New Phil Jimenez/Wonder Woman Interview

[numberthirty]

Death, fear, torture, murder, rape, carnage - it's pretty straight forward.

Only if you have somehow managed to stay completely unaware that each of these things happens outside of wartime.

[Silvanus]

So not the god of war.

...

Like the god of war.

As I said, it's a paradox. But the Olympians do regard her as War even before she accepts the title, so her status is not dependent on her actions. Kill the god of war, and you're the god of war, whether you or the Olympians like it or not. Some of them may consider her an "interesting," inactive, irresponsible, incompetent, or wayward god of war, but they still consider her god of war, and with good reason: she gets to move freely between realms as only enthroned Olympians, she presumably has access to War's armory as seen in issue 0, War's birds recognize her as their master, she has the soldier telepathy (or whatever it is) that Soule showed, etc. She's the god of war--but she acts in such a way as to represent peace rather than war. It's a paradox--and a good example of free and even indomitable will, as Diana is defying the expectations attached to her mantle.

Athena might mind.

Athena might mind Diana's role morphing into "goddess of soldiers"? Why? I don't believe Athena was ever the goddess of soldiers--more like the goddess of strategists and generals, and its not clear that she's even that in the current DC continuity.

No. She was fighting against war. Not the same thing.

She was participating in World War II; that's making war. The god of War was on the other side and was her primary enemy. So, she was making war on War.

Storms bring life as well as destruction.

They do, but they're mindless and amoral. Direct them towards a moral purpose, and you're not just "representing" them; you're regulating, humanizing and moralizing them.

Yes, let's use the power of the dark side to defeat it. Oh yeah, that ends well...

Wonder Woman, of course, has always used the arts of war to fight against war, so I don't see it as a fundamental change.

[brettc1]

Only if you have somehow managed to stay completely unaware that each of these things happens outside of wartime.

War causes a quantifiable and dramatic increase in all these problems. Any attempt to say otherwise is mere wishful thinking.

[brettc1]

Wonder Woman, of course, has always used the arts of war to fight against war, so I don't see it as a fundamental change.

Has the regularly bombed and destroyed civilian population centres? Has she hurled diseased bodies over a wall during a siege and used starvation as a weapon? Has she tortured for information, or raped in order to destroy the moral of her enemies? These are the arts of war of which you speak.

Perhaps you mean the skills of a warrior, or a strategist, but they are not exactly the same thing.

[Silvanus]

Has the regularly bombed and destroyed civilian population centres? Has she hurled diseased bodies over a wall during a siege and used starvation as a weapon? Has she tortured for information, or raped in order to destroy the moral of her enemies? These are the arts of war of which you speak.

Those are certainly tactics and abuses and atrocities that all too frequently occur in war. I would not, myself, dignify them with the name of "arts." It seems more proper to apply that term to the more nuanced and ethically restrained and tactics, strategies and weaponry skills that Diana knows how to used in World War II, Our Worlds at War, and other wars.

Saying that war is necessary is simply admitting the failure of Wonder Woman's ideal.

Everyone's idealism has so far failed, and will for the forseebale future fail, to bring a final end to all warfare. If she can bring some ongoing wars to just conclusions and precent some new wars from happening, that will be pretty good.

[brettc1]

Those are certainly tactics and abuses and atrocities that all too frequently occur in war. I would not, myself, dignify them with the name of "arts." It seems more proper to apply that term to the more nuanced and ethically restrained and tactics, strategies and weaponry skills that Diana knows how to used in World War II, Our Worlds at War, and other wars.

I use the word "art" ironically to make a point. But Ares would tell you [and indeed told Diana in the Azzarello run] that war is not about restraint and ethics. It is about victory, no matter the cost.

The fact that Diana does not use these tactics displays a rejection of the fundamental nature of war. But she can't change what it is, any more than Thor can change that lightning is made from electrons.

[numberthirty]

Ares would tell you [and indeed told Diana in the Azzarello run] that war is not about restraint and ethics. It is about victory, no matter the cost.

Negative. Seriously, reread issue #0.

[numberthirty]

Has the regularly bombed and destroyed civilian population centres? Has she hurled diseased bodies over a wall during a siege and used starvation as a weapon? Has she tortured for information, or raped in order to destroy the moral of her enemies? These are the arts of war of which you speak.

Perhaps you mean the skills of a warrior, or a strategist, but they are not exactly the same thing.

Again, you've got to ignore reality to make this case. Holdomor had nothing to do with wartime.

[brettc1]

Negative. Seriously, reread issue #0.

You mean where he is telling her to kill the minotaur because you cannot leave a defeated enemy alive? And then we he realized he has done exactly the same thing is confronted by the true horror to which he is god and ends up a broken drunk?

Maybe you are not reading the same issue 0.

Again, you've got to ignore reality to make this case. Holdomor had nothing to do with wartime.

I have no idea what Holdomor is.

Oh wait, you mean Holodomor - extermination by famine.

Sure it does. Denying your enemy vital supplies of food is a highly effective tactic used for thousands of years, from sieges to scorched earth policy. The fact that famines happen anyway doesn't mean it is not a war time tactic for millennia. Your logic seems to be that if somebody can die of something outside of war, then that thing is not part of war. But war is about destroying your enemies as effectively and totally as possible. Just because people die in housefires every day doesn't mean the firebombing of Dresden had nothing to do with there being a war on at time.

Which is what Jimenez is pointing out in his interview - Warrior for Peace and God of War are not the same. They are in fact paradigm shifts apart.

[NYCER]

I didn't say they didn't get her. Clearly they've made a Diana that resonates with a lot of people (although not me). I was saying, they made a very different Diana than Marston's version, and Azzarello's is much closer to the original.

On what planet? Marston's Diana and Azzarello's Diana are diametrical opposites. Never in a million years would Marston's Diana take on the - as you state - the role of the God of War even if only titular. War represents the worst and biggest failure of humanity. Marston was very much against that. I don't know what Kool-Aid Azzarello was drinking but whatever it was, it wasn't from the school of Marston.

[numberthirty]

Your logic seems to be that if somebody can die of something outside of war, then that thing is not part of war.

Exactly. It is just a part of how humanity operates. It is an element of that operation that simply carries over into wartime.

Your logic seems to be that if somebody can die of something outside of war, then that thing is not part of war. But war is about destroying your enemies as effectively and totally as possible.

Again, this is just simply wrong. If it was the case...

- Why only drop nukes on two cities?
- Why not kill every person in Germany post-WWII?


As for issue #0, think about what Ares says the purpose of war is.

[brettc1]

Exactly. It is just a part of how humanity operates. It is an element of that operation that simply carries over into wartime.


Again, this is just simply wrong. If it was the case...

- Why only drop nukes on two cities?

Because they only had two.

Why drop a second nuke when it was perfectly obvious after the first one what they could do?

Why not kill every person in Germany post-WWII?

Because Germany surrendered. But along the way to that some pretty horrifying things were done. Two million rapes in Russian occupied Berlin.

As for issue #0, think about what Ares says the purpose of war is.

To ensure peace - which means by his standards Germany and Japan should both have been razed the to the ground and the Earth salted. But if war were the noble exercise he tries to argue, why did he end up a drunk with a death wish?

A better question would be why drop two nuclear weapons on two civilian cities in the first place? Because that way you cause maximum death and destruction to prove your point.

The fact that Germany and Japan were not completely scourged from the Earth [like Carthage] are a testament to the better angels of human natures, not proof that war is like something you see in a 1940's propaganda movie. But Diana doesn't represent that ideal. War is war.

[numberthirty]

Because Germany surrendered. But along the way to that some pretty horrifying things were done. Two million rapes in Russian occupied Berlin.

Which is the exact opposite of this -

war is about destroying your enemies as effectively and totally as possible.

As for issue #0, think about what Ares says the purpose of war is.

To ensure peace - which means by his standards Germany and Japan should both have been razed the to the ground and the Earth salted. But if war were the noble exercise he tries to argue, why did he end up a drunk with a death wish?

Again, reread the issue. He said something. That is not it.

[brettc1]

Which is the exact opposite of this -

Again, reread the issue. He said something. That is not it.

Or you could just post it.

[brettc1]

Again, reread the issue. He said something. That is not it.

Oh look here's the issue...



AND IT'S EXACTLY LIKE I SAID!!!

There's fifteen minutes of my life I'll never get back...