Wonder Woman #44 - Discussion & Spoilers

[Nyssane]

The story moved along at least somewhat in this issue, though it didn't happen until the very end.

Diana and Darkseid fight. Diana makes out-of-character statements like "Someone should have buried you long before now!" and Darkseid literally replies with "Sticks and stones." Oye.

Jason and Grail fight. Jason uses all the flashy powers in his arsenal which makes Diana look boring by comparison. Oh, and Jason and Grail had apparently been lovers, so there's that. Yuck.

Meanwhile, Lashina and Mad Harriet finally prove their usefulness after their dreadful past appearances in this book and grab the relics while everyone else is fighting. Stompa and Gilotina (Bernadeth is strangely nowhere to be found) battle ARGUS, and while Stompa seems severely underpowered/underutilized here, we do see Gilotina chopping ARGUS heads off which is pretty great.

Diana then starts to say she doesn't need anybody's help (ugh, she'd never say that...) until Grail wrestles her down and the Furies grab Jason. Darkseid's plan finally comes to be, and he uses the relics to open a portal to Themyscira. Diana quickly rushes to go inside the portal "to warn them" (ugh) but she can't enter.

But Grail, never having actually set foot on the island, enters the portal just fine and turns a group of Amazons into harpy-like Parademons.

So, yeah... the story at least progressed as we found out Darkseid's "master plan" (which we already knew from the solicits but whatevs). I have to say I didn't find myself absolutely hating this one like I did last issue, but maybe it's because I'm a big Female Fury fan and they finally didn't suck this issue. But Diana was grossly out of character, and Grail/Darkseid couldn't be less interesting in this story if they tried. It also grates my nerves to hear Steve yelling out "Angel!" in the heat of battle instead of calling her by her name.

What did everyone else think?

[Frank]

Thanks for the spoilers! It's been hard for me to get to the LCS on Wednesdays lately, and I've been using your threads as a measure of whether I need to make the extra effort or wait until Saturday. :-)

How was the art?

[Rakzo]

Ugh, I'm ready for this transparently editorial mandated story to end. The last few issues have been full of nothing and this one is no different. Yes, they found Themyscira again. Yes, Rucka's ending for his run sucked since it went against what he established (while making the fact that he retconned Azzarello's run even worse) but somehow this a much more clunky turn of event since is the laziest solution they could find.

Good art though.

[The Dying Detective]

What I am curious about is the whether the opening page with the credits indicate that there is finally and editor on Wonder Woman though if there was one it should have been announced.

[BiteTheBullet]

The story moved along at least somewhat in this issue, though it didn't happen until the very end.

Diana and Darkseid fight. Diana makes out-of-character statements like "Someone should have buried you long before now!" and Darkseid literally replies with "Sticks and stones." Oye.

Jason and Grail fight. Jason uses all the flashy powers in his arsenal which makes Diana look boring by comparison. Oh, and Jason and Grail had apparently been lovers, so there's that. Yuck.

Meanwhile, Lashina and Mad Harriet finally prove their usefulness after their dreadful past appearances in this book and grab the relics while everyone else is fighting. Stompa and Gilotina (Bernadeth is strangely nowhere to be found) battle ARGUS, and while Stompa seems severely underpowered/underutilized here, we do see Gilotina chopping ARGUS heads off which is pretty great.

Diana then starts to say she doesn't need anybody's help (ugh, she'd never say that...) until Grail wrestles her down and the Furies grab Jason. Darkseid's plan finally comes to be, and he uses the relics to open a portal to Themyscira. Diana quickly rushes to go inside the portal "to warn them" (ugh) but she can't enter.

But Grail, never having actually set foot on the island, enters the portal just fine and turns a group of Amazons into harpy-like Parademons.

So, yeah... the story at least progressed as we found out Darkseid's "master plan" (which we already knew from the solicits but whatevs). I have to say I didn't find myself absolutely hating this one like I did last issue, but maybe it's because I'm a big Female Fury fan and they finally didn't suck this issue. But Diana was grossly out of character, and Grail/Darkseid couldn't be less interesting in this story if they tried. It also grates my nerves to hear Steve yelling out "Angel!" in the heat of battle instead of calling her by her name.

What did everyone else think?

So does she lose to both Darkseid and Grail, and by default Jason if he beat Grail?

[Nyssane]

Thanks for the spoilers! It's been hard for me to get to the LCS on Wednesdays lately, and I've been using your threads as a measure of whether I need to make the extra effort or wait until Saturday. :-)

How was the art?

Art was good as usual. Although I did find it slightly weaker than previous issues but maybe that's just because the story is dragging it down.

So does she lose to both Darkseid and Grail, and by default Jason if he beat Grail?

She doesn't really lose to anyone (except Robinson's bad writing)... she and Darkseid were at a standstill until he opened the portal and she tried to jump in it. And Jason didn't really win to Grail either. He went to help Diana but was grabbed by Lashina and Harriet so that Grail could enter the portal herself.

[WonderScott]

Why are they treating Diana like a vampire who has to be invited in to step through the portal to Themyscira?

(I’ll read the issue later.)

[Sacred Knight]

I think its because of that rule of "once you leave you can't go back" that she still has to circumvent. Maybe the fact Grail has technically been there and left before doesn't count to some degree since she was a newborn and had no memory of the place anyway. Thus she was never any remote threat to re-locate the island in the first place. Maybe we find out the same goes for Jason and he's able to go through. Perhaps that's how Diana gets around the rule, by holding onto him and they go through together. Or something. Either way hopefully this arc ends up removing that stupid restriction on Diana, at least in part. I have no problem with making it that Diana can only travel there at certain times, for instance.

[Gaelforce]

I think its because of that rule of "once you leave you can't go back" that she still has to circumvent. Maybe the fact Grail has technically been there and left before doesn't count to some degree since she was a newborn and had no memory of the place anyway. Thus she was never any remote threat to re-locate the island in the first place. Maybe we find out the same goes for Jason and he's able to go through. Perhaps that's how Diana gets around the rule, by holding onto him and they go through together. Or something. Either way hopefully this arc ends up removing that stupid restriction on Diana, at least in part. I have no problem with making it that Diana can only travel there at certain times, for instance.

Grail specifically says that she never 'set foot' on the island, so she can go back due to the relics and some glove they reverse engineered from the relics.

Diana's dialogue was just beyond ridiculous - ranting about how she can take Darkseid one-on-one and how she's going to destroy him and Grail for murdering her family (that she never met or looked for).

I swear, it felt like Robinson was mocking the fans of Diana who put her on an equal footing with Superman and therefore able to take on Darkseid by herself. She just sounded juvenile throughout the issue.

The whole thing was yet another big, pointless combat with no clear cut winner, ending in the gate to Themyscira opening.

My bet is that *Jason* will get to be the hero since he, too, never 'set foot' on Themyscira, so he can go through the portal as well.

[Nyssane]

Thus she was never any remote threat to re-locate the island in the first place.

Oh, god. Why do I now feel like the next issue is going to just be Jason reuniting with Hippolyta, warning the Amazons, and stopping Grail while Diana does literally nothing?

Also, yeah, they said that Grail technically never set foot on the island since she was a baby and was constantly being held. Kinda stupid, but whatever. But this does bring up the question of how did Philippus give the newborn Jason to (I can't remember his name) and still return to Themyscira? I'll have to go back and begrudgingly reread that.

[vasir12]

Man, this was not good. Darksied and Diana are written horribly.

[The Dying Detective]

At this point we'd better hope that question that Tom King and Joelle Jones dodged would have disclosed the name of the writer who would replace Robinson who is clearly out of his depth.

[Sacred Knight]

I wouldn't consider Jason to be some big winner just because he would be able to go through the portal. That's why I suggest they just have Diana hold onto him and thus circumvent the problem. Not everything's a pissing contest...though to be fair Robinson's done his share to make it look like that in some cases. In this one though, it would just be simply a means for WW to get around what's essentially a security measure, something that would be a problem for any one of her sisters or her own mother in the same situation. I don't consider Grail and Jason's technicality of having never actually set foot on the island as anything that makes them any more special than Diana. In fact I think it says more about Diana as out of all three, she's the more true Amazon; she lived there, she trained there, she was nurtured there.

[Nyssane]

Well, my worst case scenario is that Jason goes through the portal alone and has all the page time. In your scenario Diana holds onto Jason as they enter the portal which really doesn't make any sense, even in comic book terms...

[Fenix]

Looks like Diana is holding Jason back.


...Anyways Grail and Jason lovers? *Barf* The hell did this come from?