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Tweak says, "...Montegues and thee!"

gargoylekitty (gargoylekitty) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-29 11:30:00

Entry tags:

char: black canary/dinah lance, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: aaron lopresti, creator: gail simone, publisher: dc comics, title: wonder woman

Wonder Woman #34
Ready for a Wonder Woman and Black Canary team-up?

Starting off from after the preview, skipped a page there, we find Diana and Dinah getting ready to infiltrate (what is assumed to be) Roulette's underground meta-fights. In the process of getting ready we find that Dinah is truly a master of disguise.

Brilliant!
And so, one ride in the invisible jet later, they're ready to put their camo to the test.

And they're in!
Yes, there is some bit of goings on over on Themyscira of note and some dwelling on deeper things but overal it was a pretty fun issue despite(because of?) a bit of the old cage match storyline and, if the last page is any indication, the next issue should be pretty fierce.

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parsimonia
2009-07-30 04:54 pm UTC (link)

Okay, I am a little wary of treading into this conversation when you've both got your Wondy-Fu on (*g*), however, I cannot resist arguing with this one point:

The amazons, particularly Diana, are routinely accused of arrogance. Of xenophobia. Of thinking they're better than us. Of looking down on us. Of all kinds of nonsense that completely misses the point. Diana Rockwell is the single most powerful refutation of that the mythos has ever had - not only do they not look down on us, they honor us so highly that their own princess wears the colors of one of us.

It's interesting that Diana and the Amazons are often perceived as arrogant, xenophobic, and think-they're-better-than-us, especially in a discussion with respect to whether or not her costume should be acknowledged as American, because the same could be (and is often) said about America and Americans.

On the one hand, no matter how you look at it, Wonder Woman is American. Created by an American, published by Americans, and frequently written/drawn by Americans, stories featuring her are intended for an American audience, her stories often take place in America, most of her non-Themysciran friends and allies are American, etc, etc. On a meta-level you can never separate Wonder Woman from America. So, yeah, it does seem silly to pretend there were some amazing circumstances where it turns out that the American flag was actually inspired by Wonder Woman/the Amazons.

On the other hand, she's not supposed to be American within the story, is she? She's from an all-woman culture evolving out of ancient Greece that was isolated from everyone and everywhere else on Earth, where the gods and Greek mythology are real and she was made from clay. How do you make that mesh with the American influences involved in her creation?

Not only does the idea of the Amazons honouring a woman from the outside world by paying tribute to the flag of that woman's country put a kind of limit on Diana, as being focused on America rather than the world at large (for one thing you'd think she'd want to explore modern Greece more than the States), but it also brings her down a peg and lessens her purpose. The idea that she has to wear the American flag on her butt to prove that she doesn't look down on Americans kind of ties in with how people think Superman is the best kind of immigrant, because he completely and totally embraces American culture as his own, and doesn't display or try to introduce Kryptonian culture to anyone.

Whereas Wonder Woman is an immigrant, she's supposed to be different and her influence is supposed to better the world. So why do we need to make her bow down and have her costume symbolically representing another country, when her own values and what she stands for probably often conflict with it? It's like saying "you're only okay if you're one of us, you know, now get in that melting pot". (I think it would actually be a fascinating theme to explore, really, given the increases in globalization, immigration and xenophobia we're seeing in the world today.)

She doesn't have the same connection to the US that Superman and Batman always will. It's the place where a lot of her friends live, so she spends a lot of her time there. I like that she's a misfit and an oddball in America, representing truth but also uncomfortable truths. I like that conflict, because it is tricky and sometimes difficult to take. Wonder Woman is always going to be complicated and have uncomfortable elements about her, but that's one of the things I like about her.

(But really, if they made a WW movie I would probably be happy just to watch her punch stuff, so long as there were no "you hit pretty well for a girl"/"not polite to hit a lady" jokes. >_< )

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