Superheroes, spouses, and son

[superboyprime]

Also, the series has been apparently been upgraded from mini-series to ongoing status. Huh.

Comments

[pyrotwilight]

Aww. This looks like fun but my LCS hasn't been ordering it. Sigh.

[auggie18]

...really? I remember some of the other stories from the last post on the first issue. The only characters I found sympathetic or even a little likable were the dude who married not!Wonder Woman and his son. (And sorta the daughter.) All of the other characters just sorta ran the spectrum from bland to dickish. (Not!Batman is having gay sex with his sidekick? That's a new one. Nooobody has ever covered that ground before, nosiree bob.)

I mean, good for the creators, I guess. I may have found it a little boring and derivative, but apparently there's an audience for it out there. (Though I might buy the book if it were just about not!Wonder Woman's family. They've got an interesting dynamic going on.)

[pyrotwilight]

She is certainly the most interesting out of all the family setups that I've seen thus far.

[bazor]

In the second issue its also strongly implied that the son is inheriting his mother's powers. Also, a tell-all author has maybe deduced that Sovereign is married to his former arch-nemesis.
Also, the cosmically-aware guy's wife? She's an ex crimefighter waiting for her kids to be old enough so she can go back to doing it.
Not to mention the wife of the elder hero, the one that's retired, is using her shape-shifting powers to trick him out of retirement at a tremendous risk to his own health for some reason.
Its got a lot more going on than I thought it would and I'll definitely keep reading.

[espanolbot]

As much as the old, cliche and irritating the "joke" about Batman and Robin analogues being gay is, the concept of a misandrist Wonder Woman is also something that appeared before and is also something that comes across as being kind of lazy.

Frank Miller on autopilot lazy.


I suppose that it's justified in this case due to the story that they're trying to tell, but it still comes off as annoying to me. As if the only way that they can show that a woman is strong and independant is to have her actively hate or be dismissive of the opposite sex, or in the case of her son, seemingly be openly emotionally abusive.

[md84]

To Not!Wonder Woman's credit, if she really were misandrist I doubt she would have married the guy and moved to surburbia in the first place. She probably would have done something heinous like seducing him for his seed right before dumping his body into the ocean, and sending her son to a lifetime of hard labor.

[benuben]

But they are not trying at all to show her as strong or independent. She is supposed to be sexist and emotionaly abusive parent.

And even though such characters have been written so many times, it was never the way I would like to see. For once, I would like to see someone stand up in such story, go to that character and tell her "You know what lady? Fuck you. You are hypocrite, sexist and asshole." Its alway "oh, men suck! But you are kind of cute." or "Okay I was wrong. Not gonna apologize to anyone, of course."

[icon_uk]

Perhaps a better example would be Winged Victory in Astro City. Her rogues are those she has targetted as preying on women, and she admits that if asked to prioritise between saving a man or a woman who were in equivalent levels of danger, she would pick the woman, because that's how she chooses to operate as a hero. It's not she's anti men, but she's more pro-women, as it were.

[lascoden]

Anyone else find it odd that she's wearing that trench coat over her costume? If it's so she's less noticeable, well, she still has that tiara on her head.

[leoboiko]

That image… my BDSM sense is tingling!

[brooms]

oh, gio has old nightwing color-code, too.

is sovereing supes? is he also gay and in the closet? most fics would go the way of bruce/dick/clark threesome for the more liberal. or tragic triangle ridden with jealousy, for the conservative.

[benuben]

To me, it seems more like hes a homophobe.

[his_spiffynesss]

Calling it now: Not! Wonder Woman's son has been or will be turned by mom's arch enemy.

[md84]

A more tragic possibility will be that he becomes his sister's archenemy.

[benuben]

Dont be such a cynic :-)
Based on the lighthearted tone of these scenes, it wil propably ended up Not! Wonder Woman realizing, what shes been doing, showing that despie all of that, she honestly loves her son, and she starts threating both kids equaly.

[icon_uk]

Agent Twilight's plus-fours are quite something, and it's a little weird that the lighter material in Night Fox's costume is a match to his skin tone so it looks like he's wearing a VERY scanty, flesh exposing outfit.

[kamino_neko]

Look more like jodhpurs than plus-fours to me, though to be fair, it's hard to tell with the greaves.

And, yeah, I noticed the virtual-skin he's got going on. It was striking in that first panel.

All that said, I'm digging on the costumes in this one more than I usually do in these things.

[lascoden]

I saw the coloring of Sovereign's costume and thought he was nude for a second.

[dorksidefiker]

I can't help but question Paul/Night Fox's commitment to Gio/Agent Twilight, for all Gio's declarations that they're in love. Admittedly, all I know about this book is what's been posted here on S_D, but it's pretty clear that Paul had no intentions of leaving Alexis any time soon -- if at all -- and the guy's already trying to win her back.

This does not speak to me of a man in love with anyone. This speaks to me of a man who likes having his nice life with a piece of ass on the side.

[lascoden]

I'm kind of getting that as well.

[tsunamiwombat]

I agree but to be fair, his entire world is coming apart. His wife wants to completely get rid of him, both from superheroing, and destroy him financially. Is she unjustified? Well, no, she caught her husband cheating on her. This sort of awful emotionally destructive knock down drag out cut my nose to spite you from hells heart I stab at thee sort of divorce happens all the time in real life, and it's only going to get worse for those two as they never really address whats at the root of their problems with each other.

Pauls cheating on his wife with Gio, who seems to adore him - maybe thats WHY he's cheating on her with Gio. It's not that he loves Gio, it's that Gio is giving him positive emotional enforcement he's not getting from his wife. Does that justify him cheating on her? No, but it does speak of deeper emotional problems with their marriage then just "Horny guy trying to get laid".

or he could just be a prick and wants his nice life and hot peice of ass on the side. admittedly this is more likely.

[tsunamiwombat]

Oh look, more unsympathetic superheros.

*sigh* I'm sure this is a very interesting book, I just feel over-inundated with gloom and super-dickery.

[tsunamiwombat]

I like that Not Wonderwoman is riding a dragon, very colorful asian feel. We need moar of that in comics.

[icon_uk]

Agreed!

[md84]

I can't help but wonder if the reason Not!Wonder Woman's daughter doesn't have powers is because she doesn't want them. She pretty clearly doesn't want to be part of the whole "superhero" thing. She also doesn't have any interest in her mother's old lifestyle -- she quite understandably would rather buy bacon at the local Safeway than catch and butcher a live pig.

Meanwhile, Not!Wonder Woman's son is starved for his mother's attention and tries so hard to be like her. That's why he has manifested her abilities.

Or if Not!Wonder Woman's powers are also divine in origin, maybe whatever deities empower her did this as a sick joke.

[icon_uk]

she quite understandably would rather buy bacon at the local Safeway than catch and butcher a live pig.

As Gaiman and Pratchett put it, when people say they want to "get back to nature", they tend to overlook that the driving force behind civilisation for several millennia has been getting as far away from nature as possible. :)

[wizardru]

So, are any of the characters likable, other than the kids and Not!WW's husband?

Also, any sympathy I might have had for the wife disappeared the minute she tasered the sidekick out of pettiness.