John Byrne's Wonder Woman run - Why do people hate this run?

[Pinsir]

So I read this entire run in about a day (it goes from #100-136, lasted about 3 years) and I was consistently told that it was bad and stuff. Having read it I actually liked it a lot and may be one of my more favourite runs.

Positives

• John Byrne is a pretty good artist, though in the beginning he clearly had problems drawing women, he got better. Also his Artemis is ridiculously sexy. He was on that book the entire time, perhaps the best and longest run an artist has ever had on WW
• I liked the multiple story lines, especially at the end where they all converge in hell
• It made me a fan of Artemis, even after I read the Artemis-Requiem and 'Bill' Loebs run
• Despite being told this run and the author is misogynist I really didn't feel it
• I think he settled the Donna Troy thing well
• Wonder Woman is not violent
• Had a nice, memorable cast, probably one of the best
• It has a lot of meta-themes to it (Donna Troy having a screwed up past)

Negatives

• Some of the major problems is that there are tie ins from an event I have never heard of, that played a major role in the plot. The book constantly repeats plotlines. It sounded like a Grant Morrison event too.
• Some things did confuse me, especially killing off Donna Troys family because I had no clue who they were at the time
• Some things were off about it, but I can't remember everything

So how do you people like this run? It is very Perez-y, but I think I like it a lot more than Perez's run.

Interesting Fact: Giganta's first post-crisis appearance occurs during this run at the end, 10 years after the relaunch!

[brettc1]

The two main things that turn people off this era are

1) Diana continually gets pushed into the background by other characters Byrne seems more interested in - The Demon Etrigan, for example. She also plays very little part in the last third of the run.

2) Diana constantly gets tied up and/or tortured. When it happens once in three years you could excuse it, twice you start to raise an eyebrow, but this situation arises on FOUR separate occasions. Specifically...

- Strapped into a torture machine by Darkseid and made to suffer for about five pages before she escapes

- Strapped into a life draining machine by Morgan Le Fey - her only way to escape this is do nothing while but moan Morgan beats her half to death in her astral form

- Allowing Barbara Minerva in her Cheetah form to slash her continually with her claws while Diana stands there, sobbing and moaning as her clothing is reduced to barely concealing tatters while we are treated to views of bloody claw marks across her ever more revealed chest

- being strung up crucifixion style by the Demon Lord Neron as Etrigan perched on her belly and tortures her with a red hot poker [this scene was apparently so good it was shown twice - once in the issue where it happened and again next issue as a recap]

That's four instances of sadomasochism in three years, and not even counting the times when Cassadra's mother is stripped naked by Demons and Artemis is strapped won and forced to endure asphyxiation torture from a demon pillow [not joking - it really happened]

Add to Neron magically blasting her death with casual indifference and the Campion character [who is secretly Heracles dossing Diana with a love potion with the intent of date raping her as revenge against her mother, and its not hard to see why a lot of folks say Byrne perhaps did not treat the character of Wonder Woman with the sort of regard they felt she deserved.

[Dr. Poison]

The two main things that turn people off this era are

1) Diana continually gets pushed into the background by other characters Byrne seems more interested in - The Demon Etrigan, for example. She also plays very little part in the last third of the run.

2) Diana constantly gets tied up and/or tortured. When it happens once in three years you could excuse it, twice you start to raise an eyebrow, but this situation arises on FOUR separate occasions. Specifically...

- Strapped into a torture machine by Darkseid and made to suffer for about five pages before she escapes

- Strapped into a life draining machine by Morgan Le Fey - her only way to escape this is do nothing while but moan Morgan beats her half to death in her astral form

- Allowing Barbara Minerva in her Cheetah form to slash her continually with her claws while Diana stands there, sobbing and moaning as her clothing is reduced to barely concealing tatters while we are treated to views of bloody claw marks across her ever more revealed chest

- being strung up crucifixion style by the Demon Lord Neron as Etrigan perched on her belly and tortures her with a red hot poker [this scene was apparently so good it was shown twice - once in the issue where it happened and again next issue as a recap]

That's four instances of sadomasochism in three years, and not even counting the times when Cassadra's mother is stripped naked by Demons and Artemis is strapped won and forced to endure asphyxiation torture from a demon pillow [not joking - it really happened]

Add to Neron magically blasting her death with casual indifference and the Campion character [who is secretly Heracles dossing Diana with a love potion with the intent of date raping her as revenge against her mother, and its not hard to see why a lot of folks say Byrne perhaps did not treat the character of Wonder Woman with the sort of regard they felt she deserved.

I personally loved Byrned run. It featured a nice variety of villains. I also thought that making Hippolyta the WWII Wonder Woman was a stroke of genius and I like how he tied Donna Troy to Diana again. I also thought that Dark Angel was a great addition to the Wonder-rogues.

[Outside_85]

Allow me to bold the reasons why some might dislike this particular run:

So I read this entire run in about a day (it goes from #100-136, lasted about 3 years) and I was consistently told that it was bad and stuff. Having read it I actually liked it a lot and may be one of my more favourite runs.

Positives

• John Byrne is a pretty good artist, though in the beginning he clearly had problems drawing women, he got better. Also his Artemis is ridiculously sexy. He was on that book the entire time, perhaps the best and longest run an artist has ever had on WW It's 90'ties artwork when it comes to characters and it's Kirby'ish when it's backgrounds, neither have aged well...like most 90'ties artwork.
• It made me a fan of Artemis, even after I read the Artemis-Requiem and 'Bill' Loebs run Sadly he decided to 'disqualify' Artemis' already dodgy win in the Contest by adding the pointless powerdrain effect... and probably only because so his new creation Cassandra Sandsmark could jump in and save Diana from the angry red-head.
• I think he settled the Donna Troy thing well He completely trashed the much better Titans-origin Marv Wolfman had settled on since COIE appeared to wipe out the Who is Donna Troy story he had originally penned. Instead of trying to connect the old with the new, he threw it all away in favor of a roundabout story with a time-lost mirror image.
• Had a nice, memorable cast, probably one of the best If fact he liked it so much he decided Diana was unimportant enough to sideline on Olympus, in her own book...
• It has a lot of meta-themes to it (Donna Troy having a screwed up past) And for some reason he decided to kill Terry and Robby, no connection to any bad guys events or anything, just a regular crash in the rain... I honestly don't know why that was needed. (I realize Terry wasn't a favorite to most, but come on, if you are going to kill him, atleast use it for something.)

So how do you people like this run? It is very Perez-y, but I think I like it a lot more than Perez's run.

Interesting Fact: Giganta's first post-crisis appearance occurs during this run at the end, 10 years after the relaunch!

As far as I am concerned, the only good thing Byrne did for Wonder Woman was to add Cassandra Sandsmark as her first 'real' side kick since Donna's messed up past didn't allow it.

[Pinsir]

The two main things that turn people off this era are

1) Diana continually gets pushed into the background by other characters Byrne seems more interested in - The Demon Etrigan, for example. She also plays very little part in the last third of the run.

I guess this could bother a lot of people, but it really didn't bother me. In fact, I really liked that part .

2) Diana constantly gets tied up and/or tortured. When it happens once in three years you could excuse it, twice you start to raise an eyebrow, but this situation arises on FOUR separate occasions. Specifically...

- Strapped into a torture machine by Darkseid and made to suffer for about five pages before she escapes

- Strapped into a life draining machine by Morgan Le Fey - her only way to escape this is do nothing while but moan Morgan beats her half to death in her astral form

- Allowing Barbara Minerva in her Cheetah form to slash her continually with her claws while Diana stands there, sobbing and moaning as her clothing is reduced to barely concealing tatters while we are treated to views of bloody claw marks across her ever more revealed chest

- being strung up crucifixion style by the Demon Lord Neron as Etrigan perched on her belly and tortures her with a red hot poker [this scene was apparently so good it was shown twice - once in the issue where it happened and again next issue as a recap]

That's four instances of sadomasochism in three years, and not even counting the times when Cassadra's mother is stripped naked by Demons and Artemis is strapped won and forced to endure asphyxiation torture from a demon pillow [not joking - it really happened]

The only thing that stood out to me was the asphyxiation with Artemis. For me WW gettin' tied up is the bread and butter of the character, and after Bill Loebs run where WW is enslaved, beaten, and undressed I guess it just didn't bother me.

[Hawk80]

More than "mixed", less than "yes", voted YES.

[SeanT]

Hated it. Wonder Woman was ostensibly more powerful but incredibly useless. The only times she solved the dilemma was when she allowed herself to be tortured by Cheetah and Morgane Le Fay in spirit form.

Everyone makes a big deal about how she went up against Darkseid in her first arc. Did she? Darkseid came, killed scores of Amazons, and left, all without Diana doing one single thing. Is it really a story? There's no conclusion. And to top it off she falls into the arms of some guy she just met.

The Morgan Le Fay arc-- other people figured out how to defeat the mystic monsters. Diana stupidly blurts out she's no longer immortal, almost giving away the Phantom Stranger's battle plan. She defeats Morgan by allowing herself to be tortured.

The Doomsday arc-- Diana is defeated by the Sinestro clone and needs to be saved by Champion. The creators of the clone program figure out how to make Doomsday immobile, defeating him. Diana is supposed to be as strong as Superman but she needs the gauntlet of Atlas to help her shatter Doomsday.

The Earth-Shakers arc-- again, nothing much happens. The conclusion is basically a story describing the alien's culture.

Cheetah story-- again, Diana "defeats" Cheetah by allowing herself to be tortured.

Neron story-- Diana does absolutely zip. She's captured immediately and is used as a bridge. Why does Neron kill her? She did nothing against him. Rather, it is Cassie and Artemis who figure out how to defeat Neron.

Diana as goddess-- what exactly did she do? Saved a guy from a tiger, and something else. I don't recall. Byrne makes such a big deal about how he powered her up, but for what purpose? She does zip, and she's effectively removed from the rest of the story.

Nevermind that Hippolyta makes her stunning debut by stupidly cutting a guy's arm off and attacking a hologram, causing her to pass out.

It was like some cruel joke he was playing on Diana.

[Hawk80]

.... mmmm... I should re-read that... I'm a bit confused now. It was long time ago...
Maybe these days whatever "I-don't-hate-it" run instantly becomes something nice compared to the new Wonder-less Woman...

[Pinsir]

Hated it. Wonder Woman was ostensibly more powerful but incredibly useless. The only times she solved the dilemma was when she allowed herself to be tortured by Cheetah and Morgane Le Fay in spirit form.

Everyone makes a big deal about how she went up against Darkseid in her first arc. Did she? Darkseid came, killed scores of Amazons, and left, all without Diana doing one single thing. Is it really a story? There's no conclusion. And to top it off she falls into the arms of some guy she just met.

The Morgan Le Fay arc-- other people figured out how to defeat the mystic monsters. Diana stupidly blurts out she's no longer immortal, almost giving away the Phantom Stranger's battle plan. She defeats Morgan by allowing herself to be tortured.

The Doomsday arc-- Diana is defeated by the Sinestro clone and needs to be saved by Champion. The creators of the clone program figure out how to make Doomsday immobile, defeating him. Diana is supposed to be as strong as Superman but she needs the gauntlet of Atlas to help her shatter Doomsday.

The Earth-Shakers arc-- again, nothing much happens. The conclusion is basically a story describing the alien's culture.

Cheetah story-- again, Diana "defeats" Cheetah by allowing herself to be tortured.

Neron story-- Diana does absolutely zip. She's captured immediately and is used as a bridge. Why does Neron kill her? She did nothing against him. Rather, it is Cassie and Artemis who figure out how to defeat Neron.

Diana as goddess-- what exactly did she do? Saved a guy from a tiger, and something else. I don't recall. Byrne makes such a big deal about how he powered her up, but for what purpose? She does zip, and she's effectively removed from the rest of the story.

Nevermind that Hippolyta makes her stunning debut by stupidly cutting a guy's arm off and attacking a hologram, causing her to pass out.

It was like some cruel joke he was playing on Diana.

I think Byrn was going for a character that didn't solve their problems by punching things.

[SeanT]

So he went with a character who didn't solve things at all? Great.

[Pinsir]

So he went with a character who didn't solve things at all? Great.

I think she solved a bunch of things, but Byrne always had a more group focus to things, where each character has a role. In some runs, WW saves the day by herself and in others she has a cast to support her.

[SeanT]

She saved the day twice. In two small, personal battles. In which she stands there and allows herself to be slashed. It's not exactly a stunning show of heroics.

Under Byrne, she doesn't seem to have any convictions at all. She's just a generic hero, and not that good of one, either.

[brettc1]

I guess this could bother a lot of people, but it really didn't bother me. In fact, I really liked that part .



The only thing that stood out to me was the asphyxiation with Artemis. For me WW gettin' tied up is the bread and butter of the character, and after Bill Loebs run where WW is enslaved, beaten, and undressed I guess it just didn't bother me.

The slave planet - yes.

The difference is that there was nothing sexy about that. At the end of the first issue Diana has a pretty gruesome looking black eye, and there is not prolonged scenes were she is strapped down and tortured while she moans and groans.

Further, afterwards she leads the slaves to freedom and fights back against their oppressors. Byrnes quasi-bondage scenes do so little to advance the story they often seem to be an end in themselves.

[SeanT]

Byrnes quasi-bondage scenes do so little to advance the story they often seem to be an end in themselves.

Yes. The most significant thing she does in the Darkseid story is withstand the torture of DeSaad.

There's also the guy who did Diana's autopsy talking about holding her brain in his hand, or Helena being stripped and humiliated. Torture porn.

[Gaelforce]

A warning after some edits.

I'm getting really tired of people dragging their dislike of Azzarello into other threads.

This is a thread about the Byrne run, not whether or not someone else dislikes something about Byrne which you think is the same thing that happened with Azzarello and that person didn't complain about it then.

Enough is enough.