Wonder Woman and the Paternal Narrative
I came across this article today on my feed called [URL="https://www.themarysue.com/wonder-woman-paternal-narrative/"]Wonder Woman and the Paternal Narrative: the Rise of Wonder Woman, the Fall of Women[/URL], which discuses Narrative Paternalism and Brian Azzarello's run. The work was originally published in 2015 by Doctor Bifrost (A CBR poster, I believe), though I think it was republished recently on The Mary Sue recently so that may explain why a 5 year old article suddenly reappeared.
I'm not sure if this article was originally linked here before, but basically the thesis of this work is that Brian Azzarello's work introduces to the character a paternalistic narrative where the 'source' of Wonder Woman's heroism become attributed to her father (Zeus), where as before it was derived from her mother (Hippolyta). I agree with this thesis; that the Zeus daddy stuff stripped away stripped away an important element of her character and makes her more conforming with the rest of the superhero lot.
However, I contend that the author over emphasises Brian Azzarello's role in Wonder Woman's 'degeneration.' The author frequently cites Marston's vision of Wonder Woman and her world and contrasts it with Azzarello's, citing the later as failing to live up to Marston's philosophy, but...the vast majority of authors wouldn't live up to this expectation either. The idea that WW had 'lost track' of her feminist ideals first appeared in the 50's with Robert Kanigher's run. Even authors that are held in higher esteem by the WW community such as Perez and Rucka fail this test. So someone unaware of WW's broader history may read this article and come across thinking "Wonder Woman had a good run until this Azz guy blew it!"