Wonder Woman #47 - Discussion & Spoilers

[Mel Dyer]

I don’t think Jason needs to go. Why can’t he learn from his sister? I’m sure the next writer won’t give him the spotlight after the backlash Robinson was receiving on Twitter. Jason should stay. I like him.

After a serviceable regular cast is established, ..it might be nice to see Donna settling into private life, somewhere, as a small-town Wonder Woman, in a subplot. Similarly, I had sort of hoped Jason would be packed off to Hercules's hometown, Twin Pea...I mean Elexinore, by now. I wish there was some way all of that could happen, between now and WW #51.

I'd really, really like to see a 'Wonder Woman Family' or 'World of Wonder Woman' title replace one of the TWO current, monthly shippings of WW. Some of you may not have been around, when Superman Family and Batman Family on the newsstands; maybe, it could be an anthology format title, like those comics used to be. That means stories about the Amazons, Etta, Donna, Young Circe, Artemis, the Olympians, Mister Genie and Jason - not all at once, of course, but, a changing line-up of small stories. I would LOVE it!

Sensational Tales of Wonder Woman...something like that. Anyway, ain't gonna happen, by WW #50.

[brettc1]

After a serviceable regular cast is established...

[Naked Bat]

I try to enjoy Robinson's run, but it's so boring and childish. Rucka's run wasn't perfect, but at least, it was interesting and it made you want to come back issue after issue.

[Korath]

I try to enjoy Robinson's run, but it's so boring and childish. Rucka's run wasn't perfect, but at least, it was interesting and it made you want to come back issue after issue.

Debatable, at best. I still hate it with a passion. Robinson is barely better, of course, like stale bread his better than rotten meat, but not by much. Even if this issue at least managed to make me think "Eh, makes sense" when the Three Sisters told Jason that the Gods of Olympus were kind of mysoginistic imbeciles and that he got the armor only because Hera thought it would spite Zeus' memory to have her spoil his plans to empower even more Wonder Woman.

But what a missed opportunity to not have the Dark Gods wanting to get ride of Diana because she is their "mother". It would have been fitting with Greek Mythology, only instead of the son killing the father, it would have been the children killing the mother.

[brettc1]

I try to enjoy Robinson's run, but it's so boring and childish. Rucka's run wasn't perfect, but at least, it was interesting and it made you want to come back issue after issue.

I agree with you. Not perfect, but better by far than this. And Athena being a misogynist makes no sense at all.

[Sacred Knight]

I'm with Korath. I'd rather read this one than Rucka's. Rucka's run was, on top of being just a flat out bore, responsible for creating more continuity problems than it fixed. At the very least this run isn't doing that.

[Gaelforce]

I'm with Korath. I'd rather read this one than Rucka's. Rucka's run was, on top of being just a flat out bore, responsible for creating more continuity problems than it fixed. At the very least this run isn't doing that.

I long for a Wonder Woman run that doesn't split the fanbase

I feel the same about Robinson as you do about Rucka in regards to it being dull and creating continuity problems based on what Rucka had just written.

One day we'll get something we all like, I hope!

[Sacred Knight]

I hope so too, definitely. Certainly though my preferring this run over Rucka's in the end isn't saying all that much. I thought the concepts were solid enough but the execution lacking. I'm pretty bored again, and that's never a good thing.

Its kinda why I'm getting antsy for the new permanent team to be announced already. To have something to look forward to. I've been bored with Superman for a year, but I've had something to look forward to for months with the marketing of the new direction, whether it hits or misses. I wish WW could get that kind of advertisement. But then again they have to care more about her first.

[SiegePerilous02]

Rucka's continuity problems kind of get a pass because they came about in what was essentially a line wide reboot, and the continuity for WW was so ill defined throughout the New 52 anyway. It was a new jumping on point that could get away with handwaving stuff away that didn't work and keeping what did, whereas doing it when the DCU as a whole isn't going through a reboot would be more problematic/frustrating. And he established her past in Year One and Godwatch while he did it, so it's not like her history is a blank slate either, and he at least gave some much needed character development and origin overhauls for some of her villains.

Robinson has offered nothing, except throwing "Dr" back in front of "Poison." Jason being as poorly executed as he was, Vanessa being brought back as a generic psycho, Julia being stuffed in the fridge, Grail having an entire issue devoted to her and still managing to be a none entity, Battle of the Daddies, the Cale and Cheetah rivalry barely being touched upon and being really boring when it was, the Female Furies jobbing to Steve and the Oddfellows, Steve going overboard with saying "Angel, " etc. It's one of the biggest dips in quality I've ever seen. There is a balance that could be struck, less focus on continuity issues and telling big, bombastic stories that keep the characters consistent and build off of what came before. This isn't it, but hopefully not too much damage is done and the next regular writer can manage it without alienating too many fans.

[Nyssane]

One day we'll get something we all like, I hope!

I would love that, but I sincerely doubt it. From what I've seen, Rucka's second run was the best received critically run since Perez but we have people saying they think Robinson's run is better. We all just have different ideas of what we want from the series that I just can't think of how we as fans could all enjoy a single run.

[Sacred Knight]

I don't give Rucka a pass because despite how ill-defined things might have been before, if part of your job is to come on and fix and streamline things for whatever continuity is current, its a major fail if the end result is actually more confusing. And that's what we were left with at the end of Rucka's run. I understand these things are difficult, thus I too don't usually put it all on the monthly title when DC's events change the history. But if an individual run makes the situation worse as opposed to at least a little better, I put more on the individual team than usual.

That said Nyssane is right, Rucka's run was better received critically than the current one, easy. It also sold better.

[SiegePerilous02]

The results are only more confusing for those who wanted different results. The New 52 fans don't want it to be wiped from canon, and it pretty much blatantly is, so they label it confusing despite a fairly upfront and easy to digest handwave and a new history to fill in the blanks. Fans of the clay birth label it confusing upon seeing the demigod origin still in place, despite the run never stating her clay birth was back in place, so Robinson following with Grail and Jason is not contradicting anything. DC could not be more transparent with how they wanted Rucka to leave the WW mythos. They demigod origin is what they want to stick with, but the Azzarello Amazons proved to be more trouble than they were worth, and they botched any attempts to add more context for them with the Finch run and sporadic appearances elsewhere. Meanwhile, Johns had a great idea (Diana and Barbara Ann being friends) and never did anything with it. The Cheetah stuff that was supposedly important in setting up Trinity War/Forever Evil got dropped. Who cares if Rucka contradicted that stuff? His stuff was better, and nothing came of it anyway.

A handwave and saying "we screwed up, here are the real Amazons back" is better than continuing to pick at the scab and try to make sense of a contradictory era full of half baked ideas and trying to make them mesh with what you want to do going forward. And things have actually been consistent from Rebirth onward. Robinson's run is garbage, but it didn't wipe out the previous run and continues to reference plot points in it. Even the filler is consistent. Fontana referenced Etta's anger at Diana for losing track of Barbara, and Orlando will use Mayfly in his "Diana reforms a villain" issue after she showed up in Fontana's run. Seeley introduced the Oddfellows and Robinson brought them into his run. Things are more consistent now than the New 52 era, even if not all the issues are good. We will have a problem if Zola, Lennox, Zeke, Siracca, Milan, the First Born, Cassandra and the Azzarello Gods suddenly make appearances or are referenced with no explanation, but they show no signs of wanting to do that. For all intents and purposes, that era is dead beyond some basic concepts. The only continuity nightmare is still Donna Troy, but what else is new? The fact that it did well critically and sold well is a good indicator that it didn't confuse enough people to be detrimental.

[Mel Dyer]

I long for a Wonder Woman run that doesn't split the fanbase ...One day we'll get something we all like, I hope!

A two-comic solution, perhaps - that's Wonder Woman and another title, showcasing all of the myth-inspired elements? With DC Comics shipping WW twice, monthly, there's never been a better opportunity to try something that might appeal to all of her fans, while bringing in some new ones.

If I can become the standard-bearer for 'young Circe' stories, after years of complaining about her over-saturation, anything is possible.

...Vanessa being brought back as a generic psycho, Julia being stuffed in the fridge...

Not nitpicking, but we haven't seen who Rebirth Vanessa's mother is/was, and we were never shown who died in that car accident. Maybe, Doc Julia is Nessie's grandmamma in this rebirthed continuity. Maybe, Vanessa faked her mother's death, hoping the hoax would bring Wonder Woman closer to her. I'm hoping that she is still out there, somehow.

[kjn]

I long for a Wonder Woman run that doesn't split the fanbase

I feel the same about Robinson as you do about Rucka in regards to it being dull and creating continuity problems based on what Rucka had just written.

One day we'll get something we all like, I hope!

Wasn't that The Legend of Wonder Woman, which then got cancelled?

The more I think of it, the more I believe the idea of a tightly coupled continuity is a dead end for comics or other large franchises. For one, as Lois Bujold puts it, an author always needs to reserve the right to have a better idea. For another, the kind of large, sprawling, and multi-creator universes that comes out of comics are near impossible to keep track of. They do better as canvases than as roadmaps.

[Korath]

The New 52 fans don't want it to be wiped from canon, and it pretty much blatantly is, so they label it confusing despite a fairly upfront and easy to digest handwave and a new history to fill in the blanks.

I don't call it confusing, i call it crappy. Rucka's new History is the blandest possible, he utterly failed to make me care about any and all the characters he (re)introduced. I can't give a darn about his Ferdinand, when the Minotaur in Azzarello's run managed to struck a chord with me, Etta and Barbara's Relationship also failed to entice me, while I'm usually a really easy public for those kind of things. Rucka's Amazon are also incredibly boring goodies in the story because... because, I guess. They had no real purpose in his book and shouldn't have appeared after the issues of year One where Steve landed on the island. Speaking of year One, it was so saccharine and ridiculous that I couldn't think of it as anything else than Diana's mind losing it, just like it did when she learnt "THE TRUTH!!!" or whatever. And yes, his Diana was an unloveable character, dissing on the previous continuity which was then utterly erased so those jabs were both uncalled and utterly meaningless, only managing to alienate the fans of the SM/WW pairing, among which I stand.

Add to that the fact that both the villains and the "Patrons" were incredibly bland and uninteresting, with even ridiculous looks (Rucka's Circe is utterly devoid of anything appealling, down to her appearance, compared to the New 52 one, same for the Gods). I couldn't care less about Cale and her group of evil women to remain on board with the book and even after I've managed to muster the willpower to Wade through the run in full online, I can't remember anything about them beyond "Cale is angry at WW because she fucked up and her daughter was cursed by Greek Gods".

So yeah, in my book, Rucka's second run is an hot piece of rotten meat. At least with Robinson's stale bread run, you're less at risk of dying/getting extremely ill. The best thing which could happen to Diana is that someone down the line utterly disregarded her Rebirth runs and start anew. I don't care if she is the only one rebooting, once more, since her books are basically so secluded from the others that it wouldn't change anything for the rest of the DC continuity.