Wonder Woman Controversial Opinions Part 2

[Alpha]

I mean, Geoff Johns single handedly changed the game for Aquaman didn't he? Tom King may be controversial, but both Rorschach and Strange Adventures have been selling better than Wonder Woman (even though this is one of the strongest WW runs we've had for the past decade). He clearly has a following.

[John Venus]

Yeah, but Diana didn't do any of those things herself. Dick straight up murdered simple street thugs in his first appearance on the show, which is vastly out of character for nearly every other iteration of Nightwing.

As far as the Amazons were concerned, I never really had much affection for them prior, so this simply added more texture as far as I was concerned. I know your feelings on that run are never going to change, however, any more than my feelings are likely to change on WW runs that failed to entertain me.

I don't see why texture has to mean turning them into rapists and slavers.

Diana is supposed to represent the best of the Amazons.

Look at how Coogler handled Wakanda and T'Challa. He showed the flaws in Wakanda's isolationist policy but he also celebrated the culture and the idea of an uncolonized society and upheld the aspirational quality of it's mythology.

Meanwhile, folks in charge of adapting Wonder Woman and even in comics act like the Amazons and Themyscira act like the Amazons are dead weight and couldn't wait to separate her from her culture or treat it like something she should get away from or rebel against.

[Jim Kelly]

Well as has been pointed out before: the list is only small if you condense the headers. Without Zeus there would be no Humans. If not for Zeus, the Titans would still rule the world. And some other stuff like that...

Where does it say that?

In Ancient Greek myth-making, Prometheus is supposed to have created human beings. Or maybe Gaia--since men were believed to be born from the clay of the Earth and Prometheus formed men from clay. It seems like most myths have humans coming from the clay of the Earth. In some Greek stories, dragon's teeth are sown in the Earth and bands of men grow from that. So Gaia/Earth might be the ultimate source of life.

Zeus isn't the creator god like in the Bible. At best he orders other gods to do stuff and they create. But Zeus is from a later generation of gods. First there was Chaos who begat other gods including Gaia, Gaia begat more gods including Ouranos (sky), Gaia and Ouranos begat the Titans. Among the Titans were Kronos and Rhea who begat Zeus and his siblings. Kronos overthrew Ouranos and took his place--he also swallowed all his children to prevent them from taking his place but when Zeus was born Rhea deceived Kronos and hid Zeus. Until one day when Zeus forced Ouranos to throw up the contents of his belly freeing the other gods.

A lot of the Greek myths can be seen as propaganda to justify their patriarchy ruling that land. They were originally from somewhere else and invaded the Greek states, so they overthrew just as Zeus had overthrown. Might makes right. The goddesses that Zeus takes are often pre-existing matriarchal goddesses, such as Europa. So by taking these goddesses, the Greeks were justifying their patriarchy replacing the mother goddess with the father god.

There's no way the Amazons would have believed in this. The stories of Hercules/Theseus seducing Hippolyte/Antiope and taking Amazons into slavery are exactly this kind of propaganda myth--the Amazons represent the other, the anti-Greek, everything that male Greeks are against--so by their heroes taking the Amazons, they sent the message that the Greeks have a right to conquer foreign lands and their people.

It's absurd that Hippolyta and her sisters would put their faith in a mythology that said they deserved to be raped and enslaved.

[John Venus]

^

I mean, that sounds like a good AU or Morrison style meta story.

But the Amazons exist in a world where the Greek Gods are real and able to influence the people and environment around them. To the characters, the Greek Gods are real.

[Jim Kelly]

^

But the Amazons exist in a world where the Greek Gods are real and able to influence the people and environment around them. To the characters, the Greek Gods are real.

They believe in the existence of gods, but not just the Olympian--there's the Roman (some of which are the same but others are not), the Norse, the Hindu, the Egyptian, the Babylonian, the New Gods.

In our world, there are multiple faiths that believe in Abraham. Buddhism has origins in Hinduism, since Siddhārtha Gautama was a Hindu prince. Ancient Greeks absorbed gods from other cultures into their faith and the Romans did the same on a larger scale.

Believing in the same gods doesn't mean that everyone takes the same lessons from the mythologies surrounding those gods. I think that the Amazons would consider themselves as having a better understanding of their gods and would take Greek stories with a grain of salt.

[RobinGA]

People here can speak better than me how this was shown in the Wonder Woman comics.

But the historian in me can point out that you have to understand how multiple gods worked in
ancient societies. People often followed multiple gods who served different functions,
different perspectives. It was not at all uncommon for people to pick and choose some, not
others, it often was the default position. A citizen of an ancient city state would only
be required to show homage to your city's gods. How often, in which perspective an individual could add
would vary widely. Cynicism about the gods was often widespread, but there were often in addition
a variety of mystery cults that existed at the same time. In a society where multiple gods existed,
that you followed one god was considered odd, that someone followed multiple gods was not a huge deal.
What people in the middle east had a hard time understanding were the belief systems of Jewish people
who insisted on only one god. A whole other problem became the emergence of Christianity which made
repudiating participation in a city's festivals a matter of church doctrine. How hard to embrace a
system of oppression in response was either hard or soft depending on politics.

Amazon's would be perfectly consistent from the perspective of ancient belief systems
in following certain gods, but not others. It is a radically different way to think about
the divine. If you want to know more reading Robin Fox is a good place to start.

[marhawkman]

^

I mean, that sounds like a good AU or Morrison style meta story.

But the Amazons exist in a world where the Greek Gods are real and able to influence the people and environment around them. To the characters, the Greek Gods are real.

Yeah the DC version of Amazons have various patron deities that they depend on for their day to day existence. Sure many other adaptations (that aren't DC comics) do it differently, but DC has the Amazons as being very closely bound the the Greek gods.

[Jim Kelly]

Yeah the DC version of Amazons have various patron deities that they depend on for their day to day existence. Sure many other adaptations (that aren't DC comics) do it differently, but DC has the Amazons as being very closely bound the the Greek gods.

Except they don't have a consistent take on the Amazons, Wonder Woman and the gods, do they? If the writers were using the mythology from the classical sources or the cosmology of William Moulton Marston or what Perez established--then I'd accept that as the official version. But they don't do that and writers will completely change Themiscyra, Diana and the divinities from one issue to the next. So next time, why not change them for the better?

[marhawkman]

Except they don't have a consistent take on the Amazons, Wonder Woman and the gods, do they? If the writers were using the mythology from the classical sources or the cosmology of William Moulton Marston or what Perez established--then I'd accept that as the official version. But they don't do that and writers will completely change Themiscyra, Diana and the divinities from one issue to the next. So next time, why not change them for the better?

Inconsistent? those are rather minor changes for the most part. Your suggestion is ridiculously extreme.

[Alpha]

Well, like I said before, the Amazons were never Greek and their beliefs would predate the Mycenaeans and Minoans. They would have their own pantheon but they would would associate their divinities with the later Greek versions. The Queen of Heaven would be Inanna, but the stories of Aphrodite and Venus would be attributed to her--and she'd occupy the same place as Aphrodite in the Marston stories.

Perhaps they speak Proto-Indo-European but Greek is a second language they acquired in captivity, so that's why they have some Greek names.

Zeus would not be their sky father. To them he'd be a local god of the Athenians, as would be Athena. Instead they would worship Dyaus and merciful Minerva. Generally they'd look at the Greek religion as a pathetic misunderstanding of their truth.

However, the gods and goddesses wouldn't walk around and talk to the Amazons directly. Mainly Menalippe and the oracles would communicate the wishes of the divine through riddles. I do like Rucka's having gods appear in animal form. Amazons would have visions and dreams and see auguries of the divine in nature. They'd have an animistic understanding of the world.

Those sound like interesting ideas. I much prefer it to the current status quo.

[Jim Kelly]

I'm not advocating an extreme overhaul. Just a few tweaks that, if you squint, already are there in the comics. In a nutshell, here's how I want it:

• Prior to contact with Ancient Greek cultures, the Amazons lived in a matriarchy with their own language, culture and belief in deities.
• Upon contact with Ancient Greek cultures, the Amazons learned their dialects and adopted their names for those deities.
• Less "fake" Hercules and Zeus stuff and more "real" classical stuff (e.g. tales of Adonis, Agamemnon's family, Andromeda, Aphrodite, Ariadne, Atalante, Carthage, Dionysus, the Dioscuri, the Euxene Sea, the Hyperboreans, the Kindly Ones, Orpheus, Penthesileia, Priam's family, Psyche, Thebes).

[RobinGA]

I suppose the question becomes how important is it to have a more accurate
history, take on Greek mythology for most readers of Wonder Woman. I just
don't think most people care that much. I'm more than willing to be told I'm
wrong about that. That this is an issue that matters a lot to Wonder Woman fandom.

I don't mean to make this a class in Ancient Greek society. But while there was no
unified Greek nation, their society spread widely throughout the ancient world. They
had Greek colonies that were active throughout Turkey, the mediterrenean. Additionally, their
ideas spread through trade, commerce, movement of peoples. There is no reason then
that ancient Amazons would not have come into contact with Greek concepts. Basically,
where they lived it would be hard to avoid it in the ancient world.

The question becomes does this really matter? Do writers of the Wonder Woman books
really need to understand the basics of ancient Greek culture? Or is this just a useful backdrop,
that you can reference a little. If by some miracle some DC writer sat down with me to share
a Sprite, they would tell me that they just cherry pick concepts. I would just nod, saying
sure, I get it.

[Alpha]

Of course. And the reason why I prefer what Jim Kelly is pitching isn't that I want the amazons to be accurate to history, it's because I find it more interesting than what we have today.

[Jim Kelly]

I suppose the question becomes how important is it to have a more accurate
history, take on Greek mythology for most readers of Wonder Woman. I just
don't think most people care that much. I'm more than willing to be told I'm
wrong about that. That this is an issue that matters a lot to Wonder Woman fandom.

I don't mean to make this a class in Ancient Greek society. But while there was no
unified Greek nation, their society spread widely throughout the ancient world. They
had Greek colonies that were active throughout Turkey, the mediterrenean. Additionally, their
ideas spread through trade, commerce, movement of peoples. There is no reason then
that ancient Amazons would not have come into contact with Greek concepts. Basically,
where they lived it would be hard to avoid it in the ancient world.

The question becomes does this really matter? Do writers of the Wonder Woman books
really need to understand the basics of ancient Greek culture? Or is this just a useful backdrop,
that you can reference a little. If by some miracle some DC writer sat down with me to share
a Sprite, they would tell me that they just cherry pick concepts. I would just nod, saying
sure, I get it.

Most Wonder Woman origins use the Ancient Greek story that Heracles and/or Theseus invaded the Amazon homeland and seduced or captured Hippolyte and/or Antiope. That's a generation before the Trojan War, during the Mycenaean Age, in the 12th century B.C. At that time they spoke an earlier version of Greek and it would be 500 years before the rise of that Ancient Greek civilization (there was a Dark Age in between).

First Ancient Olympics - 776 B.C.
Pythagoras - 6th century B.C.
Plato - 5th century B.C.
Battle of Marathon - 490 B.C.
Alexander the Great - 4th century B.C.

Unless you use the collapsed timeline of Xena Warrior Princess--Wonder Woman's Amazons came before the rise of Ancient Greek civilization. So it makes more sense to me that they had their own language and maybe they influenced the Greeks (Mycenaeans were influenced in the development of their language by the Minoans on Crete).

The reason I want more classical stuff is because classical stories are great. It seems a waste to have a character based on classical myth and leave out the bulk of classical stories. That would be like a comic book about a knight of the Round Table that doesn't use any of the Arthurian legends.

[RobinGA]

Jim raises some very good points. I find the conversation interesting. I'm
also not arguing, but adding some new thoughts. I like it when we talk about
things, rather than getting lost into well, I can't believe you said that. But then
I come from a discipline where we tend to argue a lot.

From a historical perspective the further back in time you go the harder it is
for us to really know what was taking place. Historical records tend to be spotty,
we have too many gaps. We try to fill what is missing with archaeology, examining
material possessions, even pouring over the remnants of garbage. There is just a
lot we don't know. That especially becomes true when we get back into what historians
call prehistory, ancient peoples that lived before recorded history.

What we do know about the Ancient Greeks is that they were a seaborne people, who were
engaged in commerce and trade. How extensive it was is debatable. Part of that because
much of early Greek society was an oral culture, much like say the stories of Homer. The problem
with an oral culture is that if it becomes forgotten, what doesn't gets recorded isn't around.

What does that have to do with Wonder Woman? Well, it seems to me that the closer we can
get to that mythology and history the better. Of course, that becomes very hard when looking
at very Ancient Greece. The closest to that 12,000 BC, or some of the descriptions of Hercules and
Hippolyte are 500 BC pottery is probably Minos. They are the most ancient Greece civilization but they
clock in around 3500 BC, with huge gaps. We don't know what their language was like, because
we haven't been able to figure it out. Isn't history wonderful?

But Minos gives us a picture of what Greek society in the very ancient period was like: seabased commerce,
importance of trade, aggressive, connecting with people over a wide space. People whose economic
livelihood is based on commerce tend to have wide connections. We have seen this with Pacific Northwest
Native Americans who in the Pre-European contact had trade relations that were thousands of miles.

I agree with Jim that getting the mythology right is important. After all comics are just modern mythology
if you think about it. A comic book writer who didn't understand the impact of the genocide of Krypton for
Superman wouldn't be taken seriously. The impact of ancient Greece on Wonder Woman's character
has to be part of the worldview.

Don't worry I will shut up now. Time to get ready for the positive subjects of the Bubonic Plague and the
English Peasant's Revolt.