John Byrne run thoughts?

[marhawkman]

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...

this gets weird because of just how different the metallic finish makes it FEEL.

this one feels like CLOTH, not armor plate, that changes everything.

But this one:

this feels like armor plat especially since the coloring is exactly the same as her tiara.

[Guy_McNichts]

Crap.

I'm not really a fan of Byrne's writing in general. A lot of his work that I've seen tends to fall into certain comic book tropes that I don't like--particularly "Things need to be a certain way because my nostalgia!" and "When in doubt, just add lore!"

Effectively turning Diana into a legacy character because he decided there needed to be a Wonder Woman in World War II...garbage.
Making Donna Troy's origin even more of a mess because he decides she needs to literally be Diana's sister...weak.
Retconning the cavewoman that became Hippolyta into Ares' daughter because he needed a justification for Diana becoming a goddess.....ugh.

Speaking, the impetus for goddess Diana came about from a really lame and anti-climactic death that just made her look like a loser. For that matter, I was never really impressed with Diana in terms of feats throughout his run. At a glance, it might seem like he's portraying her as a proper powerhouse by pitting her against the likes of Doomsday and whatnot, but she always seemed to need help or barely scrape by due to some contrivance.

Further, I got the impression he was more interested in everyone but Diana throughout the run. His OC characters, the New Gods, Etrigan, random guest stars...

It contains many if not all the hallmarks of a bad WW run.

I also don't care for his modification of Diana's costume. The giant belt connecting to her breastplate never made sense to me. Isn't it supposed to be metal? How is she leaning forward or bending over in that?

[kcekada]

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 was quite happy when DC announced he was taking it over. At some point, I recall thinking the book needed someone of his ilk since it had floundered since Perez's departure. Actually, the book took a turn for the worse when Perez stopped drawing - and changed the type of stories to be more domestic (yawn) in nature.

There were a couple of things he did that I liked (not many) and one was Harold Campion -- who was actually Heracles as pulpy type of super hero. Just about everything else, I disliked. His depiction of Olympus was B-movie bad -- as was his ascension of Diana to a goddess. Hated his replacements for Perez's cast. I think I own the entire run, but it really became a groanfest. And let's not forget that huge belt and tiara (ug-ly!). I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the guy whose work on Namor, and to a lesser extent -- West Coast Avengers, from a few years earlier had been so great. This was definitely the period where Byrne's cred began diminishing. Maybe a stronger editor could have pushed him to do better, but it's likely he would have just walked -- because he was too full of himself by then.

[marhawkman]

Crap.

I'm not really a fan of Byrne's writing in general. A lot of his work that I've seen tends to fall into certain comic book tropes that I don't like--particularly "Things need to be a certain way because my nostalgia!" and "When in doubt, just add lore!"

Effectively turning Diana into a legacy character because he decided there needed to be a Wonder Woman in World War II...garbage.

This I'm cool with because the tournament story arc of how Diana became WW is... a story that makes sense only if one of two things is true. Either it's the first tournament ever to choose a candidate to fill a role that's never existed before... OR.... Diana isn't the first Wonder Woman.

Retconning the cavewoman that became Hippolyta into Ares' daughter because he needed a justification for Diana becoming a goddess.....ugh.

Well, actually.... Hippolyta was a Demigoddess(daughter of Ares) in the source material. the entire reason Herc was sent to steal her belt was because it was a gift from her father.

[Koriand'r]

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...

Yeah, you can't see the difference? Lynda's belt is skinny and high-waisted and there's a body on her eagle, so there's not as much ground to cover. Byrne's belt takes up a lot more real estate so that the top point is between her breasts instead of 3 inches lower like it should be.

[Guy_McNichts]

Well, actually.... Hippolyta was a Demigoddess(daughter of Ares) in the source material. the entire reason Herc was sent to steal her belt was because it was a gift from her father.

I know. And in the source material, the Amazons were savages and Hercules killing Hippolyta was considered a heroic act. That's why Wonder Woman flips it by having the Amazons be peaceful enemies of Ares. It turned the source material on its head. That's the point.

Undoing or ignoring that to be more true to the source material or, in Byrne's mind, address a non-existent plot hole was stupid and thankfully virtually every writer since has disregarded it.

[Thirteen]

Yeah, you can't see the difference? Lynda's belt is skinny and high-waisted and there's a body on her eagle, so there's not as much ground to cover. Byrne's belt takes up a lot more real estate so that the top point is between her breasts instead of 3 inches lower like it should be.

The only parallel I've drawn is that the gold areas are unified instead of being floating elements, and therefore a more cohesive design.

[Primal Slayer]

John Bryne will always hold a special place to me as Amazon was one of my first introductions to Wonder Woman in general that I can remeber

[Koriand'r]

John Bryne will always hold a special place to me as Amazon was one of my first introductions to Wonder Woman in general that I can remeber

"Mooooom! Dad's being weird again!"

That's not what belts do! That's a boobie divider!

[marhawkman]

I know. And in the source material, the Amazons were savages and Hercules killing Hippolyta was considered a heroic act. That's why Wonder Woman flips it by having the Amazons be peaceful enemies of Ares. It turned the source material on its head. That's the point.

Undoing or ignoring that to be more true to the source material or, in Byrne's mind, address a non-existent plot hole was stupid and thankfully virtually every writer since has disregarded it.

Yeah, but what do you gain by changing that specific detail? wouldn't it be more interesting to have Hippolyta be a white sheep in a black family?

Also, why even use the name if it's not her?

[Jim Kelly]

I know that the Attic Greeks considered everyone who wasn't Greek to be barbaric--that's how jingoism works--but I don't see that the Amazons were considered so savage relative to any other group of foreigners. The Trojans were barbaric, too, and yet they rate many great tales of heroism. If the Iliad is any guide then the Aethiopis (a lost epic from the Trojan cycle), probably portrayed Penthesilea as noble as Hector.

Anyway, Wonder Woman comics tell the story from the Amazon perspective. I don't like when everything in the comics follows the Ancient Greek way of thinking. They were a patriarchy not a matriarchy. The Amazon culture should be distinguished from the Greek.

[Mel Dyer]

For Perez purists, John Byrne was the Devil himself.

I loved that he set Diana up in a fictional DCU city with an X-filesy history of paranormal activity...LOVED it!

Wonder Woman soon found herself surrounded by a quirky, pre-owned cast of characters: bookish plain-jane archaeologist, Helena...demonologist and sorcerer Jason Blood (Kirby's Demon)...scrappy Jewish super-cop, Mike Schorr, ..and Helena's Punky Brewsterish daughter, Cassie, who becomes the NEW Wonder Girl! With THAT cast and Gateway City's history as the SPECTRE's hometown, ..weird@$$, pulpy, sci-fi and heroic fantasy adventures, at home and abroad were guaran'damteed. Sure as hell loved it more, than her living in dreary Boston!

Byrne's run got away from him, when he took on fixing Donna Troy's 'space opera' origin - at the time, a pizza no New Teen Titans fan had ordered and one, quietly hated by many die-hard NTT fans. Before he started fumbling with Troia's [HATE that name!] origin, it wasn't a perfect run, but it was action-packed, full of guest appearances by high-profile superheroes and supervillains from outside the WW comic. The bond growing between Cassie and Diana was fun to watch, and the promise of a romance building between Helena and Jason was cute. Had JB made Detective Mike Schorr taller and more super-modelly, like a Bruce Weber guy, or more Harrison Fordish, ..he might still be in the comic. Things were going well in the beginning.

Instead, Byrne created Mike Schorr as a visual and otherwise tribute to his artistic idol, Jack 'King of Comics' Kirby. Proudly Jewish, quick witted, built like an oil furnace, muscly all over, with bushy eyebrows and the easy, unmanicured script of the American everyman - Mike was everything we're told was lovable about the King of Comics! Decidedly shorter than Wonder Woman was, regularly grimaced his way through his scenes, no matter how tame or intense the action, ..Mike was nothing like Steve 'Diana, my sweet Angel' Trevor. I was grateful for that, but the WW comic's general assembly of vocal fans saw scruffy, short Mike, falling uncomfortably far from the Ken doll standard, as an inferior match for the Wonder-goddess ..and wanted nothing to do with him.

I can sympathize with the angst my fellow fans felt about Mike, ..feeling that Wonder Woman was being [Ahem! Koff, koff] short-changed by the pairing with such a superficially average Joe. In their eyes, Diana deserved and deserves the best a comic book romance had to offer, and John Byrne was bucking the trend...swimming against the current. Except for his visuals - were he, at least, as tall as his leading lady, and drawn like Jan Michael Vincent - we'd have been fine with him. Was our rejection of Mike a little shallow, just the same?

Of course, it was. Was it wrong? Eh...methinks not. Wonder Woman and her fans are and continue to be short-changed in how DC Comics treats us. This comic isn't treated like other comics, with regard to the lack of editorial care and commitment, I complain about so much on Wondabunga and Twitter. Maybe, John Byrne, Brian Azzarello, Geof Johns and a buncha' other cats should've been more sensitive to that...and here we are!

John Byrne gave the WW comic one of the best casts and cycle of stories it's had, since the Golden Age of comics. As with Michael W. Conrad and Beck Cloonan, his run was reparative of what I feel was a Silver Age, squandered by comic industry legend, Robert Kanigher, who once (or twice, in interviews) ..expressed that he never wanted to edit this comic. John Byrne's teen Donna was like something right out of a 1950s Schneer-Harryhausen film - his 'Dick' Schorr, another Fifties throwback, as I see it! What these two contributions had in common was that both might be called 'pizzas nobody ordered'. Had John Byrne popped a young, Eastwoodish Col. Trevor straight out of a time-warp, from World War II, ..left Donna Troy's origin alone ..and continued cranking out short, intensely action-packed stories, we'd be having a very different conversation about this run.

I think we'd have bronzed the man, by now!

Remember John Byrne's opening story, "Second Genesis" - for action-lovers and sci-fi fantasy fans like me, it was AWESOME! Had Byrne switched out Darkseid with Mars - an H. G. Peters and Marstonian, bronze-armored, Baron Harkonnensy MARS - installed the original Silver Swan at his side, ..and in Desaad's place, the DUKE of Deception, ..I'd have been thrilled! If joining Diana and Mike Schorr, fresh out of a time portal from World War II, guns a'blazing...had been young, US Military Intelligence's Col. Steve Trevor, ..I'd have been beside myself! But no major DC supervillain was going to attract fans of the mainstream DCU, like Jack Kirby's Darkseid, and that's who John Byrne opened his new high-stakes action-packed run, with. Some of us might not like how easily and quickly Darkseid cut through Amazons, we still considered George 'the Titan' Perez's Amazons, but Byrne achieved his desired effect, ..namely to jumpstart a post-Perez, post-Loebs Wonderverse with the biggest bang he could find, before returning Wonder Woman to Gateway.

Mission accomplished.

Gateway City, what once might have been the X-files Capital of the DCU, was a GREAT platform for spreading all of our favorite Wonder-toys and Wonder characters out over the floor and exploring how they all might play together. Wonder Woman is a time-lost Amazon from a mythical, lost civilization - historically spooky Gateway was the best setting for her stories, ever! Furthermore, Mike or no Mike, while keeping Diana in Washington, DC keeps her stories at the center of STEVE TREVOR's narrative, which expired in World War II, ..Byrne's move to Gateway and the West Coast cleared the canvas for a new, sci-fi fantasy/action narrative, with Diana and her Wonder Woman family squarely at the center!

I'd love to see Diana in a more scenic, mountainous, sometimes creepy and UFOed part of the American West - a Holliday or Marston City, maybe - but Gateway was a bold step in the right direction, from John Byrne, and poised to recoup the unrealized promise of the Kanigher's troubled Silver Age. Isn't it a shame that we've lost that great stage for Wonder-storytelling ..in our rough dismissal and lack of appreciation for his run? Even today, with another classic CAST firmly in place (until they're not), the BEST since the Golden Age...

What a wasted opportunity!

Except for a few stumbles, I think John Byrne made the best use of the Wonder toybox, imaginable. The rest of his run [DONNA!] was what it was.

[kcekada]

Your memory of the series is a far cry from my own. I do think the series suffered from too big an infusion of Kirby to be honest. I wasn't aware -- or forgot -- about the Spectre connection to Gateway City. That seems like it could have been a springboard for more supernatural stories -- but all that I remember is that dark-haired sorceress whose name escapes me -- and was she supposed to be an alternative version of Donna Troy?

I do recall excitement when realizing Terry Long was driving that car that wrecked -- not realizing Byrne was killing off Donna's family -- not that I really cared. But the follow-up was less then great.

I supposed I liked the JSA-era stories -- though was not crazy about Hippolyta being Wonder Woman in that era.

[Jim Kelly]

I loved Hippolyta in the JSA comic and I was shattered when she was killed off. Such a waste of a good character.

[Mel Dyer]

Your memory of the series is a far cry from my own. I do think the series suffered from too big an infusion of Kirby to be honest. I wasn't aware -- or forgot -- about the Spectre connection to Gateway City. That seems like it could have been a springboard for more supernatural stories -- but all that I remember is that dark-haired sorceress whose name escapes me -- and was she supposed to be an alternative version of Donna Troy?

I do recall excitement when realizing Terry Long was driving that car that wrecked -- not realizing Byrne was killing off Donna's family -- not that I really cared. But the follow-up was less then great.

I supposed I liked the JSA-era stories -- though was not crazy about Hippolyta being Wonder Woman in that era.

I think some of us found the prospect of pairing Wonder Woman with what they perceived to be an ugly or ordinary-looking chap, an unpardonable sin, ..and that John Byrne allowed the fallout [DARK ANGEL!!! Mostly...but also Donna becoming Kid Flash's memory of her past self.] from his retelling of Donna Troy's origin to swallow his entire run.

Some of us in the loving, all-inclusive, progressive, Bohemian Wonderfan community have a problem with accepting this, ..but Mike Schorr was extremely unpopular here, primarily because people felt he was ugly. It's totally true, and there's no shame in it. For many fans, and I sympathize, Wondy's new ugmo BF was just one more [Like the entire SILVER AGE!] unwarranted gesture of disrespect to the character and all of us.

Wonder Woman fans feel royally mistreated by DC Comics and have for sometime. It's totally sad, and just read some of our posts to see proof of what I'm talking about. We say things like, "Maybe, this comic doesn't need a CAST, like SUPERMAN and BATMAN. Maybe, Wonder Woman doesn't need an archenemy, like the other heroes. I think I'm ready for another GOD WAR." Very sad. We've been kicked around so much, always having to lower our expectations for what we want from the comic.

It's like ugly stepchildren, locked in the attic whispering, "Maybe, we don't need clean air ..or a TOILET. Maybe, this is all our fault." It's totally sad, and John Byrne really stepped in it with us, letting Darkseid literally wipe out half the Amazons and give Diana a short, scruffy-looking beau, ..like a miniature Tommy Lee Jones...oldazz Tommy Lee Jones. Not Love Story Tommy Lee Jones, either. Why'd he have to look like Tommy Lee Jones?

For way too many of us, it felt like a serious bidgeslap.