Which extended Wonder Woman run in the modern era did you like better?Greg Rucka's, Gail Simone's, or Brian Azzarello's?

[SteveGus]

Of those three, I rank Simone's the highest. She was handed a dog's breakfast after Picoult and moved forward with what she was handed like a trooper. It was a flawed run, but had a genuine variety of mood.

Rucka's was the most glum and humorless the book has been before Azzarello. Rucka seemed to be writing the back story of the Kingdom Come Diana, and his stories all seemed to remake The Hiketeia. Diana was constantly being backed into corners and doomed to fail, and forced to resort to drastic measures.

The Azzarello run was marked mostly by his spite and scorn for the character's history and mythos.

[Gaelforce]

This is one of the obvious strengths(while it was bound to turn off some readers) of the initial "New52" run. Like it or not, it's almost exactly the story the team wanted to tell.

Indeed. I would have loved to have seen what Gail would have done given a blank slate and less editorial interference.

[SeanT]

Azzarello for me, with Rucka a close second. I liked how Rucka had story arcs that lead into the next, with an over-arcing story running throughout. But the quality dropped after the Stoned arc, and his Diana could be imperious and cold. Azzarello's run was a little wobbly in the middle, but I thought his Diana was the best, returning to her original function of transforming, not subduing, her foes.

Simone's run was frustrating. Stories were never adequately or satisfyingly resolved, topics were raised then simply trailed off and never addressed. More and more layers of stuff were added to Diana's mythos without purpose, and Diana herself seemed like a weirdo, more comfortable around her apes than humans. That she simply wanted Tom as a mate was awful.

[Stanlos]

I didn't see it so much as 'build on it' as 'deal with it' and try to give fans some sort of satisfactory wrap up to dangling plot threads that were dumped on her.

She was also banned from having the Amazons controlled (though I have no idea why), and had to deal with the goofy gods-in-spacesuits rather than Rucka's much cooler version in addition to having to stretch a plotline so it would end in coordination with a crossover while having her concept for Genocide changed by editorial in mid-plotline.

I really would have liked to have seen where she went once she had straightened those things out.

So she did have the intent to try and manage some of the damage from that. This sounds more and more like DiDio and TPTB were hellbent on toxifying Diana's mythos. It makes what we have seen in 52 make perfect sense especially now that we have heard Geoff Johns speak about the Amazons briefly in that televised special. It seems like the idea is to undermine the Amazons as a positive influence beyond anything outside of the ability to hit stuff really well.

I do not understand DC's disposition but I am glad to see evidence that Gail was not on that train and did what she could fight it.

[Stanlos]

She had some good elements floating around there, during that run, and she probably would have been able to get Diana off that island, if only she could have resolved some of what had gone before her run - if only the editors had let her. Her only viable option was to stay away from Paradise Island, altogether, ..and I guess, having wanted to write WW for so long, Gail just couldn't keep her hands off that thing.

I would really have liked the 'Warkiller' thing to have worked out; we didn't get ONE good adventure, with him. I'm sure he would have ditched the Lion King costume, eventually - one of the worst, I've ever seen.



I've been pretty consistent on my problem with the Amazons being 'water cooler' regulars in the comic. Almost all of this comic's best scribes - Marston, Sekowsky, Thomas, Perez, Loebs - have rooted Diana firmly in Man's World, with Paradise Island firmly in the background and on stand-by, for whenever the leading lady needs counsel with Hippolyta or a scientific advantage from Paula. The island is one of this comic's pulp-inspired elements - intended to be an exotic escape for the heroine - not a Batcave or an office. The comic should be about Wonder Woman's mission to Man's World - that, being central - and that seems to be a widely held consensus, among the writers, I mentioned.

I would happily cheer on a comic entirely focused on Wonder Woman's visits to Paradise Island or the lives and histories of her Amazon sisters, and I've said as much, right here on these boards - 'World Of Wonder Woman' or something like that. I just don't think it's fair to highjack the monthly comic for that purpose.

Because the Olympians aren't plagued by the abysmal sameness that the Amazons are, which is tolerable and even magnificent in fleeting doses, ..and, unlike the Amazons, they aren't stuck on an island. The Olympians can wear modern dress or be grotesques, like Hell and Sea, and they can fight alongside Wonder Woman in Man's World, as Lord Hermes does. There's so much more you can do with them, than those poor Bronze Age Amazons stuck in their flawless, ageless immortality and in period dress, on a tropical island.

I hope that at some point in whatever new regime comes into being that TPTB will go back to that original, very detailed one paragraph description of Wonder Woman from her first outing and use the description of the Amazons as found there. I think of all of the elements of WW's design her sisters have been consistently the most damaged or underserved (and I say this having recently become aware that the talented and innovative Geoff Johns just had Wonder Woman's historically indestructible and inviolate bracelets actually shatter in-continuity).

[Stanlos]

I think the problem stemmed from the New Gods event where someone else was already using the classic Greek gods (albeit in those silly spacesuits) so Simone had to follow suit.

I don't know if 'using' is the gerund that most precisely describes what they did with them but I am delighted to know that the space suits were not Gail's idea. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad. She has been consistently awesome in everything I have read from her with the one blemish tragically being WW. Superglad that much of the imperfections were not of her own making.

[Agent Z]

@Stanlos what did Johns say about the Amazons?

[numberthirty]

Indeed. I would have loved to have seen what Gail would have done given a blank slate and less editorial interference.

Probably not just her.

If more DC writers had the leeway that Morrison had on Batman, that would probably be a good thing.

[Carabas]

Indeed. I would have loved to have seen what Gail would have done given a blank slate and less editorial interference.

I think you can say that about almost any DC book she's ever been on.

[Silvanus]

Don't I remember some people predicting that esteem for Azz's run would drop dramatically around here after he left, since the fans of his Wonder Woman, being supposedly just Azzarello fans and not Wonder Woman fans at all, would leave en masse and immediately? it's interesting, then that his run is tied for first in this survey (at least at the moment.) Granted, it might have had the number one slot to itself when Azz was still the current writer. But it's still holding its own.

At no point did Perez ever say the Amazons shouldn't be used at all.

I may be wrong, but I don't think Azzarello ever said that, either. Did he? He may have said that they were not a good fit for the bulk of his his story--as he was trying to move Diana away from her and our comfort zone (and no, his Olympians did not constitute any kind of comfort zone most of the time)--but if he thought they shouldn't be used at all, it's odd that he introduced them in his second issue and brought them back for his last half-year or so.

[Agent Z]

Don't I remember some people predicting that esteem for Azz's run would drop dramatically around here after he left, since the fans of his Wonder Woman, being supposedly just Azzarello fans and not Wonder Woman fans at all, would leave en masse and immediately? it's interesting, then that his run is tied for first in this survey (at least at the moment.) Granted, it might have had the number one slot to itself when Azz was still the current writer. But it's still holding its own.



I may be wrong, but I don't think Azzarello ever said that, either. Did he? He may have said that they were not a good fit for the bulk of his his story--as he was trying to move Diana away from her and our comfort zone (and no, his Olympians did not constitute any kind of comfort zone most of the time)--but if he thought they shouldn't be used at all, it's odd that he introduced them in his second issue and brought them back for his last half-year or so.

I never said Azzarello said that nor did I mention him. I was simply responding to Mel Dyer's complaints about the Amazons and how they've been used by other writers.

[Silvanus]

I never said Azzarello said that nor did I mention him. I was simply responding to Mel Dyer's complaints about the Amazons and how they've been used by other writers.

I know you didn't mention Azz in that message, but I also know you've been critical of Azzarello for marginalizing the Amazons. And you've got every right to be critical of him of for that, since his sparse use of the Amazons clashed with your own preferences and expectations; but I'm just pointing out that what you say of Perez may also be true, to a degree, of Azzarello: he apparently didn't oppose using the Amazons in general, but found them unuseful for a particular story at a particular time.

[Dr. Poison]

Don't I remember some people predicting that esteem for Azz's run would drop dramatically around here after he left, since the fans of his Wonder Woman, being supposedly just Azzarello fans and not Wonder Woman fans at all, would leave en masse and immediately? it's interesting, then that his run is tied for first in this survey (at least at the moment.) Granted, it might have had the number one slot to itself when Azz was still the current writer. But it's still holding its own.

Another POV:

While it's true that Azz is getting a decent amount of votes, he's not over 50% so it's not like he has an overwhelming majority here. He and Ruck are neck and neck and with Rucka's run being 10 years old, I think that says a lot. And no, I didn't vote for Rucka's run nor do I think extremely highly of it.

I would also be curious to know how many people who started reading Wonder Woman with Azz's run are still reading any current books where Diana is a regularly featured character mostly for Diana. Perhaps Finch's Wonder Woman may not be for them but what about The Legend of Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman '77, DC Bombshells, Superman/Wonder Woman, Justice League, or Justice League of America?

[Carabas]

Another POV:

While it's true that Azz is getting a decent amount of votes, he's not over 50% so it's not like he has an overwhelming majority here. He and Ruck are neck and neck and with Rucka's run being 10 years old, I think that says a lot. And no, I didn't vote for Rucka's run nor do I think extremely highly of it.

On the other hand, Rucka and Azzarello, who are very similar, almost pull 80% combined.

[Dr. Poison]

On the other hand, Rucka and Azzarello, who are very similar, almost pull 80% combined.

How are the two runs similar? And 2 candidates needing each other to pull in almost 80% isn't really a big deal when there are only 3 candidates.