Finch/Azzarello Comparisons and Contrasts

[Dr. Poison]

Much as I'm not a huge fan of Azzarello, I just don't agree with this concept.

Azzarello set things up with Diana as an undefined god of war, and with the Amazon society poised to deal with the complicated issues of integrating the men who were both blood relatives and combat allies into their society.

Instead of going forward, imo, Finch took it backwards. At the end of Azzarello's Diana had a clear handle on just who she was. It seemed to me to be the major point of the entire over-arcing storyline.

The first thing Finch did was throw this out the window and give us a Diana who was incapable of reconciling the various aspects of her life despite having just spent three years doing just that. She was insecure, angry, and confused about how to be a Queen, a superhero, a god and a girlfriend (all while confessing this to Aquaman while hugging a teddy bear).

Rather than deal with the fascinating concept of integration on Themyscira, Finch referred to the male Amazons as a 'loose end' and just had them all slaughtered.

Hippolyta was left as an animated stone statue which could have been a great source of a plotline, but instead, Finch ignored the 'animated' part, murdered Hippolyta by smashing her unmoving statue-self without anyone seeming to care who did it.

She integrated the JL into a WW storyline that made no sense - an emergency so intense that it required the entire league...to sit around and chat about Diana's confidence problems?

Azzarello left it to the next writer to create the portfolio, and this, I agree, was a potential mistake, but only in the hands of the wrong writer. Instead of using the 'god of war' as a base to start from, all we've gotten is a useless Diana who can't fight her way out of a paper bag.

Finch's explanation is that she is holding back her godly might, yet that wasn't even hinted at in any of the previous issues.

I think the big difference is this - Azzarello, even if you don't like what he wrote, crafted a solid story that made sense. No, I don't like the new origin (too generic) and I don't like the new Amazons, but the story was well thought out. Finch's stories are all over the place, with her just destroying what came before (Hippolyta dead, the male Amazons dead, the dead gods brought back, Zeke/Zeus taking an active role in driving the plot while still teething). I don't think her story lines end well, each of them (the insect people and the Eirene plotline) coming to abrupt, poorly thought out endings.

How exactly was Azzarello's story "well thought out" when he couldn't even bother to resolve many of the plot lines he started up(i.e. reanimated Hippolyta, Diana's GoW abilities, and male Amazons going to Themyscira)? Sure, there are times when writers leave a book and there are certain things for the next writer to follow up on but in this case, there was little more than a fuse lit with these sub-plots which made them come across as pure shock-value and nothing more. Why did Hippolyta go from a statue to reanimated clay instead of flesh? What abilities, perks, and responsibilities came with the God of War title? Were the female Amazons truly grateful for the male Amazons help and willing to welcome them to Themyscira or did the male Amazons just serve as cannon fodder against the First Born in the females' eyes. All of these things were either left very vague or not explained at all and Finch was left to resolve the plot-lines in one way or another. Granted, she may not have chosen the path you would have but Azzarello should have resolved much more of his plots before he left the book(not that I wanted him on it for another 3 years but still....).

[Silvanus]

As for Swamp Thing, due to what was going on with the attack on the town, she thought he was behind it due to his power-set. Yes, she made a bad judgement call but her heart was in the right place and nothing was broken or impaled on Swampy. The same goes for the bug guy.

Perhaps you haven't looked at those issues in a while. She bloodily slices into the bug guy's back and chest, almost killing him. She has to be restrained by Superman, and Cyborg has to save her victim's life. What she does to him is far, far more violent and out-of-control than stabbing Strife's hand, warning her and then calmly leaving her alone. She also slices through Swamp Thing; the only reason he doesn't bleed all over the place is that he's made of magic swamp vegetation, not flesh and blood.

I don't blame Azzarello for Finch's performance. I more so look at this situation this way: Azzarello left a bag of feces in his wake that DC handed to Finch and said "Here, turn this into gold!"

So, basically, although you "don't balme Azzarello for Finch's performance," you do blame Azzarello for Finch's performance.

[Dr. Poison]

Perhaps you haven't looked at those issues in a while. She bloodily slices into the bug guy's back and chest, almost killing him. She has to be restrained by Superman, and Cyborg has to save her victim's life. What she does to him is far, far more violent and out-of-control than stabbing Strife's hand, warning her and then calmly leaving her alone. She also slices through Swamp Thing; the only reason he doesn't bleed all over the place is that he's made of magic swamp vegetation, not flesh and blood.



So, basically, although you "don't balme Azzarello for Finch's performance," you do blame Azzarello for Finch's performance.

What I'm saying is that Finch was given quite a mess to work with. Again, you may not like how she resolved these plot-lines but most of them shouldn't have been left to the next writer to resolve period.

[Carabas]

How exactly was Azzarello's story "well thought out" when he couldn't even bother to resolve many of the plot lines he started up(i.e. reanimated Hippolyta, Diana's GoW abilities, and male Amazons going to Themyscira)?

Eh... How do you figure those three are unresolved? They seemd pretty darn resolved to me, in as much that anything can ever be resolved in an infinitely ongoing comicbook.

Why did Hippolyta go from a statue to reanimated clay instead of flesh?

Hero not being omnipotent.

What abilities, perks, and responsibilities came with the God of War title?

A seat at the table of Olympus and a bit of extra 'oomph'. And whatever a crafty next writer wants to make of it.

Were the female Amazons truly grateful for the male Amazons help and willing to welcome them to Themyscira or did the male Amazons just serve as cannon fodder against the First Born in the females' eyes.

Could go either way, but I'm sure that "Let's not deal with thsi at all on any level and just butcher them all so they're out of the way" is not a proper way to deal with that issue.

And finally, it's not the job of a writer to make sure that the next writer never has to think about things are has to deal with stuff that came before.

[Silvanus]

What I'm saying is that Finch was given quite a mess to work with. Again, you may not like how she resolved these plot-lines but most of them shouldn't have been left to the next writer to resolve period.

This makes no sense to me. If she considered he male Amazons an unwanted loose end, she could have easily said they chose to return to Heph's workshop. It would have taken less than a panel, and she need never have mention them again. Hippolyta' s "stone" status, too, could have easily been brushed off if Finch considered it too messy to use. In fact, she chose not answer the unanswered questions about Hippolyta; that' fine with me, but since she didn't resolve those loose ends, it makes no sense to say she was constrained by having to resolve them. Unceremoniously killing off Hippolyta' and having the male Amazons massacred were her choices, and nothing from Azz's run made those choices necessary.

[Dr. Poison]

This makes no sense to me. If she considered he male Amazons an unwanted loose end, she could have easily said they chose to return to Heph's workshop. It would have taken less than a panel, and she need never have mention them again. Hippolyta' s "stone" status, too, could have easily been brushed off if Finch considered it too messy to use. In fact, she chose not answer the unanswered questions about Hippolyta; that' fine with me, but since she didn't resolve those loose ends, it makes no sense to say she was constrained by having to resolve them. Unceremoniously killing off Hippolyta' and having the male Amazons massacred were her choices, and nothing from Azz's run made those choices necessary.

This sounds like your metaphorically saying Azz is Jesus, Finch is Satan.

[numberthirty]

What I'm saying is that Finch was given quite a mess to work with. Again, you may not like how she resolved these plot-lines but most of them shouldn't have been left to the next writer to resolve period.

Who says you have to resolve any of them?

It's not like we are talking about one writer leaving another writer with Daredevil leading The Hand.

[numberthirty]

- Why did Hippolyta go from a statue to reanimated clay instead of flesh?
-What abilities, perks, and responsibilities came with the God of War title?
-Were the female Amazons truly grateful for the male Amazons help and willing to welcome them to Themyscira or did the male Amazons just serve as cannon fodder against the First Born in the females' eyes.

All of these things were either left very vague or not explained at all and Finch was left to resolve the plot-lines in one way or another. Granted, she may not have chosen the path you would have but Azzarello should have resolved much more of his plots before he left the book(not that I wanted him on it for another 3 years but still....).

- Because baby Zeke is a baby.
- See Ares.
- They are not a monolith. Each Amazon probably had her own opinion.

The better question is: What do those three things amount to that they "had" to be wrapped up?

[numberthirty]

This sounds like your metaphorically saying Azz is Jesus, Finch is Satan.

Not really. He is saying Finch decided to make some incredibly lazy writing choices.

[ImprobableQuestion]

This sounds like your metaphorically saying Azz is Jesus, Finch is Satan.

Not... really. I haven't been reading Finch's run, but killing all the loose ends of the last series doesn't sound like the best way to deal with them. There were loose threads, to be sure, but completely closing the loop and not leaving anything for the next writer is not better. If it were a graphic novel with a concrete end I'd be more down on the ending of issue 35, but Wonder Woman is an ongoing book.

[Pamp_Lusa]

Much as I'm not a huge fan of Azzarello, I just don't agree with this concept.

Azzarello set things up with Diana as an undefined god of war, and with the Amazon society poised to deal with the complicated issues of integrating the men who were both blood relatives and combat allies into their society.

Instead of going forward, imo, Finch took it backwards. At the end of Azzarello's Diana had a clear handle on just who she was. It seemed to me to be the major point of the entire over-arcing storyline.

The first thing Finch did was throw this out the window and give us a Diana who was incapable of reconciling the various aspects of her life despite having just spent three years doing just that. She was insecure, angry, and confused about how to be a Queen, a superhero, a god and a girlfriend (all while confessing this to Aquaman while hugging a teddy bear).

Rather than deal with the fascinating concept of integration on Themyscira, Finch referred to the male Amazons as a 'loose end' and just had them all slaughtered.

Hippolyta was left as an animated stone statue which could have been a great source of a plotline, but instead, Finch ignored the 'animated' part, murdered Hippolyta by smashing her unmoving statue-self without anyone seeming to care who did it.

She integrated the JL into a WW storyline that made no sense - an emergency so intense that it required the entire league...to sit around and chat about Diana's confidence problems?

Azzarello left it to the next writer to create the portfolio, and this, I agree, was a potential mistake, but only in the hands of the wrong writer. Instead of using the 'god of war' as a base to start from, all we've gotten is a useless Diana who can't fight her way out of a paper bag.

Finch's explanation is that she is holding back her godly might, yet that wasn't even hinted at in any of the previous issues.

I think the big difference is this - Azzarello, even if you don't like what he wrote, crafted a solid story that made sense. No, I don't like the new origin (too generic) and I don't like the new Amazons, but the story was well thought out. Finch's stories are all over the place, with her just destroying what came before (Hippolyta dead, the male Amazons dead, the dead gods brought back, Zeke/Zeus taking an active role in driving the plot while still teething). I don't think her story lines end well, each of them (the insect people and the Eirene plotline) coming to abrupt, poorly thought out endings.

Spot on, I don't even know what more can be said on this subject or what this thread's for, Azzarello and Chiang's run is so clearly superior in every aspect, even for those of us that didn't like the stuff he changed, the Finches didn't rectify that, they just made it MUCH worse

[Dr. Poison]

Not really. He is saying Finch decided to make some incredibly lazy writing choices.

It comes across to me as Azzarello made all of the right choices whereas Finch is making all of the wrong ones.

[Silvanus]

This sounds like your metaphorically saying Azz is Jesus, Finch is Satan.

What compliment did I pay Azzarello in that particular post? I said his run didn't make Finch's choices necessary; but that doesn't imply much about the quality of his run in itself , let alone attribute "godlike" qualities to him. It just means Finch is responsible for her own choices--which makes her not like the devil, but like all of us. In my opinion, she's writing the book badly, and it's not because the devilrezzo made her do it. And whether Azz left a mess or not, that's not the reason Finch is writing badly. For instance, even if (for the sake of argument) introducing the male Amazons was an absolutely horrible choice on Azzarello's run, it was a choice that didn't have to have any real effect on Finch's run; she could have written them off the island in a single sentence. But the most "diabolical" thing I've ever accused Finch of is bad writing--not a mortal sin, as far as I know.

]I don't know...what this thread's for,

Fair enough, but some of us do keep wandering into the Finch/Azzarello debate on other threads where it doesn't really belong (most recently the sales thread), so I just wanted a place to put it. No doubt, a lot of people who are saner than I may stay away from it, since it is a pretty well-word topic around here.

[Dr. Poison]

That's bizarre. What compliment did I pay Azzarello in that particular post? I said his run didn't make Finch's choices necessary; but that doesn't imply much about the quality of his run in itself , let alone attribute "godlike" qualities to him. It just means FInch is responsible for her own choices (which makes her not like the devil, but like all of us. And the most "diabolical" thing I've ever accused her of is bad writing--not a mortal sin, as far as I know.)

Actually, it sounds to me like you might as well be saying "the devil made Finch do it."



Where in that post did I say he made all the right choices? If it "comes across that way" even though I didn't say or imply it, maybe you're just misreading.

You didn't state that exactly in that specific post but over the years, you've defended just about(if not completely) all of the choices Azzarello made in his run, even finding context to explain the sex raids, Diana's conception, sexual assault, calling another female a b_tch, impaling at least two of her family members(Strife & Ares), and using deception to finally defeat the First Born. I believe you even stated Azz's run was your favorite run on Wonder Woman ever. On the flip-side, what have you praised from the Finch's run? I don't think you hate Finch personally by any means but perhaps you liked Azz's run so much that no-one could provide a proper follow up in your eyes.

[Awonder]

Fair enough, but some of us do keep wandering into the Finch/Azzarello debate on other threads where it doesn't really belong (most recently the sales thread), so I just wanted a place to put it. No doubt, a lot of people who are saner than I may stay away from it, since it is a pretty well-word topic around here.

Aside from the hamster wheel for the less "sane" of us, I, too, am left wondering "what's the point?" It's looking much more like a pile-on complaint thread than any real discussion of comparison and contrasts. Even if you can ultimately prove that Azzarello is the superior writer - so what? What does that accomplish?

What compliment did I pay Azzarello in that particular post? I said his run didn't make Finch's choices necessary; but that doesn't imply much about the quality of his run in itself , let alone attribute "godlike" qualities to him. It just means Finch is responsible for her own choices--which makes her not like the devil, but like all of us. In my opinion, she's writing the book badly, and it's not because the devilrezzo made her do it. And whether Azz left a mess or not, that's not the reason Finch is writing badly. For instance, even if (for the sake of argument) introducing the male Amazons was an absolutely horrible choice on Azzarello's run, it was a choice that didn't have to have any real effect on Finch's run; she could have written them off the island in a single sentence. But the most "diabolical" thing I've ever accused Finch of is bad writing--not a mortal sin, as far as I know.

It's hard to judge without really knowing how much editorial direction is involved, but, in general, of course Finch is responsible for her own choices. It's not that Devilrezzo "made her do it;" but would you agree that a writer can make the next writer's job somewhat easier or harder? I see the transition from writer to writer akin to handing off the baton from one runner to the next in a relay race. It may ultimately be my fault that I dropped the baton; but if you don't put that baton in the easiest place for me to grab it, haven't you made my job harder?

For instance, the transition from Azzarello's animated clay Hippoltya to Finch's clay statue Hippoltya seems like a baton drop to me. It's awkward, to say the least. To me, it reads like Finch may have started her story when Hippoltya was still a statue, and no one told her that Azzarello planned to have Hippolyta reanimated by the end of his run. If Azzarello has an actual explanation for who was interfering with Hera's initial attempt to revive Hippoltya, and if he isn't going to have that explanation in the book, then shouldn't that info be conveyed to the next writer? Or did the baton just get dropped from writer to editor to writer?

For the male Amazons, you suggest just shuffling them back to Heph's house for abandoned boys - but, don't you think there would still be criticism from you and others that Finch wasn't doing anything with what Azzarello had set-up? Here, too, had Azzarello wanted the men firmly re-established on the island, he could have taken the time to do it himself. He, instead, gives us a few lines and left the real work up to someone else. It's not Azzarello's fault that Finch (and/or editorial?) chose to wipe them out, but it is his fault they were left poorly established in the first place. Same goes for defining just what it means to be God of War. Same goes for defining what-the-####-plot-convenient-powers-does-Zeke-have-anyway?