Daily Scans
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Below are 20 entries, after skipping 20 most recent ones in the "Daily Scans" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries -- Next 20 entries >>]
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11:15 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 15 (The Swan, the Witch and the Warrior)
Back to the main Wondy title this time, where we've moved on from the Luke era into the Jimenez era. Generally, I'm not a big fan of Jimenez. He had the particular talent of being both spectacular and spectacularly bad within the space of a single panel, he was a slut for continuity porn to a point often detrimental to storytelling, and he expected his readers to be familiar with pre-Crisis Wondy and random Power Company bad guys and the Super Friends show and all kinds of random crap in order to make sense of half his secondary & tertiary characters. Also, he did a hack job on Polly and saddled us with the travesty that is Trevor Barnes.
However, he gave us some important storylines with some interesting ideas behind them, even when the execution wasn't totally on, and he does a reasonably good Cassie (although again, I don't really know how much of that is that he does a good Cassie and how much is that my standards for "good Cassie" have dropped significantly since YJ ended). So onward we go, with the sad tale of Circe, Diana, and Vanessa Kapatelis: Silver Swan II.
Next time: The JLA indulges in petty bickering, a funny-looking alien calls Diana a whore, Major Disaster takes his life in his hands, and Manitou coins my favorite Wondy nickname of all time.
Tags: char: circe, char: silver swan/vanessa kapatelis, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: phil jimenez, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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06:57 pm
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The Many Faces of Barbara Minerva, part 4 (Phil Jimenez)
I actually lied when I started this series; Cheetah doesn't show up in every run of Wonder Woman. Luke never touches her (or any other Wondy rogue, barring his own obligatory reintroduction of a Golden Ager), so for our next take on Cheetah we jump ahead to Jimenez' run and a tale that can probably be most accurately summed up, both in its content and its absurdity, by two words: Boy Cheetah.
Now last time, I called this story "confusing," which isn't entirely true. Provided you know who Fury *is*, how her powers work and how she's involved with the Wonders, and are able to keep track of a story told in two-page installments over the course of twenty issues, it's actually pretty straightforward right up until the very end. And even then it's more plot-hole-y than genuinely hard to follow.
However, the fundamental point of it seems to have been "let's get rid of Barbara Minerva, Cheetah works so much better as a man," which... what? I mean, I'm the first to admit the woman's been a little inconsistent as a character but seriously, what?
Next time: Rucka and Johns compete over who can annoy me more. To no one's surprise, Johns wins handily.
Tags: char: cheetah/barbara minerva, char: cheetah/sebastian ballesteros, char: wonder girl/troia/donna troy, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: phil jimenez, series: many faces of barbara minerva, series: world of wondy
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11:07 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 14 (Golden Perfect)
Thus far, I've mostly been showing Diana at her best; her defining moments of triumph and growth and victory. Diana being who she is, that is most of the picture; heroes are heroes because they get it right, unlike the rest of us. But even Diana fucks up sometimes, and, like Clark or Hal or Babs or anyone with that kind of crazy power, her fuck-ups can be catastrophic.
But entertaining!
So, let us observe one of these fuck-ups, by moving into the year 2002 and the Kelly era of JLA vol 3. It seems to me that Joe Kelly is very fond of Diana; he writes her in the forefront of the team and generally pretty well, with the exception of the idiotic Bruce/Diana romance (which is not only inappropriate on its own terms, but often causes him to diminish her for the sake of Bruce's masculinity). That comes later in his run, though, and we're here to look at his fabulous first arc, "Golden Perfect."
Next time: Nessie Kapatelis returns, like you've never seen her before! Cassie is cool, for possibly the second to last time, enjoy it while you can! Secret and Empress cameo! Kon bitches about being an armadillo! Not one panel of Trevor-Sue Barnes! And I try very hard to present a Jimenez arc and remain unbiased! Everything is better with exclamation points!
Tags: char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: doug mahnke, creator: joe kelly, group: justice league of america, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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05:34 pm
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The Many Faces of Barbara Minerva, part 3 (John Byrne)
This is a pretty short chapter, because Byrne spent 90% of his Wonder Woman run on guest stars rather than established Wondy characters. But that, in and of itself, is significant; of all the foes Diana faced during Byrne's run, the only actual currently extant member of her rogues gallery that made his cut was Cheetah (apparently the fans clamored for her). That Byrne would give even three issues to her that he could have spent on fake!Doomsday or Morgaine le Fay or Wally West or Etrigan speaks volumes about her significance.
And look, pretty pretty Garcia-Lopez art!
Next up, I do my best to piece together the utter confusion of Jimenez' Sebastian Ballesteros plot. I may have to do a quick Fury rundown first just to get all the context out there. Oh, Jimenez...
Tags: char: cheetah/barbara minerva, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: john byrne, series: many faces of barbara minerva, series: world of wondy
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12:19 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 13 (Amazon Queen)
Back in the summer of 2001, DC kicked off one of their many epic, universe-spanning Crossover Events with an issue of SUPERMAN in which Pluto goes missing. Yes, Pluto, the planet astral body. This Crossover Event was "Our Worlds at War," and it was not particularly well-received by fandom. Which makes sense; the plot was needlessly byzantine and, as ever, there was a lot of c-list fodder happening, particularly with women, surprise surprise. I find it fairly mediocre standard crossover fare myself, but '01 was quite a while before ICk and Shamazons, so I don't know if that's just a calibration issue and maybe it was pretty bad for the time.
But I will say this for it: despite being, ostensibly, Superman's crossover (his badguys, mostly his book, his long-term plot threads), the impact on and contribution from Diana and her corner of the DCU was significant, which is something you don't usually see - major impact on Diana's obviously not unheard of, but contribution in proportion to that impact is much rarer and worthy of note and approbation - and it had one of the greater Wondy moments on record, which is what we'll be looking at today.
Next time: The League is imperialist and Diana pretty much singlehandedly justifies every statement Clark or Bruce have ever made about hating magic.
Tags: char: darkseid, char: hippolyta of themyscira, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: phil jimenez, event: our worlds at war, group: justice league of america, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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11:44 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 12 (Against the Id)
Well, we've seen a lot of Diana beating up her friends with our last couple arcs, so let's go back to JLA proper for a bit and watch her save all her friends instead. We're into February of 2001 here (continuity-wise, contemporary with or perhaps a little after Hiketeia, though few years shy of that story by publish date), during the Waid run of JLA v3, and the glory years of the Big Seven League.
Now, despite being one of the strongest JLA writers I've read, Waid has done Diana an injustice or two in his day. (And he wrote "Fairy Tales," which I am not inclined to ever forgive him for). But by the time we get to this point in the JLA, Waid was well past his Kingdom Come foibles and hitting some very good notes with her character - such as during the "Id" arc that I bring today. In which there actually isn't much Diana, but when she is, it's damn well worth noting.
Next time: Diana faces down Darkseid in an OW@W interlude, with pretty, pretty Jimenez art.
Tags: char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: bryan hitch, creator: mark waid, group: justice league of america, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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06:46 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome Interlude--The Hiketeia
Basically the Hiketeia is a modern Greek tragedy with Diana as the youthful hero, Bats as the vengeful king, and a new character named Danielle as the one damned by fate. If that intrigues then...
( ...read on )
Tags: char: batman/bruce wayne, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: greg rucka, in-joke: herodickery, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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03:34 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 11 (League of One)
A few posts back, it came up in the comments that meaningful guest arcs by Diana in other titles are relatively rare compared to, say, Bruce or Clark, her theoretical equals in DCU importance. By that same token, Wonder Woman one-shots - the minis and hardcovers and self-contained trade-only specials that stand alone outside any given series - are even rarer. In fact, if you want to find them, you've got to be willing to look in places you wouldn't expect.
For example, today's chapter. See, about eight years ago, DC published what was ostensibly a Justice League book; a hundred-odd page special written and painted by Christopher Moeller called JLA: A League of One. It's not really a Justice League story, though. It's a Wonder Woman story, and one of her best.
Next time: An actual Wondy one-shot. Or I should say, rather, the Wondy One-Shot, and the eternal paladin conundrum of Ethics vs Morals, the Law versus the Right, and whether or not to punch your friends in the face for great justice.
Tags: char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: christopher moeller, group: justice league of america, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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03:52 pm
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A controversial scene from Perez's Wonder Woman
We've talked a lot about the classic Perez run, it's beautiful storytelling, the dense plotting, the complexity, the rich characterization, and the many subjects it covered; including gender issues, war and peace, addiction, Battered Person Syndrome, sexual orientation, and teen suicide. All of these issues were handled with great care and sensitivity.
It's sometimes been said that Wonder Woman is actually more of an alien to our world than Superman. Clark was from another planet, and Diana is from Earth, but Clark was raised in modern America, in it's culture and with it's values. Diana was raised in a 3000 year old Pagan culture isolated from the rest of the world. And, well, 3000 year old Pagan cultures weren't what, in modern terms, is considered "Politically Correct." We've seen this, more recently, in how Diana doesn't have Clark's and Bruce's "no killing" rule.
Which brings us to a flashback sequence from Perez's run, drawn by Tom Grummett, that got them some angry letters. Anyone who was familiar with Sir James Frazer's or Joseph Campbell's studies of ancient cultures, their myths, and their rituals, understood, completely, as would anyone familiar with mid-90s Disney animated films.
What event marked the young Diana's coming of age? It wasn't a Bat Mitzvah.
( Read more... )
Tags: char: hippolyta of themyscira, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: george perez, group: amazons, publisher: dc comics, series: world of wondy, title: wonder woman
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05:15 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 10 (Battle for the Godwave)
After Byrne, Wondy passed into the hands of Eric Luke. For the most part Luke's run was mediocre and unremarkable, a result of him overusing his big new villain and seeming a bit more interested in the trappings of the character than Diana herself - this is the Wonderdome era, where her invisible plane becomes her floating sky castle and ends up as significant to many of her victories as her own abilities are. But one thing he did do right was the truly awesome GodWar arc, in which (intermittently) spectacular art, fascinating mythology, and the only canon romance for Diana that has actually *worked* combined into one of my favorite Wondy stories ever.
( High page count on this one, guys. You have been warned. )
Next time: Diana takes on the Justice League, does battle with a dragon, and looks really, really pretty.
Tags: char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: eric luke, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy, title: wonder woman
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11:39 pm
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Wonder Woman, Pandora, and Gaea
In a couple of other threads, we discussed the potential of a conflict between Wonder Woman and Poison Ivy. They're both mystically connected to the Earth Mother. That's an aspect of Diana that hasn't been touched on in a while, so we'll revisit a story from the classic Perez run.
Perez used the classic Greek myths heavily during his Wonder Woman run. One myth he used tied in so perfectly to Diana's origins one would think Marston had to have had it in mind when he created her, except... He never mentioned a connection to Pandora.
Like many classic mythological figures, Pandora's stories have a lot of contradictions as the myths were modified over time. The version we're most familiar with is the woman molded from clay, gifted by the gods, and sent to Earth with a box... Or was it a jar?
However, an earlier version of the Pandora myth had her a nature goddess ("Pandora" translates to "all-giving") who embodied the fertility of the Earth, the giver of fruits and grains.
So, which version of the myths, in this series, was the true one? The answer, in true Perez fashion: Both.
And doesn't she look very... familiar?
( Read more... )
Tags: char: athena/dc, char: hermes/dc, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, char: zeus/dc, creator: colleen doran, creator: cynthia martin, creator: george perez, creator: jill thompson, creator: mindy newell, group: amazons, publisher: dc comics, series: world of wondy
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04:59 pm
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The Many Faces of Barbara Minerva, part 2 (William Messner-Loebs)
Ah, Messner-Loebs. I have some serious problems with his run, which are only exacerbated by the repellent atrocity that is the later Deodato pencilling. But one thing I've got to credit him with, he did some good work with Diana's rogues.
The thing about Diana is that she's too practical and effective for the Joker Problem. She kills monsters and she saves victims, and she's really good at both. Run into her two or three times, and she either cuts your puppet strings, converts you, or decides you're too dangerous to live and sends you the way of Drakul and the khunds. You can't really sustain "can't be reformed" around Diana.
So there's only three real ways to do a lasting Wondy rogue. One, you make the villain flat-out more powerful than her. Circe's a good example. She's a freaking god, and not the chump kind like Phobos and Deimos either (moly weakness notwithstanding). No matter how much of a danger she is, Diana's not killing her unless Circe lets her. But that's incredibly hard to write - how do you defeat a more powerful foe without diminishing that foe or looking stupid or pulling a deus ex? Perez and Jimenez were awesome at it, but not everyone can be.
The second way is to make rogues who aren't actually malicious or even necessarily dangerous. A genial, swashbuckling gentleman thief, for example, who would never dream of actually hurting anyone. Then you have the problem of explaining why someone on Diana's field of play should *care* - Angle Man seems like a shot at this, but it's hard to justify Diana giving a crap about some petty theft when she's routinely embroiled in actual wars and armageddon events. At her power level, it's actually harder to write a believable amiable rogue story than a well-done conflict with a Circe or Darkseid. (A Mxy-like magical prankster who doesn't ever quite understand the consequences of his "harmless" jokes could actually work quite well, though, adding humor and giving her a regular opportunity to showcase her wisdom and diplomacy; really, why doesn't she have one of those already?)
The third way, somewhat tricky to establish but relatively easy to maintain, is to complicate the fuck out of Diana's relationships with them. Make them her friends, make her owe them or need them or feel responsible for them, make sure that "can't be reformed" is close enough to true that the enmity never ends, but is also a conclusion that Diana's constitutionally incapable of coming to. This was WML's go-to method, and he was actually pretty good at it (...at least, on the conceptual level).
( As usual, I apologize in advance for the 90s Imagesque art. )
Next up: Deals with demons and yet another indistinguishable Generic White Cop with a Crush on Wondy, as we move onto Cheetah as perceived by ye olde John Byrne.
Tags: char: cheetah/barbara minerva, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: mike deodato, creator: william messner-loebs, series: many faces of barbara minerva, series: world of wondy
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10:17 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 9 (From Hell to Olympus)
Time for another author switch! We've left WML behind with the 100-issue spectacular and the death of Artemis, and now Diana's out of the stupid black straptastic bra and out of Boston, and into the hands of John Byrne.
Byrne's run is... hard to pin down. The man wrote with an agenda; there were things he wanted to fix and things he wanted to change and that's what he did. And a lot of those things were good. He repaired most of the damage WML did toward the end of his run, both to Diana and, to some degree, to Polly. He built an actual Wonder Family out of Donna and Cassie and Artemis. He made a point of making Diana unique and ridiculously first-tier badass, firmly establishing how high she belonged in the DCU power hierarchy.
( Diana really attracts a lot of writers who do their own art, doesn't she? )
Next time: Diana teams up with Zauriel, has a romance with a guy who, miracle of miracles, is actually worth her time, and saves all of creation. And the art is wicked cool.
Tags: char: artemis of bana-mighdall, char: etrigan/jason blood, char: hippolyta of themyscira, char: mike schorr, char: morgaine le fey, char: wonder girl/troia/donna troy, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: john byrne, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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06:37 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 8 (Hawks and Half-Breeds)
Diana's no Batman, with five different books devoted to her adventures at any one time. She's not even a franchise like Green Lantern, despite how awesome a regular title devoted to Artemis or Nu'bia could be*. But she is and has been an occasional guest in setting books like Action and a staple of team books like Justice League in many incarnations, and many of her better stories are from those titles rather than her own.
* Well, if it wasn't written by WML. Now let's never speak of Requiem again.
This one's from 1995, during the Era of Three Hundred Justice Leagues. Diana was head of the JLA and had been for some time - a position she is supremely suited to by nature, but was only intermittently suited to by portrayal, given that writer turnover was worse than League membership turnover at the time, and many of her authors simply didn't get Diana. And by that I mean either her personality or the fact that she could beat her entire League at once with one hand tied behind her back (well, maybe she'd need both hands for Flash), and how that needed to be reflected in group combat.
Unfortunately Gerard Jones was among them, and he was on JLA duty during this arc. But this story is a crossover event, and the other two writers involved - Beau Smith on Warrior and Messner-Loebs on Hawkman - had a better idea what they were doing. Overall I wasn't sure whether to include it, because it's not really a Wondy story, but there are a couple of moments here that I truly love, so here we go, once again, into outer space.
( 90s Image-influenced art warning. Prepare your goggles now. )
Next time: Artemis finally becomes a likeable character, and we get to see Cassie when she still was. Plus Etrigan rhyming, Neron gloating, and Byrne killing Diana off. (Spoiler: It doesn't stick.)
Tags: char: green lantern/warrior/guy gardner, char: hawkman/carter hall, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: william messner-loebs, group: justice league of america, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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10:09 pm
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The Many Faces of Barbara Minerva, part 1 (Perez)
(Yes, I'm starting the Cheetah posts before I finish the Wondy posts. Variety is the spice of life, you know.)
It's said that every good hero needs a good villain. I don't know that I completely agree with that, but certainly the most iconic four-color heroes have a diverse array of equally iconic foes - Joker and Two-Face and Poison Ivy, Sinestro and Hector Hammond and Star Sapphire, Braniac and Lex and Zod, the Keystone Rogues.
Wondy pretty much gets the Cheetah. Sure, there's Dr. Psycho, and Giganta, and the Silver Swan (any given iteration), and you could even make a case for poor Veronica Cale, but basically, all of Wondy's rogues are either a) super-lame and not a credible threat to far weaker heroes, b) long since beaten, or c) spend far more time fighting other heroes in other books than they ever have on Diana, post-Crisis. [Or d) some or all of the above, ::coughGigantacough::]. Circe actually puts in a decent showing, and Psycho's a good villain when he's around, but the one and only Wondy rogue who's been present since the relaunch, kept up with her through every subsequent changing of hands, and focused on her to the exclusion of any other hero in the DCU like a proper arch-nemesis should, is the Cheetah.
Gaia forbid, of course, that that actually amount to any consistency in Diana's history, though. Because it is not, perhaps, completely accurate to say that the Cheetah has been with Wondy since the Perez days; certainly there's been a Cheetah with her in every run, but her portrayal has been so schizophrenic as to put Supertorso to shame. Hence, this project - a look at the many different iterations of the Cheetah - starting, as one should, at the beginning,* with the original Wondy maestro, George Perez.
( Introducing Dr Barbara Minerva. )
Next up: Good ideas if you can get past the art - Cheetah through the eyes and pen of William Messner-Loebs.
Tags: char: cheetah/barbara minerva, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: george perez, group: amazons, publisher: dc comics, series: many faces of barbara minerva, series: world of wondy
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12:09 am
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 7 (Tacos and Traitors)
Whatever else he may have gotten weird or wrong, I give WML this: he did truly understand at least two fundamental things about Diana. One, that for all that she's a princess, she doesn't have a haughty or judgemental bone in her body, and two, that she has a real talent for turning her enemies into allies and even friends (I especially like what he did with the Cheetah, making her a bit of a combo Magneto/Two-Face in her relationship to Diana - but not how he got there, so that one's definitely not in this series).
We see both of these character traits during the middle bulk of WML's tenure, a time I like to call "Wondy flips burgers." Admittedly she's actually working at a taco joint, but you can't tell me that makes a practical difference to the connotations.
( Of Taco Whiz and Donna Milton. )
Next time: Diana breaks atmosphere again to visit Thanagar and save the last Vuldarian in a Very 90s Crossover that somehow manages to be ridiculously fun regardless.
Tags: char: ares/dc, char: circe, char: white magician/thomas randolph, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: william messner-loebs, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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11:25 am
[ebailey140]
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When Dr. Psycho was... well, Psycho
Dr. Psycho was introduced in the Golden Age, and quickly became one of Wonder Woman's main foes. When George Perez revamped WW following Crisis of Infinite Earths, it was natural that he'd bring back, and revamp, Dr. Psycho, as he'd done with the Cheetah, Ares, the Silver Swan, and Circe.
Perez didn't rush into it, though. Dr. Psycho was re-introduced towards the end of Perez's run. But, as this was, really, a five year epic story, Dr. Psycho entered the stage when it was time for him to play his role.
And, that role would be nightmarish. Literally. This would establish him as one of the most twisted and evil of DC's villains. But, what's truly important is how Diana responds, how she deals with this threat. It's often said that heroes are, in part, defined by their villains. The villain represents what the hero must overcome in their struggles, what makes them heroes. Also, Diana, as she often does during Perez's run, demonstrates that she has other ways of dealing with evil than simply beating it up.
( Read more... )
Tags: char: dr. psycho/edgar cizko, char: hermes/dc, char: hippolyta of themyscira, char: julia kapatelis, char: silver swan/vanessa kapatelis, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: george perez, group: amazons, publisher: dc comics, series: world of wondy
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12:31 am
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 6 (To Shatter an Empire)
So, after Perez's tenure wrapped with the War of the Gods crossover event, the title was given to one William Messner-Loebs, aka WML for brevity's sake (she said, as though she were ever anything remotely approaching succinct). And WML's run on Wonder Woman was... let's just say a departure. It was wildly popular sales-wise, but I have a lot of problems with it personally. He had no real respect for anything that Perez had done; he discarded her entire supporting cast as soon as possible, did a complete, arbitrary retcon of the Amazons' history and Diana's parentage (which thankfully was ignored by subsequent writers), buried Themyscira in an inaccessible pocket dimension for three years (for most of which time the readers were led to believe it had been destroyed, and in fact the whole "it's not really gone" was probably a panicked retcon), and mangled Polly so badly when she finally did show up that the letter columns spent months convinced she was Circe in disguise. We're talking "War Crimes" levels of butchery, here, or worse, and an unfortunate foundation for all the crap that's come her way since. But let's not speak of that, as to this day it still fills me with rage.
And Diana herself? He made her a klingon.
I mock, but this is still one of my favorite panels of all time.
( A klingon IN SPACE!!! )
Next time: See Diana deal with rent, taxes and deadbeat dads, and meet the other Donna in her life. It's more interesting than it sounds, I promise.
Tags: char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: william messner-loebs, publisher: dc comics, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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01:21 am
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 5 (Antiope's Legacy)
We're just about done with Perez at this point - not that we've more than scratched the surface of his incredible run, but there's just so much more to see that we have to move on eventually (and I'll admit to a certain fatigue with the effort involved in making these older comics *work* as scans, as well). But we'll take one last dip in his world before we go, because no catalogue of Perez' great contributions to the Wonder Woman mythos would be complete without a look at the Bana-Mighdall amazons. This splinter group is probably the best example possible of Perez' ability to take what looks like a huge pile of bad cliches and uncomfortable racial undertones and spin a diverse, interesting set of real, well-drawn characters out of it. Yes, the plot that adds the Bana-Mighdall to the DCU is a convoluted one, difficult to follow at times and intertwined with some seriously confusing Cheetah stuff and some very poorly supported one-off bad guys. But, hey, that's Perez for you, and seriously, they're a lost tribe of amazons. That shit is cool.
( Also, without the Bana, there could be no Artemis, and that would make the world a much, much sadder place. )
Next time: Comics that are actually more picture than dialogue! All new artist! All new writer! And Diana as a friggin space pirate! Really, what more do you need?
Tags: char: cheetah/barbara minerva, char: hermes/dc, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: george perez, group: amazons, publisher: dc comics, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy
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10:58 pm
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When Wondy was Awesome, part 4 (Patriarch's World)
From as far back as Marston, Wonder Woman's defining short phrase, her version of "Caped Crusader" or "Man of Steel" or "Scarlet Speedster," has been "Amazon Princess." Which is fair, because that's what she is in the most literal sense - the daughter of the amazon queen (well at least until they dissolved the monarchy, but at this point I think I'm going to have to admit I've lost that one) - but for most of her pre-Crisis history, was nevertheless a relatively empty phrase. Diana was a princess because girls like princesses, as any Disney exec can tell you, and that was it. Occasionally the authority was useful, but basically it was a purely meta thing that was merely convenient shorthand for her specialness.
Part of Perez' genius was to actually consider what being a princess means for Diana, especially from the mythical perspective of this very mythical character. Mythic royalty isn't about tiaras and castles, after all. It's about stewardship, struggle, king sacrifice; about servitude and symbiosis and taking your people's burdens for your own. Diana, as Athena's champion and essentially a demigod, is an avatar of the Olympians, yes - but as heir to the throne, she's also the avatar of the amazons, and that responsibility is as integral to her character as her duty to her gods. She bleeds when her people bleed, they win when she wins, their story is hers and hers theirs. And Perez' run was saturated with that understanding, in a constant intertwining of Diana's mission and the activities of the Amazon Nation as a whole. She's not just one of them, she's not even just the best of them; she is them, full stop. That concept underpins the particular awesomeness I've got on offer today - this is the story of Themyscira and how the Amazon Nation reconnected with Man's World. Because Diana did, and so that Diana could. And because it's a damn good story.
Also, Diana v. Lois action. You know you want to see that.
( Man do I love that cover. )
Next time: Perez attempts to pre-empt strawfeminist portrayals of the Themyscirans with some strawfeminists of his own for Diana to oppose. And because he is Perez, they end up completely fascinating anyway.
Tags: char: epione of themyscira, char: eris/dc, char: etta candy, char: euboea of themyscira, char: hellene of themyscira, char: hermes/dc, char: hippolyta of themyscira, char: iphtime of themyscira, char: lois lane, char: menalippe of themyscira, char: mnemosyne of themyscira, char: niobe of themyscira, char: oenone of themyscira, char: penelope of themyscira, char: philippus of themyscira, char: silver swan/vanessa kapatelis, char: steve trevor, char: superman/clark kent, char: timandra of themyscira, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: george perez, group: amazons, publisher: dc comics, series: when wondy was awesome, series: world of wondy, title: wonder woman
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