Did George Perez help or hinder the WW mythos?..

[JackBNimble]

Here is a nice Wondy guide post-COIE, covering most runs and most of the standalones. The guide to Pérez.

In any case, Gods and Mortals and Challenge of the Gods should be mandatory reading for any Wonder Woman fan. While far from perfect, they are arguably the seminal stories for modern Wonder Woman, and everything that has come after has touched on them, for good or ill.

what are the TPBs for Perez's tenure that are recommended?

Another option is to get copies of the Wonder Woman by George Perez. I think there are four or five volumes. What's great is they've "remastered" the pages so the art and colors really sing.

[Agent Z]

Why? Because she had an affair with Ares? Because she competed with Athena and Hera for Eris' Golden Apple (and won!)? Or is it because, as the deity of love and pleasure, she's more sexually active than many other goddesses (but not necessarily many of the gods)? I don't see any of that adding up to shallow and dumb, and least compared to many of her fellow gods.

I would say her tendency to lash out like an insecure teenager towards any woman considered more beautiful than her (including her own daughter-in-law) qualifies her as shallow and dumb.

I don't have a very high opinion of her fellow gods either.

[Lex Luthor]

I liked his were-Cheetah and the Bana migdall but I remember being bored with mostly everything else. I never even finished his run because of that.

[Doctor Bifrost]

I would say her tendency to lash out like an insecure teenager towards any woman considered more beautiful than her (including her own daughter-in-law) qualifies her as shallow and dumb.

I don't have a very high opinion of her fellow gods either.

Well, that was my point. Hera violently attacks any women Zeus had sex with, even though he frequently does it in disguise or doesn't give the woman a choice. She also blinds Tiresias for giving her an honest answer about the comparative sexual enjoyment of men and women. Athena (goddess of wisdom) turns Arachne into a spider for beating her at a weaving contest that Athena willingly participated in, and transformed Medusa into a monster because Medusa was ravished by Poseidon in Athena's temple. The male gods constantly need new "conquests" over women who don't want them. By human and/or modern standards they are all jealous, insecure, entitled, cruel, and childish. I'm not sure how Aphrodite is more of a "poster child" for shallowness/dumbness than any of the rest of them.

[kjn]

He collapsed much of Wonder Woman's world into Greek mythology, creating a problem where the vast majority of her stories (and certainly the the centre of her most substantial ones) involve Hellenistic gods, creatures and characters. Not only has it led to a lot of lazy writing (Wonder Woman vs Medusa, vs the Titans), but it also affects her characterization as well, since she's shown to worship and praise/respect the gods. Marston's Wonder Woman wasn't religious, and when she did speak to gods (Diana, Venus) she did so as acquaintances.

One could also turn it around, and say that Pérez took one of the richest and most important set of real-world mythology and its literature, and made it all into Wonder Woman's turf. He took some of the elements that Marston had, and elaborated on and treated them dead seriously and respectfully.

Now, this mythology gave rise to issues later on because other writers fell into the rabbit hole of myth retellings, but it was not Pérez's fault: he just added a marvelous shiny toolbox to be used with Wonder Woman. It's not his fault that later writers went "shiny!".

My issue with Pérez is rather that there is a streak of sexual puritanism in his work, which led to him making Diana into this virginal Madonna figure and fundamentally altering her relation to Steve Trevor.

[Agent Z]

One could also turn it around, and say that Pérez took one of the richest and most important set of real-world mythology and its literature, and made it all into Wonder Woman's turf. He took some of the elements that Marston had, and elaborated on and treated them dead seriously and respectfully.

Now, this mythology gave rise to issues later on because other writers fell into the rabbit hole of myth retellings, but it was not Pérez's fault: he just added a marvelous shiny toolbox to be used with Wonder Woman. It's not his fault that later writers went "shiny!".

My issue with Pérez is rather that there is a streak of sexual puritanism in his work, which led to him making Diana into this virginal Madonna figure and fundamentally altering her relation to Steve Trevor.

I recall other people having sexual relations in Perez's run and this being seen as a good thing. Remember, Perez was co creator of Starfire so I doubt he's a sexual puritan. The relationship with Steve was going to need an update regardless of Perez's views on sex.

[kjn]

I recall other people having sexual relations in Perez's run and this being seen as a good thing. Remember, Perez was co creator of Starfire so I doubt he's a sexual puritan. The relationship with Steve was going to need an update regardless of Perez's views on sex.

No, I doubt Pérez is (or was) a sexual puritan; in some ways he was quite progressive in his views on sex or on gender relations, or tried to be. But like a lot of men who grew up immersed in a patriarchal time, he might have had trouble adapting or ended up with strange edge cases as they try to wrestle with feminist thoughts. Compared to many other writers he was far ahead of the curve, but that didn't stop him from getting things wrong, introducing problematic elements, or shying away from things.

And one of them was that he removed Diana's sexuality. Maybe because he wanted to avoid making Diana into a sex object, maybe for some other reason.

It's a bit like Robert Heinlein in sf fandom and academia. Part of the reason there still is a living and spirited discussion of him within sf is because he tried hard to bring his various thoughts, values, instincts, and learned behaviours into some form of coherence in his depictions of women, with the result that there is a lot to discuss (there haven been doctoral theses—plural—written on Heinlein's treatment of women). Meanwhile there simply is nothing to discuss about women for most other contemporaries with Heinlein in the sf field: there are no women in their works, or just an one-dimensional images of one.

[Gaelforce]

No, I doubt Pérez is (or was) a sexual puritan; in some ways he was quite progressive in his views on sex or on gender relations, or tried to be. But like a lot of men who grew up immersed in a patriarchal time, he might have had trouble adapting or ended up with strange edge cases as they try to wrestle with feminist thoughts. Compared to many other writers he was far ahead of the curve, but that didn't stop him from getting things wrong, introducing problematic elements, or shying away from things.

And one of them was that he removed Diana's sexuality. Maybe because he wanted to avoid making Diana into a sex object, maybe for some other reason.

It's a bit like Robert Heinlein in sf fandom and academia. Part of the reason there still is a living and spirited discussion of him within sf is because he tried hard to bring his various thoughts, values, instincts, and learned behaviours into some form of coherence in his depictions of women, with the result that there is a lot to discuss (there haven been doctoral theses—plural—written on Heinlein's treatment of women). Meanwhile there simply is nothing to discuss about women for most other contemporaries with Heinlein in the sf field: there are no women in their works, or just an one-dimensional images of one.

I never saw it as removing her sexuality.

I saw it as giving her command over her own fate and destiny.

The idea of her returning a soldier to the outside world and to be an Ambassador for the Amazons remains the same. What changed was the 'and she fell instantly in love with the first man she saw' concept, so Perez has it more that she *chose* to leave and do good as opposed to being a lovesick puppy leaving home for selfish reasons.

He wanted to establish her as independent, but that then led to something of a trap for himself and for writers to come; who is a good enough man for her to give up her virginity for.

Look at any other comic book couple. They don't begin their tenures with the assumption of virginity. Diana, to my knowledge, is the only superhero that is put in that position by the nature of her origin.

I don't think Perez set out to make her a 'virgin goddess' or puritanical, but rather independent which then made it a modern issue as to who is good enough for Diana.

[kjn]

I never saw it as removing her sexuality.

I saw it as giving her command over her own fate and destiny.

Yeah, in a way that's the flip side of that coin; you're correct in that the earlier takes (from Marston onwards) carried way too much of falling in love with the first man she met, by authorial fiat. Pérez tried to remove that, but instead of making it a choice on Diana's part he first removed Steve Trevor, by another authorial fiat. And his question "who is good enough for Diana" is remarkably similar to "who is good enough for the Madonna"? Pérez might not have set out to make Diana into a virgin goddess, but it's what he largely ended up with.

I think it was first with the movie that they managed to reach a synthesis of the various runs and takes, because it made Diana into her own sexual subject (via the boat scene) and made the dynamic between Steve and Diana much more developed and grounded.

[Zahina]

Aphrodite being shallow was well researched. She's the mythology poster girl for blonde bimbos.

Did Marston's Aphrodite and the mythology Aphrodite had the same personality characteristics or were they different?

[kjn]

Marston's Aphrodite, like his Athena, was mainly a talking head that gave messages to the Amazons in the stories that I've read. They were not characters in their own right in any way.

[SeanT]

I recall other people having sexual relations in Perez's run and this being seen as a good thing. Remember, Perez was co creator of Starfire so I doubt he's a sexual puritan. The relationship with Steve was going to need an update regardless of Perez's views on sex.

Beautiful women tended get used. Lucy, Myndi, Silver Swan. Etta had a healthy sexual relationship with Steve but then it was ruined by her jealousy of Diana. She almost broke off from Steve because she assumed he was interested in Diana. The only people I assume had a healthy relationship were Julia and her obese suitor (Horace?). For Perez, beauty lead to problems, which is why he nixed the relationship with Steve. HE even stated in an interview that he assumed such a beautiful woman would obviously be taken advantage of. Not exactly a stirring example for the most powerful woman in the world.

[SeanT]

The treatment of Aprhodite by Perez always bothered me. He practically made her a blonde bimbo and inferior to the other gods and goddesses. It's almost like they were deliberately trying to denegrate the main deity of the Marston run. In some ways, the Perez mythology was very well researched and in other ways it was totally out to lunch.

It's not so much she was a bimbo, it's that she was powerless. She sat in her room on the skeleton boat crying because of what her children had done, while Athena and Artemis resisted. She was more of a sad figure than a comic figure. Even a blond bimbo has some power- as Rucka and Azzarello showed- where she was so stunning it could interrupt your train of thought. That's a lot more along Marston's line than anything Perez did with her.

Which highlights another issue I had with his run- that normally the gods are all petty and jesus and generally awful, whereas in Perez, the goddesses were all noble and selfless, while the males gods he focused on- Zeus, Pan, and Hermes- had bad intentions.

People talk about Perez removing the "battle of the sexes" element of Marston's run, but hew brought i back in a much more clichéd way- Beautiful women could either be sexless or exploited, and handsome or powerful men were mostly out to get them. Instead of beautiful women being powerful, they were vulnerable. He took Marston and threw it on its head.

[Agent Z]

Beautiful women tended get used. Lucy, Myndi, Silver Swan. Etta had a healthy sexual relationship with Steve but then it was ruined by her jealousy of Diana. She almost broke off from Steve because she assumed he was interested in Diana. The only people I assume had a healthy relationship were Julia and her obese suitor (Horace?). For Perez, beauty lead to problems, which is why he nixed the relationship with Steve. HE even stated in an interview that he assumed such a beautiful woman would obviously be taken advantage of. Not exactly a stirring example for the most powerful woman in the world.

Myndi was used because of her connections as a publicist not because of her beauty. Silver Swan wasn't initially beautiful and even then was used because of her powers. Lucy was used because of her connection to Diana via the Kapatelis. Etta's relationship with Steve wasn't ruined by jealousy.

Perez nixed the relationship with Steve because Diana being in a relationship with the first guy she ever met while being naive of relationships in general was not a good look. And he never had her exploited because of her beauty so I'd say it was a stirring example.

[SeanT]

Myndi was used because of her connections as a publicist not because of her beauty. Silver Swan wasn't initially beautiful and even then was used because of her powers. Lucy was used because of her connection to Diana via the Kapatelis. Etta's relationship with Steve wasn't ruined by jealousy.

Perez nixed the relationship with Steve because Diana being in a relationship with the first guy she ever met while being naive of relationships in general was not a good look. And he never had her exploited because of her beauty so I'd say it was a stirring example.

My point is that beautiful women in relationships get exploited. Whatever the perpetrator gets out of it, the women end up getting used. Powerful women get taken down by men (and then ultimately, themselves). Less attractive women like Etta and Julia attract less attractive males, and everything's fine- except that Etta put off her wedding to Steve because of her jealousy, and you could even say her own relationship with Diana- in every other her best friend- was poisoned by that jealousy. Sex, or even sexual interest, is dangerous.

Diana didn't have to get into a relationship with Steve right away. I mean, that's crazy. But you can be infatuated or interested and have that develop into a relationship, or even a flirtation. The movie and the Rebirth series handled that fine. That Perez felt even this couldn't be broached without exploitation just underlines every other relationship in the book. I think it's really infantilizing for a creator to think that Diana wouldn't be able to take care of herself even if she is unaware of the ways of man's world, and again emphasizes his conceit, that beautiful women are prone to getting exploited.