John Byrne run thoughts?

[Nightcrawler92]

Soooooo why does NOBODY seem to enjoy John Byrne’s run on the book? I’ve literally never heard a happy thing about it?

[Gaius]

Just wasn't that particularly good at the end of the day.

Probably the first major instance of a writer coming on to WW, in the post-Crisis years, and completely discarding most things that came before them. New setting, new cast, new villain OCs, etc, etc. The previous writer, Loebs, also had elements of that but Byrne went much farther.

And to little benefit imo given I don't care for the more long lasting developments like Cassie being a redundant version of Vanessa and the absolute needless continuity mess of a time-traveling Hippolyta being WW2 Wonder Woman.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

As Gaius says, alot of his changes were needlessly redundant and came without warning.
Abruptly moving Diana from Boston to newly created Gateway City.
Creating Helena Sandsmark, Cassandra Sandsmark, and Mike Schorr who were thinly veiled copies of Perez characters. The only difference being that these characters he would recieve royalties from using. Not that he ever developed any of them as characters, with it being other writers who picked up Cassie for the Young Justice which gave the girl any depth.

He opens his run with Darkseid massacring the Amazons, and more of the tireless yammering he had back when he was over on Superman about how lame the Greek gods are compared to the New Gods and how Darkseid could totally kill all of Olympus single handed without even trying because the New Gods are actually older than the universe and predate the Olympians despite being called the New Gods.

He erases the redemption arc Perez gave Heracles for better or worse, and has him slip Diana a roofie with the intent of date raping her. Also somehow he gives his godhood to a random billionaire in exchange for said billionaires mortal wealth and identity. (Keeping his super powers, so hes a god on Earth.)

He further worsens the 'Hippolyta is bad actually' plotline that Messner-Loebs set up, establishing that she laid a curse on Diana so that Diana would actually lose her powers in the pressence of Artemis, which is the only reason she lost. AND has this be an excuse for Neron just popping up suddenly to effortlessly kill Wonder Woman for the LOLs.

Of all villains he brings back Egg-Fu, establishing him to be a New God super computer and thus superior to anything because New Gods.

He did some interesting things such as establishing the cavewoman that was Hippolytas prior incarnation was the daughter of Ares. And his origin of Zeus giving Cassie powers was neat for his character.

And some odd but otherwise harmless things like the weird Doris Zeul origin, the mole men beneath Antartica, the computer kid who made hologram doomsday, and an entire plot centered around evil Merlin, and Morgan Le Fae.

[Koriand'r]

It started rough but got better as it went along. Hippolyta as Golden Age Wonder Woman was well executed and he had stories for Donna and Artemis while inventing Cassie. By the time it ended the book had a Wonder Woman Family feel.

[wonder39]

It started rough but got better as it went along. Hippolyta as Golden Age Wonder Woman was well executed and he had stories for Donna and Artemis while inventing Cassie. By the time it ended the book had a Wonder Woman Family feel.

Bad art. Really bad. ( and I loved his work up to then). Tossed out everything before, new stupid made up city, new versions of Julia and Vanessa ( that's less horrible than the rest of it). Dead Diana, Hippolyta as golden Age We, adding Magala to the mix ( why was she old and ugly?!?). And the absolute horror of what he did to Donna.

Too much focus on other ips ( Etrigan, Darkseid, Doomsday,etc)

And did you see how her drew Diana at first? Massive tiara, massive emblem, massive bracelets, two stars on shorts? Biggest of big hair.

It was all just terrible.

[Koriand'r]

Bad art. Really bad. ( and I loved his work up to then). Tossed out everything before, new stupid made up city, new versions of Julia and Vanessa ( that's less horrible than the rest of it). Dead Diana, Hippolyta as golden Age We, adding Magala to the mix ( why was she old and ugly?!?). And the absolute horror of what he did to Donna.

Too much focus on other ips ( Etrigan, Darkseid, Doomsday,etc)

And did you see how her drew Diana at first? Massive tiara, massive emblem, massive bracelets, two stars on shorts? Biggest of big hair.

It was all just terrible.

It was amazing to me that the same guy who put Jean Grey into that iconic black gown at the first Hellfire Gala and made Lois Lane look sleek and modern and She-Hulk look cool, somehow let his taste devolve to the point where it was when he was drawing Wonder Woman. He had a Kanigher era picture of her in his head and went after it full force to his detriment. Too lazy to draw stars he overcompensated with a giant tiara that was visible all the way around her head and looked decidedly old-fashioned. In the end though, he was able to soften his depiction to something that was still weird, but tolerable. For instance, the two stars on the shorts went from elongated and angular to two fat symmetrical stars that were way better. I appreciated that he drew her back in her proper costume in the last panel of his run as if everything that came before had been a bad dream.

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[Psy-lock]

The run itself wasn't good, but the subsequent writers did some great things with the characters/concepts he established. So it all worked out in the end.

[Dr. Poison]

I thought it was a fun ride. I really enjoyed Byrne having Hippolyta become the World War II Wonder Woman and joining the JSA & the All-Star Squadron. I also liked that he gave Donna Troy a solid connection to Wonder Woman again after that Post-Crisis Titans of Myth garbage. Cassie was a, at first, quirky addition to the cast but I've really come to like her. Dark Angel was a cool & spooky addition to the Wonder-rogues and I was happy to see him bring back Cheetah, Armageddon, and especially Giganta!

[Thirteen]

This run suffered from Too much Byrne Syndrome: Writer/Penciller/Inker/Letterer?!?! Share the wealth with someone else...

I liked his tinkering with the WW suit that connected the breastplate with the girdle/belt for better color blocking.



I have a fondness to the beginning of the reflection brought to life origin for Donna. It quickly falls apart but it was a decent start.

[Koriand'r]

I abhor the belt connecting to the =W= it forces the belt to be too long and pointy to take up space that would be filled by the body of the eagle with it's legs sitting on top of the belt in the correct way. If they're using the double W there should be red between it and the belt.

WW Golden-AgeJMS.jpg

[marhawkman]

I abhor the belt connecting to the =W= it forces the belt to be too long and pointy to take up space that would be filled by the body of the eagle with it's legs sitting on top of the belt in the correct way. If they're using the double W there should be red between it and the belt.

WW Golden-AgeJMS.jpg

Especially when the belt ends up super-wide and pointy...

[Jim Kelly]

Soooooo why does NOBODY seem to enjoy John Byrne’s run on the book? I’ve literally never heard a happy thing about it?

I liked it a lot. Made me very happy. I don't talk about it much because it's not worth the grief from others who want everyone to feel miserable about it.

[Thirteen]

I abhor the belt connecting to the =W= it forces the belt to be too long and pointy to take up space that would be filled by the body of the eagle with it's legs sitting on top of the belt in the correct way. If they're using the double W there should be red between it and the belt.

I wonder if the unified color blocking that I'm preferring might stem from making it less of a belt and more of a corset/girdle and pinging thoughts of "Golden Girdle of Gaea" and half memories of...

[Sebastianne]

I recently finished reading the entire volume 2, and I really think Byrne's is the worst run of that era.
I think the worst of the worst was the new cheap copu supporting cast of the existing one; but despite that, I must say that I liked it, it is dynamic and fun.
I also think Byrne was more interested in the supporting cast than Diana herself.
But I consider that whole era, with its ups and downs, the best of Diana; then New 52, Rebirth, Infinite Frontier would come, which were never consistent like that era of George Perez, Messner-Loebs, Byrne, Luke, Jimenez and Rucka.

[M@Bowers2014]

I was excited about it when it was first announced because I was still a Byrne fan back then. My initial reaction was more boredom than hate. I did actual like how he made Hippolyta the Golden Age Wonder Woman. I hated what he did to Donna which I think I've posted before. Overall it's a very boring run and it's the run that made me realize that I was starting to really dislike Byrne's work. It's a WW run I have zero interest in re-reading unlike Perez's and Jimenez's runs.