Wonder Woman #35 SPOILERS

[numberthirty]

Seeing women as superior=Hating men?

[K. Jones]

I'm reading a MASSIVE theme of second chances. Contact with Diana seems to be a catalyst for second chances to happen. Zeus and Hippolyta have a baby and shortly after Zeus is looking for a second chance. Athena believes in that as well. Athena's second chance then gets a second chance, a life of her own (how much is Zola still Athena, even if she's limited to her human experience?). Hades was given a second chance after his power play. Diana IS basically Ares's second chance, since he passed the torch. The Manazons get a second chance. Hippolyta is given a second chance. Hera gets a second chance. And at the VERY end ... Diana gives the First Born a second chance, if he can grow enough to see it as that.

Orion, too. I mean practically everybody, but it's a theme that applies to everyone's story arc as they're made better by growing close to Diana.

[jaygarrick'shelmet]

I don't understand what problem people are having with the whole not having men on the island and being immortal or the rape raid things. They are amazons. The reason they don't allow men on their island is because they are amazons. They live forever because magic. These questions aren't the questions that really need to be answered...

Anyway I enjoyed Azzarello's run and it was a hell of a ride, but like everyone else I'm really disappointed in the ending. I think it's an ok enough ending for a story arch, but as an ending for his entire run on the character it's really weak. So many threads left untouched and so many questions left unanswered. We could have really used an epilogue to capstone this run.

[K. Jones]

Seeing women as superior=Hating men?

That would be pretty counter-reactionary, right?

One of the things about the Manazons is that we don't actually know when the last time that happened was. Diana is in her twenties and is the last woman born on that island. There's no way of knowing how much older her closest female contemporaries are than her, let alone who the youngest Manazon in Hephaestus' crew is.

The possibly "last time it happened" scene seemed like it could've been a raid happening at least 100 or more years ago. The world was fiercer. Life was less valuable. The Amazons were younger and have only grown more enlightened since.

[rpi]

Woah, some of the questions about the gods' powers are really...confusing. Zeus hooked up with women in the forms of bulls and swans and whatever. Athena sprang fully formed from Zeus's head. Zeus's father ate some of his kids to make sure they didn't overthrow him. How on earth are things like Athena separating from Zola's body or Zeus impregnating Zola with himself as the child even a shred of a problem for these beings? These are human emotions given supernatural forms. Don't try and apply logic to them. They don't work that way. And regarding Hippolyta still being stone, she told everyone her daughter was clay for decades. Then she got turned to clay. This is her punishment from the gods for lying. Now, she's what she always told everyone Diana was: living clay. Azz did a better job of showing what spiteful, deceitful, inconsistent creatures the Greek gods were than any other writer I've seen on the title.

[Step]

Probably due to Zeus, since his eyes glowed the way they did when she came back to life and that his powers are stronger than Hera's thanks to belief. Why is a good question. Either a back up, some strange motivation thing or to remind Hera about her grudge. A bit hard to tell since it seems he likes to teach other's lessons without stating what those are. Putting First born away in the first place being a good example of this.

Yeah, I considered Zeus, but...that still doesn't make any sense, just seems like a plot hole seeing as it's never explained, I doubt Hera actually learned anything (and why would he want to remind her of the grudge in the first place?) and in the end it cost a bunch of lives so it doesn't seem worth it.

[Stazz]

Why do they hate men in the first place? How did they get on the island, how/why are they immortal, did they have similar experiences with men like Hercules to drive them to this point like in past versions? etc.

Azzarello dropped that bomb on us way back in #7, and a lot of us were hoping for the other shoe to drop...and it hasn't. Azzarello has put out a lot of ideas in this run, and hasn't developed them. The male Amazons coming back should have lead to some great character moments and world building, but nope: Aleka is suddenly all cool with the men now, and then she's dead. And the men never say anything at all. There isn't much meaty character development in this run, things just seem to happen.

Future authors can build upon this stuff I guess, but that isn't going to suddenly make Azzarello's work better in retrospect.

This isn't so much about the raids then as what the Secret Origin of the Amazons is. I would just assume that the old "reincarnated victims of men" origin is in place, and this version of them are just more aggressive in their isolationism and keeping their people going. And even if you doubt that's in place, I don't think it takes a whole lot of imagination to come to the theory that in the less-than-progressive ancient world, the first generation of Amazons were mistreated women, or women who'd seen the sort of cruelty of men and had decided to go off and found their own culture. I don't think everything needs to be exhaustively explained in great detail.

As for the power levels of the Gods, my thought is this...Gods are powered by belief in them. In the old world, they were taken as fact, so they were much more powerful. In the modern world, they're largely dismissed as myth, and there's a lot of other religions around, so they have far fewer followers, and are reduced to being less All-Powerfull Deities, but still rather impressive supernatural beings.

[K. Jones]

I'd like to think Chiang's excellent cover for this issue is a pretty good possible "epilogue" type situation for this issue.

So many women characters. Gathered on Paradise Island. Hippolyta back to normal. Sirocca finally turns up. Cassandra redeemed? Eris hilarious. Hera like a boss.

Doesn't exactly work for Aleka, though. Unless some healy-healy purple ray stuff could happen. But somebody who died has to stay dead, right?

[Vonter Voman]

So... about Strife and the "secret weapon" and "perish the thought"... could someone explain to me?

[borntohula]

I'm reading a MASSIVE theme of second chances. Contact with Diana seems to be a catalyst for second chances to happen. Zeus and Hippolyta have a baby and shortly after Zeus is looking for a second chance. Athena believes in that as well. Athena's second chance then gets a second chance, a life of her own (how much is Zola still Athena, even if she's limited to her human experience?). Hades was given a second chance after his power play. Diana IS basically Ares's second chance, since he passed the torch. The Manazons get a second chance. Hippolyta is given a second chance. Hera gets a second chance. And at the VERY end ... Diana gives the First Born a second chance, if he can grow enough to see it as that.

Yes. And most of conclusions/endings seems to come from it. For example Aleka dying for the baby boy.

Orion, too. I mean practically everybody, but it's a theme that applies to everyone's story arc as they're made better by growing close to Diana.

I fully agree. And I even think Orion somewhat "comes around" after Hera forces him to obey the amazons in WW#33 by telling him just that, being that her eyes go all glowy there probably was some magic put into play. Being down with covering Diana in WW#34.

So... about Strife and the "secret weapon" and "perish the thought"... could someone explain to me?

I think she's giving First born a hard time. Being ironic over the fact that he had to retreat since the amazons where crushing his forces.

[Silvanus]

So... about Strife and the "secret weapon" and "perish the thought"... could someone explain to me?

I thought she was just being sarcastic, as in (to paraphrase) "Oh, I'm just SURE you're here to grab a secret weapon that you'll use to to finish the Amazons off; it just COULDN'T be that a tough guy like you cowardly abandoned his army and slunk away form battle!" And there's a little bitt of pun, or at least a light play on words, with "perish the thought" (meaning "let's not even THINK of such a thing as you retreating!") and "perish" as in "your army is going to die."

[borntohula]

Yeah, I considered Zeus, but...that still doesn't make any sense, just seems like a plot hole seeing as it's never explained, I doubt Hera actually learned anything (and why would he want to remind her of the grudge in the first place?) and in the end it cost a bunch of lives so it doesn't seem worth it.

As I said, it's a bit hard to tell, and Zeus seems like he liked it that way. Example why he choose to spare the First born and his reason to be reborn.

But since his eyes glowed like they did and something was stopping Hera from bringing Hippolyta back, I think he put it into play for some reason. Perhaps just something left for the new creative team to have a go at.

[Vonter Voman]

I thought of that as well! Thanks, it's probably that, but I was in doubt seeing I'm not a native speaker of english

I loved Strife screaming "I Knew It" in that position. She was each one of us at that moment.

I like the idea that the cover is somewhat an epilogue... I'm actually pretty sure Hippolyta will be restored, it's really "why couldn't Hera do it" that bugs me, even though we have theories about that. Because some stuff are too proeminent to be content with just fan theories.

Also, I keep talking about Apollo, but it's just because I think he should come back. He might stay dead as well, I guess we don't need to have a continuation for that. Hades is another matter though. 'Til now there are souls floating in the street. Maybe that's how Aleka will ressurect And since the Gods are immortal even when they die (see Ares and Hades), it's not too hard to bring Apollo back from the dead. Or Ares, or anyone, really.

[Silvanus]

Probably due to Zeus, since his eyes glowed the way they did when she came back to life and that his powers are stronger than Hera's thanks to belief. Why is a good question. Either a back up, some strange motivation thing or to remind Hera about her grudge. A bit hard to tell since it seems he likes to teach other's lessons without stating what those are. Putting First born away in the first place being a good example of this.

Yeah, I considered Zeus, but...that still doesn't make any sense,...

Even though Zeke is Zeus' reincarnation, I think he's still basically a baby, so he might have been acting more instinctively; he could have sensed that Hippolyta has been a foe to Hera, and so, feeling attached to Hera, he blocked her from restoring someone who might threaten her.

I still prefer the idea that Hippolyta was made of clay in the first place and so Hera's wishing her back to her original form had no effect; but there's no sign of that yet.

[neonrideraryeh]

Giving birth to your own father. Just another Wednesday for a Greek deity.