The day the sea and shade both wanted to be sky

[arbre_rieur]

Four pages from WONDER WOMAN 6...

Now that Zeus has gone missing, both Poseidon and Hades want to take his place.







The proposal is that Poseidon and Hades, instead of beating the crap out of each other to decide who succeeds Zeus, like the two originally planned, share the throne by entering into a three-way bigamous marriage with Hera.

Hera, understandably, shows up to express her displeasure at the idea.





She teleports to Mt. Olympus, where she uses the candle to destroy Hera's scrying pool. Hera, being on Earth, can't return quickly enough to stop her. Which was the plan all along.

Hades is pretty pissed off at being played, but Poseidon just finds the whole thing amusing.

Comments

[quatoria]

Who's the guy? He looks kind of like a bulkier soldier version of Constantine.

[espanolbot]

He's Lennox, I think his name is. He seems to be based on Constantine, but with the artist and writer saying he has more of a Jason Stratham(sp) vibe than a Sting one.

[his_spiffynesss]

Lennox is one of the numerous demigod children of Zeus, so he's Diana's brother as well.

[jlbarnett]

I hate these designs

[icon_uk]

I dunno, I rather like the novelty of the idea that multi-dimensional entities worhsipped as deities have forms that aren't ALL people in robes.

Poseidon preferring a form that is aquatic makes some sense. Zeus and Hera being more human also make sense as they are the primary gods of the human worship of them. Hades being a little.... odd also fits, though his little boy appearance does make his marriage to Persephone even more creepy to contemplate, but the Greek deities are hardly admirable in ANY respect there.

I don't imagine these are their ONLY forms, so I think my problem is that I don't see these lasting beyond the first creative team, and we'll be be back to a standard human "Clash of the Titans" look.

[mrstatham]

I don't know - given the largely positive reception to the current WW, I can see DC trying to be consistent in appearances, and keeping these design choices. It certainly seperates them off from the classic toga looks.

That aside, I have to admit I'll be glad to get Chiang back with the next issue. Akins hasn't been bad by any means, but I don't think he's capturing the feel of what Azzarello's been aiming for in the story. That said, they're both better than Lee, whose Diana could just be Lois Lane dressing up as WW - Both of the artists on this book so far at least make her look a bit more like an Amazon than usual.

[jlbarnett]

I didn't know about the positive reaction. For me it's been one of the books I've been reading just to keep up until someone comes along and changes things. I may drop it from here.

I mean I expect the changes to the Amazons and Diana's history would have people furious

[salinea]

though his little boy appearance does make his marriage to Persephone even more creepy to contemplate, but the Greek deities are hardly admirable in ANY respect there.
shouldn't it make it less creepy, given that Persephone was a little girl as well?

[espanolbot]

She was? I thought that I was a teenager or something.

[salinea]

I remember her being about 12-14? Dunno where the memory of it being so is from though, so maybe I'm wrong.

[icon_uk]

I don't recall reading any version of the myth having her being a little girl. Not saying there isn't one, but I've never come across it.

[his_spiffynesss]

The Hades design does have some inspiration from mythology. Being the youngest of the Olympian Triumvirate, it does make a certain degree of logic to represent him as being youthful. The candle head I have no idea.

Also in Eddie Campbell's Bacchus series he made reference to the idea that early representations of death in Greek culture were of a pale boy supposedly Hades himself. So there does seem to be some tradition for this.

[icon_uk]

Candles as an analogy to life have a long history, being one of the few man-made sources of light most of history would have known (the other being oil lamps) which is extinguished very easily.

Hence the imagery of Edna St Vincent Milay's short poem;

"My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends,
It gives a lovely light!"

[jlbarnett]

I didn't even notice the kid size choice for Hades, I was talking about the melting head

[icon_uk]

I don't think the head is melting, I think it's coated with dribbling melted wax from the candle,

[espanolbot]

I like the redesigns, personally. Gives them a bit more individual character than everyone just wearing togas, plus since a theme of this new series is the interaction between the mythological past and the modern world, it makes sense that they adopt a more modern look than the one they had when interacting with the ancient Greeks.

[icon_uk]

Is it that modern though? I'd say it was more... bizarre than modern, myself.

[espanolbot]

Nontraditionalist, then. Some are more modern than others, Ares appears to be dressed in a fairly modern way for example.

[meowshi]

I love these designs.

Maybe Poseidon could use a little work, but Hermes, Ares, Hades, and Apollo are fantastic.

[crinos]

So.... Hades is a kid with a head covered in wax in the NDCU?

[his_spiffynesss]

Interesting fashion choice for the Queen of the Gods.

[mrstatham]

Pretty smart choice, frankly, and one I'm surprised hasn't been tapped into sooner.

[his_spiffynesss]

Yes, the Cloak of Peacock feathers makes sense seeing how the creatures had been long associated with her. It's her accessorizing it the classic and nothing else! which does make it stand out:)

[icon_uk]

Oddly, the only time I can remember peacocks being linked to Hera as a design element was in "Hercules, the Legendary Journeys" where in the early seasons she was only ever represented by a pair of eyes in the sky, and the eyes were the eyes from a peacocks tail (and when she did eventually appear as a physical entity rather than a voiced FX, she was played by Meg Foster, possessor of one of the most striking pairs of eyes I've ever seen.)

Hercules also introduced a faux member of the Greek pantheon, the goddess Celesta, who guided the newly dead to Hades with her eternally burning candle...

I wonder if the creators were fans?

[goattoucher]

"Argus was Hera's servant. His great service to the Olympian pantheon was to slay the chthonic serpent-legged monster Echidna as she slept in her cave. Hera's defining task for Argus was to guard the white heifer Io from Zeus, keeping her chained to the sacred olive tree at the Argive Heraion. She charged him to "Tether this cow safely to an olive-tree at Nemea". Hera knew that the heifer was in reality Io, one of the many nymphs Zeus was coupling with to establish a new order. To free Io, Zeus had Argus slain by Hermes. Hermes, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus's eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him by hitting him with a stone, the first stain of bloodshed among the new generation of gods.

According to Ovid, to commemorate her faithful watchman, Hera had the hundred eyes of Argus preserved forever, in a peacock's tail."

[icon_uk]

Umm, yes, I know the mythology thanks, but the Argus story in no way suggests that Hera gave a crap about peacocks as a personal design statement or used them as a motif.

Putting the eyes there was just a punishment she inflicted on a servant who failed her, and Lord knows the Greek gods did plenty of that. You don't see Athena being associated with spiders, despite her punishment of Arachnae, or Artemis wearing deerskin because of what she did to Acteon.

[mrstatham]

The peacock's still one of her sacred symbols, and was a creature heavily associated with her, and as such, it's still a relatively smart design choice that I've not seen otherwise in comics.

[icon_uk]

And I'm agreeing with that point, I was citing the only other example I can think of in ANY media which links her to peacocks from a design ethos.

[his_spiffynesss]

In Hellenistic imagery, Hera's chariot was pulled by peacocks, birds not known to Greeks before the conquests of Alexander. Alexander's tutor, Aristotle, refers to it as "the Persian bird." The peacock motif was revived in the Renaissance iconography that unified Hera and Juno, and which European painters focused on. A bird that had been associated with Hera on an archaic level, where most of the Aegean goddesses were associated with "their" bird, was the cuckoo, which appears in mythic fragments concerning the first wooing of a virginal Hera by Zeus.-Wikipedia

[icon_uk]

Cool, thanks

[cypherfdp]

It's a lovely peacock cloak and... and well, that's about it really.

[his_spiffynesss]

Yet back in #2 we see Hera gowned and resplendent, but she travels around on earth in just a open fronted cloak?

[omnipotent]

Yeah, I was wondering about that too, and in one of the panels she even has to hold it in place to keep her decency. At that point, might as well just go au naturel.

[icon_uk]

She's a goddess so physical considerations of comfort are probably irrelevant, and she's out to impress the mere mortals who she feels should worship her, and that outfit would certainly get their attention more quickly than the robes would.

[practicalcat]

If she's going for the "impressive", she probably shouldn't have gone with the "I have to hold this closed to preserve the rating on this comic" pose. It undercuts the power of "bow down before the Queen of Olympus!" when she's standing like "crap, I need an emergency safety pin!"

[gerardotejada]

I dont know what people see in this series, Azarello is a parody of his former self. Im with Shooter in these one.

[shadowpsykie]

Im with Shooter in these one.

i;m surprised anyone would be with jim shooter....i am still urked by his "No gays Policy" at Marvel and HORRENDOUS homophobic Hulk Magazine issue....

[salad_barbarian]

"homophobic Hulk Magazine issue"

I know I'll likely regret this but...what happened?

[shadowpsykie]

enjoy....

http://retrocrush.com/index.php/2010/05/1980-flashback-hulk-narrowly-avoids-ymca-shower-attack/

[salad_barbarian]

Well I was right. I regretted this.

Now to use my new found psychic powers to win the lottery, buy all the brain bleach, and forget this ever happened.

[shadowpsykie]

Yep ... And that's only one thing i...dislike him... Apparently the gays he would allow had to have aids, because, you know gays= aids -_-

[gerardotejada]

Yeah I said on this one, but thanks for the ad hominem attack on my authority call, Im not going to bait your straw man, just saying he had good arguments and Azarello is not good in this gig

[shadowpsykie]

that's part of the reason i don't take much stock in him. i read his argument. he might have some points (i don't agree them however) but he delivers them in a very childish way...he sounds like astero typical fan boy...

I;'m not trying to bait you however.
my point is, i don't agree with him, just on the basis of the article/review he posted. i actually quite like this series.

[gerardotejada]

Thats the thing about Shooter, he delivers his arguments in a childish way, yet he has good ones. He can be a superdick but his run as Editor in Marvel was great (with byrne in FF and Miller in Daredevil).

Eventually his own flaws sink his achivements.

[arbre_rieur]

It's the real world context that makes this scene especially odious. Shooter was simultaneously maintaining his editorial edict that none of Marvel's heroes be written as gay/bisexual (which is why Byrne only hinted at Northstar's orientation in ALPHA FLIGHT).

[omnipotent]

I am digging Wonder Woman's biceps.

That's all I have to contribute, LOL. I prefer her drawn with a bit of muscle--a woman can have muscles and still be considered "feminine", if she wants to be considered "feminine", of course.

[apintrix]

What a great, classic cover!

[schala_kid]

Everytime I see Hades I can't help but think someone dropped a birthday cake on his head.

But I am loving the redesigns, and so far this is the only DCnu title where the costumes don't piss me off

As for DCnu Diana, she has her own personally and is different from Post-Crisis Diana (who I will forever miss) but she's an interesting character and I am quickly becoming a fan of her.