The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
AriviaI Like A ChallengeEarth-1Registered Userregular
I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out later today. Considering how steeped in mythology this take on things seems to be, no gendered xenophobia on the Amazons' part might just be weird.
If they make the Amazons an imperfect society that Diana does not necessarily 100% agree with, and even argues against in some ways, then that would be a good move that solves a lot of the problems I have with the Amazons as a group.
Likes:
-It's nice to see that Hera isn't just being a total bitch. She's somewhat... not sympathetic, but I can at least empathise with her. It's not personal, she's just a god doing what she feels she has to do.
-The art is really fantastic. Even if the style is not to your liking, you've got to give it to Chiang for being able to draw expressive faces.
-"cockless coop".
-Diana is smiling a lot and has a sense of humour.
-Hermes.
-A line of set up for a future Ares story. I was worried this team would only be on the book for a single arc before taking off. But it looks like Azzarello's planting seeds for upcoming stuff.
Ehh:
-Eris (Strife) deciding to pull a Doctor Manhattan was a bit wierd.
-Aleka seems a bit of an Artemis knock off. (Maybe in this continuity the Bana-Mighdall haven't yet been found and reintegrated into Amazon society. But if you create a antagonistic-but-friend Amazon, and make her a big red head, with hair in a ponytail... well, you're begetting the comparison.)
-Diana's lasso doesn't seem to be used for anything beyond a normal lasso. (Yet.)
-The reveal from a week ago that Zeus is Diana's father kind of blunts the retelling of her birth when we know it's hiding something.
Dislikes:
-Amazons recast as uncouth, low-tech barbarians.
-A number of Amazons get some pretty fatal wounds. Unless issue three pulls out the Purple Healing Ray (which would make little sense for these Amazons to have) that means a number of Amazons just died. They're a limited resource, writers. You can't be casually decimating them at every opportunity.
-Diana's voice is slipping into Thor speech a bit too much.
-Read very quickly. I went back to look over the art, but the story is pretty light.
0
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
I really liked the page with baby Diana, if only because if you took away the dialogue, it looked like baby Diana was going to strangle Hippolyta on the beach.
Good issue, it doesn't compete with GL or Batman in terms of second issue but all WW needs at this point is just a string of good issues. Nothing more, nothing less, and that should get the book on a more competent track.
they were untouched by war and had thousands of years to contemplate and create things
I'm not surprised they had advanced tech
It still clashes with the classic Greek theme Wonder Woman is supposed to represent
Batman is the dark, grimy, crime filled corner of heroics
Superman is the hopeful idealistic sci-fi fun times corner of heroics
Wonder Woman is supposed to be legendary and mythic, carrying the torch of classic myth. Having an island full of toga wearing warrior women that ALSO HAVE LASERS AND A PURPLE HEALING RAY is just silly.
I mean it works with Thor because the Marvel Asgardian pantheon has always had that crazy Kirby flair to it, blending sci-fi and fantasy.
With Wonder Woman she and Paradise Island and the Amazons are always presented as iconic greek mythical figures. Massive temples, columns, togas, spears and shields, etc. The sci-fi technology they have doesn't mesh at all with that style and really isn't a part of Wonder Woman's stories. The gods and Olympus are never sci-fi or sleek and futuristic, it's just Olympus.
Hm. Perhapes they rely to much on magic? Maybe they are so worried at being invaded they constantly train everyone to be soldier and no one is allowed to "waste: time creating? IDK
I kind of wrote a good size post about why Amazons should, I feel, be technologically advanced on page 2.
Blank, the point of the Amazons as created by Marston (as a purposeful inversion of classic myth) is that an all female society would be better than ours. That's how the character was concieved. Wonder Woman being "legendary and mythic" wasn't the focus back when she was actually popular. Wonder Woman is supposed to be a super hero. In our world. And yes, she fought Ares, but he's the embodiment of war - everything that the Amazons, who fought with love, were arrayed against. And he was all dicking around, turning ugly ballet dancers into crazy swan women. Diana's rogues gallary is in such desperate need of use.
Also, the Amazons aren't greek. The Greeks fought the Amazons. They were foriegners from the east.
As for humanity making it's great advancements because of war; yes, it pushes the envelope. Push too hard, you break things. The burning of the library at Alexandria, the sacking of Rome, what the crusades did to the middle east, etc. all speak to the fact that war's done a lot of horrific shit and set back humanity a number of times. Tons of tech came out of the Cold War, and the tension of that. But how close was the world to being completely fucked? And if you were in, say Afghanistan or Vietnam, did the Cold War help make your society better?
That i'll by but let me just say that I object to the very idea that a world ruled by women would be better then ours is appalling. Its built upon the very same concete that a male supremacist would use.
From what I've read of Marston, he considered the urge to war to be masculine. Therefore, that feminine society is preferable as it will be more peaceful. I disagree in practice: see women's soccer. Seriously, women are fully cabable of being total monsters.* On a larger scale and in the real world an all female society is obviously not possible nor wanted, but when presenting a fictional ideal it's best to go all-in to try and get the point across. And that point would be that (at the time moreso, I'd argue somewhat still today) we live in a society that under-represents and undervalues femininity.
It makes for interesting story and themes (to me).
*On this note, there were a number of Marston villains (namely: Dr. Poison, Blue Snowman, and Hypnota) who were women who feigned being men. I think this was an attempt by Marston (a calculating psychologist) to portray women who... let's say "denied their femininity" as being bad. I may be reading too much into it, but it seems to me that he wrote off women being cruel as women allowing masculine influences in. I also disagree with this.
I hope that Zola sticks around for more than an arc. She can be Diana's Jimmy Olsen!
I read that as Jimmy Carter and was horribly confused.
0
AriviaI Like A ChallengeEarth-1Registered Userregular
So, excepting a mythic hatred for male parts, the Amazons didn't really display anything this time through. Which is fine! We'll see more of their character in the cleanup from Eris, I suspect.
From what I've read of Marston, he considered the urge to war to be masculine. Therefore, that feminine society is preferable as it will be more peaceful. I disagree in practice: see women's soccer. Seriously, women are fully cabable of being total monsters.* On a larger scale and in the real world an all female society is obviously not possible nor wanted, but when presenting a fictional ideal it's best to go all-in to try and get the point across. And that point would be that (at the time moreso, I'd argue somewhat still today) we live in a society that under-represents and undervalues femininity.
It makes for interesting story and themes (to me).
*On this note, there were a number of Marston villains (namely: Dr. Poison, Blue Snowman, and Hypnota) who were women who feigned being men. I think this was an attempt by Marston (a calculating psychologist) to portray women who... let's say "denied their femininity" as being bad. I may be reading too much into it, but it seems to me that he wrote off women being cruel as women allowing masculine influences in. I also disagree with this.
Some of what Marston said through his comics was pretty troubling in a modern context though
On the one hand, the perfect, advanced Amazonian society is kind of troubling for me because if Wonder Woman is supposed to be taking Amazonian teachings to Man's World, but the Amazons are a perfect society made up of immortal warrior women, then what have they really got to say that can actually be applied to the rest of the world? That's even if you accept the idea that a mono-sex society that segregates itself from everyone else to be in any way perfect (which, I don't).
On the other hand, I do like super-advanced societies in comics.
Overall though, I like this new portrayal because it makes the Amazons less than perfect, so from a storytelling perspective Diana isn't tied to their views, and from a message perspective it gets rid of a bunch of problematic themes.
if Wonder Woman is supposed to be taking Amazonian teachings to Man's World, but the Amazons are a perfect society made up of immortal warrior women, then what have they really got to say that can actually be applied to the rest of the world?
Then again, what a tragedy could be composed from the idea that we refuse to listen!
Wildcat on
0
AriviaI Like A ChallengeEarth-1Registered Userregular
Man there is nothing like that in the book right now to suggest anything
there is an island with amazons on it and for mythic reasons they hate dicks. full stop.
I guess, but it just seems kind of silly. Wonder Woman says "We Amazons have a perfect society, maybe you should be more like us?" And the question is "how are you like that then?" And the answer is "Well we are few in number so have no problem with population, we live in a literal paradise free from war and death and disease and so on with lots of natural resources, we have super advanced technology and oh yes we are all immortal."
To which the response is "so nothing that can really help us, then, since we do not have any of those things," or "hand over that technology then please."
I do think that yes, Wonder Woman's Amazonian teachings would never bring about a Themiscyra-esque utopia in man's world for the reasons you say.
But I think it's kind of like Superman. No one can be him. He, like Marston's Amazons, has advantages which give him a heightened baseline from which he can be better then us. But he can still inspire us to be better than we might otherwise be.
And the feminine utopia plays like that for me. Can we create that world? No. Should we create that world? No - I don't think so. I like being masculine and think it can get a bit of a bum wrap. But from Wonder Woman I've learned that the world could do with valuing the feminine more. And if I was writing Diana, that would be more of the message that she would choose to teach: Here's the culture I came from. I know it doesn't work in this world, it's impossible. But there are things we can do, and they will make us better.
LordSolarMacharius on
0
AriviaI Like A ChallengeEarth-1Registered Userregular
it's amusing me that people are getting so caught up in over thinking the meaning of Wonder Woman in this thread when none of that enters into the current title at all
shows how badly she's been treated, that you're all so scared : (
I got into Wonder Woman kind of randomly. I'd been reading comics for a bit (mainly DC, Marvel's never gripped me outside of Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk) and had never really had the want to read the title. Her costume was iconic but not overly appealing. She often came off poorly in the books I did see her in.
But I figured there had to be something to the character. So I made the concious choice to read about her despite my instincts.
It's like when I decided to watch The Notebook. Yeah, it looks totally unappealing to me, but it has some actors I really love and has gotten a fair bit of aclaim, not least of which from (female) friends. So I made the concious choice to watch it.
The Notebook was crap. Couldn't even make it all the way through. Wonder Woman though, presented to me a bunch of new concepts that I found fascinating. She's made me think more then any other comic character I've read. She hit me and she hit me hard, inspired me. Became personal.
When a Wonder Woman story clicks, it's just the most fantastic thing. And it's a damn shame that there are so few examples of a Wonder Woman story clicking.
I got into Wonder Woman kind of randomly. I'd been reading comics for a bit (mainly DC, Marvel's never gripped me outside of Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk) and had never really had the want to read the title. Her costume was iconic but not overly appealing. She often came off poorly in the books I did see her in.
But I figured there had to be something to the character. So I made the concious choice to read about her despite my instincts.
It's like when I decided to watch The Notebook. Yeah, it looks totally unappealing to me, but it has some actors I really love and has gotten a fair bit of aclaim, not least of which from (female) friends. So I made the concious choice to watch it.
The Notebook was crap. Couldn't even make it all the way through. Wonder Woman though, presented to me a bunch of new concepts that I found fascinating. She's made me think more then any other comic character I've read. She hit me and she hit me hard, inspired me. Became personal.
When a Wonder Woman story clicks, it's just the most fantastic thing. And it's a damn shame that there are so few examples of a Wonder Woman story clicking.
what stories did that for you?
I personally like the Rucka run, as well as the Hiketia.
Rucka's run and the original Marston stuff are the standouts for me.
I find the Perez stuff has it's moments but is overly dense and needlessly convoluted a bit too much of the time (think of the complaints people were having about Superman #1 a couple of weeks ago).
Jimenez's stuff is alright, nice art and he clearly loves the character but nothing really wowed me.
There's a lot of stuff in Gail Simone's run that I like, especially the first two trades (The Circle, Ends of the Earth) but after that it goes off the rails.
I haven't read anything of Kanigher, Byrne or O'Neil, some of the prominant creators on the title. Haven't heard too great things, but would give them a look. DC's trade availibility can make it kind of difficult. But actually, this has inspired me to try and hunt down what I can on Amazon/Chapters.Indigo.
I also haven't read any of the William Messner-Loebs books, but I'd be intersted in it for Rama as Diana's love interest. That seems like a cool idea. TacoWhiz less so.
So just after the new 52 was announced someone post a few pages of what I thought was going to be the Wonder Woman relaunch. It involved Steve Trevor crass landing on Amazonia for the first time and had gorgeous art. anyone know what I'm talking about?
They're a theological monarchy who depend on supernatural elements for their resources and care. How culturally developed can you really expect them to be?
A lot?
They are [used to be] a small, close-knit society of women, all of whom chose to give up the warring way of man's world and follow Hippolyta to the happy-ever-after paradise of Themiscyra. Here, as you said, they are loosely ruled by a theological monarchy and the island bears enough resources to live happily.
And they've been there for a couple of thousand years. No armies coming to destroy their libraries, no mystery cults forcing on them that knowledge is bad and ignorance bliss, no hateful antagonism but sisterly competition. Do you expect that they've spent all those years lazing around?
Maybe we're just too different people. If I were to recieve a huge sum of money tomorrow, to the point where I could depend on it for my resources and care, I'd... still work a bit because I like what I do to an extent. But I'd free up time and use those resources to take classes at colleges and universities in a variety of subjects. I'd try to learn and create - I try to now a bit, but I mainly focus on working for money. So to me, it seems natural that there'd be a fair few Amazons who would do likewise.
This is [was] a culture of curiosity - not of the outside world, they'd seen that and grown tired of it. But they hadn't grown tired of life, of creating. Their city would be a testament to that. The most beautiful place in the world, because they had the time and desire to make it so. (And no cost/time constraints.) They'd have members who had spent lifetimes becoming the most fantastic of artists, and had many lifetimes left over to be athletes and healers, scientists, playwrights, comedians, chefs, debaters.
And it's into this society that Diana is born. One of utopian majesty. But unlike all the other Amazons, she hasn't experienced our world. She hasn't grown tired of it. And when she comes to explore and help it, she finds that with its faults it is also full of many wonders, that it's worth fighting for its improvement, worth fighting for all the people in it.
That's "my Wonder Woman". And I'm excited for and interested in seeing where Azzarello and Chiang are going to take the book. But when I see that one of the ways they're taking it is to make the Amazons low tech barbarians, it makes me sad. Because it's losing one of the concepts that I most of love about the character. I hope I'll love this too, but... I mourn a passing idea.
***
I think I can understand why they've done it, by the way. An idealic Amazon society doesn't make for overly interesting stories. But to me, that's a good thing. It seems every god-damn story in recent memory in the book has focused on the Amazons in some way. That's background. They inform where the Diana comes from, what makes her who she is. But she's supposed to be doing stuff in our world. Fighting threats in our world. And I really wish writers would just stop going back to the island for conflicts.
***
Also, it's a little funny that Hermes' junk apparently smells enough to alert the Amazons of the presence of people on the island. It also seems funny that they'd then start threatening the people with castration - and be close enough for these spoken threats to be heard - without visually identifying the fact that it's Diana, their princess, and Hermes, a god.
I can see learning for learning's sake, but most inventions were made to fill a need, and most fine literature was written to address social problems. Given that all their needs are provided for them by the gods and they don't seem to mind the lack of human rights, I can't see them being more productive than the group their lifestyle most resembles: children.
Beyond that, the main strength that you cite is that they're a tiny, isolationist community far away from everyone else. While that means that they have no one to deliberately burn their shit down, that also means that they have no neighbors to recover knowledge from when somebody's cow burns everything down, which was basically an annual event until roughly 150 years ago (there's an old map of Boston listing all the city-level fires in which the list is larger than the actual map). Additionally, it means that they have no access to outside development. Given that the population is generally depicted as being smaller than Harvard's science faculty, that's a problem, especially when you look up how many countries were involved in the development of any major technology. Basically, it's North Korea.
It's not even North Korea, it's a tiny isolationist tribe
Actual Amazonian tribes have spent thousands of years in the rainforest and made very, very few new innovations during that time
Why would a bunch of Amazonian warriors develop advanced technology just because? They have no limitations they need to overcome, they're immortal and have no problems with disease etc. They could stay at the same tech level for thousands of years and have no problems (which makes me think if they have a bit of a crisis when they find out how the regular world is getting. They're basically a stagnant culture in comparison).
It's not even North Korea, it's a tiny isolationist tribe
Actual Amazonian tribes have spent thousands of years in the rainforest and made very, very few new innovations during that time
Why would a bunch of Amazonian warriors develop advanced technology just because? They have no limitations they need to overcome, they're immortal and have no problems with disease etc. They could stay at the same tech level for thousands of years and have no problems (which makes me think if they have a bit of a crisis when they find out how the regular world is getting. They're basically a stagnant culture in comparison).
Advanced healing techniques make sense for a society that spars with each other for fun, and I suppose invisible planes or whatever make sense for conducting recon on passing vessels without giving away the location of your hidden isle.
Also, I don't see why having a direct line to the gods should make them any less innovative. They know how fickle the gods are, and surely the need to occasionally protect themselves from the gods should be a powerful incentive.
HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
Jesus Christ, this book is so good.
The classicist in me especially loves Hera's portrayal. She comes off as sympathetic, but also as a force of nature when scorned, which really syncs up with her ancient depictions (at least in Homer and Virgil).
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
Here's a 5 page preview of Issue 3. on "Scribd" (whatever that is).
I just glanced at the beginning, as five pages is like a quarter of the book and way too much to be a preview. But, anyway... considering Eris caused the death of at least five Amazons (that we can see), five immortal sisters which the surviving Amazons had known for thousands of years, they seemed to not be as pissed off at her as I imagined.
I thought issue 3 was, again, a really quick read with not much going on. Well, not much that one couldn't predict since DC's foolish choice to spoil the Diana-daughter-of-Zeus reveal weeks ago.
Also confirms that the DC Amazons no longer exist, these are purely the stereotype Amazons Azzarello's writing. (Which has merits in that people unfamiliar with Wonder Woman will have a leg up, but is throwing away something I really liked.)
On a different note, I'd previously decided to trade wait JLA. In this week's issue Wonder Woman was introduced; so to people who read it, any thoughts?
Posts
But like you say, let's wait and see.
Likes:
-It's nice to see that Hera isn't just being a total bitch. She's somewhat... not sympathetic, but I can at least empathise with her. It's not personal, she's just a god doing what she feels she has to do.
-The art is really fantastic. Even if the style is not to your liking, you've got to give it to Chiang for being able to draw expressive faces.
-"cockless coop".
-Diana is smiling a lot and has a sense of humour.
-Hermes.
-A line of set up for a future Ares story. I was worried this team would only be on the book for a single arc before taking off. But it looks like Azzarello's planting seeds for upcoming stuff.
Ehh:
-Eris (Strife) deciding to pull a Doctor Manhattan was a bit wierd.
-Aleka seems a bit of an Artemis knock off. (Maybe in this continuity the Bana-Mighdall haven't yet been found and reintegrated into Amazon society. But if you create a antagonistic-but-friend Amazon, and make her a big red head, with hair in a ponytail... well, you're begetting the comparison.)
-Diana's lasso doesn't seem to be used for anything beyond a normal lasso. (Yet.)
-The reveal from a week ago that Zeus is Diana's father kind of blunts the retelling of her birth when we know it's hiding something.
Dislikes:
-Amazons recast as uncouth, low-tech barbarians.
-A number of Amazons get some pretty fatal wounds. Unless issue three pulls out the Purple Healing Ray (which would make little sense for these Amazons to have) that means a number of Amazons just died. They're a limited resource, writers. You can't be casually decimating them at every opportunity.
-Diana's voice is slipping into Thor speech a bit too much.
-Read very quickly. I went back to look over the art, but the story is pretty light.
Good issue, it doesn't compete with GL or Batman in terms of second issue but all WW needs at this point is just a string of good issues. Nothing more, nothing less, and that should get the book on a more competent track.
I never really liked that they had weird sci-fi technology for no reason and also rode kangaroos.
I'm not surprised they had advanced tech
Batman is the dark, grimy, crime filled corner of heroics
Superman is the hopeful idealistic sci-fi fun times corner of heroics
Wonder Woman is supposed to be legendary and mythic, carrying the torch of classic myth. Having an island full of toga wearing warrior women that ALSO HAVE LASERS AND A PURPLE HEALING RAY is just silly.
With Wonder Woman she and Paradise Island and the Amazons are always presented as iconic greek mythical figures. Massive temples, columns, togas, spears and shields, etc. The sci-fi technology they have doesn't mesh at all with that style and really isn't a part of Wonder Woman's stories. The gods and Olympus are never sci-fi or sleek and futuristic, it's just Olympus.
Its questionable that a world with no conflict would create a more advanced society then one that needs to constantly struggle.
Humanity always made its great advancements because of war.
Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Hm. Perhapes they rely to much on magic? Maybe they are so worried at being invaded they constantly train everyone to be soldier and no one is allowed to "waste: time creating? IDK
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
they are not exactly a normal society
they are ageless, peerless warriors who all share the same basic goals and have a direct line to the gods anytime they want.
There isn't really any pressing need for technological development when you just pray and maybe sacrifice a calf and have your problems solved.
Blank, the point of the Amazons as created by Marston (as a purposeful inversion of classic myth) is that an all female society would be better than ours. That's how the character was concieved. Wonder Woman being "legendary and mythic" wasn't the focus back when she was actually popular. Wonder Woman is supposed to be a super hero. In our world. And yes, she fought Ares, but he's the embodiment of war - everything that the Amazons, who fought with love, were arrayed against. And he was all dicking around, turning ugly ballet dancers into crazy swan women. Diana's rogues gallary is in such desperate need of use.
Also, the Amazons aren't greek. The Greeks fought the Amazons. They were foriegners from the east.
As for humanity making it's great advancements because of war; yes, it pushes the envelope. Push too hard, you break things. The burning of the library at Alexandria, the sacking of Rome, what the crusades did to the middle east, etc. all speak to the fact that war's done a lot of horrific shit and set back humanity a number of times. Tons of tech came out of the Cold War, and the tension of that. But how close was the world to being completely fucked? And if you were in, say Afghanistan or Vietnam, did the Cold War help make your society better?
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
It makes for interesting story and themes (to me).
*On this note, there were a number of Marston villains (namely: Dr. Poison, Blue Snowman, and Hypnota) who were women who feigned being men. I think this was an attempt by Marston (a calculating psychologist) to portray women who... let's say "denied their femininity" as being bad. I may be reading too much into it, but it seems to me that he wrote off women being cruel as women allowing masculine influences in. I also disagree with this.
Image by Sharpwriter on deviantart.com
I read that as Jimmy Carter and was horribly confused.
Some of what Marston said through his comics was pretty troubling in a modern context though
On the one hand, the perfect, advanced Amazonian society is kind of troubling for me because if Wonder Woman is supposed to be taking Amazonian teachings to Man's World, but the Amazons are a perfect society made up of immortal warrior women, then what have they really got to say that can actually be applied to the rest of the world? That's even if you accept the idea that a mono-sex society that segregates itself from everyone else to be in any way perfect (which, I don't).
On the other hand, I do like super-advanced societies in comics.
Overall though, I like this new portrayal because it makes the Amazons less than perfect, so from a storytelling perspective Diana isn't tied to their views, and from a message perspective it gets rid of a bunch of problematic themes.
Then again, what a tragedy could be composed from the idea that we refuse to listen!
there is an island with amazons on it and for mythic reasons they hate dicks. full stop.
To which the response is "so nothing that can really help us, then, since we do not have any of those things," or "hand over that technology then please."
Oh yeah I can see that, they are clearly a lot less utopian and more just regular, ancient greek inspired all women society
And like I said, I prefer it like that
But I think it's kind of like Superman. No one can be him. He, like Marston's Amazons, has advantages which give him a heightened baseline from which he can be better then us. But he can still inspire us to be better than we might otherwise be.
And the feminine utopia plays like that for me. Can we create that world? No. Should we create that world? No - I don't think so. I like being masculine and think it can get a bit of a bum wrap. But from Wonder Woman I've learned that the world could do with valuing the feminine more. And if I was writing Diana, that would be more of the message that she would choose to teach: Here's the culture I came from. I know it doesn't work in this world, it's impossible. But there are things we can do, and they will make us better.
shows how badly she's been treated, that you're all so scared : (
But I figured there had to be something to the character. So I made the concious choice to read about her despite my instincts.
It's like when I decided to watch The Notebook. Yeah, it looks totally unappealing to me, but it has some actors I really love and has gotten a fair bit of aclaim, not least of which from (female) friends. So I made the concious choice to watch it.
The Notebook was crap. Couldn't even make it all the way through. Wonder Woman though, presented to me a bunch of new concepts that I found fascinating. She's made me think more then any other comic character I've read. She hit me and she hit me hard, inspired me. Became personal.
When a Wonder Woman story clicks, it's just the most fantastic thing. And it's a damn shame that there are so few examples of a Wonder Woman story clicking.
what stories did that for you?
I personally like the Rucka run, as well as the Hiketia.
I find the Perez stuff has it's moments but is overly dense and needlessly convoluted a bit too much of the time (think of the complaints people were having about Superman #1 a couple of weeks ago).
Jimenez's stuff is alright, nice art and he clearly loves the character but nothing really wowed me.
There's a lot of stuff in Gail Simone's run that I like, especially the first two trades (The Circle, Ends of the Earth) but after that it goes off the rails.
I haven't read anything of Kanigher, Byrne or O'Neil, some of the prominant creators on the title. Haven't heard too great things, but would give them a look. DC's trade availibility can make it kind of difficult. But actually, this has inspired me to try and hunt down what I can on Amazon/Chapters.Indigo.
I also haven't read any of the William Messner-Loebs books, but I'd be intersted in it for Rama as Diana's love interest. That seems like a cool idea. TacoWhiz less so.
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
I can see learning for learning's sake, but most inventions were made to fill a need, and most fine literature was written to address social problems. Given that all their needs are provided for them by the gods and they don't seem to mind the lack of human rights, I can't see them being more productive than the group their lifestyle most resembles: children.
Beyond that, the main strength that you cite is that they're a tiny, isolationist community far away from everyone else. While that means that they have no one to deliberately burn their shit down, that also means that they have no neighbors to recover knowledge from when somebody's cow burns everything down, which was basically an annual event until roughly 150 years ago (there's an old map of Boston listing all the city-level fires in which the list is larger than the actual map). Additionally, it means that they have no access to outside development. Given that the population is generally depicted as being smaller than Harvard's science faculty, that's a problem, especially when you look up how many countries were involved in the development of any major technology. Basically, it's North Korea.
Actual Amazonian tribes have spent thousands of years in the rainforest and made very, very few new innovations during that time
Why would a bunch of Amazonian warriors develop advanced technology just because? They have no limitations they need to overcome, they're immortal and have no problems with disease etc. They could stay at the same tech level for thousands of years and have no problems (which makes me think if they have a bit of a crisis when they find out how the regular world is getting. They're basically a stagnant culture in comparison).
Advanced healing techniques make sense for a society that spars with each other for fun, and I suppose invisible planes or whatever make sense for conducting recon on passing vessels without giving away the location of your hidden isle.
Also, I don't see why having a direct line to the gods should make them any less innovative. They know how fickle the gods are, and surely the need to occasionally protect themselves from the gods should be a powerful incentive.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
But the point is that it's not like either thing doesn't make sense. It's basically personal choice of what you want to do.
And my personal choice is that I like it.
The classicist in me especially loves Hera's portrayal. She comes off as sympathetic, but also as a force of nature when scorned, which really syncs up with her ancient depictions (at least in Homer and Virgil).
I just glanced at the beginning, as five pages is like a quarter of the book and way too much to be a preview. But, anyway... considering Eris caused the death of at least five Amazons (that we can see), five immortal sisters which the surviving Amazons had known for thousands of years, they seemed to not be as pissed off at her as I imagined.
Edit: Also, Issue #6 cover:
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Also confirms that the DC Amazons no longer exist, these are purely the stereotype Amazons Azzarello's writing. (Which has merits in that people unfamiliar with Wonder Woman will have a leg up, but is throwing away something I really liked.)
On a different note, I'd previously decided to trade wait JLA. In this week's issue Wonder Woman was introduced; so to people who read it, any thoughts?