Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons and Wonder Woman: Diana's Daughter Announced

[Doctor Bifrost]

he basically wrote that [Diana] was just a nympho

What?

/10CHAR

[millernumber1]

What?

/10CHAR

From what I understand, this could possibly be a meaning understanding issue. In issue 9, Diana tells Steve: "I am - perhaps this is arrogant, forgive me - good at loving. I am not as good at romance." Apparently, some read this as "I am good at sex."

I think, reading in context, this does not make sense. But I think I can see how the misunderstanding happened.

But seriously. Diana's not a nympho. Not in Rucka's run, not in any run. Even if Liam Sharpe does like to show her really enjoying her relationship with Steve.

[Korath]

Segregation isn't inherently bad though, forced segregation by a stronger party is, but every person and community has the right to associate with whomever they desire. I personally choose to separate myself from people I don't like.

Segregation is not the same thing has choosing to not associate with peoples you don't like. It's a whole other beast altogether. In that regard, it can only be bad if it's permanent. If we don't live together, then we live apart, and nothing good ever come from it. It breeds misunderstanding, which breeds resentment, and then hatred. It is perhaps accepted in the anglo-saxon countries, with all your communities living alongside each others and yet apart, but for me, it's abhorrent to the very core of my values of belief as a deeply republican (as in the political belief of the Republic, not the U.S. party) frenchman (french peoples from other obedience, for lack of a better term would probably tell another story, however), even if my country rarely (if ever) live up to its standard, and I know that from familial experience that even if you're white, you can still have to face some rather depressing casual racism depending on where you're from in Europe, or even France proper, when you moved to another part of the country and that one of your parent's name is very tied to a certain place.

From what I understand, this could possibly be a meaning understanding issue. In issue 9, Diana tells Steve: "I am - perhaps this is arrogant, forgive me - good at loving. I am not as good at romance."

Damn it, I went to the trouble to looking at those blasted issues to find it, and you beat me to it. Damn it. But, in all honesty, I can't see how it could be anything but love as in "having sex" than Diana is talking about. it doesn't make any sense in the interpretation that she is good as loving as in the act of extending love to peoples. It's made especially clear by the whole undertone of the discussion between Steve and Diana.

[Gaelforce]

If they have magic and are stepped into mythology, I wouldn't like very much for them to be light-years ahead of everyone when it comes to technology, I fin that it doesn't really mesh well together. And considering how they were disgusted with Man's World, it's not surprising that they would refuse to bring back anything from it during Azzarello's run. It doesn't surprise me, nor do I take it as him wanting them to be backward because they are a all-female society.

Except it works in the number one movie at the box office.

Black Panther - a character and history steeped in mysticism and African mythology gives rise to the most sophisticated and technologically advanced civilization on Earth.

Hmmmm...

[Korath]

Except it works in the number one movie at the box office.

Black Panther - a character and history steeped in mysticism and African mythology gives rise to the most sophisticated and technologically advanced civilization on Earth.

Hmmmm...

And there hasn't been any clear evidence of magic, as in sorcery. Beyond the Ancestral Plane, which is more mystic than anything else, the whole premise of the story if that the Vribranium made the Wakadans more technologically advanced (which is probably something they had to do just to extract vibranium. I mean, how can you mine a metal which actually absorb all vibrations?). There hasn't been gods and goddess descending from the sky to convene with mortals or sorcerers making use of great powers, no oracles nor prophetesses. All things commonly found in Wonder Woman, even in Rebirth (okay, save perhaps the sorcerers, Circe hasn't been that present). It is disinguneous to pretend that what works for Blanck Panthers would work for Wonder Woman, when both mythos are so deeply different and do not rest on the same foundations at all.

[SiegePerilous02]

It isn't making them a service, it isn't making them feminist icons. It allows people who think that separation between peoples, whatever the basis, can be good, to have an example of it in books they may read (even if I can't picture most of those peoples reading Woner Woman). And that's a problem. I have no problem with raped and abused women forming a temporary group, or even having a durable and secura location they can gather between themselves to deal with their scars and suffering. But there is a whole world of difference between that and immortal warrior-women living on an island removed from the world at large, which they even call Man's World (not "our world" or "the outside world", but "Man's World" which show how removed they are from it, and how themselves are proud to not be a part of the it).

So let me ask you this: what do you think of the numerous examples in the Perez run that depicted the Amazons as a positive influence on Diana and a peaceful society that kept to themselves....but still actually went through the process of learning that they may eventually open their shores to the outside world and interacting with? in that run Philippus was hostile towards Steve just because he was a man, just like she is cold towards him in Rebirth, but eventually realized she was wrong, apologized to him, and became one of the biggest supporters of integrating with the outside world. There is also the Feast of Five storyline, where the Amazons are depicted as having their own biases that make them as susceptible to Eris's manipulations as anyone else. And there is the war they had with the Bana in Jimenez's run, in which neither group was completely wrong, and they eventually reached a peaceful compromise, uniting as one tribe and opening themselves completely to interactions with the outside world.

There is a middle ground here. They were not perfect before, never have been, they just weren't monsters. Or at least on a societal level they weren't, no doubt some individual Amazons would be like what we saw in the New 52. But making them female role models who love and teach Diana does not equate to making them perfect or not calling out their biases and the drawbacks of their isolated world. They just don't kill babies. I don't kill babies either, and I don't consider myself perfect.

Damn it, I went to the trouble to looking at those blasted issues to find it, and you beat me to it. Damn it. But, in all honesty, I can't see how it could be anything but love as in "having sex" than Diana is talking about. it doesn't make any sense in the interpretation that she is good as loving as in the act of extending love to peoples. It's made especially clear by the whole undertone of the discussion between Steve and Diana.

Again, if that is what she's talking about....so what? She enjoys sex. Who doesn't? That doesn't make her a nympho.

There is nothing remotely wrong with what she said.

And there hasn't been any clear evidence of magic, as in sorcery. Beyond the Ancestral Plane, which is more mystic than anything else, the whole premise of the story if that the Vribranium made the Wakadans more technologically advanced (which is probably something they had to do just to extract vibranium. I mean, how can you mine a metal which actually absorb all vibrations?). There hasn't been gods and goddess descending from the sky to convene with mortals or sorcerers making use of great powers, no oracles nor prophetesses. All things commonly found in Wonder Woman, even in Rebirth (okay, save perhaps the sorcerers, Circe hasn't been that present). It is disinguneous to pretend that what works for Blanck Panthers would work for Wonder Woman, when both mythos are so deeply different and do not rest on the same foundations at all.

Superhero comics are a mish mash of genres to begin with, and in the shared universes they often overlap anyway. What's the issue with the Amazons having advanced technology? Mixing the two things often yields interesting results, like that super obscure video game franchise, Final Fantasy. What's more, the Amazons have a Greek mythological motif to a lot of their stuff, most of it relating to Aphrodite. Like the Swan Planes, or those awesome Clam Shell hover bikes in Earth One (which should totally make their way over to the main line). It's Buck Rogers mixed with sword and sandals, and it's awesome. It isn't really that jarring at all.

And again, who cares that it's not realistic? They live in the same universe where Clark becomes an invincible God because he absorbs sunlight and has a dog that does the same thing, Batman's superpower is making child endangerment look awesome and nobody cares, and there are a bunch of talking telepathic gorillas who are allowed the same type of tech. Seems hardly fair that the one group of female super scientists we had in this universe got nerfed. Amazonian tech should be right up there with Kryptonian and Martian tech.

[Korath]

.
Again, if that is what she's talking about....so what? She enjoys sex. Who doesn't? That doesn't make her a nympho.

There is nothing remotely wrong with what she said.

Because the whole undertone of this conversation is that she was with Superman because it was easy (i.e., she was with him to have sex without a care in the world) and, ergo, the way she says that she is good at loving but not at romancing can only means that she wants casual relationships based on sex, something that I happen to dislike, whatever the gender of the one doing it, because after having been at the receiving end of two such relationships, I can tell you it leave a real bad taste and moral scars. It's also a terrible characterization for a supposedly feminist icon. I've no problem with her admitting that she love sex, it's probably even a healthy thing. It's a whole other thing to promote the idea that any relationship could be based on it and then discarded as if it was nothing, just to move to your next fling.

As for Perez... I would know. I find his early issues so dull and boring that despite my best effort, I can't bear to truly read them, I barely manage to glance at a page, get the basic layout of what happens and then move to the next one, hoping from an improvement. I can't even tell if it's just the style of the narration and drawings that make it feels like a chore, or the story itself, which constantly fails to entice me, leaving me wondering why I should care about anything happening to anyone in there. Hence why I would like to know at which issue Perez will have dealt with Ares and Diana will be allowed to move to other foes and all...

[Jackalope89]

Because the whole undertone of this conversation is that she was with Superman because it was easy (i.e., she was with him to have sex without a care in the world) and, ergo, the way she says that she is good at loving but not at romancing can only means that she wants casual relationships based on sex, something that I happen to dislike, whatever the gender of the one doing it, because after having been at the receiving end of two such relationships, I can tell you it leave a real bad taste and moral scars. It's also a terrible characterization for a supposedly feminist icon. I've no problem with her admitting that she love sex, it's probably even a healthy thing. It's a whole other thing to promote the idea that any relationship could be based on it and then discarded as if it was nothing, just to move to your next fling.

As for Perez... I would know. I find his early issues so dull and boring that despite my best effort, I can't bear to truly read them, I barely manage to glance at a page, get the basic layout of what happens and then move to the next one, hoping from an improvement. I can't even tell if it's just the style of the narration and drawings that make it feels like a chore, or the story itself, which constantly fails to entice me, leaving me wondering why I should care about anything happening to anyone in there. Hence why I would like to know at which issue Perez will have dealt with Ares and Diana will be allowed to move to other foes and all...

Well, the whole Superman thing now essentially never existed, thanks to Superman Reborn. Hell, Diana was there (along with Bruce) when Jon was born. So can't really fall back on that.

[SiegePerilous02]

Because the whole undertone of this conversation is that she was with Superman because it was easy (i.e., she was with him to have sex without a care in the world) and, ergo, the way she says that she is good at loving but not at romancing can only means that she wants casual relationships based on sex, something that I happen to dislike, whatever the gender of the one doing it, because after having been at the receiving end of two such relationships, I can tell you it leave a real bad taste and moral scars. It's also a terrible characterization for a supposedly feminist icon. I've no problem with her admitting that she love sex, it's probably even a healthy thing. It's a whole other thing to promote the idea that any relationship could be based on it and then discarded as if it was nothing, just to move to your next fling.

Nowhere does she say she was with Clark because it was an easy lay, nor does she say she only wants casual sex. It was easy because they were both super powered beings and they wouldn't endanger a non-super powered partner by being with them, and they were also close friends to begin with. In the context of the New 52, she dumped Steve because she didn't want him to get hurt and bonded with Clark not long after that. Rucka didn't write that, Johns did. Here, she says she is bad at romance, but nothing in the art or dialogue indicates that she's fine with that. She wants to be in a committed relationship even if she doesn't think she knows how, and very clearly wants that with Steve. She's scared of loves complications, and felt (perhaps wrongly) that her and Clark's love wouldn't be as complicated, not that he was an easy shag. Even if Clark didn't (stupidly) blow up, she may have come to the realization that their romance wasn't what she wanted and broken up with him, which would be the honest and decent thing to do. I think Rucka could have softened the blow a bit by having her reiterate that she loved Clark as one of her closest friends and that she was grieving his death, but beyond that, I see nothing wrong with the scene.

As for Perez... I would know. I find his early issues so dull and boring that despite my best effort, I can't bear to truly read them, I barely manage to glance at a page, get the basic layout of what happens and then move to the next one, hoping from an improvement. I can't even tell if it's just the style of the narration and drawings that make it feels like a chore, or the story itself, which constantly fails to entice me, leaving me wondering why I should care about anything happening to anyone in there. Hence why I would like to know at which issue Perez will have dealt with Ares and Diana will be allowed to move to other foes and all...

I can't disagree with you that parts of Perez's run were boring. The more time goes on, the less I like it overall. But all the stuff you claim Azzarello fixed were done already, and with more attention and care. Just because you didn't read it doesn't mean it didn't happen. The Amazons haven't been perfect in decades, if they ever were, so saying the narrative paints them that way is factually incorrect. It was published, it happened. Azzarello being the first to address these things in a way that makes sense is a BS myth.

[Gaelforce]

And there hasn't been any clear evidence of magic, as in sorcery. Beyond the Ancestral Plane, which is more mystic than anything else, the whole premise of the story if that the Vribranium made the Wakadans more technologically advanced (which is probably something they had to do just to extract vibranium. I mean, how can you mine a metal which actually absorb all vibrations?). There hasn't been gods and goddess descending from the sky to convene with mortals or sorcerers making use of great powers, no oracles nor prophetesses. All things commonly found in Wonder Woman, even in Rebirth (okay, save perhaps the sorcerers, Circe hasn't been that present). It is disinguneous to pretend that what works for Blanck Panthers would work for Wonder Woman, when both mythos are so deeply different and do not rest on the same foundations at all.

You've just dismissed an entire 'branch' of magic (mysticism) just because it's not obviously magic?

Are you aware of the fact that T'challa has a sorceror, Zawavari? Not past tense - pretty sure he has popped up in the new series.

T'Challa, meanwhile, makes pacts with panther dieties and has a vast array of magical artifacts that he has used alongside the scientific ones.

Lastly, as I recall - the reason that Wakanda was so technologically advanced was *because* they were isolated. Their technology developed independent of the rest of the world which made it different and better, but the Amazons being isolated don't advance at all.

And the unbreakable 'Amazonium' predates 'Vibranium' by over a decade

The Amazons, as pointed out, could see the outside world as well as the future. They also, under Azzarello, had access to the outside world. In addition, up until Azz's run (not sure if it was there or not), the Amazons were set to guard the gateway to Tartarus and had to fight assorted demons and creatures, so they have a good reason to advance their weaponry and not remain stagnant.

Diana also created the 'purple ray' in a laboratory because she was a scientist back in Wonder Woman volume one.

So...they have the history, the artifacts, the gods, the unbreakable metal found nowhere else, and the justification to advance as well as more than enough opportunities to do so.

But it's great for Black Panther but wrong for Diana.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Segregation is not the same thing has choosing to not associate with peoples you don't like.

It's not "people they don't like," which makes it sound like the Jonathan Swift argument over breaking the egg on the big end or the little end.

It's entire cultures in which anti-female sexism is a major component of society.

You sound like the people who say, "Well, you're intolerant of intolerance, so that makes you intolerant too!" Which falsely makes any kind of response to intolerance into some kind of mistake.

But I have talked at length, both her and here, about why the Amazon's response to be treated (horrifically) as "the Other" is a reasonable one (although not the only one), so I won't repeat myself here.

But, in all honesty, I can't see how it could be anything but love as in "having sex" than Diana is talking about. it doesn't make any sense in the interpretation that she is good as loving as in the act of extending love to peoples. It's made especially clear by the whole undertone of the discussion between Steve and Diana.

If i'm being charitable, I would suggest you're just having problems with language. There is an enormous difference between "loving people" - especially as it refers to Diana, who is an extremely loving individual (sometimes said to "love everyone," although I think that's a little silly) and "romance," which generally refers to a particular kind of relationship between two individuals, much celebrated in movies and comic books, and on Valentine's Day. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the former has anything to do with sex.

But even if Diana had said "I'm better at sex than romance" (I feel strange writing that, it wasn't even implied), so what? The word "nympho" is a highly derogatory term, used mainly but not exclusively by men, to denigrate a woman they believe is enjoying sex more than they think she should. I don't see that it has any place here.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Because the whole undertone of this conversation is that she was with Superman because it was easy (i.e., she was with him to have sex without a care in the world) and, ergo, the way she says that she is good at loving but not at romancing can only means that she wants casual relationships based on sex, something that I happen to dislike, whatever the gender of the one doing it, because after having been at the receiving end of two such relationships, I can tell you it leave a real bad taste and moral scars. It's also a terrible characterization for a supposedly feminist icon. I've no problem with her admitting that she love sex, it's probably even a healthy thing. It's a whole other thing to promote the idea that any relationship could be based on it and then discarded as if it was nothing, just to move to your next fling.

I am very sorry that your personal experiences have been so unpleasant. But there are plenty of people, men and woman (even feminists!), who have a mutually agreeable no-strings-attached sexual relationship and enjoy it. You should not have relationships with these people, but that's are far as I can go in judging them.

However, Wonder Woman is not one of these people. There was absolutely nothing in her stories - with hypothetical Amazon lovers, with Superman, with Steve Trevor - that suggested she was just looking for sex with no emotional connection. It's just not there.

[ed2962]

I'm really looking forward to this, especially curious as to how KSD will handle the character. I dropped WW after Rebirth Rucka, so it'll be fun to have some WW material to pick up again.

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the "SJW" stuff in reaction to this new has started already.

[Doctor Bifrost]

If he hated New 52 so much, he should have thrown his weight at D.C. to ask for a clean reboot for WW, like they did for Superman.

Maybe he did, and they shot him down.

Clearly somebody decided that Azzarello's run still needed to be a part of the Wonder Woman backstory - as a memory, as a construct, as an influence - even if it was no longer going to be the in-continuity history. Given the way decisions are made at DC, I have no reason to believe it was Rucka. DC's editors and publisher have an allergy to the word "Reboot" (especially now that they're shoving the most recent one out of the way), so even when that is essentially what they're doing, they like to pretend they're not. It's "plausible deniability." So I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they told Rucka, "get rid of most - not all - of The New 52 stuff, but include a mechanism that explains why it was, in some way, a part of the DCU anyway, so we can say we're not really rebooting Wonder Woman." They're doing this kind of stuff all over the place.

And, by the way, I suspect Rucka's assignment was "Get rid of most of The New 52 stuff - the sex-pirate Amazons, the weird-o Greek gods - but keep the Zeus-daddy origin." (That's exactly what Rebirth is all about, right - across the DCU?) Just because he took the assignment doesn't mean he "hated The New 52 so much." People make changes, or take on the job set by others to make changes, without necessarily hating what came before.

Personally, if Rucka had a free hand - and I suspect he didn't - I think he was far too respectful to the New 52 content. Fourteen issues primarily dedicated to explaining why Azzarello's run was still oh-so-important - emblazoned in Diana's memory, a vital part of the plans of the gods themselves to keep Ares imprisoned! - even though it was no longer in continuity. What a waste. He could have spent 1-2 issues explaining why it all took place in a "notional universe" (like the one Odin showed Morpheus in Sandman's "The Kindly One"), and then spent the rest of his time writing about Diana in the new continuity without all the baggage of further rationalizing the status of the previous continuity.

(This has nothing to do with whether I liked or disliked the previous continuity, although my opinions on that are well known. It has to do with moving from one continuity to another in a clean way.)

But be honest: even if Rucka had asked for and got a full, clean-slate reboot, you would have hated it because it didn't portray the Amazons as the rotten, corrupt society they must, according to you, inevitably be, right? (I'll give this to Azzarello: he portrayed the Amazons as murderous, man-hating supervillains, but he never quite said it was inevitable.)

[Doctor Bifrost]

...or that their Sons were somehow better (when nothing in the run prove it).

The "Sons of the Amazons" were decent, hardworking men who enjoyed their work. They were willing to forgive their female relatives (for a lot); they only wanted to be reunited with them and help them deal with threats against them. (And then a bunch of Amazons created a "Donna Troy weapon" to kill all the Sons.)

That was all in the run. Now, you may find negative things in the portrayal of the Sons' lives (although I think you're reading between the lines and exaggerating). But if you're actually claiming that the negative portrayals of the Sons were anything near the negative portrayals of the man-hating, murderous female Amazons - if you think that both societies are depicted as equally "sick and unhealthy" (to use your phrase) - then you and I seem to have been reading completely different comics.