(no subject)

[thespis]

Just a little Dinah/Diana sparring scene from Birds of Prey #68 that makes me happy. Because I need something to take my mind off the colossal awful that Azzarello is inflicting on Wondy.

Comments

[icon_uk]

Sigh, between this and Donna and Kory regularly duking it out with staffs in the old Perez Titans era, two female best friends in mock combat is something that, whilst not a personal turn on (though any of those four would probably be enough to make me all sorts of curious), is always enormous fun!

Can I have this Diana back please?

[q99]

Yea, I like it when they do this too :)

Or just sparing between heroes in general! Diana and Bruce. Dinah and Cass. Wildcat and Dinah. It's usually fun.

[jeyl]

I also want her mother back to. And her fellow Amazons.

[icon_uk]

Works for me... I've been thinking of digging out the Perez "Birth of the Amazons" sequence just for contrast.

[thespis]

This. It's depressing to see how much Azzarello has savaged Diana and the Amazons' origins.

[thespis]

Basically the sooner they can reboot this reboot, the better.

[crabby_lioness]

A-fucking-men.

[bruinsfan]

I wouldn't worry too much. It took what, twenty three years from Action Comics #1 to "Flash of Two Worlds," then twenty four to Crisis on Infinite Earths, then nine years to Zero Hour, then eleven years to Infinite Crisis, then about five to Flashpoint? If the pattern holds true DCnU should get totally revamped by a Green Lantern crossover event around 2017. And then the rate of reboots will speed up again and put the mainstream DC universe in competition with the Legion for which gets retconned more often.

[darkknightjrk]

See, that's the thing--I do see this Diana in Azzarello's book, he just made her world a little darker.

[atom_punk]

Ditto. I made a post regarding my position on DCNu Diana before but to paraphrase, I don't have the same objections other people do with the change to the Amazons. Because at the end of the day I am reading a story about Diana, about Wonder Woman, not the Amazons.

Are the Amazons a big part of who Wonder Woman is? Yes. But that is not the be-all end-all of her character. She wouldn't be as great a character and wouldn't have endured for so many years if her only notable trait was "she is an Amazon".

Does that mean I'm totally ok with this new backstory for the Amazons? No. But I'm still invested enough in the story that I want to keep reading.

And if something happens in the DCNu Wonder Woman storyline that totally turns me away from it, I'll put it down and wait for the next story, or the next writer, or the next reboot. Because it will happen.

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah--to me, what I found interesting about the Amazons wasn't so much that they were paragons of virtue or anything (when you look at the concept with modern eyes, it doesn't quite work as a utopic society, IMO), but that they were a culture alien from our modern one, which taught her how to be a warrior. That's still what they are now.

And hell, the book itself gives out a whole lot of possible retcons or explanations--from Eros saying that Aphrodite isn't as pure as she appears, to the Smith himself saying that all the Gods lie for their own self-interest. Not to mention that the whole point of showing Diana try to free her brothers was to show that things aren't always as they appear. I really doubt that this is all that Azz is going to do with the Amazons.

[thespis]

But, see, he didn't. Because I would have been cool with that, if Azzarello had attempted to tease out and develop the less savoury aspects of Themysciran society. What he did was transplant Diana into an entirely different and deeply problematic world that bears only the most cursory resemblance to to one to which Wonder Woman belongs.

[darkknightjrk]

I think that's exactly what Azz did--he slowly showed that the Amazons weren't what they appeared. And honestly, the Amazons are inherently problematic, and most people seem to accept it because of 70 years of them being around.

Let me put it to you this way--when we talk about the Amazons, they're classic and shouldn't be changed. When we talk about the island Tyroc was born in with the LSH, it becomes laughable and no one really likes it.

[thespis]

Well, yes, he's shown that the Amazons aren't what Diana believed them to be. But my point is that he's done so not by working with what had been established, teasing out issues associated with the Themysciran society we know, but rather by casually sweeping aside canon and transplanting Diana into a completely different society.

I'm not suggesting that the Amazons are perfect as they were, or that they shouldn't be changed at all - on the contrary, I think it's a good thing for writers to bring fresh interpretations to groups and characters, particularly when dealing with a group that's been around as long as the Amazons have. But, to me, Azzarello's retcons detract from rather than enhance Wondy's backstory, creating a world that is much blander, problematic, and more than a little worrying in its portrayal of women.

[darkknightjrk]

I think he is using issues associated with Themyscira--he basically created an inverse of Greek/Roman society where, instead of having rampant misogyny, it's based on isolationism and misandry, and that could easily describe Themyscira all the way down to the Golden Age.

And I think it enhances Diana's story in one respect--before when it was portrayed more utopic, it made it feel like Diana wasn't all that special. She just came from the most absolute perfect upbringing. Now, it's especially clear that only Diana, who was always a little outside of her society and dared to venture into the Mortal World, could ever become Wonder Woman.

[thespis]

Well, that I disagree with - if anything, Azzarello's portrayal of Amazons merely reflects Greco-Roman misogyny by presenting a society that, at least thus far, appears to be universally violent, man-hating and barbaric. And with Diana (the demigod daughter of a white male deity who represents, among other things, masculine power) apparently the only member of that society to reject those practices... at the moment, at least to me, Azzarello's Amazons are reeking of straw feminism and ugly stereotype. When you've got a group of characters you feel is almost universally wonderful and they need to be brought down to earth, the answer is not to make them almost universally reprehensible.

But again, he's not building on existing canon to explore darker themes, he's totally recreating Amazon society.

Take, by contrast, another writer who explored a darker facet of Amazonian society by building on something we already knew: Gail Simone, in The Circle, took the well-known story of Diana's birth and asked the question, what if not everybody on Themyscira welcomed Hippolyta's daughter? What if, rather than seeing Diana as a miracle, some Amazons saw her as a monster; a clay-forged abomination created in some unnatural ritual, who threatened to tear their people apart? She created a group of characters fanatically loyal to their queen and determined to protect her at all costs, whose hatred of the child Diana was unfounded but entirely understandable.

The Circle enhances Diana's story by fleshing out Amazonian society: these women may be immortal, but they are human, with human fears and failings. And while they may have lived in relative peace for centuries, they are not a utopia, and isolation breeds its own set of issues. And we see that these women are individuals with their own ideas and agendas, their own beliefs about what is best for Themyscira.

I would love to see more of that - writers developing the factions and individuals within the society, exploring its politics, exploring the impact of Themyscira's strangely isolated existence, the drawbacks of immortality, the dangers of cultural stagnation, the existence of views and traditions that may not necessarily match up with Diana's values or our own. Azzarello's not done that; yes, he's exploring problems with the society, but it's a society he has totally recreated, erasing all of the Amazons' rich backstory.

[darkknightjrk]

I can see how the Amazons of old myths were meant to be misogynist ideas from the crusty old dudes writing things down at the time, but I was interpreting it as misandry in that the Amazons considered themselves the better gender because the presence of men was stripped away.

And honestly, while I thought Gail's run had some good moments, from what I've read, as soon as it got back to the island the book became boring as hell. To be fair, I haven't read The Circle (I believe I started reading the book during Rise of the Olympians, something like that), so maybe that part is good, but really the high-points of that run for me was the team-ups with Black Canary and Power Girl.

I will agree that there are some big differences between the two societies--the key one being the seeming lack of immortality, causing the need to keep the society alive and creating the awful siren behavior that fans aren't too pleased about in the first place. It might also explain why these Amazons are more man-hating--after several generations, their philosophies and their legends can be distorted pretty bad, and it's easier to hate a group if you don't have any experience or see a lot of them, if that makes any sense.

[thespis]

I haven't read much of Gail's run beyond The Circle so I can't comment on anything that happened afterwards, but certainly in that story arc the Amazons were handled very well and I really liked the fresh spin she put on the circumstances surrounding Diana's birth, fleshing out the Amazons in a very interesting and believable way.

And yes, it's conceivable that an Amazon society - perhaps one which followed a more warlike path, say in reaction to the persecution and betrayal inflicted on them by men - might grow insular and xenophobic, shunning the male gender. And as the generations progressed the hatred might simply become ingrained, informed more by oft-repeated legend and folklore as opposed to actual contact with men, and having been raised from birth to believe the worst of men they may have no problem committing acts of violence and abuse against them for their own ends.

Except, that society I've just described? It's not the Amazons of Themyscira. It's the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall.

Essentially, in Azzarello's universe, Diana has been raised by a fairly simplistic version of the Banas. That changes her origins in a very fundamental way.

Can you imagine the outcry if DC had inflicted the same treatment on Superman or Batman? If somebody just decided, I don't know, "Well, I like this whole parents-were-murdered-in-front-of-him angle, but this billionaire thing, it's not very relatable. What if we make Bruce a poor kid and stick him in the foster care system?" It might be an interesting story concept, but it changes the character's personal history drastically, to the point where he is no longer quite the same person.

As I said, I'm not one for hanging onto story elements just because they've been around for such a long time. In fact, many of the best stories come from writers who bring in fresh interpretations to characters and institutions. Look at what Greg Rucka did to the Olympian gods, for instance. But Diana's origin is a fundamental part of who she is. It's rich, multi-layered, and while it may not be perfect, it informs the character. And while it may make for an interesting story, to have a heroine who exists on the outer of her tribe, who must struggle to come to terms with what she is and the society she comes from... that's not a Wonder Woman story. That's a whole different comic.

[darkknightjrk]

See, that's the thing--while the ruthlessness and the generational aspect is new, the isolation and believing men cannot step foot in their society else they ruin paradise is inherent and core to the Amazons of Paradise Island.

Look at previous takes like the Justice League cartoon--Diana brings the League to help her save the island from Felix Faust, and what does she get? She gets banished for bringing the men that helped save her people.

Even if this take on them is a little more...extreme than previous takes, the "man-hating" thing is still core to the Amazons, at least until Diana ventures out to Man's World and shows them that they don't need to separate themselves from it anymore.

[filthysize]

They're teleporting in that last panel, right?

You know what, don't tell me. I'm imagining an awesome waterfall shower that they're having together.

[halloweenjack]

Great minds think alike.

[jfurioso]

I should draw that. Give me a bit of time and I'll get back to ya.

[darkknightjrk]

Dinah and Diana bathing under a waterfall together?

...

Yes. Hell yes you should draw that.

[big_daddy_d]

Wondy kicking ass in plain clothes....I'm turned on.

[darkknightjrk]

It's definitely a good example of showing you can draw a lady to be throwing a good fight and look hot as hell at the same time (there are a couple of ass shots here and there, but they seem to make sense or at least it looks like Benes is trying to do a dynamic panel and drawing the ass is an extra bonus).

[lascoden]

That's the weird thing about Benes: He gets a lot of criticism for throwing a lot of fanservice into his artwork, but he's actually a really good artist. He does great with the action scenes, and is not bad when it comes to faces. He just throws an ass shot in there every chance he gets.

[darkknightjrk]

Hell, I'd go as far as to say that he's gotten even better over time with stuff like anatomy and clothing (I couldn't help but notice how weirdly Diana's t-shirt was sitting on her throughout the scene).

One thing I've noticed is that he seems to have a similar style to almost every other Brazillian artist that's also in comics--guys like Diego Bernard, Mariah Benes, even Adriana Melo, who gets a little more detail in, has a lot in common.

[lascoden]

He definitely has gotten better. I loved the art on the latest Simone Birds of Prey, especially when you compare it to some of the...questionable choices right before the reboot. And it's lightyears above what most artists do.

Don't forget Ivan Reis. That man is probably my favorite artist at DC right now. And you're right. you can sometimes see similarities in the art style of people of different nations, which makes sense. They would grow up influenced by the art that they see, what's around them, their heroes. It seems to be that way with other forms of art, and things like architecture. Also: Didn't know Benes was Brazilian. I learned something today.

[darkknightjrk]

Certainly explains the...bodaciousness of a lot of his pin-ups, don't it?

[thespis]

jsyk, Benes didn't actually illustrate this issue, it was Joe Bennett. Who is, coincidentally, also Brazilian! ;)

[darkknightjrk]

Ah, my bad--I assumed he had a fairly uninterrupted run until he dropped off.

[gerardotejada]

I am so pissed off of how DC seems to over exploit the Green Arrow/Black Canary drama.

And when they try to get a happy ending to all that we get a new series from Winnick or Krul.

Ollie and Dinah were once the epitome of how to write a mature super hero comic, along with Morrison Animal Man (happy days, not for everyone but at least for me).