What's Your Verdict... Robinson's Run!

[astro@work]

My biggest complaint was that Jason took over the title, and in the end wasn't that interesting of a character.

Didn't mind the dark Gods stuff, although I'm a bit exhausted with new Gods, old Gods, and dark Gods.

Steve and Etta were minor presences (Etta especially), but at least they weren't completely ignored.

Biggest cardinal sin was Diana becoming secondary to Jason toward the end. I'm definitely ready for the next team to come on board.

[RepHope]

It was so damn boring. It didn't make me angry like the Finch run did, and the art was great, but nothing it did feels like it will have a lasting impression. It was too focused on characters other than Wonder Woman, with Jason basically taking over the spotlight. Which sucks because nothing about Jason is consistent or endearing, he just fulfilled whatever plot device Robinson needed him to. At least Jason got shuffled off to the Dark Multiverse where he will presumably be forgotten unless Johns decides to try his hand at Wonder Woman.

Overall this run was a colossal disappointment. I'm a pretty flexible person. I enjoyed both Azz's and Rucka's run. I enjoy both "classic" and "new" Wonder Woman. But nothing here really impressed me, and it's sad because I know Robinson can deliver quality when he wants to. I loved Earth 2 and Scarlet Witch, but this was just nothing but filler. Let's hope Orlando and Wilson do better jobs.

[Mel Dyer]

Geoff Johns should've been the one to write about Grail and Jason. It was HIS idea and I fully believe only he would've delivered on their stories.

Plus I like The Olympian way better than Jason.

Your avatar, that marvelously enigmatic AZRAEL, in one teeny, tiny JPG, ..offers us everything that Jason might have been, should have been, but never was. For that, James, while I 'stridently' admire his work on JSA and the masterfully engineered Golden Age, has no one blame that on, but, himself.

James said, himself, in interview, that he signed up to write the saga of Jason, and he did. I don't believe, however, that DC Comics would pay an artist, as commercially successful and highly paid, as him, ..to create a twenty issue story arc around a throwaway character. It's my belief, and I have no proof, that Jason is an intellectual property, green-lighted at the highest levels of DC Comics, for reasons that have yet to be made clear to us, ..and that we will see him again, before WW 1984.

I could live with a Wonderverse, in which the modern, brash Etta Candy of the comics (likely, the namesake of the WWI heroine) is fully inducted into the Oddfellows. I think Etta hanging out with them...fighting beside them would have been very entertaining. I would very much like to have seen that, and I think it's regrettable that James didn't see fit to make it happen. For twenty issues of WW, there's precious little 'woman' in it, and celebrating Diana's enduring friendship with Greg Rucka's Etta Candy - I think - was one of Mr. Robinson's greatest missed opportunities. The addition of a few light-hearted or dramatic exchanges with Etta might have changed the tone and weight of his entire run...

Maybe, made it a little more memorable. A shame.

I would like to have seen what James might have done with Rucka's Who-ish Circe. Him, being a British writer of American comics and a confessed Who-watcher, seemed to be the perfect match for the new Circe - the writer, who could put her on the map, as the best version, since the Don Heck days. I think it was another missed opportunity, one that might have elevated the memorability of this run, ..not shelving some of Grail's scenes to work the new Circe into this arc, somewhere.

And I also like the Olympian, whom we all saw being trounced by a Minotaurus in WW #35, before being saved by a, then, very promising, young Jason. I was so certain that Jason would succeed him, given all the trouble someone went through with (1) connecting his origin to the Argonauts, (2) showing him rescuing the Argonaut-empowered Olympian, (3) coming to the aid of the Global Guardians in WW #42 ..and (4) outfitting him with a big, clunky ram's head amulet! In spite of all of that, it seems Aristide is still our Olympian, and, perhaps, we'll see him returned to his former bearish glory, in future issues of WW!

It might have been a memorable, if less than magnanimous, and impishly, outrageously FUN run. In spite of all that, I'll be waiting for my regrettably codenameless, DC Direct Jason action figure. When I look at him, I'll imagine all of the things I once hoped he'd be - a new Olympian or the WW comic's answer to Azrael - and will display him, proudly.

[Frontier]

DC had some major momentum post-Rucka's run and they bungled it with a filler arc and a run that's primary emphasis was focusing and putting all the major importance on a bland and inconsistent male hero in a Wonder Woman book.

It's as embarrassing as it is disappointing, honestly.

[Dr. Poison]

The Good:

- The continual use of most of Rucka's set-up.

- The Silver Swan arc.

- The Rebirth of Anglette(Angle Man), Blue Snowman, and Zara.


- The return of Grail.

- The cementing of Steve's place in Diana's world.


The Bad:

- Too much use of gods and demi-gods in this run. Zeus, Darkseid, Hercules(although it was nice to see his return), The Dark Gods, etc.

- Jason got way too much exposure. I was really looking forward to finding out more about him but in the end, I'd rather he never existed. No more new family members for Diana please.

- Inconsistent art. Some of it was great. Other parts were amateur looking.


In the end, I gave this run 3 stars. It wasn't he worst(Azzarello) but it wasn't the best(Jimenez) either..

[Celgress]

OP Question - Three Stars at best, or about average.

[Shadowedeyes]

Gave it one star. I just lost interest really quick, and every time I tried to get back into it I just couldn't. There is very little about the run that even remotely interested me. A shame since I thought Robinson might be able to deliver a solid comic, but unfortunately it just did not work out that way.

[OBrianTallent]

I would give the writing 2.5 stars, but the art I would give a solid 5 stars which would bring the run to a 3.75 so I gave it a 4.
It was at best average which was such a huge disappointment from the man who wrote Starman, the Golden Age, Scarlet Witch...unfortunately it never happened. There were some promising potential with Grail, Darkseid, the Dark Gods...even Jason, but it was all meh. It seems like DC had more in store for Jason then with such negative backlash had Robinson write him out. Presenting a situation where he can either be completely ignored or re-written to be a lie or some such.
The art has been excellent between Carlos Pagulayan, Emanuella Lupachino, Steven Segovia...the artists have been top notch.

[Heavunion]

2 stars but then, I'm not so sure I would blame him totally. Someone had to do the whole Grail, Darkseid's baby and Jason stuff and really, any writer good enough to turn it into a great story would be right to just turn their back on that

[Pinsir]

It kind of was. The New 52 Amazons were too detrimental to keep around going forward. The fact that DC didn't think they experienced enough backlash to get rid of the Zeus origin, but they did to warrant changing the Amazons back, says it all. The fact that they didn't take advantage of the reboot to change Donna back is staggering though.

I don't think DC really cared about how the Amazons were depicted. I doubt DC would have noticed if another writer performed a soft reboot of the Amazons.

I don't know if we can give her points for that. She played around in his sandbox by killing off Hippolyta and the male Amazons at the hands of Donna Troy, thus making their whole existence a waste of time and ruining any shot of redemption the Amazons had. In addition to making Diana kind of a whiny idiot.

My point was more that other creators wanted to tap into Azzarello's world building, which just isn't the same as what we've seen with Rucka, where the following creators have more or less ignored his world. The only major characteristic of Rucka's work that is now shared by all follow-up creators is the renewed emphasis (kind of) on Steve Trevor, which may have more to do with the film than Rucka's work.

[Nyssane]

My point was more that other creators wanted to tap into Azzarello's world building, which just isn't the same as what we've seen with Rucka, where the following creators have more or less ignored his world. The only major characteristic of Rucka's work that is now shared by all follow-up creators is the renewed emphasis (kind of) on Steve Trevor, which may have more to do with the film than Rucka's work.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Fontana, Robinson, or Wilson were/are able to incorporate elements of Azzarello's run if they wished to do so.

They haven't ignored Rucka's world... Etta was a huge part of Fontana's brief run and we've seen Cheetah, Godwatch, and imprisoned Ares make their returns in Robinson's run... Plus, Wilson has said her first arc deals with Ares and Themyscira and where they were left off in Rucka's run. if they wanted to use Lennox or Zola or the First Born, I'm sure they would have.

It's true that Finch used a few elements of Azz's run, but extremely poorly (Ares and Apollo's resurrections being one of the biggest "WTF" moments). And she didn't even use very many of them in general. I mean how often did we see Zola pop up in her run? I can only remember one time. She used about as many elements from Azz's run as Robinson used from Rucka's if we get down to it.

[Frank]

I haven't bought the last three issues yet. I will, because they're sitting in my pull box at my LCS, but seriously, this title is usually what motivates me to go, and I've been...busy. At least, busy enough that adjusting my schedule wasn't worthwhile. Sadly, Astro City won't be there now that it's gone only to trades.

That is how I feel about this run. I'm not missing anything.

[brettc1]

But he is the same guy who wrote Cry for Justice, so there is that

Oh, THAT guy!

The one who had Oliver Queen bail on his wife in front of whole Justice League while she was team leader so he could go off and bro-code with Hal Jordan.

AND wrote about Hal having a wild threesome with Lady Blackhawk and Huntress.

THAT guy?

Okay, now I am seeing what happened.

Damn, if I had connected those dots sooner I might not even have bothered with this run.

Edit: I wonder if this explains who a bunch of pretty regular guys with rifles and grenades were able to capture a pair of Female Furies that are supposed to be able to give Wonder Woman a good fight.

[brettc1]

I don't think DC really cared about how the Amazons were depicted. I doubt DC would have noticed if another writer performed a soft reboot of the Amazons.

It think they do NOW, because they got so much positive press and feedback from the movie and they want that to flow on into some of their book sales.

Good movies really can help books. There is a reason that in the latest issue of Thor that Hela turned up riding on the back of the Fenris Wolf. If you've seen Thor Ragnarok, it's hardly a surprise at all.

[My Two Cents]

Robinson was the straw that broke me from single issues.
To me his work has been terrible the last ten years or so.
I doubt I will ever pick up his run in any kind of collected books.