JLA: A League of One available on Comixology

[brettc1]

No, if anything, she chose the life of the planet over her own. Diana knows that the League can overcome just about anything when it works together, she knew this time that most, if not all, of it would die engaging this threat. She chose to sacrifice her own life, so that her friends would still be around to face down the next threat. A hundred or so might have died because of the dragon... but tomorrow, the next week or maybe a month later Darkseid launches an all out assault on the planet and hundreds of thousands die because the League wasn't there to protect them.

Well then clearly Superman is just a moron.



You big dumb jerk, Superman! You should have just let Metropolis be reduced to a smoking crater while you waited for back-up. What a loser. Now the whole world will pay the price for your lack of intelligence.

The headlines should have read "Metropolis Saved By Caped Idiot."

And hey - she DOESN'T know that the people engaging the dragon will die because - look, she doesn't die. Not for very long. What if the next threat can only be defeated by Wonder Woman? Whoops.

[Gaelforce]

Well then clearly Superman is just a moron.



You big dumb jerk, Superman! You should have just let Metropolis be reduced to a smoking crater while you waited for back-up. What a loser. Now the whole world will pay the price for your lack of intelligence.

The headlines should have read "Metropolis Saved By Caped Idiot."

And hey - she DOESN'T know that the people engaging the dragon will die because - look, she doesn't die. Not for very long. What if the next threat can only be defeated by Wonder Woman? Whoops.

Actually, he did have back up - the entire JL (minus Diana, who was conveniently off planet as I recall ) got taken down. Without Superman stopping him, Doomsday would, conceivably, have slaughtered everyone on the planet as there was no one else to stop him. There was no sign that Doomsday was going to stop at just Metropolis.

Diana fully believed the prophesy (hindsight is 20/20) and moved to save the JL from sacrificing themselves (which they would have) and leave the planet defenseless. She had no idea that she wouldn't die and fully expected to do so.

[Outside_85]

You big dumb jerk, Superman! You should have just let Metropolis be reduced to a smoking crater while you waited for back-up. What a loser. Now the whole world will pay the price for your lack of intelligence.

The headlines should have read "Metropolis Saved By Caped Idiot."

And hey - she DOESN'T know that the people engaging the dragon will die because - look, she doesn't die. Not for very long. What if the next threat can only be defeated by Wonder Woman? Whoops.

Superman wasn't even the first to engage Doomsday, the Justice League was, and they began on the outskirts of a small town.

I am at the point where I dont know if you are deliberately getting what I am saying wrong?

And there is where you are wrong; because technically she did die. It was only because Superman managed to restart her heart that she survived.
Donna Troy? Dr. Fate? Shazam? Artemis? Hippolyta? ... Wonder Woman is a title, it can be passed on if needed, like it did when Hippolyta knew Wonder WOman would die, so she made Artemis into Wonder Woman.

[Awonder]

I admit it's true - any fictional story can be written in any way you like.

But I don't think it's cheating exactly, to point out that this story flies in the face of a lot of precedent. This was the great problem with Sacrifice - for the story to work as intended one must ignore innumerable like situations where allowing the protagonist to live comes at a risk. So in that sense, my desired outcome merely reflects what I have come to expect based on past experiences.

I'm not saying this story could not have worked. It could. But expecting me to believe Diana would sacrifice hundreds to save the league is like expecting Superfans to believe Superman would sacrifice hundreds of people in Metropolis to save Lois. It seems plausible but on close examination just just violates a basic aspect of his character.

I think the story is supposed to fly in the face of precedent; that's kind of the point. Ironically, your proposed rewrite also flies in the face of precedent - Superman is not going to willingly stand on the sidelines as Diana faces the dragon alone.

You can always make the argument that something worse is coming, but I have said before this is Luthor or Dr Doom thinking. It basically negates a hero in the League EVER putting their life at risk. Should Superman fly off and leave innocents in mortal danger until he is certain of victory? Nobody would call him heroic if he did that all the time. They are called super HEROES for a reason...

Et tu, Gael ? Superman should run and hide anytime he looks like he might lose a fight, only coming out when victory is certain because the world needs him more than a few thousand nobody specials?

For years, you've been using this flawed logic, and, for years, I've been correcting you. For a teacher, you sure are a slow learner.

Your stated reasoning assumes that just because I do something once in one situation, therefore I must do the same thing again in all situations. If a firefighting crew decides that a fire is too big and out of control to send the crew in to fight it, it does not logically follow that all firefighting crews must not fight fires. Similarly, in warfare, generals sometimes have to decide to not use resources in battle A, and therefore lose that battle, so that they can dedicate resources to battle B and win the war. That does not mean generals should never dedicate resources and lose every battle.

There's no indication in the story, and I am certainly not advocating that Diana's decision in "A League of One" should be the standard operating procedure for the JL. Diana's actions are not the norm; they are extra-ordinary. She's going against precedent, because the situation is not the norm (at least, in her mind).

Except in this case she chooses the lives of her friends over principles.

Again with the unfair and inaccurate. Diana does not adhere to the principles you want for her, but that does not mean she does not choose principles. For instance, if I choose to be an educator, there are countless people that may otherwise die; if I had chosen to be a doctor, I could have saved them. That doesn't mean I didn't choose principles, since education is a valuable principle, too.

Diana, like all of us, can't be all things to all people. Normally, she fights to defend as many lives as she can. Normally, she would go into battle with the JL, each willing to risk their own life. But, this time it's not normal; so, this time, she chooses the extra-ordinary.

Yes, it sucks for those that died - as it sucks every time we have to say I can't fight battle A, because I'm fighting battle B in the hopes of doing more good in the long run. I think you're also wrong that Diana does not show remorse; to me, her regret is evident particularly in her fight with Batman. She does not like the decision she felt she had to make.

And hey - she DOESN'T know that the people engaging the dragon will die because - look, she doesn't die. Not for very long. What if the next threat can only be defeated by Wonder Woman? Whoops.

The only reason Diana is not dead "for very long" is because Superman is alive to revive her. Had she not created a scenario to keep him from the conflict, he and the rest of the JL would be dead along with Diana (until the revolving door of death in comics brought them back).

[brettc1]

Actually, he did have back up - the entire JL (minus Diana, who was conveniently off planet as I recall ) got taken down. Without Superman stopping him, Doomsday would, conceivably, have slaughtered everyone on the planet as there was no one else to stop him. There was no sign that Doomsday was going to stop at just Metropolis.

Diana fully believed the prophesy (hindsight is 20/20) and moved to save the JL from sacrificing themselves (which they would have) and leave the planet defenseless. She had no idea that she wouldn't die and fully expected to do so.

The question for me is simply this - does Wonder Woman let hundreds on men, women and children die who could otherwise be saved?

The answer for me "Of course not."

Heroes aren't heroes because they play it safe. Thor does not face the Midgard Serpent and think "if I duck this fight and sacrifice New York I'll be better placed to defende the WHOLE planet." He goes in knowing he's going to die and leaves the rest to fate.

Regarding the League, most of them turn up minutes after the fight ends, and that's only out of the six of them. There are literally dozens nore heroes on Earth, including Captain Marvel. And then trees guys like Zatanna and the other mages. By all logical thinking Superman should have hung back, and you know how big a fan of logic I am.

No, idobt want a story where the League is massacred, but I would like one where Wonder Woman is written like Wonder Woman. And where Superman is written like Superman, not some guy who smiles about hundreds being allowed to die so he can live. That is simply not Superman.

[Darius]

I tend to agree with you on this story brettc1 ... not one of the better written WW story arcs IMO. The whole "catch-22" bit the writer was going for felt a little forced when you consider the threat was a rather lame dragon. Honestly? The League fights Cosmos level threats on a regular basis and WW is worried about a Dragon? Underwhelming IMO

[Outside_85]

The question for me is simply this - does Wonder Woman let hundreds on men, women and children die who could otherwise be saved?

The answer for me "Of course not."

1 Heroes aren't heroes because they play it safe. Thor does not face the Midgard Serpent and think "if I duck this fight and sacrifice New York I'll be better placed to defende the WHOLE planet." 2 He goes in knowing he's going to die and leaves the rest to fate.

Regarding the League, most of them turn up minutes after the fight ends, and that's only out of the six of them. There are literally dozens nore heroes on Earth, including Captain Marvel. And then trees guys like Zatanna and the other mages. By all logical thinking Superman should have hung back, and you know how big a fan of logic I am.

No, idobt want a story where the League is massacred, but I would like one where Wonder Woman is written like Wonder Woman. And where Superman is written like Superman, not some guy who smiles about hundreds being allowed to die so he can live. That is simply not Superman.

The thing is that Diana isn't stupid either, she was still told that if the League got involved in it, then it would end up dead and perhaps without stopping the threat they were there to stop.

1. Neither do they tend to last very long if they are being stupid, unless they are Booster Gold. 2) It's not like he had much chance of survival anyways since the entire world was coming to an end.

Save that Superman doesn't hold back if there is a threat. Regarding the others; Yeah, there's just that minor thing about the dragons breath igniting whatever stains there are on the soul, Diana is nearly alone in not having any.

So whats wrong with this story?

[brettc1]

The thing is that Diana isn't stupid either, she was still told that if the League got involved in it, then it would end up dead and perhaps without stopping the threat they were there to stop.

1. Neither do they tend to last very long if they are being stupid, unless they are Booster Gold. 2) It's not like he had much chance of survival anyways since the entire world was coming to an end.

Save that Superman doesn't hold back if there is a threat. Regarding the others; Yeah, there's just that minor thing about the dragons breath igniting whatever stains there are on the soul, Diana is nearly alone in not having any.

So whats wrong with this story?

The part where Wonder Woman makes an active choice to let people like this die...



And why exactly does that happen? Because Diana is shown as being locked rigidly into her particular belief system when by the end of the story we can see for a fact that prophecies by the Delphic Oracle are NOT immune to subjective interpretation. She would have been better off watching "The Empire Strikes Back" and listening to Yoda when he tells us "Always in motion is the the future."

The writing of Wonder Woman here is entirely contradictory - and not in the interesting paradox way that Silvanus seems so fond of. On the one hand she is motivated to let innocents perish because she presented as slavishly devoted to her belief system, while at the same time she manipulates circumstance to save her friends through semantics. If you're going to cheat fate, fine, but clearly you can do it in a number of ways and saying "I couldn't come up with a way to do it and save those people" simply isn't good enough.

Because she is unwilling to actually trust her team mates, hundreds of people get driven to homicidal madness and/or get eaten by a giant lizard.

The writing of the rest of the League is nearly as bad - not a one of them points out all the people she let die to save them. What the hell?! Superman alone should be outraged that somebody conspired to let hundreds of ordinary people die to save his life. Diana simply has no right to do that. If my wife let a hundred innocent people die to save me because of what she believed might happen I would understand why she did it but it would still be the wrong thing to do.

I understand why folks like this book. The art is great, and Wonder Woman is shown outwitting and outfighting her team-mates and defeating an enemy that only she can face down because she is somehow exceptional.

The problem is she also shown as being exceptionally lacking in compassion for the lives she threw into the fire.

And can I just say on a purely personal not to Awonder I don't see how you can defend Diana's actions here AND say she was justified in bawling out that Doctor in the Rucka run - the one that let Nessie be kidnapped because his family was threatened. How dare he make a decision to save the life of somebody he loves by sacrificing somebody else. Yeah, you tell him Wonder Woman. Are you sure your mother's name isn't Queen Hypocritical?

I apologize if I am remember this wrong but I seem to recall us clashing over that point in the past...

[Outside_85]

And why exactly does that happen? Because Diana is shown as being locked rigidly into her particular belief system when by the end of the story we can see for a fact that prophecies by the Delphic Oracle are NOT immune to subjective interpretation. She would have been better off watching "The Empire Strikes Back" and listening to Yoda when he tells us "Always in motion is the the future."

Remind you again that the oracle was not wrong, everything it foretold happened, what it didn't say was what happened afterwards. And Diana, through ages of experience of her people, knew the oracle was to be trusted. So a pretty good system to be locked into.

The writing of Wonder Woman here is entirely contradictory - and not in the interesting paradox way that Silvanus seems so fond of. On the one hand she is motivated to let innocents perish because she presented as slavishly devoted to her belief system, while at the same time she manipulates circumstance to save her friends through semantics. If you're going to cheat fate, fine, but clearly you can do it in a number of ways and saying "I couldn't come up with a way to do it and save those people" simply isn't good enough.

You seem to be holding her to an unreasonable and completely outdated stadard. As far as I remember, the oracle didn't specify it would be a dragon or where it was going to appear, so preventing the majority of deaths appears to be rather impossible.

Because she is unwilling to actually trust her team mates, hundreds of people get driven to homicidal madness and/or get eaten by a giant lizard.

No, she trusts her teammates completely and she knows exactly what they are going to do when they hear about the dragon; and thats why she had to take them out first, otherwise they would have been killed as well.

The writing of the rest of the League is nearly as bad - not a one of them points out all the people she let die to save them. What the hell?! Superman alone should be outraged that somebody conspired to let hundreds of ordinary people die to save his life. Diana simply has no right to do that. If my wife let a hundred innocent people die to save me because of what she believed might happen I would understand why she did it but it would still be the wrong thing to do.

Yes, lets play that game... because no one mentioned the people killed by Doomsday in DoSM, not in the immediate aftermath and not before a year or so after Superman returned. No one went: "Wow Superman, we are sure glad to see you alive again and thank you for saving the planet from your Cyborg Superman copy... You jerk, lots of people died while you were fighting Doomsday and Coast City has been wiped off the map." Which to my eye is a pretty rotten thing to do.

I understand why folks like this book. The art is great, and Wonder Woman is shown outwitting and outfighting her team-mates and defeating an enemy that only she can face down because she is somehow exceptional.

The problem is she also shown as being exceptionally lacking in compassion for the lives she threw into the fire.

Because we all wanted to see Diana break down in tears... oh, wait, that would have been out of character.

And can I just say on a purely personal not to Awonder I don't see how you can defend Diana's actions here AND say she was justified in bawling out that Doctor in the Rucka run - the one that let Nessie be kidnapped because his family was threatened. How dare he make a decision to save the life of somebody he loves by sacrificing somebody else. Yeah, you tell him Wonder Woman. Are you sure your mother's name isn't Queen Hypocritical?

You still haven't moved on from Diana doing things for more than just her personal reasons? Yes, the League happens to be her friends... now please remember that they are also the first and best line of defence the Earth has. And this is the DCU, so something is bound to be heading Earths way.

...And League of One wasn't written by Rucka either, so I am not certain why I need to defend her from different writers with different interpretations and with different situations?

[brettc1]

so the Oracle is always right...up to a point. Sounds to me like you need to take that into consideration in your planning.

The original prophecy sequence clearly shows the whole JL not just Diana which doesn't happen. Dear Switzerland, sorry we let hundreds of people die, we had a prophecy that turned out to be highly subjective in terms of specific details. Also you are small country and we didn't think it worth risking all of our big hitters.

All these arguments about the worse things coming...they basically say that Superman and Wonder Woman should never risk their life for just one person. Wonder Woman being prepared to sacrifice herself to rescue a single innocent is not heroic, it's stupid and selfish. Don't put yourself in the way of that bullet to save that cop, Batman, the league needs you to outwit darkseid.

In fact the JL probably shouldn't be allowed to adventure individually at all. They are much too valuable. They should be kept in stasis until they are needed. No point risking such valuable assets.

Why would Wonder Woman crying over people's deaths be out of character.?Especially if she allowed then to happen.

And the last part of my previous post was clearly addressed to somebody else

[Outside_85]

so the Oracle is always right...up to a point. Sounds to me like you need to take that into consideration in your planning.

The original prophecy sequence clearly shows the whole JL not just Diana which doesn't happen. Dear Switzerland, sorry we let hundreds of people die, we had a prophecy that turned out to be highly subjective in terms of specific details. Also you are small country and we didn't think it worth risking all of our big hitters.

All these arguments about the worse things coming...they basically say that Superman and Wonder Woman should never risk their life for just one person. Wonder Woman being prepared to sacrifice herself to rescue a single innocent is not heroic, it's stupid and selfish. Don't put yourself in the way of that bullet to save that cop, Batman, the league needs you to outwit darkseid.

In fact the JL probably shouldn't be allowed to adventure individually at all. They are much too valuable. They should be kept in stasis until they are needed. No point risking such valuable assets.

Why would Wonder Woman crying over people's deaths be out of character.?Especially if she allowed then to happen.

So you want to predict the future beyond what the oracle wanted you to know? Unless that actually happens to be your superpower... thats not a route I'd take.

Because Diana knew that if it did, then they'd be toast, so moved to prevent it from happening. Also: Dear Justice League, thank you for sending Wonder Woman, we might not be here today if she hadn't saved us. Regards Switzerland.

You are talking about it as if it was just risk, this book dealt with a known fact. Oh no Batman, don't jump in the acid vat to save that guy, it's too late for him.

Now you are just being silly.

When was the last time you saw her crying over random people she never met, and wasn't being written by an idiot?

[Awonder]

And can I just say on a purely personal not to Awonder I don't see how you can defend Diana's actions here AND say she was justified in bawling out that Doctor in the Rucka run - the one that let Nessie be kidnapped because his family was threatened. How dare he make a decision to save the life of somebody he loves by sacrificing somebody else. Yeah, you tell him Wonder Woman. Are you sure your mother's name isn't Queen Hypocritical?

I apologize if I am remember this wrong but I seem to recall us clashing over that point in the past...

I don't think there's much we haven't clashed over.

How can I defend Diana? Easy, I don't see her as a robot. She's human. Yes, I know she's actually fiction, so different writers portray her somewhat differently in different stories. But, we as humans are imperfect and emotional beings along with our logic and reason. We're also hypocritical. So, I'm ok with a degree of imperfection, emotion, and even a touch of what is arguably hypocrisy.

Here, I agree with Outside; Diana is not simply trying to save her friends. She is trying to save the JL, because they do a lot of good in the world. She's looking at the long-term big picture. And, ultimately, she's sacrificing her own life to save others. The doctor was trading someone else's life, not sacrificing his own, and doing so only for his personal connection, not for a greater good. Those are important differences. His actions may be understandable, just as Diana's anger at him is understandable.

Does this sort of trade-off suck? Absolutely. I understand why you don't like it. I don't like all of it either. But, I try to accept that life has sucky imperfect answers sometimes. Diana's chosen action has a definite sucky side; but it isn't all bad either. It's an imperfect mixed bag.

Could the story use more compassion and even anger over the loss of life? Sure. But, that isn't just a failure of this story, it's pretty common in superheroes. Clark was saving the day in Man of Steel, but still destroyed much of Metropolis in the process - how much of the movie shows him grieving those unnamed folks lost in the rubble? Ultron is Tony's creation, but do the Avengers stick around to morn and help rebuild or do they go back to their club house and pat each other on the back? Luke blows up the Death Star, but no one ever thinks about the secretary that just took a job with the empire to make ends meet for her family.

I am not arguing that there is not an ugly side to this story. I am not arguing that it couldn't have been written better. I do think you take some of your criticism too far. For instance, ...

The writing of Wonder Woman here is entirely contradictory - and not in the interesting paradox way that Silvanus seems so fond of. On the one hand she is motivated to let innocents perish because she presented as slavishly devoted to her belief system, while at the same time she manipulates circumstance to save her friends through semantics. If you're going to cheat fate, fine, but clearly you can do it in a number of ways and saying "I couldn't come up with a way to do it and save those people" simply isn't good enough.

There's a big difference between accepting that group A will die if I choose to save group B and being "motivated to let innocents perish." That is not her motivation in this story.

The writing of the rest of the League is nearly as bad - not a one of them points out all the people she let die to save them. What the hell?! Superman alone should be outraged that somebody conspired to let hundreds of ordinary people die to save his life. Diana simply has no right to do that. If my wife let a hundred innocent people die to save me because of what she believed might happen I would understand why she did it but it would still be the wrong thing to do.

If the world is not paying WW to defend them, then they have no claim on how Diana chooses to serve the world. Even paid military, police, firefighters, etc have to make hard decisions that includes not helping others at times, so they can take care of themselves. That may include not going into dangerous situations or rescuing their coworkers. So, Diana has every right to choose whom she wishes to risk her own life to rescue.

All these arguments about the worse things coming...they basically say that Superman and Wonder Woman should never risk their life for just one person. Wonder Woman being prepared to sacrifice herself to rescue a single innocent is not heroic, it's stupid and selfish. Don't put yourself in the way of that bullet to save that cop, Batman, the league needs you to outwit darkseid.

In fact the JL probably shouldn't be allowed to adventure individually at all. They are much too valuable. They should be kept in stasis until they are needed. No point risking such valuable assets.

In all the years I've debated the merits of this story, you are the only one I recall making this argument. From my point of view, you are unfairly distorting what I and others are trying to say.

I've specifically made the point that Diana's actions should not be seen as standard operating procedure. Just because something works once, doesn't mean it should be used all the time.

Eta- You propose the idea that Diana should trust her teammates and they should trust her. That sounds nice, but can you think of a story where Superman stays on the sidelines, out of harm's way,and allows his friends to rush into (arguably) certain death? That sounds like it goes contrary to what we've seen over the years from these characters.

[brettc1]

So you want to predict the future beyond what the oracle wanted you to know? Unless that actually happens to be your superpower... thats not a route I'd take.

Because Diana knew that if it did, then they'd be toast, so moved to prevent it from happening. Also: Dear Justice League, thank you for sending Wonder Woman, we might not be here today if she hadn't saved us. Regards Switzerland.

You are talking about it as if it was just risk, this book dealt with a known fact. Oh no Batman, don't jump in the acid vat to save that guy, it's too late for him.

Now you are just being silly.

When was the last time you saw her crying over random people she never met, and wasn't being written by an idiot?

It's not a fact if it DOESNT ACTUALLY HAPPEN. The Prophecy says the league will die. One member of the leagues dies... For about 30 seconds.

Random people she net or random victims of slaughter?

PS justice League...we are just guessing everyone else was busy, right? Sw

[brettc1]

I don't say her motivation is yo let innocent perish- I said she was motivated to do it, which is true.

She is perfectly at liberty to sacrifice her life. Just not the lives of other people's children who have no idea what is going on.

While Diana has the right to decide how she serves the world, actively choosing to let people die Who she knows could be saved is not really acting like Wonder Woman. She knows what is going on the second she hears the rort in the JL briefing and actively participates in covering up the facts. The blood of every person who dies between that moment and when she finally acts to stop the dragon is, in part, on her hands.

The obvious difference between Tony in Age of Ultron and Diana in League of One is that Stark is mentally manipulated into making a bad choice which he doesn't know will result in innocent deaths. Diana is fully aware of the situation and the consequences of her actions and people die needlessly.

[Outside_85]

It's not a fact if it DOESNT ACTUALLY HAPPEN. The Prophecy says the league will die. One member of the leagues dies... For about 30 seconds.

Random people she net or random victims of slaughter?

PS justice League...we are just guessing everyone else was busy, right? Sw

Your problem here is that you seem to think a prophecy means 'rock solid forever and ever'. It doesn't and it never has. As has been the case with just about every dire prophecy in comics, it will be ABSOLUTELY TRUE TO THE LETTER and nothing more. And so it was this time, the Justice League (the sole member of it that engaged the dragon) died and the prophecy was fulfilled; then something else happened.

Dont know what you mean here?

From Gotham to the Batman: Why dont you bring in your friends to clean up this place? Sincerely Gotham and everyone who lives in it.