What's the difference between Azzarello's approach writing WW compared to Simones's or Rucka's?

[Tangent Man]

I'd also like to mention Buffy, a show about a female superhero which was very successful with fans and critics and which is known for its feminist themes. Buffy and Willow fight quite often. Buffy often acts like a bad person and asks for her friends' forgiveness. Willow becomes evil when she gets carried away by her power while Buffy constantly tries to keep her power and humanity in check. Anya is a female demon, now human who is trying to get accustomed to the new conditions of her life. Xander often feels inadequate and useless next to everyone else who has a specific role yet matures to become self confident, get his mind out of the sexual gutter and become the heart of the team (they even hammered it home when he became the heart part of the super-Slayer, with Willow being the spirit, Giles the mind, Buffy and hands and strength).

So... can we move on from the simplistic "women are good, men are bad, MMM'KAY?" type of storytelling when it comes to WW? Every other comic seems to have moved on to more complex ways of dealing with characters and themes. It will really help WW if we treat her and her cast as normal people and not as avatars for all womankind and mankind.

Wrong example to choose, because I know Buffy, and you insulted that fine series by comparing it with Azz' overrated volume. Women may have fought, but they showed their ultimate strength through cooperation and sharing power! It wasn't just "Buffy is the BEST, dudes are Kewl, and women are messed up LAWLZ". Joss Whedon & Mutant Enemy writers didn't dumb down, disguise, diminish, or apologize for feminist themes. Please don't ever serve Whedon so poorly again by comparing him with the likes of Brian Azzarello!

Also, Wonder Woman moved well beyond that line of simplistic thought you laid out in paragraph #2 looong before DC stuck their Azz in our face. Perez, Loebs, Byrne, Jiminez, Rucka, Simone. All showed Wonder Woman strive to bridge the gender gap without the degrading reversal of your own joke in Azz' portrayal: "Dudes are cool, chicks r crazy n suck, MMM'KAY?"

[Dr. Hurt]

The notion of women as "Natural Rivals" not only discounts the dimensions of relationships between women, it's a motif traditionally (and rightly) recognized as ANTI-Feminist.

You must have missed the part where Diana is best buds with Zola.
And i personally dont see Azz trying to make any points about women fighting each other. This is just characters fighting each other, regardless of gender. But if a woman cant fight a woman because it's sexist, then you better speak about it to my mother and sister, because those sexist women keep fighting all the time.

Except that Azz came extremely late to the WW Game, because this was already explored--and RESOLVED--by Perez way back in the 80's in the "Challenge of The Gods". Hera saw the futility of her dysfunctional cycle, and chose to break it. Largely because she was inspired by Wonder Woman & the Amazons...and it didn't take 3 damn years for that to happen!

Even Rucka went there by making Hera destroy Jiminez' Paradise Island, a choice many readers protested! Perhaps if the most ardent Azz-Fans better understood WW history, they'd recognize that he isn't quite so visionary.

It's a reboot. And with WW becoming a child of Zeus, you know that Hera will be included in her stardard role of the vindictive wife.

Feminist does NOT equal "Feminazi". Also, the problem with your scenario is that Azz presents a paradigm of "Wonder Woman = Perfect" and "All Other Females = A Fallen, Broken Species (Goddesses Included [Especially?])". The best Wonder Woman stories present women as affirming, positive, strong, fallible, weak, negative--well-rounded. Paula started as a cartoonish Nazi villain, and became one of Wonder Woman's most trusted allies. Etta was flaky, but fun, spirited, and loyal. She grew into SO much more under Gail! Julia started as a strong, if cranky, academic who woke up to unrealized possibilities of new intellectual and spiritual frontiers. Myndi meant well, if too greedy and self-serving at times, and self-destructed. Hippolyta & the Amazons were a strong, loving support network, if smothering and isolationist at other turns.

Women aren't just "all good" or "all bad". Azz reduces women to an unflattering, and, yes, misogynistic dichotomy! Many of you complained that "Wonder Woman was TOO perfect before Flashpoint". What is she now, though, as the sole beacon of Womanhood in a dark, churning world of Patriarchal oppression and broken women? These stories clearly place Diana on a pedestal--you can't have it both ways!

I dont think the Amazons are evil. They are just people. Just like i dont think that the Spartans were evil for killing their deformed babies. They were people of their time. And the Amazons seem to be stuck in antiquity. Not just that, but they're isolated from the rest of the world, so it makes sense that they'd have some misconceptions about it. Hell, we do, and we have tv, the internet, and all this technology that brings us together and we're still xenophobic, racist, sexist and what have you. Women were only allowed to vote a few decades ago. We werent evil then, we just needed to open our minds and progress as a society.

I realise that this makes WW stand out as the only beacon, instead of the Amazons joining her on it, but i dont think it is bad. I also dont think that Zola is sexist for example. She's the most level headed of them all. So it's not just WW.

That's such an intellectually dishonest statement, and you know it! Were Gail's Diana, Donna, and Cassie lesbians? The Birds of Prey seemed pretty Hetero to ME!

Gail tried to make WW gay every chance she got but she wasnt allowed to. So she and Rucka could only do some innuendos about it. And the Amazons were often identified as lesbians because hey, how else could they pass the time, or something to that effect.

Actually, not everyone enjoys pseudo-nihilism in their comic book entertainment. Some of us enjoy optimism and fun, as options in a well-balanced "diet". You can have those without the story reading as saccharine or bland. Fighting might be natural, but it's also natural to enjoy affirming relationships, too.

So what you're saying is "NOT MUH PREFERED WAY OF STORYTELLING". A character can only profit from that. Here

[Dr. Hurt]

Wrong example to choose, because I know Buffy, and you insulted that fine series by comparing it with Azz' overrated volume.

OK, so you are the one who decides what is good and isnt, so if you say Azz's run is overrated, then it is, and we shouldnt dare to compare it to things you deem good, like Buffy. Ok.

Women may have fought, but they showed their ultimate strength through cooperation and sharing power!

Yes, so? Isnt this what is happening with Hera who forgave and was forgiven and who has joined WW's side against the FB, her own son?

And you know, sometimes real life isnt like it is in feministic dreams or tv series. Sometimes women dont make up. Sometimes a woman kills another woman.

It wasn't just "Buffy is the BEST,

Most of the times it was. I remember that time that female Watcher came by and she was ten times better at being a watcher than Giles. She pointed out so many bad things about the way they worked, but oops.... she is evil, so let's kill her and ignore any good points she made.

dudes are Kewl,

There's a term for male characters written by Whedon. [another word for cat]boys. Angel was the worst.

Joss Whedon & Mutant Enemy writers didn't dumb down, disguise, diminish, or apologize for feminist themes.

And i assume Azz is doing that according to you. Well that's your opinion.

Please don't ever serve Whedon so poorly again by comparing him with the likes of Brian Azzarello!

It's not like i compared him to Victor Hugo.

Also, Wonder Woman moved well beyond that line of simplistic thought you laid out in paragraph #2 looong before DC stuck their Azz in our face. Perez, Loebs, Byrne, Jiminez, Rucka, Simone. All showed Wonder Woman strive to bridge the gender gap without the degrading reversal of your own joke in Azz' portrayal: "Dudes are cool, chicks r crazy n suck, MMM'KAY?"

Chicks arent crazy. Diana and Zola are just fine. The Amazons might be a bit close minded though.

[Cmbmool]

Azzarello barely acknowledge the rest of the DCU, unlike his predecessors.

[Silvanus]

1. True, but at the same time, Marston also presented readers with Hippolyta, Mala, Etta & the Holliday Girls. Marston compared positive "femininity" with the negative kind that resulted from patriarchal control. The women you described were victims of patriarchy, and/or otherwise made sick by the baser values of socialization in "Man's World". Wonder Woman & friends offered a positive counterpoint, not only because of Diana's innate goodness, but because she came from a world of loving, mutually-respectful relationships.

It's certainly true that they they were victims of patriarchy. So were the Amazons, in fact--and they too were damaged by it, before the goddesses redeemed them.

In Azzarello's volume, Hera, too, is a victim of patriarchy--a pretty archetypal one: "forced to her knees" (according to Poseidon) as an official consort and a kind of accessory to the monarchy by her brother-husband Zeus, utterly dependent on her unloving husband for her role in the patriarchy, cruelly deprived of her first-born because her husband was bent upon protecting his patriarchal rule. And, of course, she was damaged.

In my view, Wonder Woman offers a positive coutnerpoint to the damaged Hera, partly because Wodner Woman came from an island in which women, among themselves, had mostly (though not perfectly) loving, mutually repsectful relationships among themselves. (Think of Diana's sisters lifting her up and cheering her after she captured the harpy's egg; and think of Diana thanking Hippolyta for lessons of strentght and self-reliance--just before she herself shared the same lessons with Hera). But also because she had sometimes felt like a misfit and so had gained an outsider's perspctive and empathy for other outsiders, and because their eprspective had ecentually led her to travel and expand the circle of her love.

And Zola, too, offers a positive counterpoint, by, somwhat amazingly, offering Hera friendship and forgiveness. It's something she's able to do largely because she's empowered by her loving, mutually respectful relationship with Diana.

Let's also remember that it's not only women who need mercy or redemption in this book. Ares, Orion, Milan, Hermes, the Minotaur, Hades--all need and expeirence a woman's mercy and/or encouragtement and/or other forms of positive influence.

See the difference?

Sure, there are differences. In this version, not even a matrairchal society is free of matriachal tensions or violent reaction against patraiarchy. But Diana is able to start building a more love loving, mutually respectful society. I can understand how this and other differences might lead you to an interpretation and critique of the book as non-feminist or even anti-feminist.

I think my own, much different interpretation is also valid, though. As I interpret the differences, this book has a more of "21st century" vision of gender: chastened by the obstacles that feminism has faced, it doesn't pretend that matirarchy would be a virtually ideal, utopian alternative to patriarchy (as Marston did imagine, pretty much); but encouraged by the successes of feminism, it shows women building stronger relationships and stronger selves even in the absence of such a utopian refuge.

[Gaelforce]

So...I'm on vacation, the internet isn't so good and the forums have been slow, so I fell behind for what...a day?...and this is already out of hand. One permanent ban has resulted - please don't make it more.

1. Discuss Buffy elsewhere. This is a thread about three different Wonder Woman runs, not about how Wonder Woman compares to Buffy or, as the thread veered off, the feminist aspects of Buffy.

2. Do not issue personal challenges to other posters.

3. Name calling is right out.

4. The level of antagonism in this thread is through the roof. If someone is getting nasty, put 'em on ignore (either with the button or with your brain) and don't rise to the bait. Responding to garbage with garbage can get you banned.

5. Rather than waste time here instead of the pool, I deleted a bunch of posts instead of carefully editing them. A lot of you responded with some good points but were responding to a post that got deleted. Please feel free to re-post those excellent opinions.

Thanks!

Gaelforce
Wonder Woman Forum Moderator

[Blacksun]

Azzarello barely acknowledge the rest of the DCU, unlike his predecessors.

that is good...new 52 is not like old DCU

[Gaelforce]

You must have missed the part where Diana is best buds with Zola.
And i personally dont see Azz trying to make any points about women fighting each other. This is just characters fighting each other, regardless of gender. But if a woman cant fight a woman because it's sexist, then you better speak about it to my mother and sister, because those sexist women keep fighting all the time.

It's a reboot. And with WW becoming a child of Zeus, you know that Hera will be included in her stardard role of the vindictive wife.

I dont think the Amazons are evil. They are just people. Just like i dont think that the Spartans were evil for killing their deformed babies. They were people of their time. And the Amazons seem to be stuck in antiquity. Not just that, but they're isolated from the rest of the world, so it makes sense that they'd have some misconceptions about it. Hell, we do, and we have tv, the internet, and all this technology that brings us together and we're still xenophobic, racist, sexist and what have you. Women were only allowed to vote a few decades ago. We werent evil then, we just needed to open our minds and progress as a society.

I realise that this makes WW stand out as the only beacon, instead of the Amazons joining her on it, but i dont think it is bad. I also dont think that Zola is sexist for example. She's the most level headed of them all. So it's not just WW.

Gail tried to make WW gay every chance she got but she wasnt allowed to. So she and Rucka could only do some innuendos about it. And the Amazons were often identified as lesbians because hey, how else could they pass the time, or something to that effect.

1. You are mis-characterizing Gail's run. She wanted Diana to be bi-sexual, not gay. I don't agree with either one, but at no point has she ever tried or wanted to make Diana and/or all the Amazons lesbian.

2. The fact that the Amazons are stuck in the past is, imo, part of the problem. I'm fine with the idea of 'dirtying up' the Amazons, but there are plenty of civilizations where men made all the innovations and moved forward technologically speaking. The idea (because this is the only example in DCU) now presented by Azzarello is that if you put a bunch of women on an island they are completely incapable of progressing past the bronze age (and what progression they've made seems to be because a man (Hephaestus) trades weapons for babies)

3000 years of isolation and they are still brutish man-hating murderers. That does not speak well of women. Again, if this was one example of many, I'm good with it, but as the *only* example and one which was supposed to show how women, when not being subservient to men, could excel, it comes across to me as exceedingly misogynistic.

[Indigo Al]

According to Gail, that can only happen if women are lesbians.

Gail tried to make WW gay every chance she got but she wasnt allowed to.

Nope. Nothing backs up that assumption in any way shape or form. Gail has said she sees Diana as bi. But as stilted and awkward as the Tom Tresser romance was, it was still there. If anyone read any sexual or romantic tension between WW and Black Canary when they teamed up, I'd like to know where exactly it was. Otherwise we see two superheroines who are friends, support each other and have kickass team-ups. In fact, an overly sensitive person could even argue that Alkyone, as an unreasonable militant "butch", was a bad stereotype - I certainly don't accuse Gail of that viewpoint nor do I believe that was her intention.

So she and Rucka could only do some innuendos about it. And the Amazons were often identified as lesbians because hey, how else could they pass the time, or something to that effect.

Hm. I guess I missed that memo. I often thought they were identified as lesbians because because the creator of Wonder Woman himself filled his original work with all manner of crazy, kinky whimsical same-sex games and subtext.

And frankly - if they were bored and decided to do each other because what else are they gonna do? Well, so what? I find that much more admirable than banging a boatfull of sailors and tossing them overboard.

[Blacksun]

Well I think WW and black cannary has some great chemistry, but they were just friends and never was explicit that they were cool with eachother because they wanted to enter in eachother pants.

of course there is amazons that are lesbians, it's just normal in any society. Probably with amazons is more natural because there is only women in the island.

Gail Simone *WW* seemed too much straight for me... (lol saw the mistake I made)

[Dr. Hurt]

1. You are mis-characterizing Gail's run. She wanted Diana to be bi-sexual, not gay. I don't agree with either one, but at no point has she ever tried or wanted to make Diana and/or all the Amazons lesbian.

2. The fact that the Amazons are stuck in the past is, imo, part of the problem. I'm fine with the idea of 'dirtying up' the Amazons, but there are plenty of civilizations where men made all the innovations and moved forward technologically speaking. The idea (because this is the only example in DCU) now presented by Azzarello is that if you put a bunch of women on an island they are completely incapable of progressing past the bronze age (and what progression they've made seems to be because a man (Hephaestus) trades weapons for babies)

3000 years of isolation and they are still brutish man-hating murderers. That does not speak well of women. Again, if this was one example of many, I'm good with it, but as the *only* example and one which was supposed to show how women, when not being subservient to men, could excel, it comes across to me as exceedingly misogynistic.

I dont have a problem with ancient Amazons because that's what most of us think when we think about them. Like if someone said "what if Sparta was seperated from the world into an island lost in the ocean only to reappear now?" most of us would think Spartan hoplites in the modern world. Or super soldiers with modern technology. But then what would be the point if you're not gonna use the hoplites? Ok, the point of the Amazons is feminism first and mythology second so... I guess if you look at it this way, they should be super advanced in tech and morality.

About the killing and close-mindedness, I am not a fan either. It makes sense that any civilization would fall behind when isolated (we have so many historical examples of this, and it wasnt just a few thousand women, but nations like Japan), but this is WW, this should still be a feministic story, so yes, it doesnt work anymore.

I'd keep them in antiquity because for me it's too cool to pass up, but i'm with you, in that i wouldnt go in Azz's lengths in dirtying them up.


PS. I only mentioned Buffy as an example, like i did with Spartans here. I didnt mean to derail the thread.

[Gaelforce]

I dont have a problem with ancient Amazons because that's what most of us think when we think about them. Like if someone said "what if Sparta was seperated from the world into an island lost in the ocean only to reappear now?" most of us would think Spartan hoplites in the modern world. Or super soldiers with modern technology. But then what would be the point if you're not gonna use the hoplites? Ok, the point of the Amazons is feminism first and mythology second so... I guess if you look at it this way, they should be super advanced in tech and morality.

About the killing and close-mindedness, I am not a fan either. It makes sense that any civilization would fall behind when isolated (we have so many historical examples of this, and it wasnt just a few thousand women, but nations like Japan), but this is WW, this should still be a feministic story, so yes, it doesnt work anymore.

I'd keep them in antiquity because for me it's too cool to pass up, but i'm with you, in that i wouldnt go in Azz's lengths in dirtying them up.


PS. I only mentioned Buffy as an example, like i did with Spartans here. I didnt mean to derail the thread.

An example was fine, but afterwards it began a spinoff about the feminism of Buffy, which is what got deleted

I'm even fine with the idea that Perez used which was advanced magically, but in both cases, advanced ethically.

I could deal with backwards technology if they were at least, generally, enlightened. Women throughout the ages have been made subservient to men, and so you take a group of people who were brutalized/victimized/mistreated who set out with the goal to create a society where they can excel without being held back by men and...they fail miserably.

Just can't get into that

And for those young'uns here, as an example of this (I'd mentioned this on the other forum) girls were banned from playing little league when I was a kid. Men made the rules. Men played the game. Girls weren't allowed to play.

It's a very lightweight analogy for history, but one which is just easy to point to and say 'this is what I mean by the way men (as a whole) treated women (as a whole)'. I'm not referring to individuals, but rather the institutions that were set in place by men. Even in the 'modern' era there are clear cut examples of 'girls aren't allowed.'

So the Amazons were in a *much* more 'girls aren't allowed' society and went to form a society where they were free to do as they pleased *just like the men* with the additional idea that they had been poorly treated and set out to get out from under that (i.e. violence isn't the answer)

Kinda makes Azz's Amazons a bit insulting, imo, that the ones we've been shown are brutal, crude, violent and we haven't seen a sign of any 'skills' outside of combat.

[Dr. Hurt]

I agree, i agree. Like i said in that other thread where I replied to that great post of yours, it just doesnt work anymore if you push the Amazons so far down. We havent seen any counter points, any redeeming qualities to them. They dont appear as a three dimensional nation. We've only seen the obnoxious Aleka that speaks for everyone and Hippolyta who only had a romance. There isnt much character there, only this bad stuff.

[Gaelforce]

I agree, i agree. Like i said in that other thread where I replied to that great post of yours, it just doesnt work anymore if you push the Amazons so far down. We havent seen any counter points, any redeeming qualities to them. They dont appear as a three dimensional nation. We've only seen the obnoxious Aleka that speaks for everyone and Hippolyta who only had a romance. There isnt much character there, only this bad stuff.

Yeah, it's a shame, really. There was a lot of potential to differentiate the Amazons, but not only did we apparently lose all the ones we had before, we haven't been given anyone to fill in for them.

[Dr. Hurt]

Indeed. In the past we had all these Amazons that we knew. I didnt like them all, but it was nice to see different characters, to hear different opinions about stuff. Now an entire nation of immortal women is represented by a 25 year old girl (she's about WW's age right?) who is constantly pissed off. I mean just the fact that some thousand year old Amazon hasnt grown tired of her shouting and hasnt stood up and told her "shut the hell up kid" makes me even madder.