InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "hey girl"

Doop (xdoop) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-05 18:43:00

Entry tags:

char: hippolyta of themyscira, char: nemesis/tom tresser, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: aaron lopresti, creator: gail simone, publisher: dc comics, title: wonder woman

Wonder Woman #36

This is from Wonder Woman #36, by Simone and Lopresti.

Tom asks Diana how he can trust her, since she said she didn't love him.

They kiss, then Tom says "And I... I don't belong here." He tells Diana to set them down.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

nagaoka
2009-10-06 12:33 am UTC (link)

Is it? I don't see anything particularly one-sided about this. If it were a man showing his feelings to the woman he loved, it could very well be the same way "I imagine us married and we have a beautiful daughter..."

It's hardly gender-typing. Plus....there really really REALLY isn't anything wrong with being a wife and mother or wanting to be. That's not the whole of who Wonder Woman is. If it were, THEN it would be gender-typing. Wanting to marry and have a child....that's gender typing? It's part of life.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

box_in_the_box
2009-10-06 12:39 am UTC (link)

How about, instead of showing nothing more than WEDDING and CHILD, they had actually shown Diana and Tom as equal partners and working parents, who fight battles side-by-side as husband and wife? That would have been just as easy to convey, and it would actually be in character for a warrior like Diana to want to show Tom that she trusts him just as much to watch her back in battle as to be her husband and help raise her child. But no, the writer and artist intentionally chose to show us that Diana's fantasy visuals consist ONLY of a big church wedding and an infant. THAT is one-sided.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlbarnett 2009-10-06 01:00 am UTC (link)
	well a good reason against that is the fact that as partners in Diana's secret identity they'd already done that. It wouldn't be anything new or different. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-06 01:03 am UTC (link)
	It would be if you showed Mom, Dad and Daughter going off into battle together, looking as much like a family as the Fantastic Four always manage to do, with smiles on their faces. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlbarnett 2009-10-06 02:11 am UTC (link)
	and if their child prefered a more intellectual pursuit? Something like that is just jumping to far to the future. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-06 02:14 am UTC (link)
	This vision is supposedly Diana's fantasy (except for all the parts of it that apparently exist only to sell herself to Tom), rather than reality. Why would it be unreasonable for a warrior woman to fantasize about her child following her footsteps into the good fight? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlbarnett 2009-10-06 02:18 am UTC (link)
	maybe not. But a lot of times Diana's characterization has her thinking of herself as a warrior being fairly low as to how she thinks of herself. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-06 02:19 am UTC (link)
	Dude, she shows up both at the wedding and pregnant IN FULL ARMOR. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	halloweenjack 2009-10-06 06:46 pm UTC (link)
	Which really kind of argues against your assertion that this is just a Judeo-Christian wedding, as they typically don't feature warrior maidens. Your argument is losing coherence. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	halloweenjack 2009-10-06 06:49 pm UTC (link)
	Wait--just looked at the wedding pic and she's not in armor there. WTF are you talking about? (Reply to this) (Parent)

alschroeder
2009-10-06 01:14 am UTC (link)

Equal partners?
While fighting side-by-side?
How does THAT work?
There are some areas where Clark and Lois are equal, and can fight on the same plane. Journalism. Getting stories. Yet there's no pretense that say, Lois can fight criminals, physically, as well as Superman can.
With all due respect to Tom Tresser/Nemesis, he is not in Wonder Woman's league when fighting criminals, especially superhuman criminals. He's her superior in sneakiness, in espionage, certainly in deceit. Yet I don't see where equality while fighting is possible between them.
That's not a criticism. Does he have to be? Is Lois "beneath" Supes because she can't fly or lift buildings?
I personally liked the Silver Age Steve Trevor, who was a pilot, a secret agent, a judo expert who could even throw a GORILLA around--an equal to say, Nick Fury in his way--just not a match for Wonder Woman. So what? Why should he have to be?
As for Wonder Woman's fantasies about having a baby---maybe we should think a little about the culture she came from.
Where no one has had a baby, except for her mother, in THREE THOUSAND YEARS. Yet by most Amazons, she was treated as a blessing and someone to be proud of. Not just a blessed event that happens thousands of times a day, but a blessed event that was literally divine and only happened once in thousands of ears.
And whose civilization had been scattered to the winds, and until recently, there were no other Amazons known but her and her mother.
If there are any more Amazons, the only way she can make more is the old-fashioned way.
Let's not look at it that Wonder Woman is infatuated with the idea of being a wife and mother in a I LOVE LUCY sense. Think of it as a matter of Amazon pride, of wanting to continue her culture in the only way left to her at the time.
Note even in her fantasy, she didn't even think about possibly having a boy.
That to me bespeaks that she is seeing Tom, to a certain extent, of a way to make more Amazons. THAT is PERFECTLY in character with Diana.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

box_in_the_box
2009-10-06 01:22 am UTC (link)

Is Lois "beneath" Supes because she can't fly or lift buildings?

The difference is that Superman is not a warrior - he doesn't see himself as a warrior, and he'd be horrified at the thought of ever becoming one - so of course he sees Lois as an equal, because she is, in many ways, what he wants to be himself.

Diana IS a warrior. She's also a diplomat, because she's motivated to be a warrior by the desire for peace, but she DOES see herself as a warrior, and she needs someone who, even if he doesn't have superpowers, can hold his own against her in that regard (see also: Batman).

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

alschroeder
2009-10-06 02:51 am UTC (link)

I agree she would be more attracted to someone who is a warrior and a fighter, because that's the lifestyle she knows. And that's proved true of her in many different boyfriends over the years. Steve Trevor. Tom Tressor. (Wasn't Trevor whatsisname, her African-American would-be flame, a security expert for the UN?) People from a military or intelligence background. From a warrior culture, she would understand that type of person. I would submit that Batman is not military enough, though. She would be attracted to a Thor (who's a warrior) or a Captain America (who's a soldier) but not as much a lone vigilante, no matter how disciplined.
And I would submit they needn't be equals, even in that regard, just on the same page and with the same ideals.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	va1tyr 2009-10-06 12:43 pm UTC (link)
	I ship Wonder Woman and Captain America pretty hard, I'll tell you. Prettiest dullest couple ever. And they co-ordinate. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	va1tyr 2009-10-06 12:39 pm UTC (link)
	she needs someone who, even if he doesn't have superpowers, can hold his own against her in that regard No, she really doesn't. I wasn't a huge fan of Trevor Barnes, but I liked the idea of her falling for someone who was skilled in a completely different arena. Also, Batman? Really? She throws him around like a ragdoll. (Reply to this) (Parent)

nagaoka
2009-10-06 03:15 am UTC (link)

You keep saying it's one-sided, but it's hardly misogynistic. Anyone can have those kinds of expectations about a relationship. Unless Wonder Woman suddenly turned into Bella Swan or Lucy Ricardo in characterization then we've got something to worry about. It's a single page of art, it doesn't have to show everything to give the reader the idea of what Wonder Woman is showing Tom. The scenes it uses are ones most likely to stir up emotion and are powerful and relateable images: a wedding, a proud mother to be, a mother with her child.

Heck, if anything this is, as Amazons tend to be, demeaning towards men. She just needs his seed, basically >_>

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-06 03:46 am UTC (link)
	It SHOULD be demeaning toward Tom, because it's an utter waste-of-space of a character who never deserved to be pitched as a would-be love interest for Diana in the first place. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ashtoreth 2009-10-06 05:19 am UTC (link)
	He used to be a decent love interest. But anyone Diana has an actual long-term ship with, as opposed to unrealistic Batman/Aquaman fling, is going to be less than deserving. Nobody is her equal. Not Superman, not Jesus, not Batgod, nobody. (Reply to this) (Parent)

janegray
2009-10-06 01:33 pm UTC (link)

How about, instead of showing nothing more than WEDDING and CHILD, they had actually shown Diana and Tom as equal partners and working parents, who fight battles side-by-side as husband and wife?

The point Diana was trying to make to Tom is, and I quote, "I did feel an imperative for my culture not to be lost".

Fighting battles side-by-side as husband and wife is great, but it doesn't carry on your culture if you die. Only an heir can do that.

You are misinterpreting "if I don't breed, there will be no future for my people's culture" with "if I don't breed, I'll never be a fulfilled or complete human being".

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	box_in_the_box 2009-10-06 04:30 pm UTC (link)
	See my thoughts on how utterly wrong it is for Diana (or Cyclops of the X-Men, for that matter) to think that "culture" = "genes." TL;DR - ADOPTION is an option. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

janegray
2009-10-06 05:42 pm UTC (link)

Except that she doesn't think that culture=genes. She made Tom into an Amazon, she was going to entrust the future of her people to him ("I thought you would carry on. To teach the last Amazon what her people meant"), and Tom doesn't have any Amazon genes.

She chose him as a mate, not just because she needed him to breed, but specifically so that he could teach their kids the Amazon ways if she died. Also, she was sincerely attracted to him, and had good reasons to believe that her attraction would gradually turn into love (it worked for plenty of her people, after all).

What's wrong with wanting to breed with a man whom you trust to be a good father and teacher and whom you genuinely care for and whom you are sexually attracted to?

Adoption is an option, yes, but it's not the only option. You make it sound like giving birth to your own children is somehow morally reprehensible, and that's ludicrous.

And anyway, your objection was that the page showed Diana and Tom getting married and caring for their child. If the child had been adopted, that would still be about Diana and Tom getting married and caring for their child, so I don't see what genes and adoption have to do with your objection.

And, again, the page showed Diana and Tom getting married and caring for their child because a dying culture needs heirs to survive. Adopted or not, it needs heirs. Showing Diana and Tom fighting battles side-by-side would have been irrelevant to the point Diana was trying to make to Tom, IE "help me save my culture from extinction by becoming my steady partner and taking care of our children."

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -