Secret Origins #6

[history79]

4 pages of 12

Comments

[ozaline]

I still hate this retcon with a burning passion.

I like some of the new 52 changes, but this is where I draw the line.

[jlbarnett]

the first thing that needs to go with the next retcon

[jeyl]

Saldy, I fear that when Wonder Woman makes her film debut and establishes her daughter of Zeus status, it will solidify her "New 52" origin with the masses and become all the more harder to turn around.

Seriously, how can the producer say that what makes Wonder Woman unique are attributes that have only been a part of her character for about four years out of her almost 70+ years of existence?

[jlbarnett]

Wonder Woman is decently known, I can see this not sticking after the movie. Anyway the obvious reaction of "So she's Hercules but a girl" may actually discourage it, removing her uniqueness

[philippos42]

Yeah, I've been calling the Azz version "Herculisa" for a while.

[ozaline]

Sorry Necro-posting cause I'm looking for something but I called her Wonder Kratos. Child of Zeus, God of War... Wonder Kratos.

[philippos42]

I remember hearing that term a few times, yes.

[cricharddavies]

Because the producer got ripped to the teats on fine cocaine that the author of said retcon supplied, so naturally it's a superior story.

[venatosapiens]

I don't like this retcon any more than y'all do, but is calling Azzarello a drug dealer really necessary?

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

Do NOT make personal attacks of that nature about a creator on scans_daily.

[lieut_kettch]

Did you say COCAINE?!

[jaybee3]

I have many issues with the treatment of WW in the reboot - the so-called romance that's been pushed down our throats, the treatment of the Amazons, etc. but none rankles so much to me as the removal of the clay origin to make her just another in a long line of demi-god offspring of Zeus. It was so unnecessary and needless (and the fact they have used for reboot Donna showed it had merit apart from what Azzarello thought). If I had a top 10 list of retcons to the reboot, the return of Diana's classic origin would be on it.

[ozaline]

Don't like the treatment of the Amazons, always have kinda liked Clark/Diana when it's done well though.

Parthenogenesis. If a reptile can do it, so can a goddess!

[7dialsmystery]

Seriously, it's awful! Why the hell do they need men? "Every girl must have a father" BARF They're friggin' demi-goddesses! They're Amazons! No, they don't need men!

[jeyl]

"Sadly, rather than special, the story of her creation makes her feel uncomfortably different."

And being a demi-god trained by the God of War somehow would make her more like the Amazons? This whole treatment of Wonder Woman in New 52 is nothing short of "I HATE THE CLAY ORIGIN!" because, let's be honest, why bother with the clay origin deception at all? Why not just say she came the same way the other Amazons did? It's like they purposefully added it in just to mock it as an idea that was inherently broken. It was pointless.

"If only she knew the truth! What really happened on that night"

This sounds familiar....

"Oh, but the pain in my heart says that I am committing a sin! You must never know Diana... You must never know, for your own sake, the name of your true father!"

If Pre-New 52 Wonder Woman calls it a bomb, well to quote Linkara. "What she said."

[deh_tommy]

Had Hypollyta actually told the truth to anyone, then Dianawould have been given a fate steeped in irony and worse than death.

Almost immediately after Diana discovered she was a Demigod, Hera turned Hypollyta into a clay statue and the Amazons into snakes. She also caused Sirracca's mother to choke in a sandstorm and scattered Siracca herself across the wind for all eternity. I wouldn't want to know what happened to Milo. Zola was pregnant with Zeus' baby, so she sent centaurs (half-breeds, mind you, like demigods) to slay her. She sent down the Sphinx, which killed countless people, just because of one infidelity. She even inadvertently created the echo, as she cursed a Nymph of the same name to repeat the last words anyone said to her, and she eventually faded away leaving nothing but her voice. She once sent Eris ruin a healthy marriage because the married couple claimed they loved eachother more than Hera and Zeus loved one another.

No, being trained by Ares would make her more skilled as a warrior. In #0, the narrator said that while she used War's methods to great success, she never neglected to remember and practice her traditional Amazon teachings. If she had completely subscribed to his ideals, than she would have been less of an Amazon.

Her heritage with Zeus gave her the ability to take on the role as God of War, and introduced us to a large and colourful supporting cast that gave her more of a familial connection to them, in addition to taking Diana's sisterhood with all to a literal level.

I prefer her origin of being made from clay, but her being a Demigod didn't really harm nor hinder the story (at least in my opinion). Then again, I try to like everything.

Also, Diana called the movie a bomb due to hokey acting and poor scripting, not just because her origin was inaccurate.

[jlbarnett]

some things aren't worth liking

[jeyl]

"Had Hypollyta actually told the truth to anyone, then Dianawould have been given a fate steeped in irony and worse than death."

I wasn't suggesting she tell her the truth, I was asking when it comes to explaining why Diana exists at all, why go with the clay origin? Why not say she's just an Amazon like everyone else? What is the point outside of mocking it? Why go with something that just puts more attention towards your daughter and draws negative attention from the Amazons?

[lordultimus]

My problem? Why not tell Diana where all the men are? The amazons don't seem ashamed by their deal with Hephaestus. Why hide it?

[locuatico]

there are so many plotholes with this origin that the only possible explanation would be that Diana was incredibly ignorant of her own culture.

[jeyl]

"I prefer her origin of being made from clay, but her being a Demigod didn't really harm nor hinder the story (at least in my opinion). Then again, I try to like everything."

No, it just character assassinated Hippolyte. She was someone who was featured in many prominent roles of Wonder Woman stories. I mean, come on. Her history along with the history of the rest of the Amazons compliments Wonder Woman's clay origin so wonderfully. Now she's reduced to just a person that Zeus knocked up and was conveniently written out of the majority of the story... twice.

God, she's a living parent to an iconic super hero who is not restricted to parent issues or emotional baggage. They have great chemistry with each other and when they fight side-by-side, well, how many mother/daughter relationships are there in comics fight alongside together like that? Well, good news! Now Wonder Woman has a majority male group of allies. It wasn't worth it.

[shadowpsykie]

Had they not done that to Hipolyta, done the whole Enslave the boys thing, I would have been okay with it. I kinda like the Demi-hod angle. Only because I am a big mythology buff and like all the ties I can connect. Plus other than those points I LIKED the stories told before the Finches took over

[sagrada]

I'm pretty big into mythology too. While DC's made some missteps I do grudgingly admit that they've kept pretty close to the spirit of the old tales, with minimal breaks. I hope someday they're as mythologically accurate with Wonder Woman as MARVEL is with Angela: Asgard's Assassin.

[icon_uk]

Her heritage with Zeus gave her the ability to take on the role as God of War, and introduced us to a large and colourful supporting cast that gave her more of a familial connection to them, in addition to taking Diana's sisterhood with all to a literal level.

We saw in the last iteration that Diana was able to become the Godess of Truth, without being in any way related to Zeus and, like many a character from Greek myth she had many dealings with the Pantheon without having to be one of them, in her particular care by dint of her being the created daughter of a half dozen goddesses.

Making her sole link to Olympus being through the magic of Zeus' Wandering Penis Syndrome misses the point of Wonder Woman by so much I just canot understand how ANYONE thought it was a good idea from a creative perspective, never mind an improvement on what had gone before.

[bruinsfan]

Well... technically the Byrne run that turned her into the Goddess of Truth also established that the pregnant cavewoman who reincarnated as Hippolyta was Ares' daughter, so Diana's soul was the great-granddaughter of Zeus even if her modern day incarnation was midwived by Athena and the other goddesses of Olympus.

Mind you, it made no sense why a daughter of Ares would be a cringing battered wife living in squalor, nor how Ares could be fathering children about 28,000 years before the Greek Gods' origins. Most writers after him seemed to sweep that whole business under the rug and forget about it, an approach I approved of.

In Perez' Post-Crisis revamp ALL the Amazons were born of clay and given life by the goddesses, Diana differed only in that her "birth" was singular and Hippolyta sculpted her as a baby rather than having her emerge from the clay as a full grown woman.

[philippos42]

Well, Byrne may have been following Sekowsky rather than Pérez there. As I recall, in "Return to Paradise Island" Mars is Hippolyta's father.

[icon_uk]

So on top of everything else about this new origin, Hippolyta (now blonde again, hadn't noticed that) is now specifically mentioned as "barren", until Zeus (or his godly spermatazoa) is apparently man enough to be able to make her conceive.

I hardly know where to begin on that horrible little sequence of words.

I do feel I should add something about how ghastly that cover is showing that Wonder Woman's Secret Origin has her as a snarling, screaming warrior. Not a regal, commanding presence in any sense, but a bad Xena-in-full-bloodlust mode.

[sagrada]

Bwahahahaaaaaaa! Oh wow, I did not even notice that. That's great. That's perfection itself.

We wouldn't want any goddesses involved with the creation of a fictional superheroine meant to be all about female empowerment and liberation from old paradigms. What good would they be?

[deh_tommy]

Athena blessed Diana shortly after her fight with Aleka.

[alschroeder3]

How can you be anything BUT barren if there's been no male on the isle for three thousand years? Oh, RIGHT...they did the orgy-on-the-passing-ships thing and killed the men afterwards.

I think the creators of Wonder Woman post-52 were some of the most creative, interesting, and accomplished creators of any story told post-52, and told a dynamite story in a dynamic way. I will definitely hold the entire series as one of the high points of Wonder Woman stories.

Nevertheless, negating the "clay" origin and making the Amazons into rapists (or at least, just using the men as sperm banks, disposable ones) and murderers just ruins one of the only female utopias in comics, and makes most of her "specialness" derived from her Zeus-parentage.

We need to get this taken care of. I don't care if it's an ad hoc explanation; it just ruins WW in the long run.

Imagine what Clark will think when he finds out how the Amazons--reproduce? That all her Amazon "sisters" are...murderers? (Are they not still immortal? Why don't they have a huge population by now, if no one dies, and they keep having more kids?) He had problems enough with the Olympians. What if he ever visits where she was brought up?

[sagrada]

Yeah, the stuff with the New Gods and Old Olympians and all that weird nonsense prophecy foolery was at least a novel take on the material. Expectations, living up to legend, how it feels to not be who you thought you were, self-discovery, what a 'god' is and what it would mean to become one...there were some interesting ideas there.

A shame what happened to set them up.

[icon_uk]

How can you be anything BUT barren if there's been no male on the isle for three thousand years?

Being barren has a very specific meaning (with varying levels of social stigma to it depending on where you are in the world), and has nothing to do with the availability of men/having sex.

It doesn't mean she hasn't conceived a child, it means she is biologically incapable of conceiving a child. Until, of course, ultimate manly man Zeus comes along and fixes the poor "damaged" woman with his magic wand.

[deh_tommy]

How is that "fixing" exactly? You don't have to be able to conceive to be a woman. You sound a bit bitter.

Still, the way you phrase that makes this sound quite unintentionally funny. Don't forget he was also able to impregnate Zola, who was usually careful enough to wear contraceptives.

[icon_uk]

You don't have to be able to conceive to be a woman.

Well yes, that's the truth, however it is a truth not universally acknowledged.

You sound a bit bitter.

Not bitter, angry.

[alschroeder3]

True. And I didn't mean to make light of anyone who has that condition. I was just saying...in a largely pre-modern medicine culture without men on an island of immortal women, how would you know you were barren? But I guess we have to accept that Hippolyte took part in those distasteful raids that ended in the males' deaths. That she had ample opportunity to find out she was barren, after executing multiple inseminators...

Over decades. Over centuries.

You felt sorry for the Amazons, and what they suffered from Heracles' men and Heracles himself after Hippolyte's girdle was stolen, in the original story. But instead we find one of the few admirable women leaders in comics--is instead a murderess. Indeed, as queen, had responsibility for what the others did. Must have ordered those raids.

For what? They were immortal! They wouldn't grow old and die! They didn't need to replenish their numbers! Maternal yearning can be strong in some women, (and nonexistent in others) but ---murder?

It's...as if we found out Jor-El tortured test subjects in his scientific experiements. Thomas Wayne deliberately tortured his medical patients for sadistic purposes.

It's a stupid sick little perversion of everything that made WW's culture admirable, and Hippolyte admirable.

[deh_tommy]

While immortal, they're not invulnerable. Many probably die from accidental causes (such as falling off cliffs or being mortally wounded by the local wildlife, I.E. harpies). There's a reason why Diana needs bulletproof bracelets while fighting crime.

Also, we've seen Amazons die through Strife tricking them into killing each other.

[alschroeder3]

Point. And they are a warrior culture, and one that routine understakes dangerous sports and battles with each other.

Still, it's hard to conceive (no pun intended) that such would be needed often.

[sagrada]

It's damned strange how all these attempts to modernize comic book characters older than almost all% of the current readership just makes them so boring. As if they needed help with that.

Every time, every single time, it makes them less themselves and closer to some other archetype.

[jaxjyls]

This Origns just makes her less special, now she's just another bastard spawn of Zeus among a dozen others

[bruinsfan]

I think a dozen is a very conservative estimate in light of how much Zeus gets around.

[timefire]

I think a dozen is a very conservative estimate in light of how much Zeus gets around.

Oh, there are charts : http://io9.com/5972114/a-massive-interactive-chart-of-all-of-zeus-offspring-and-affairs

;)

[akodo_rokku]

I'm gonna take a wild stance here and say I don't care about the origin change. Because Azzarello's run was the best run since Rucka. The stories were really incredibly good. And since Diana being a child of Zeus was pretty key in the overall plot... if that's what it takes to get good Wonder Woman stories, then that's what it takes.

Obviously there have been and continue to be good Wonder Woman stories without that change -- see Sensation Comics -- but I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this case.

[tugrul]

I just scrolled over all the incredible arguing and lucky my eyes fell on this refreshing comment.

[alschroeder3]

I agree that this was easily the best run since Rucka. It was an INCREDIBLY fine story. Beautiful in art, and often very touching in story. But my admiration for the many fine touches doesn't mean I can't be angry at what ruins the only all-female utopia in comics.

[philippos42]

Well, maybe it would have been better to do it as a Vertigo series: "Herculisa, Princess of Power, and the Deadfacers," maybe.

[alicemacher]

Leaving the retcon aside for a mo'... I just have to say the art is GORGEOUS.

[big_daddy_d]

I was just sitting here hoping Diana and Aleka embrace in a passionate kiss...

[beyondthefringe]

Yes, yes, the subtext and chemistry is very... I was all like "Kiss already!" given how they roll around laughing, gaze lovingly into each other's eyes, exchange heartfelt confessions...

[gwhh]

Looks a lot more like foreplay than wrestling.