Wonder Woman villains: how would you fix: The agents of War.

[Mel Dyer]

Well... COULD he? Sure, he's the god of war. But several of his children are thousands of years old. They have their own thing. Also... Strife apparently hangs out with Apollo in DC.

And seems to think Superman is awesome...


But, could Ares summon her to do his will? Probably.

I think there are comic stories that WW fans - because WW characters are so often misrepresented, outside of the WW comic - really must ignore and accept as a misrepresentation of the WW comic, ..and THIS would be a primary example.

If there's any Greek god that Superman should be defenseless against, it's obviously Apollo. As Apollo masters the power of light and the Sun, there's no way any Kyrptonian, each a living solar battery, could ever come close to destroying him. Keep in mind that Apollo isn't the sort of generic energy creature that Superman slaps around in his comics; he's an extra-dimensional intelligence, whose expression of power ..is the power of the Sun! As Superman is dependent on the Sun, for his very life - this has been shown in Dark Knight Returns and more recently in Batman v Superman - Apollo, who conceivably has the power to destroy him from the inside, at the molecular level, ..is his master and always will be!

This story from Superman/Wonder Woman should be regarded as (1) a delusion of Superman and Wonder Woman's, (2) an illusion, orchestrated by impostors of the Greek gods ..or (3) some kind of elaborate trick of Apollo's, designed to take measure of Superman's power. Stories like these, while accepted as canon, must be taken as some sort of warping of reality, by powerful godlike beings in the DCU ..or just an unchecked editorial mistake. A similar example would be the Superman story that claimed Wonder Woman joined Superman on a thousands years-long, secret adventure in DCU's Asgard, during which she hopelessly pined away for Superman's affection, only to find he was too much in love, with Lois Lane, to ever sleep with her - that simply did not and could not happen. The canonical repercussions of stories, like these, would rewrite the accepted history of the characters, involved; so, we must accept that they didn't unfold, as represented in the comic. Superman easily dispatching Apollo, a GOD, should never have been allowed to stand as canon, and any DC Comics editor should have quietly returned it to the writer, with a gently whispered...

"U-uuh, dude...no-ooo?"

Personally, ..I read this comic and giggled at how silly writers can be, when they write stories about WW characters, without reading the WW comic. No, Superman fans, your hero never bested the Greek god of the Sun, still worshipped on beaches, all over the world, every day, ..and in underdeveloped countries, with little or no electricity. No, Superman fans, Wonder Woman didn't sit around pining over Superman, for a THOUSAND YEARS, with a pile of lusty Asgardians to mess around with...Hades, no! I think we have to accept that comic writers and editors disdain to familiarize themselves with the Wonder-mythos, ..and that these stories, for whatever reasons, simply did not happen.

For me, the agents or 'Court' of War - Strife, Duke of Deception, Earl of Greed, Conquest, Silver Swan (original) - have never been used especially well. The Duke, Earl and Conquest saw their best stories, way back in the Marston days - even then, little more, than buffoons and never particularly awesome or terrifying. The original Silver Swan's best stories were pre-Crisis comics, in which, as a magically powered emissary of Ares, ..she battled Wonder Woman, as her equal. The agents, as I recall them, are as follows: