She used swords intermittently here and there as far back as the Golden Age but the popular image of it being a default weapon is probably due to more Kingdom Come than anything else.
Yep Kingdom Come is the reason. Think about it: It was by far the most popular story DC had put out in its heyday, and it was far more widely read than WW’s ongoing ever was. So writers trying to find an “in” for her used that story as the basis, similar to how DKR’s stooge Superman was used as the basis for Post Crisis Superman and formed the foundation for the Post Crisis Superman/Batman relationship until Loeb shifted it back to more brotherly terms. The problem of course is that 1. Waid openly admits that he didn’t connect with WW and so just used her as he wanted in that story and 2. the whole story is about the Trinity being out of character. Bruce is a totalitarian, Clark’s a bitter dick, and Diana is waving her sword around hollering for people’s heads. That characterization and usage of the sword (I don’t think the lasso shows up or is used at all) in the biggest story WW had been in up to that point massively affected how people saw her character.
For when my rants on the forums just aren’t enough: https://thevindicativevordan.tumblr.com/
At least the movies kind of fixed that. She's definitely become less sword heavy in recent media, hopefully it will stick.
It's funny how a comic designed to make the trinity jerks paved the way for who they would become later down the line. It kind of felt like the new 52 copied and pasted them into their ongoing books.
Like others have said, it started in Kingdom Come. There was a time when DC was trying really hard to make their main universe similar to Kingdom Come. Especially post Infinite Crisis.
I think the real damage was when Waid had Batman proclaim that war is the Amazonian way and that to follow her Amazonian ways would mean extinction. Thus once again, Diana's heritage is something she is meant to rebel against and of course leads to Super-Jesus as the lord and saviour of the world. Then after that she becomes a glorified baby mama for Clark's Kryptonian kids and none of the kids we see carry any Amazonian heritage. They are all 'Superboys'.
It really should have been Diana, bitter and angry, after being exiled, going down a dark path, before snapping back to reality and realizing what the Amazon's were really about and then reconnecting with her people at the end. Like, where was Hippolyta in all of this? Or her villains? Why was she okay with exiling Diana? Was she exiled by the Gods?
Yeah, Diana's story and motive was definitely lacking. She was seen as a general to Superman despite being in man's world since the 40's, and not viewed as his equal by the public (in terms of authority). She says the Amazons exiled her because she wasn't changing the world, that she had become corrupt in her time among mankind and was in fact making the earth a worse place. It's like the writers forgot the Amazons aren't her subjects, their her family. Then when she actually does do something that was responsible for the death of thousands, her people accept her again? (Also does this sound a little too much like Injustice or what)
I think Batman also made a passing comment that she was brainwashed by her culture or something. And he was dictator to Gotham in all but name.
But again, they were all supposed to be jerks in this series. How else do you get friends to fight each other. And it's an elseworld's story so I don't really mind them be written as jerks, it's more-so the fallout and how it affects their portray's afterwords that I mind. I think writers forget that these versions of the characters exist in elseworld stories for a reason.
Yeah, I cut Waid some slack over a lot of others as he's stated he didn't "get" Wonder Woman when he was doing that story but he's also stated he's not happy it's influence has made it's way over into more "canon" versions of Diana.
There's also been far worse Elseworld versions of Diana since then so it comes off rather tame and restained nowadays.
Yeah, I never got quite the reasons for the Amazons exiling her in the story. I think it was because they thought she hadn't made enough progress in making the world a better place but I can't really imagine the Amazons, usually depicted as immortal, thinking solving rather nebulous concepts like war/evil would take only a few decades.
When I was a kid, this was the first "Wonder Woman with a sword" I remember seeing:
wonder-woman-volume-1-issue-253-cover.jpg
When I started buying back issues, I found this:
Wonder_Woman_Vol_1_206.jpg
And I love this Golden Age panel in which she's "fencing" and treating it all like a fun game:
Wonder Woman fencing.jpg
Last edited by Gaius; 02-17-2021 at 10:58 AM.
Diana needs her big ending story, her DKR or All-Star that’s all about her mythos and centered around her. I had hoped Dead Earth would be that but unfortunately it wasn’t (at least not for me though I did like parts of it). Morrison told Scott Snyder that you needed to give a character a “birth” (origin) and a “death” to make them “yours” and there’s something to that imo. I wish Rucka had been able to come up with a story for Diana’s Daughter that satisfied him since he’s the one WW writer I’d trust to do a good job. I think Simone could do a good job too but I didn’t enjoy her Plastic Man mini so I dunno how well she holds up quality-wise since I haven’t read her other work. Maybe KSD will do a good job with Historia and want to take a stab?
I just want a really huge finale for Diana so she can be on equal terms with Bats and Supes.
For when my rants on the forums just aren’t enough: https://thevindicativevordan.tumblr.com/
Everyone, who was reading New Teen Titans in the 1980s - the real Titans, and not the sucky, kiddie-table version, seen today - knows the 'Thia' story arc was George Perez's dress rehearsal for the post-Crisis Wonder Woman. The "Clash Of The Titans" predates the Crisis-related story arc, which ends with WW #300, and the first comic, since Mike Sekowsky's run, that brought the Amazons and the Greek gods together in a big, cinematic way - the first of a nauseatingly, repetitive assembly line of Wonderverse-spawned 'god wars'. That's really the first time we see the Amazons looking anything, like the ornately, heavily armored, pteryged, sword-bearing Amazons, ..who forebore the Wonder Woman we love, today.
I'm so sick of Wonderverse god wars. Does it show? Am I showing, yet? Sorry.
It did begin, like the BEST of everything Wonder, outside of the WW comic, ..and it did most certainly begin with George Perez and Donna Troy.
Last edited by Mel Dyer; 02-25-2021 at 05:15 AM.
COMBINING THE BIGBADITUDE OF THANOS WITH CHEETAH'S FEROCITY, IS JANUS WONDER WOMAN'S GREATEST SUPERVILLAIN?...on WONDABUNGA!!! Look alive, Kangaliers!