What's Your Verdict... Robinson's Run!

[Nyssane]

It's that time again! One creative team exits the title as a new one prepares to take over the book. Robinson's run was met largely with criticism, but what were your overall thoughts on his 20 issues? How does it compare to previous runs? What are some things you feel should have been different? What changes did he bring to the character and her mythos that you loved and didn't love?

My verdict... One of the worst runs of Wonder Woman that I've ever seen. I haven't fully decided yet if he's dethroned Meredith Finch as the worst writer of the title, but he's definitely a contender.

Pros:

• Bringing back classic Marston-era rogues like Zara and Blue Snowman.
• Returning Col. Maru to the codename Doctor Poison.
• His run did feature some amazing art at various points.
• I have to give Robinson some props for at least continuing a few aspects/plots from Rucka's run.

Cons:

• Jason. Oh, boy, this is a big one. His entire run was devoted to the character of Jason, heavily at the expense of Diana and other characters in her book. But mainly Diana. Jason was flashier, stronger, got better equipment, got to be reunited with Hippolyta... everything about Jason was just horrible. As a concept, I wasn't completely opposed to Diana having a "long lost sibling," but the execution of this character is quite possibly the worst I've seen in comics. I felt literally nothing but annoyance at his presence.
• Grail. The female villain version of Jason. Interesting concept, horrible execution. What makes it worse is that Robinson tried his very best into making Grail into Wonder Woman's new archnemesis (don't forget that article before his run started!). Instead, we got a huge dud of a villain completely devoted to Darkseid who had no agency of her own, which clashed with what Johns had set up for in Darkseid War.
• The dialogue. I haven't read much by Robinson... in fact, I think Scarlet Witch is the only other series I've read by him. I've heard he has done great things with Starman, but I can't imagine it was too successful if it shared this same style of dialogue? It was atrocious, and Diana in particular never felt as if she had accurate speech bubbles.
• The entire Silver Swan arc is a huge slap in the face to fans of Perez's run. Perez put a lot of time and effort into developing Vanessa and Julia Kapatelis, and here one is reduced to a generic Cheetah-lite villain and the other is killed off without any sort of role whatsoever. I do applaud him for at least trying to do something different and bring back a classic WW villain, but this is not how you do it.
• The lack of Etta Candy. Not sure why Robinson felt the need to push the Oddfellows so hard and completely forget about Etta. And where the heck where Chris, Manny, and Davy?
• The Dark Gods. I get it... like Jason, these characters were probably shoehorned into the series by DC. But they are some of the most lackluster villains we've seen Wonder Woman face off against.
• The battle between Darkseid and Zeus. Oye. Darkseid was presented as the most generic evil leader with none of the charisma or intimidation that he normally has. And Zeus... well, his role in this comic is just absurd.
• The Female Furies. Anyone who knows me knows I've been a huge fan of these characters for many, many years. But as if their role in the recent Superman arc wasn't bad enough, here they were shown to be on par with a dozen ARGUS soldiers. Even worse, when Wonder Woman fights Lashina and Mad Harriet later, she barely holds her own. What does this mean for Diana's strength levels? The inconsistency with these characters is horrible, and I feel they wouldn't have done the same if the Furies were an all-male group of godly supervillains. I mean, these characters are supposed to be some of the deadliest women in the galaxy.
• Giganta's role seemed to be far greater before Robinson's run actually started, based on artwork and word-of-mouth... but when we see her, she's just getting punched out. It felt misleading, and many of us who are fans of Diana's rogues gallery were ultimately disappointed.
• Anglette. I have no idea why Robinson decided to create a female Angle Man instead of bringing back someone like Hypnota (or even Osira, or Sharkeeta, or any of the other villainesses currently in limbo). It would've meant all the original Villainy Inc. members would be present in Rebirth, but instead he created a female Angle Man that nobody wanted. I guess Angle Man's New 52 death is still in continuity?

Previous Verdicts:
Rucka's 2nd Run (WW vol. 5 #1-25)
Fontana's Mini-Run (WW vol. 5 #26-30)

[WonderScott]

All your points pretty much put the nails in the coffin for me on this run Nyssane.

I think the only issue I really enjoyed was the "day in the life" one where Diana and Steve catch up; Blue Snowman, Zara, and Anglette are introduced (albeit briefly); and Cale has a sarcastic conversation with Diana to work on her Lex Luthor impersonation.

It's not the worst run in my book, the art was good throughout, but it's pretty low on list in terms of Diana's characterization being shown as competent and resourceful. I mean, considering the death of Zeus and Heracles and Darkseid and Grail's involvement, this should have been written as a much Bigger THING of importance than it was. In an era where Diana is more popular and known to fans and civilians alike, we needed more amazing consequences in the title than lackluster inconsequences.

[Gaelforce]

I found nothing redeemable about his run. Diana was a pointless character in her own title, sentenced to spend issue after issue punching bad guys in the face and getting nowhere.

I've already said my piece on Jason, but damn, he's just a poorly constructed character who was written terribly and handled in such a way as to completely and intentionally overshadow Diana in her own book.

The dialogue was stilted, a lot of the plot from the get-go didn't make sense. Hippolyta can't leave the island but knows Glaucus because he's an immortal, but doesn't know any other immortals, including any women even though female half-siblings were introduced and murdered later in the run. She entrusts her son to this stranger, but never communicates with him again or mentions to Diana that she has a brother. Meanwhile, Jason knows all about Diana and that she's his sister, but never tells her and gets inexplicably angry enough over...what?...to kill her and to stand by while the only half-brother sibling (Hercules) who was family to him is murdered.

And then Herc leaves everything to Diana, who he hasn't met, instead of to Jason, who he visits and trains frequently. The gods have this awesome suit of armor intended for Diana, but can't find the time to give it to her in the last decade and instead just what...pluck Jason out of time and space to give it to him because he's a man, so he must be the champion?

Diana needs Steve in order to plan a strategy to handle the bad guys. She needs Jason to get her places because he's now faster than her.

No, I don't like a single thing about this run, start to finish.

[Pinsir]

M primary issue is that Robinson's run was a spin-off from other books, the most recent 'Dark Gods' ark being the best example.

[Korath]

Rebirth Wonder Woman as yet to tell a good story or be good in general. That's the kindest thing I can say about the last two years.

[HandofPrometheus]

Geoff Johns should've been the one to write about Grail and Jason. It was HIS idea and I fully believe only he would've delivered on their stories.

Plus I like The Olympian way better than Jason.

[richalex]

I just couldn't believe this was the same writer who did Earth 2 and Starman to be honest. Seems like two totally different people.

[Gaelforce]

I just couldn't believe this was the same writer who did Earth 2 and Starman to be honest. Seems like two totally different people.

But he is the same guy who wrote Cry for Justice, so there is that

[richalex]

But he is the same guy who wrote Cry for Justice, so there is that

I must have blocked that from memory...whats that? :-p

[LordUltimus]

At least it wasn't the Finch run.

[Sacred Knight]

Rebirth Wonder Woman as yet to tell a good story or be good in general. That's the kindest thing I can say about the last two years.

Pretty much. Potential was to be had and completely whiffed in all cases thus far. Rebirth has been a disaster for Wonder Woman. The only thing that has been rebirthed for her has been DC's history of a general apathetic attitude about her book and mythos. That era for WW officially ends in November it seems, so here's hoping for progress.

[Korath]

Pretty much. Potential was to be had and completely whiffed in all cases thus far. Rebirth has been a disaster for Wonder Woman. The only thing that has been rebirthed for her has been DC's history of a general apathetic attitude about her book and mythos. That era for WW officially ends in November it seems, so here's hoping for progress.

May you be right. Honestly, I don't even know if I want anything from the last two years acknowledged, it's how bad I feel the Rebirth WW has been. I honestly can't find any bits of interest in it, neither Cheetah, nor her God, not Cale, nor anyone in the cast, not even the current Diana. It's as if come Rebirth, DC forgotten what made Diana compelling. At least, Azzarello's was the protagonist of her story and truly impressive.

[Pinsir]

Rebirth Wonder Woman as yet to tell a good story or be good in general. That's the kindest thing I can say about the last two years.

I remember being told that the reboot was necessary because of Finch's run...

At least it wasn't the Finch run.

At least Finch wanted to play around in Azzarello's sandbox.

[BiteTheBullet]

"I was careful to make sure it wasn't only about Jason, however. I was already getting crap from social media about how this is Wonder Woman's book and she should be the center of attention at all time. You know how strident Wonder Woman fans can be." - James Robinson.

Nice to see that quote from Robinson. Goes to show you what he thinks of Wonder Woman fans, especially ones that actually want her to be the center of her own story.

[SiegePerilous02]

I jumped ship after the first arc, and doesn't sound like I missed much. I don't read Wonder Woman for male superheroes. I don't think the idea of giving her a twin brother who has superpowers is an inherently bad idea, but it's dodgy and should not be relied upon as a selling point and shoved down our throats. Especially at the expense of our heroine.

The dialogue is bad (Robinson's dialogue is bland in general, but it seemed especially bad here), Diana cannot plan for crap and needs Steve to do it, Vanessa's development got shortchanged and Julia got killed off, and while the Golden Age villain cameos were nice they were also meaningless. He didn't do anything of lasting damage beyond Vanessa, and Rucka's stuff is still used as the foundation; Steve, Cale, Cheetah etc are still around and have their basic arcs respected and able to built on, so Wilson won't have to jump through too many hoops to do something with those. But that's the nicest thing I can say: nothing too irreparably bad happened, but nothing else was good either.

I can't decide which is worse, this or the Finch run. But DC had two runs that while divisive among the online fanbase (so what else is new?), were both critically acclaimed and sold very well to launch the two different eras....and followed them up with abysmal runs, two of the worst the franchise has ever seen. Finch's run sunk the already fragile New 52 so maybe hers was worse, but it's very close and I can't believe they did this twice in a row.

I remember being told that the reboot was necessary because of Finch's run...

It kind of was. The New 52 Amazons were too detrimental to keep around going forward. The fact that DC didn't think they experienced enough backlash to get rid of the Zeus origin, but they did to warrant changing the Amazons back, says it all.

The fact that they didn't take advantage of the reboot to change Donna back is staggering though.

At least Finch wanted to play around in Azzarello's sandbox.

I don't know if we can give her points for that. She played around in his sandbox by killing off Hippolyta and the male Amazons at the hands of Donna Troy, thus making their whole existence a waste of time and ruining any shot of redemption the Amazons had. In addition to making Diana kind of a whiny idiot.