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

[Darius]

I didn't love the run, to me it didn' have a very cohesive feel to it and sort of rambled from one are to the next with little closure. I also don't particularly love Byrne's artwork. Basically I thought Byrne was pretty forgettable on WW.

[Pinsir]

So is this one of the more disliked runs then?

[brettc1]

So is this one of the more disliked runs then?

Probably.

I think except in rare instances like Frank Miller's Daredevil or Walt Simonson's Thor reactions to a run on any comic are fairly mixed. As this poll itself indicates.

[Darius]

So is this one of the more disliked runs then?

Seems like it ... Personally, I think there is also a level of disappointment with the run because Byrne had such a high profile and strong background. So when the run delivered a mediocre set of stories folks were pretty bummed.

[Stanlos]

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.

Hi, Sean--remember for this one, the Virtual Doomsday became more and more powerful the longer the match went on. The Lazarus Tech and Doomsday's nature kind of made a cluster together as its (Doomsday's) enabled it to assume control of the tech and draw more and power. At one point its power was literally doubling with every step and the combined might of Diana and Campion would no longer be able to contain it. It was at that point that Diana resorted to the Gauntlet.

To be fair to Byrne, he showed Diana being able to do just fine against the creature that killed Superman. It was only the momentary distraction of Cassie's unexpected arrival in the battle theatre that created an opening for the monster to get the upper hand.

[Lord of Narrative]

Fail. Byrne brought back a bunch of Silver age/Pre-Crisis crap that should've stayed where it was.

Diana, is a minor character in her own book, and does next to nothing of importance.

Making Hippolyta the WW2 WW, trying to put Golden Age crap in continuity, and making Diana and the Cheetah into legacy characters was so stupid that just typing about it makes internal and reproductive organs quiver with a intense cancerous pain that may very well threaten my sanity, if not my life. I HATE, HATE, HATE forcing Diana to be tied to WW2 in some way. It was stupid as crap when Byrne did it, it was stupid in Young Justice, and I hope TO GOD ALMIGHTY that DC/WB will not try to do it.

Art was kinda meh.

[SteveGus]

What Byrne's run demonstrated mostly to me was that he shouldn't be allowed to ink himself. I rather liked his basic design for Diana, and thought his version a lot more realistic and attractive than the Deodato version that immediately preceded it. But too many of his pages look like he quickly inked them with a Sharpie.

The story was meh; in retrospect there's been far worse. He wanted to establish Wonder Woman as a major powerhouse, second only to Superman. He helped in that regard, at any rate.

[Aioros22]

Hi, Sean--remember for this one, the Virtual Doomsday became more and more powerful the longer the match went on. The Lazarus Tech and Doomsday's nature kind of made a cluster together as its (Doomsday's) enabled it to assume control of the tech and draw more and power. At one point its power was literally doubling with every step and the combined might of Diana and Campion would no longer be able to contain it. It was at that point that Diana resorted to the Gauntlet.

To be fair to Byrne, he showed Diana being able to do just fine against the creature that killed Superman. It was only the momentary distraction of Cassie's unexpected arrival in the battle theatre that created an opening for the monster to get the upper hand.

And the moment she was briefly knocked down and saved by Champion/Heracles.

My main grip is the (understandable) mixed art identidy of the title. Byrne was on the verge of changing his inking style and it shows. Kind of throws you off, but the pace and storytelling is obviously good no matter what.

I enjoyed the Champion subplot as Heracles and the subquent plots about the Gods, but (again) the main grip is that Byrne either creates something to undermine a character (Artemis) makes the main character into something that leads nowhere (Diana) or reverts something he didn`t need to revert at all (Heracles disdain for the Amazons again). That last bit, me being a huge fan of the mythical character and more than interested in several comic versions, put me off particularly. Theres zero reason as to why Heracles would hate the amazons after what he went throught (in plot terms post "Challenge of the Gods"), and the given reason isn`t convinging at all and only paints him as a moderm typeface jerk.

And even the "Wonder Woman version" (to distinguish the fact that before the original crisis, there were two more versions running around in other titles) was more than that under Perez.

[Pinsir]

What Byrne's run demonstrated mostly to me was that he shouldn't be allowed to ink himself. I rather liked his basic design for Diana, and thought his version a lot more realistic and attractive than the Deodato version that immediately preceded it. But too many of his pages look like he quickly inked them with a Sharpie.

I admit at first I was adverse to the art (I didn't realize it was him at the beginning, in fact I didn't realize he was an artist), but I found it grew on me. I admit his Wonder Woman is not very beautiful, so if one is interested in that sort of things they may be out of luck, though his Artemis is very attractive. His art is very Kirby-ish, which is a style again I also like.

In general though I do regard art as less important than the story, so if one were to view it the other way I can see why this would be a problem.

[richalex]

What Byrne's run demonstrated mostly to me was that he shouldn't be allowed to ink himself. I rather liked his basic design for Diana, and thought his version a lot more realistic and attractive than the Deodato version that immediately preceded it. But too many of his pages look like he quickly inked them with a Sharpie.

The story was meh; in retrospect there's been far worse. He wanted to establish Wonder Woman as a major powerhouse, second only to Superman. He helped in that regard, at any rate.

I have to agree with the art. When he isn't inked by Terry Austin, his art suffers a great deal. I was looking forward to him on art until we got what we got. lol.

I'm kinda curious what would have happened if his "Dark Phoenix of Truth" Storyline can to fruition. He was supposed to have her go against the JLA at the time and be the most powerful member, but the Editors scrapped that story line. That is why during the whole Goddess of Truth time she didn't do anything.

[SeanT]

At one point its power was literally doubling with every step and the combined might of Diana and Campion would no longer be able to contain it. It was at that point that Diana resorted to the Gauntlet.

He was only doubling in power when the female scientist turned up the juice all the way. That was what defeated him-- he mutated to the point where he was frozen. So again, this story simply showed that Wonder Woman could take a beating and survive. Not to mention she was saved twice by Champion-- against the Sinestro clone and against Doomsday. That's how Byrne showed she was so tough. She could get beaten up. But did she do anything to save the day? No. She survived. That's about all you can say about her in this story.

[SJNeal]

There are no WW runs worse than John Byrne's, imho. The only other one that comes close is the Heinberg/Picoult stuff, but at least we got some great art from that era.