Azzarello - The Final Judgement.

[Redwing]

It's how the scenes are played out. It's how it takes several issues for her to respond. It's how one of her responses is silenced by Zola. It's how Orion acts like a jackass even after she hits him. Basically it's Azzarello having his cake and eating it too (having a character who acts like a sexist jerk to degrade Diana but never has him change so he can keep language and behaviour to degrade women).

Yeah Diana has been said to be perfect. And in many cases it's been by people who don't read her comic or simply allow they're biases to cloud their judgement. Opinions aren't always right no matter how common they may be.

Like your biases to Azzarello and his story are clouding your judgement? Everything you said regarding "so he can keep language and behavior to degrade women" and " so he can have his cake and eat it too" is again, assumptions on your part about why he wrote what he did, his intentions, or why Orion didn't change. And a neat, passive way to imply a man you don't know is a misogynist.

In real life, (which sometimes comics reflect) some people, many people, DONT change despite being told to or knocked down or saying they're going to. Orion is an example of that. You're looking for a PBS style Saturday morning cartoon lesson on why his actions were wrong and him learning a "lesson" to serve as an example...like most readers who read this aren't adults and don't know already his actions were wrong and don't need a morality lesson from a comic book. A lot of modern and "vertigoesque" comic writers don't write to teach neat morality lessons in their stories.

And she took a while to respond to him because she had more important things to do with all that was going on than get into a fight with a bull headed jerk that can match her physically. Sometimes an immediate reaction to make a point isn't necessary depending on circumstances. You pick the right time for it.

Also, you DO know the whole point of an opinion isn't supposed to be about "right" or "wrong", right? One can be argued but I've told you before I've read a good amount of WW and though there have been some instances of complexity she mostly has been a a pretty pollyanna character to me and obviously some others. Your opinion on this may be clouded by how much you actually like her and are obviously defensive of her...but it doesn't make yours anymore "right" than mine. Cause it's an opinion.

However, the perception that opinion is based on must've come from somewhere...

[Dr. Poison]

Setting aside this legal label that you insist on using, there are (whether you or I like it or not) previous examples, in the other continuities, of Wonder Woman at least coming close to a line between sexual contact and punitive behavior--spanking a female enemy in Marston's run, or biting Hercules' tongue during a "kiss" in Heinberg's annual. So. though I might have written or edited the WTF moment in issue 19 differently, I don't agree that this makes her "not Wodner Woman."

She was, after all, created by a psychologist who was more than a little interested in the relationships between sex, punishment or domination, pleasure and emotional education. And I'm not talking about anything he might or might not have been into in his personal life; he published non-fiction about this stuff.

Regardless, Diana never put her hands on someone's genitals, squeezed them with excessive force, and then threatened to castrate that individual. That was extreme IMO and no comparison to some silly punishment spankings from the Golden Age or biting Hercules' tongue during a "rape kiss" will make me change my mind.

[Redwing]

For me, it's mostly that Diana's personality and value system makes absolutely no sense if she's supposed to be a product of that society. Her world is what made her.

Many people and heroes are good and have a great value system despite of being from a society that is bad or has questionable morals and history. Hell, America is a good example of that as well as a lot of other countries. Heroes stand out even more when they sometimes come from less than morally great circumstances.

[Redwing]

Regardless, Diana never put her hands on someone's genitals, squeezed them with excessive force, and then threatened to castrate that individual. That was extreme IMO and no comparison to some silly punishment spankings from the Golden Age or biting Hercules' tongue during a "rape kiss" will make me change my mind.

Debating or arguing a point has nothing to do with changing another's mind, especially on a message board. You should totally keep your mind. It has to do moreso with backing up and proving their own argument...particularly in front of others.

Plus, no one actually thinks she meant her threat. Quite a few modern women in reality and movies have threatened men "down there" before so as to let them know they won't be trifled with.

It is this incessant need to keep WW "beyond all that" and up on a pedestal which makes many fans thinks of her as too perfect and sort of Pollyanna-ish.

[Agent Z]

Like your biases to Azzarello and his story are clouding your judgement? Everything you said regarding "so he can keep language and behavior to degrade women" and " so he can have his cake and eat it too" is again, assumptions on your part about why he wrote what he did, his intentions, or why Orion didn't change. And a neat, passive way to imply a man you don't know is a misogynist.

In real life, (which sometimes comics reflect) some people, many people, DONT change despite being told to or knocked down or saying they're going to. Orion is an example of that. You're looking for a PBS style Saturday morning cartoon lesson on why his actions were wrong and him learning a "lesson" to serve as an example...like most readers who read this aren't adults and don't know already his actions were wrong and don't need a morality lesson from a comic book. A lot of modern and "vertigoesque" comic writers don't write to teach neat morality lessons in their stories.

And she took a while to respond to him because she had more important things to do with all that was going on than get into a fight with a bull headed jerk that can match her physically. Sometimes an immediate reaction to make a point isn't necessary depending on circumstances. You pick the right time for it.

Also, you DO know the whole point of an opinion isn't supposed to be about "right" or "wrong", right? One can be argued but I've told you before I've read a good amount of WW and though there have been some instances of complexity she mostly has been a a pretty pollyanna character to me and obviously some others. Your opinion on this may be clouded by how much you actually like her and are obviously defensive of her...but it doesn't make yours anymore "right" than mine. Cause it's an opinion.

However, the perception must've come from somewhere...

1) There are all kinds of nuances to misogynistic behavior. Azzarello may not intend for his work to be offensive, but that doesn't mean it won't come off that way. And you being so quick to go "It's not misogynistic because I say so!" is old, condescending and adds nothing to the conversation.

2) I'm well aware of what happens in real life thank you very much. My problem again is how Azzarello handles these topics. Either through shock or for humorous effect. Oh, and last time I checked, people aren't reborn as babies delivered from their own children as some dumb way to atone for their past sins.

3) Yes, how convenient that she couldn't respond immediately. It's not like any of this was beyond Azzarello's control as the writer.

4) Azzarello wasn't exactly subtle about how he wanted to hammer home his own morality tale about how "men and women need each other and that women can be just as bad as men".

5) At least I use evidence to back up my opinions. You just casually toss out the words "perfect", "pollyana" and "matriarchal" without even explaining how you came to that conclusion.

I've been having these types of arguments for a long time and it's been my experience that the people who think Diana never had flaws either didn't read her or simply refused to consider their stances on the character may not be true.

The perception could have come from anywhere. Doesn't mean it's true.

[Mel Dyer]

The final judgment from my POV is that Mr. Azzarello made the WW comic a stronger, better comic. He introduced major super-villains and potential supervillains, a supporting cast and gave her stories a stage of exotic locales and bizarre worlds to play out upon. Azzarello left all of the tools, at the door, for WW to exist at the same creative standard that the Batman, Superman and Spider-Man comics have had for decades.

However, if the writers, who succeed him, choose to ignore all of that and stumble the comic around into a billion different, bold, new directions, ..that is their folly.

[Silvanus]

Regardless, Diana never put her hands on someone's genitals, squeezed them with excessive force, and then threatened to castrate that individual. That was extreme IMO and no comparison to some silly punishment spankings from the Golden Age or biting Hercules' tongue during a "rape kiss" will make me change my mind.

Oh, I am confident that you won't change your mind. But since you do insist on calling the issue 19 WTF moment "sexual assault," let's consider the definition of that term, which usually includes "unwanted sexual contact." "Unwanted" at what point? Orion seemed more than willing to be kissed and probably more than willing to be touched, initially; and I wonder what the legal precedents for labeling someone a "sex offender" because they applied too much pressure during "wanted" sexual contact. I don't doubt that there are cases--for example, when the behavior persists after objections, or when someone is actually harmed-- in which deeming this to be sexual assault would be right. But this case--in which WW was responding to prior harassment of her by her "victim," and in which she ceased the uncomfortable pressures moments after she started it, and almost immediately after his discomfort became evident--would probably be tough one to use to make that argument. In short, I doubt a court would deem her to be a sexual offender, and I think the only effect of calling her that her is to sensationalize your complaint.

In any case, the question was whether this instance is a good example of something that makes Azz's hero "not Wonder Woman." I'm pointing out that even though this WTF moment was in some ways "more extreme" than the analogous ones I mentioned, it's different more in degree than in kind, and it's an extension of the same tendency and of Marston's interest in connections between sex and submission and emotional education.

[Silvanus]

She was just... off. Too reactive, easy to anger, easy to fool, no strategic/diplomatic capabilities. Bland. She is supposed to have a big heart, ok, but she is not supposed to be a heart-ahead-of-the-brain character. Hate those characters. Hate those people even in real life (people with the heart in the driving seat and the brain as a passenger, not people with big hearts).
Despicable is WW as a Character+World+Supporting Character+Lore+Themes+Direction, not the character per se (it' just not WW).

In my opinion, a lot of your claims about how she was characterized would have been easier to support after just the first few issues, or at least during the first year, than they are in retrospect.

For example,

easy to anger

?

In issue 2, yes, she was perhaps easier to anger than she usually is, though most people would have been pretty angry under the circumstances. But in the very next issue, she returned to the island to seek reconciliation. And by issues 8-11, she was able to hide her anger from Hades, and ultimately she was able to transcend that anger to try to help him. In issue 12, we realize that she's been holding back a great deal of her anger and power, even in the heat of battle, in order to protect her enemies (she calls her cuffs Artemis' "best defense") as well as bystanders. In issue 13, we see her subduing her anger as she treats Hera with dignity and in mercy, and in 14, when her sister throws what appears to be every sharp object in North Africa at her head and heart with hurricane force, she responds by not attempting to strike a single blow, but just ducking and embracing. Who is less quick to anger than that?

You might say that the reason she treats Hera and Siracca well is that she wants something from them--but if that's the case, it's an example of "strategic/diplomatic capabilities," is it not? There are many others. She essentially talks Hades into letting her and her friends go free; she figures out how to get Artemis to help find Zola; she realizes that ; she has the idea of softening the Amazons' resistance to males by charging them with caring for Zeke and fighting beside their brothers, so they'll see that males are human; she wins Strife's assistance by pointing out how boring the world would be if she (WW) were to die, showing a great diplomatic knack for identifying the other person's needs and winning by meeting those needs in a mutually acceptable way; she figures out that the way to win the war against the First Born is to get Zeke on the throne. In general, as Ares points out, she manages a small "army" of strong-willed, incompatible individuals, and she holds them together.

At times, she might seem easy to fool--certainly, she was fooled by Hippolyta and the Amazons for a long time. But that was also true in Kanigher's run, in Messner-Loebs', even in Simone's (specifically, in "The Circle"). I don't think that this is because we're supposed to accept gullibility as one of her character traits; I just think that deception, with some degree of "plot-induced [seeming] stupidity," is a common plot device. And don't forget that in this run she's the one Amazon we know of who was not fooled by Strife's illusion in issue 2; she's not fooled by Ares into believing that killing the Minotaur is the right thing to do; she's not fooled by Hades into being his bride. On several occasion when it might seem she's being fooled, she gets that sly smile that indicates she has grasped something she hasn't; for instance, she turns out to be right to believe that granting Artemis a boon will be an acceptable price, and she's even not really wrong to trust Strife to look after Zola. The latter case is the hard one, but if you think about it, Strife didn't physically harm Zola or allow someone else to do so; what the contentious goddess really wanted was to create small-s strife between Zola and Diana. Diana was really trusting Zola, her friend, and though Zola seemed to fail that test, ultimately they came back together.

(people with the heart in the driving seat and the brain as a passenger, not people with big hearts).

I understand what you're saying, and I can see how the run would have created issues for you, because it's clear that, even in Ares' eyes, a tendency to follow her heart is something that Diana has had to work on. But I don't think this tendency is altogether new--for example, in many ways, Marston showed that Diana's love for Steve was a ruling passion in her life. And ultimately, as I've tried to show in my examples above, her brain (in Azz's run as in other)i s no passenger; outside of perhaps a few impassioned moments, her brain either in the pilot's seat or the co-pilot's seat. Or, we could even say that in Diana, head and heart are usually well-integrated, rather than one being a subordinate yoked to the other.

I haven't really discussed "bland," because it's just so contrary to my impressions of the character that I don't know how to talk to you about it. But, I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm just saying that I could not disagree more strongly than I do. We just took away very different impressions which are, in the case of "blandness," very subjective and probably outside the reach of argumentation.

[Dr. Poison]

Debating or arguing a point has nothing to do with changing another's mind, especially on a message board. You should totally keep your mind. It has to do moreso with backing up and proving their own argument...particularly in front of others.

Plus, no one actually thinks she meant her threat. Quite a few modern women in reality and movies have threatened men "down there" before so as to let them know they won't be trifled with.

It is this incessant need to keep WW "beyond all that" and up on a pedestal which makes many fans thinks of her as too perfect and sort of Pollyanna-ish.

There's a very big gap between being perfect(which Diana NEVER was) and being a sex offender.

[Tayswift]

1) There are all kinds of nuances to misogynistic behavior. Azzarello may not intend for his work to be offensive, but that doesn't mean it won't come off that way. And you being so quick to go "It's not misogynistic because I say so!" is old, condescending and adds nothing to the conversation.

2) I'm well aware of what happens in real life thank you very much. My problem again is how Azzarello handles these topics. Either through shock or for humorous effect. Oh, and last time I checked, people aren't reborn as babies delivered from their own children as some dumb way to atone for their past sins.

3) Yes, how convenient that she couldn't respond immediately. It's not like any of this was beyond Azzarello's control as the writer.

4) Azzarello wasn't exactly subtle about how he wanted to hammer home his own morality tale about how "men and women need each other and that women can be just as bad as men".

5) At least I use evidence to back up my opinions. You just casually toss out the words "perfect", "pollyana" and "matriarchal" without even explaining how you came to that conclusion.

I've been having these types of arguments for a long time and it's been my experience that the people who think Diana never had flaws either didn't read her or simply refused to consider their stances on the character may not be true.

The perception could have come from anywhere. Doesn't mean it's true.

Azzarello went to the fun and shock value when wonder woman squeezed Orion, it didn't open a interesting discussion about sexual harassment.

wonder woman isn't a sexual offender, that is take the thing too seriously :P

[Outside_85]

1) There are all kinds of nuances to misogynistic behavior. Azzarello may not intend for his work to be offensive, but that doesn't mean it won't come off that way. And you being so quick to go "It's not misogynistic because I say so!" is old, condescending and adds nothing to the conversation.

And likewise, if you want to be offended by something in comics, you can be, regardless of intent or display.

[chlj1]

Azzarello went to the fun and shock value when wonder woman squeezed Orion, it didn't open a interesting discussion about sexual harassment.

wonder woman isn't a sexual offender, that is take the thing too seriously :P

WW isn't a sexual offender, but what Orion was doing was sexual harassment!! I didn't approve of WW sinking to his level, Orion deserved what he got!! I didn't feel sorry for Orion. What I thought was a offensive was Azzarello wanting to turn around and make the guy that sexual harassed WW into her love interest! I think this is a statement in it self! It clearly show Azzarello lack of respect for the character or her being a symbol for women, his lack of respect for women in general!! It also make the statement that sexual harassment shouldn't be taken seriously!! that it funny!! It a joke! Women should just get over it, women should over look being treated like a sex object and even learn to accept this behavior!! As WW did by allowing Orion to call her by a bodypart " legs"! Sending the message to young women and young men, Women really like being degraded and demeaned and will accept being treated that way! it's fun and it's funny!

[Awonder]

You can't be serious. No one in a court anywhere would find her to be a "sex offender" simply for grabbing Orion's junk to try and teach him a lesson aggressively about his lewd and sexually harassing behavior of her.

Sex offenders are pedophiles and rapists. This was neither.

Now, if some want to say it was out of character for the, in my opinion, overly matriarchal perfect moral princess she mostly always was portrayed as before...than fine, it was. I thought it was edgy, and a strong modern woman's reaction to dealing with a guy acting like that who probably wouldn't understand anything else. The intent was to make him feel and understand the victimization she had been enduring from him on a level he would get it.


It says something also that talk on this run is still hot enough to be at the top of the character's fan page. Kinda surprising actually.

What she did IS sexual assault. You said it yourself, her "intent was to make him feel and understand the victimization." How can he "feel and understand the victimization" unless he has been made the victim?

What he did was wrong; that does NOT give her the right to do what he did and more back to him.

Oh, I am confident that you won't change your mind. But since you do insist on calling the issue 19 WTF moment "sexual assault," let's consider the definition of that term, which usually includes "unwanted sexual contact." "Unwanted" at what point? Orion seemed more than willing to be kissed and probably more than willing to be touched, initially; and I wonder what the legal precedents for labeling someone a "sex offender" because they applied too much pressure during "wanted" sexual contact. I don't doubt that there are cases--for example, when the behavior persists after objections, or when someone is actually harmed-- in which deeming this to be sexual assault would be right. But this case--in which WW was responding to prior harassment of her by her "victim," and in which she ceased the uncomfortable pressures moments after she started it, and almost immediately after his discomfort became evident--would probably be tough one to use to make that argument. In short, I doubt a court would deem her to be a sexual offender, and I think the only effect of calling her that her is to sensationalize your complaint.

In any case, the question was whether this instance is a good example of something that makes Azz's hero "not Wonder Woman." I'm pointing out that even though this WTF moment was in some ways "more extreme" than the analogous ones I mentioned, it's different more in degree than in kind, and it's an extension of the same tendency and of Marston's interest in connections between sex and submission and emotional education.

Are we "sensationalizing" the complaint or are you trivializing it?

"He 'wanted' it"? Really? That's your defense? I'm positive it's not your intent, but please explain how that doesn't read an awful lot like victim blaming. Flip it around: A woman is flirting with me in a bar. I say I'm not interested but she keeps flirting and even slaps my butt. Days later, she accepts a kiss from me. Do I then have the right to assume she "wanted" painful physical and very personal contact as a threat to remove her reproductive organs? Would you say, "But at what point was it unwanted?"

I don't think it's a big assumption that Diana painfully squeezing Orion's private parts was unwanted. I think it's reasonable to assume Diana knew that type of contact would be unwanted; she intended it as such. It's not hard to know at what point the contact became "unwanted." The fact that he had slapped her on the backside previously and made several sexually suggestive comments does NOT give her the right to painfully crush his private parts and threaten to castrate him. This isn't even a case of two equal wrongs, as she takes it further both with her grab and with the punch.

I get that this is a comic book. I get the appeal of the scene. I also get why it's unappealing, because, in real world terms, it IS sexual assault. It's not "sensationalizing" to call it what it is.

[Dr. Poison]

What she did IS sexual assault. You said it yourself, her "intent was to make him feel and understand the victimization." How can he "feel and understand the victimization" unless he has been made the victim?

What he did was wrong; that does NOT give her the right to do what he did and more back to him.



Are we "sensationalizing" the complaint or are you trivializing it?

"He 'wanted' it"? Really? That's your defense? I'm positive it's not your intent, but please explain how that doesn't read an awful lot like victim blaming. Flip it around: A woman is flirting with me in a bar. I say I'm not interested but she keeps flirting and even slaps my butt. Days later, she accepts a kiss from me. Do I then have the right to assume she "wanted" painful physical and very personal contact as a threat to remove her reproductive organs? Would you say, "But at what point was it unwanted?"

I don't think it's a big assumption that Diana painfully squeezing Orion's private parts was unwanted. I think it's reasonable to assume Diana knew that type of contact would be unwanted; she intended it as such. It's not hard to know at what point the contact became "unwanted." The fact that he had slapped her on the backside previously and made several sexually suggestive comments does NOT give her the right to painfully crush his private parts and threaten to castrate him. This isn't even a case of two equal wrongs, as she takes it further both with her grab and with the punch.

I get that this is a comic book. I get the appeal of the scene. I also get why it's unappealing, because, in real world terms, it IS sexual assault. It's not "sensationalizing" to call it what it is.

Kudos, sir. You always seem to explain it much better than I ever can.

[Silvanus]

"He 'wanted' it"? Really? That's your defense? I'm positive it's not your intent, but please explain how that doesn't read an awful lot like victim blaming.

Everyone should get explict consent before they do anything sexual, and make sure they still have consent for every step that follows. And victim blaming--as in "she (or he} was asking for it by wearing sexy clothes and even flirting"--is reprehensible.

However, wouldn't you agree that the kissing and initially the touching appear to have been consensual in this case? From what I've (just now) read about it, roughness within the context of consensual sexual contact is a gray area in the law. When it's prosecuted, it's usually in cases where there was injury and/or the roughness continued after one party told the other party to stop. See, for example, http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/rough-p...erts-1.2074687 and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...albert0921.htm .

Perhaps the legal standards should be toughened up so that this would not be a gray area. I tend to think that they should. And i agree that absolutely no one should emulate the conduct Azz depicted in this WTF scene in issue 19. But, at present, I'd be curious to know if you can find many precedents in which a moment of squeezing during consensual contact, which did not inflict lasting harm and did not continue past one party's request to stop, led to conviction for a sexual offense. If not, I'm not sure it's accurate to say that "in real world terms, it IS sexual assault."