyone agrees on, because there is no such thing.

(As goes Sarge Steel, if we get more depictions of him in this vein, some of it's probably going to be following from this - and some of it's probably going to be because, as a Government Man character, he is exactly the person to personify Inflexible-to-Unreasonable-Authority against your individual heroes and maverick teams.)

[icon_uk]

I think the go-to example of poisoning the well is Dr Light.

From suitably odd Atom foe, to fairly respectable Teen Titans foe, to loser who was beaten by "Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys" to more or less played for comedy in Suicide Squad.

Then Identity Crisis retcons in a history of him being a rapist, who then had his mind scrambled by vengeful JLA-er's.

From then on, in pretty much every appearance he's shown as wanting to rape someone.

They even have the Cheetah objecting to work with him in some super-villain gang and Luthor pointing how many of the people on the team, including her, are mass murderers so why get precious about him being a rapist?

Which does raise some potentially interesting questions about casually depicting murder in comics, but also showcases what a bad idea it was to make a generally PG13 villain an R-rated sexual predator.

[knight_moves]

Well, I think the issue is that you don't want to show a rapist villain 'getting away with it,' but in comics, pretty much every villain gets to shrug off their defeats and re-offend. Which is fine for a nutty character like Thanos or even an over-the-top killer like Bullseye, but who can have a good time with a serial rapist showing up for Round 2 over and over again?

[blueprintstyles]

At least there's a chance of Steel being redeemed with the Lasso of Lie being a factor. They can always say he's brainwashed, same with General Glory.

[icon_uk]

In fairness, Sarge Steel has been depicted as a dick for a long time now, as I recall.

[deh_tommy]

I know it’s got wide-reaching repercussions for America as a whole, but can this book not go a single dang issue without mentioning Batman, Superman or the Justice League? I’ve never seen a book so deeply insecure about its title character.

[beyondthefringe]

I do like Diana calling on the Flash to save the hostages. Though getting bailed out by her friends and family should restricted to major moments like this, rather than just any old time.

Maybe there are too many heroes in the DCU/ available to the League now, and they don't have enough to do, hanging up there in the Watchtower just wandering back and forth...

[aperturedreams]

Eh, I don't know, I've seen them show up plenty in Superman and Batman's titles too

[icon_uk]

So what happens to the three "Mongul-levelling" projectiles after they hit her bracelets.

Because if she, as usual, deflects the projectiles, they still need to go SOMEWHERE, no?

[scorntx]

"Phew! Thank goodness they landed in those smoking craters!"