How Much Hate Does The Perez Run Get?

[SiegePerilous02]

Perez's run was great for its time, and still holds up very well today. But the ambassador role and the preachiness started here, and it only got worse as time went on. The convoluted explanations for the Amazon origins and the Diana Trevor stuff just made the story come to a screeching halt: origins are meant to be simple and quick, and there's a reason for that: they are the most boring part of the mythos, and getting them out of the way as efficiently as possible is for the best.

- His take on the Amazon society as a whole was a major step down, including the lack of bizarre sexual politics and sci-fi technology. However, he gave us the best cast of Amazon characters of any writer. Hippolyta came close to stealing the show from Diana on many occasions, and Philippus, Menalippe and Helene were all great, three dimensional characters as well. Ideally, I would love Perez's Amazon cast filtered through a Marston lens. Hopefully that will be what Morrison gives us.

- I liked many of his new Man's World characters, but hated what he did to Steve and Etta. I understand that the romance between Golden Age Diana and Steve wouldn't have worked for modern audiences, but it should have been re-tooled instead of cast aside altogether. Older Steve is just so boring, and has no purpose for being in the story. Etta, while thankfully much less of a parody of obesity, lost all of her personality. Steve and Etta getting married is also like Lois marrying Jimmy. On the plus side, Perez gave us a bunch of women of varying body types, ages, background and who all had careers and played significant roles in the plot. I wish Azzarello and many modern writers could take note.

- He made Diana too powerful. Without her being susceptible to the Lasso, the berserker rages and the weakness of having her bracelets welded together, in addition to the Gods just handing her all her powers at birth, everything just seemed to go swimmingly for Diana without any effort on her part. Making her a flying brick also doesn't benefit her or her mythos all that much: it was just done to make her equal to Superman when it wasn't really needed. The Gods should overpower her regardless of her strength level, and none of her classic rogues require her to be that powerful, so why bother?

- Speaking of the villains, Perez's revamp of them is one of the best aspects of his run. It was like they came straight out of a Vertigo title, and I wish he had the chance to bring back Giganta, Dr. Poison, Blue Snowman, Cyber and others before he left. With their power levels, it's unbelievable how subsequent writers treated them like jokes. However, changing the Cheetah's real name from Priscilla Rich to Dr. Barbara Minerva did the character more harm than good. None of the Bat-villains had their civilian names changed, so why is so much inconsistency allowed to occur with WW villains? Just keeping her as Dr. Priscilla Rich would have gone a long way to solving this problem, you could even keep the Urzkartaga and were-Cheetah mythos. See also: Helen Alexandros to Valerie Beaudry.

[Mel Dyer]

Again, ..I think it's what came after the Perez run that did the most damage, and the writers, who followed him, ignored the way Mr. Perez ended his run.

Post-Perez, she became a foreign princess, who couldn't relate to us and couldn't believe a man could turn her down for a date. This Great Princession, as I've called it, made WW a comic book about being a world-weary, messianic princess, tormented that she couldn't save mankind from itself and obsessed with her own ironic imperfections, ..and that lasted for almost THIRTY years.

Writer, after writer, ignored that George Perez had tried to grow his WW beyond the static perfection of clay-born messianic princess from a perfect island. They ignored that Perez had the foresight to know there was no story to be organically grown from that premise, ..and I think this comic is still recovering from that.

[Vanguard-01]

Again, ..I think it's what came after the Perez run that did the most damage, and the writers, who followed him, ignored the way Mr. Perez ended his run.

Post-Perez, she became a foreign princess, who couldn't relate to us and couldn't believe a man could turn her down for a date. This Great Princession, as I've called it, made WW a comic book about being a world-weary, messianic princess, tormented that she couldn't save mankind from itself and obsessed with her own ironic imperfections, ..and that lasted for almost THIRTY years.

Writer, after writer, ignored that George Perez had tried to grow his WW beyond the static perfection of clay-born messianic princess from a perfect island. They ignored that Perez had the foresight to know there was no story to be organically grown from that premise, ..and I think this comic is still recovering from that.

Eeeeeeyup!

[AmiMizuno]

Could the chaining her bracelets still work as a weakness? It was only men who could chain her bracelets and she will lose her powers. When we think about it can be linked to the distrust of men the amazons have about men. That even though some are okay its in the back of their heads. Also, the simple fact Hercules in Marston's run stopped the amazons and abused the amazons makes sense of why we have that as a weakness it reminds a emotional abused moment. It can work. However it can be updated

[SeanT]

Again, ..I think it's what came after the Perez run that did the most damage, and the writers, who followed him, ignored the way Mr. Perez ended his run.

Post-Perez, she became a foreign princess, who couldn't relate to us and couldn't believe a man could turn her down for a date. This Great Princession, as I've called it, made WW a comic book about being a world-weary, messianic princess, tormented that she couldn't save mankind from itself and obsessed with her own ironic imperfections, ..and that lasted for almost THIRTY years.

Writer, after writer, ignored that George Perez had tried to grow his WW beyond the static perfection of clay-born messianic princess from a perfect island. They ignored that Perez had the foresight to know there was no story to be organically grown from that premise, ..and I think this comic is still recovering from that.

Messner-Loebs did just fine with her personality. He was a breath of fresh air after the decidedly un-fun-loving Diana of Perez (and making Diana and Etta pals instead of rival was a huge step-up as well). The best Diana since Marston.

It was later writers-- Byrne didn't seem to give her any personality, Luke made her moody and distant, Jimenez made her bitchy, Rucka made her serene but remote, and Simone made her a bit of a weirdo who was most comfortable in the company of her apes.

Thank goodness Azzarello has made her sort of normal and down to Earth again.

[Vanguard-01]

Could the chaining her bracelets still work as a weakness? It was only men who could chain her bracelets and she will lose her powers. When we think about it can be linked to the distrust of men the amazons have about men. That even though some are okay its in the back of their heads. Also, the simple fact Hercules in Marston's run stopped the amazons and abused the amazons makes sense of why we have that as a weakness it reminds a emotional abused moment. It can work. However it can be updated

I like the idea of bringing back some sort of power-loss weakness for Diana.

I just wouldn't like to see it be something ridiculous like "You can de-power her with a roll of Duct Tape." Or something really ridiculous like that.

But Diana is a creature of magic, and it makes sense that she should be susceptible to at least some of the rules of magic. My favorite idea is to say that binding Diana, in and of itself, does nothing to her. But if you know the proper spells to enchant whatever you intend to bind her with? THAT will work. The idea that Diana is susceptible to binding spells is a good idea.

So no, an ordinary chain won't affect her at all. But a chain enchanted with binding spells just might. I think that idea can work just fine.

[AmiMizuno]

I like the idea of bringing back some sort of power-loss weakness for Diana.

I just wouldn't like to see it be something ridiculous like "You can de-power her with a roll of Duct Tape." Or something really ridiculous like that.

But Diana is a creature of magic, and it makes sense that she should be susceptible to at least some of the rules of magic. My favorite idea is to say that binding Diana, in and of itself, does nothing to her. But if you know the proper spells to enchant whatever you intend to bind her with? THAT will work. The idea that Diana is susceptible to binding spells is a good idea.

So no, an ordinary chain won't affect her at all. But a chain enchanted with binding spells just might. I think that idea can work just fine.

Agreed that makes sense. Also one things is the bulletproof. To me yes she should be bulletproof but make it interesting. Regular Bullets nothing, semi or machine it bruises but nothing to kill her. What about regular swords and other weapons? Magic weapons I feel would be interesting. What I mean by that not simple magic should harm her. The amazons should have so training to protect themselves but levels like Circe yes. Mind control she just be immune more so with her lasso.


With the magic binding it could make sense for the amazons to be bind with magic.

[Vanguard-01]

Agreed that makes sense. Also one things is the bulletproof. To me yes she should be bulletproof but make it interesting. Regular Bullets nothing, semi or machine it bruises but nothing to kill her. What about regular swords and other weapons? Magic weapons I feel would be interesting. What I mean by that not simple magic should harm her. The amazons should have so training to protect themselves but levels like Circe yes. Mind control she just be immune more so with her lasso.


With the magic binding it could make sense for the amazons to be bind with magic.

Yeah, I like the idea that Diana doesn't have a lot to worry about from conventional weapons.

You're right. Small arms? Nothing. Bigger caliber weapons? Might sting a bit. But nothing short of heavy artillery should be a real problem for her.

Normal bladed weapons? Same story. A weapon should have to be somehow special to actually hurt her.

A magic sword? If its magic is strong enough, it can cut her. Cheetah's claws are magical, so THEY can cut her.

For scientific weapons? Lasers should be a problem. Diana doesn't generally move faster than light so by rights, blocking a laser should be almost impossible for her. Bullets that are enhanced with super-tech? Sure.

The bottom line is that normal everyday weapons shouldn't be a problem. A weapon needs to be special to hurt Diana.

Mind control? I don't think she should be immune, but yes, the lasso should make it much harder for her to succumb. But saying it's flat-out impossible takes away some really good story possibilities.

[AmiMizuno]

Agreed, I probably should say with her Amazonian training her mental training should make it difficult in general but with her lasso it's very difficult. technically her reflexes her sometimes considered faster than the flash. I feel the amazons weapons should be infused with magic in where low leveled should be able to hurt but not kill her. Lasers should hurt her but never kill her.

[Blacksun]

Perez's run was great for its time, and still holds up very well today. But the ambassador role and the preachiness started here, and it only got worse as time went on. The convoluted explanations for the Amazon origins and the Diana Trevor stuff just made the story come to a screeching halt: origins are meant to be simple and quick, and there's a reason for that: they are the most boring part of the mythos, and getting them out of the way as efficiently as possible is for the best.

- His take on the Amazon society as a whole was a major step down, including the lack of bizarre sexual politics and sci-fi technology. However, he gave us the best cast of Amazon characters of any writer. Hippolyta came close to stealing the show from Diana on many occasions, and Philippus, Menalippe and Helene were all great, three dimensional characters as well. Ideally, I would love Perez's Amazon cast filtered through a Marston lens. Hopefully that will be what Morrison gives us.

- I liked many of his new Man's World characters, but hated what he did to Steve and Etta. I understand that the romance between Golden Age Diana and Steve wouldn't have worked for modern audiences, but it should have been re-tooled instead of cast aside altogether. Older Steve is just so boring, and has no purpose for being in the story. Etta, while thankfully much less of a parody of obesity, lost all of her personality. Steve and Etta getting married is also like Lois marrying Jimmy. On the plus side, Perez gave us a bunch of women of varying body types, ages, background and who all had careers and played significant roles in the plot. I wish Azzarello and many modern writers could take note.

- He made Diana too powerful. Without her being susceptible to the Lasso, the berserker rages and the weakness of having her bracelets welded together, in addition to the Gods just handing her all her powers at birth, everything just seemed to go swimmingly for Diana without any effort on her part. Making her a flying brick also doesn't benefit her or her mythos all that much: it was just done to make her equal to Superman when it wasn't really needed. The Gods should overpower her regardless of her strength level, and none of her classic rogues require her to be that powerful, so why bother?

- Speaking of the villains, Perez's revamp of them is one of the best aspects of his run. It was like they came straight out of a Vertigo title, and I wish he had the chance to bring back Giganta, Dr. Poison, Blue Snowman, Cyber and others before he left. With their power levels, it's unbelievable how subsequent writers treated them like jokes. However, changing the Cheetah's real name from Priscilla Rich to Dr. Barbara Minerva did the character more harm than good. None of the Bat-villains had their civilian names changed, so why is so much inconsistency allowed to occur with WW villains? Just keeping her as Dr. Priscilla Rich would have gone a long way to solving this problem, you could even keep the Urzkartaga and were-Cheetah mythos. See also: Helen Alexandros to Valerie Beaudry.

How we would know it if he didn't even tried? steve/diana just need a update, just like what happened with the ww characters. lois and clark works for more than 75 years. The problem is that every writer wash their hands (kudos to bryan q miller from smallville for being exception) and for 30 years nothing of the couple was really done.
Perez not only removed Trevor as love interest, but made her go to a date with superman and never gave her a love interest to replace Trevor. it doomed the character for a long time.

well azzarello women has different body shapes, backgrounds maybe not so much like perez but better than majority of comic books today.

[Gaelforce]

I like the idea of bringing back some sort of power-loss weakness for Diana.

I just wouldn't like to see it be something ridiculous like "You can de-power her with a roll of Duct Tape." Or something really ridiculous like that.

But Diana is a creature of magic, and it makes sense that she should be susceptible to at least some of the rules of magic. My favorite idea is to say that binding Diana, in and of itself, does nothing to her. But if you know the proper spells to enchant whatever you intend to bind her with? THAT will work. The idea that Diana is susceptible to binding spells is a good idea.

So no, an ordinary chain won't affect her at all. But a chain enchanted with binding spells just might. I think that idea can work just fine.

I disagree, again based on the whole idea of increasing powers across the board:

- Lanterns no longer have yellow (or anything) as a weakness
- Aquaman no longer needs water every hour or so
- Superman isn't as weak to magic as he once was
- Batman's armor bounces bullets

There is no reason to create a goofy weakness for Diana who already is shown as underpowered by so many writers.

[Vanguard-01]

I disagree, again based on the whole idea of increasing powers across the board:

- Lanterns no longer have yellow (or anything) as a weakness

Actually, rookie Lanterns still do have the yellow weakness, last I heard. It's just a weakness that the more experienced Lanterns have learned to overcome.

And the yellow weakness always represented a weakness that remains in Lanterns to this day: fear. A Lantern who is afraid is not focusing his/her Will properly and can't use his/her powers effectively. Other emotions that affect a Lanterns focus can do it as well. Gail's run? The GL Diana fought? His grief for his loss prevented him from making strong constructs and Diana was shattering them like they were made of spun sugar.

- Aquaman no longer needs water every hour or so

Maybe not every hour or so, but he still needs water. He can dehydrate, it's just not as fast.

And if a villain creates some kind of microwave gun or high-tech dehydrator rig to use against him? That's a very serious problem for him.

- Superman isn't as weak to magic as he once was

According to our good friend Geoff Johns, Superman wasn't able to melt ice with his heat vision because the ice was magical. I love magic, and even I'll say that was NONSENSE. Ice is ice. It doesn't matter what created it. If it's ice, Clark should be able to melt it.

Other than that? I haven't seen a lot to suggest that Superman isn't as weak against magic as he was. Got some examples that I'm just not thinking about right now?

And furthermore, Kryptonite has been upgraded to being much more deadly to Kryptonians than it ever was in the previous continuity. Kara almost died after a few minutes of exposure.

- Batman's armor bounces bullets

It really should have been doing that for quite a while anyway. It's the only way to explain how Batman didn't die in like his third outing in Gotham.

Bottom line is that armor will do precisely nothing against a REAL power attack. Bulletproof armor just means his own rogues have to step up their game.

There is no reason to create a goofy weakness for Diana who already is shown as underpowered by so many writers.

There's nothing really goofy about saying that Diana, as a creature of magic, is subject to some of magic's rules. Binding spells are a real thing in comics. A spell that somehow suppresses magic power should work on Diana if it's strong enough.

Don't get me wrong: binding spells should work on just about ANY powered hero as well. Bind Superman with a chain enchanted with a sunlight-draining spell? He's going to lose his powers. Bind Flash with a chain enchanted with a total paralysis spell? He can't move a muscle, which means his entire power game is GONE.

This doesn't diminish Diana in any way. And with my idea that the chains need to be enchanted? How many of Diana's rogues will be able to exploit it regularly? Circe. Some of the gods. Maybe Cheetah. But really only a skilled an powerful magic user can enchant chains with a spell strong enough to bind Diana. If Doctor Psycho wants to exploit this weakness, he'll need to make a deal with Circe or some other powerful mage to provide the enchanted chains for him. He can't very well make them himself.

Superman is more vulnerable to Kryptonite than ever. But this is balanced by the fact that Kryptonite is now very rare and hard to acquire in the New 52. Only people like Lex Luthor really have the resources to get any. Same thing for Diana: not every villain would be able to use this weakness against her. Only powerful magic users, and/or people who can make deals with them.

And as far as "no new weaknesses?" I remind you that thanks to Scott Lobdell, Superman is now a total wuss against psychics. Three telepaths completely destroyed him in his own book and only Lois was able to rescue him. He literally NEVER beat those psychics himself. If Lois hadn't been there with her new psychic powers, Superman would've been toast. He's never been that vulnerable to psychic powers before. That's a whole new weakness given to him in the New 52.

And I totally disagree about Diana being shown as underpowered. She just handled herself quite well against Doomsday. She just beat Zod and Faora pretty much singlehandedly. She'll be fighting Superdoom soon enough. She's performed quite well in her own book as well. I really can't point to a moment where she's been made to look all that weak.

[SofNascimento]

If Wonder Woman gets hurt by stardard gun or sharp weapon I drop the new52 right there and then. Same thing for holding her bracelets together of whatever.

[Raiden]

I disagree, again based on the whole idea of increasing powers across the board:

- Lanterns no longer have yellow (or anything) as a weakness
- Aquaman no longer needs water every hour or so
- Superman isn't as weak to magic as he once was
- Batman's armor bounces bullets

There is no reason to create a goofy weakness for Diana who already is shown as underpowered by so many writers.

The reason they don't have those silly weaknesses is because their fans are not interested in campy silver age stories. While there are self proclaimed fans of Wonder Woman who write letters to writers asking them to let villains use Diana's lasso against her.. You probably already know this.

[Raiden]

I liked what Perez did, but most of his stories were mediocre. I m not a big fan of Perez nor i have any complaints against him.
It was Rucka, who made me a Wonder Woman fan.