New Readers of WW: Recommended Reading & Questions

[Jethro Blank]

Just some questions for some long time WW readers. I've recently gotten back into comics and have picked up WW as one of my monthly pull titles. I'm currently up to date on the story line but I just have a few questions, being as I haven't been a longtime WW reader and have had a little bit of difficulty following.

1. I get confused by a lot of the gods/demigods and wonder if I could read something that kind of maps out all the characters from WW? Like how many kids does Zeus have etc, background on Hephaestus and other characters. My Greek mythological knowledge isn't much more than God of War haha.

2. What are some great WW trades to look into? An origin story similar to Batman: Year One?

3. What's up with Grant Morrison and WW? Is he taking over WW after Azarello or does he have something else in store?

Thanks!

[cgynadu]

could anyone reading the current ww series tell me if issue 15 will be a good jumping on point? i saw an ad that said the new gods were making their debut that issue, and since i recently ordered kirby's new gods, i'd like to how the new 52 version compares to kirby's. thanks in advance.

[Lorendiac]

Just some questions for some long time WW readers. I've recently gotten back into comics and have picked up WW as one of my monthly pull titles. I'm currently up to date on the story line but I just have a few questions, being as I haven't been a longtime WW reader and have had a little bit of difficulty following.

1. I get confused by a lot of the gods/demigods and wonder if I could read something that kind of maps out all the characters from WW? Like how many kids does Zeus have etc, background on Hephaestus and other characters. My Greek mythological knowledge isn't much more than God of War haha.

The classic source of information is a book first published about 70 years ago -- and reprinted regularly ever since then, as I understand it. Edith Hamilton's Mythology. She was a scholar who did her level best to summarize and organize the essential items from all sorts of ancient writings about the legendary figures of Greek and Roman mythology, and I believe the book has a bunch of genealogical charts at the back to show the relationships between various gods, heroes, kings and queens, etc.

The book is available at http://www.amazon.com/Mythology-Time.../dp/0446574759 -- and it looks like "Used Paperback" copies are going for as little as one U.S. penny (plus shipping and handling).

There may be somewhere online that has scanned images of diagrams showing the tangled family trees that connect Zeus, Ares, Hercules, and all the rest, but I don't know where. You could Google for it.

(Naturally Hamilton's book doesn't mention Wonder Woman, but it would show you what the original myths had to say about Queen Hippolyta and a lot of other people who are frequently mentioned in Wonder Woman's comic books.)

[Jethro Blank]

The classic source of information is a book first published about 70 years ago -- and reprinted regularly ever since then, as I understand it. Edith Hamilton's Mythology. She was a scholar who did her level best to summarize and organize the essential items from all sorts of ancient writings about the legendary figures of Greek and Roman mythology, and I believe the book has a bunch of genealogical charts at the back to show the relationships between various gods, heroes, kings and queens, etc.

The book is available at http://www.amazon.com/Mythology-Time.../dp/0446574759 -- and it looks like "Used Paperback" copies are going for as little as one U.S. penny (plus shipping and handling).

There may be somewhere online that has scanned images of diagrams showing the tangled family trees that connect Zeus, Ares, Hercules, and all the rest, but I don't know where. You could Google for it.

(Naturally Hamilton's book doesn't mention Wonder Woman, but it would show you what the original myths had to say about Queen Hippolyta and a lot of other people who are frequently mentioned in Wonder Woman's comic books.)

Thanks alot for the help! Any really heavy mytho based storylines or graphic novels you would recommend? Other than the current run of WW.

[Darth Twiggy]

could anyone reading the current ww series tell me if issue 15 will be a good jumping on point? i saw an ad that said the new gods were making their debut that issue, and since i recently ordered kirby's new gods, i'd like to how the new 52 version compares to kirby's. thanks in advance.

It might be a little confusing because you're probably not going to be familiar with the characters however if you want to jump onto reading WW it would probably be ok to start with 14 and 15.

[SNascimento]

Hello.

In which story Wonder Woman and Superman fight monsters for a thousand years in a parallel universe or something?

[FrogMan]

I just started reading Wonder Woman, and just finished reading issues 1 through 16 all in one sit down. I really like the series, BUT...when is this supposed to take place in the New 52 timeline? I'm wondering because there has been NO mention whatsoever of her being in the Justice League, and none of the Justice League have appeared in the WW book. I find this a little annoying. If some of these series take place before the majority of DC's titles, it should be mentioned somewhere in the book.

[Lorendiac]

Hello.

In which story Wonder Woman and Superman fight monsters for a thousand years in a parallel universe or something?

Some years ago I took the trouble to compile a list of all the times when we had seen the Post-Crisis version of Wonder Woman slaughter her enemies without feeling guilty about it. (With special attention to those times when Superman must have known what was going on, and seemed to be fine with it instead of throwing a hissy fit!) The results of my research are still available at Timeline of Wonder Woman's Killings, Post-Crisis

I'm just going to cut-and-paste one entry from my old Timeline. That will bring you up to speed!

1999. Action Comics #761. Written by Joe Kelly.

This story is downright weird. If taken at face value, the following things occur: Wonder Woman and Superman are magically summoned to Valhalla to help the Norse Gods fight an evil demon horde collectively called the Vgrtsmyth. They fight side by side for a thousand years without any vacations. Diana kills enemies right and left. Superman steadfastly refuses to do so. (It is far from clear what happens to any demon warriors whom he knocks down without killing.) He also refuses to sleep with Diana even after a thousand years of being comrades in arms, when he figures his wife Lois is long dead anyway. After they’ve ended the war, Thor (who died and returned during all this) offers to grant each of them a wish in reward for their valiant service. Since the story ends with Superman back in Metropolis, kissing Lois, the implication is that he wished to be returned to the same day on Earth from which he had been yanked away (but we never actually saw how he worded his wish).

This story has always annoyed me, although I can see that Kelly was bound and determined to find a way to hit us over the head with the idea that Superman will always be faithful to his wife, no matter how long the separation or how great the temptation. I prefer to think of the Valhalla stuff as a mystical dream sequence, easily forgotten, which Kelly simply “forgot” to label as a dream sequence, rather than something which “really happened” to Superman for a full millennium “in continuity.” But if we take it at face value, then Superman spent a thousand years watching Diana kill demons practically nonstop, and he learned to live with it, and there is no dialogue in the last couple of pages of the story to indicate that those events were magically scrubbed from his memory before he returned home to Lois. (On the other hand, I’ve never actually seen or heard of any subsequent Superman story which explicitly referenced that thousand-year-war as something which he still remembered after it was over and done with, so maybe he did ask to have all that nonsense wiped out of his memory?)

[P.S. After I posted the above paragraphs, about four and a half years ago, someone pointed out to me that those events were referenced once in dialogue in a later story. Then Superman and everybody else went ahead and forgot all about it!]

[SNascimento]

Some years ago I took the trouble to compile a list of all the times when we had seen the Post-Crisis version of Wonder Woman slaughter her enemies without feeling guilty about it. (With special attention to those times when Superman must have known what was going on, and seemed to be fine with it instead of throwing a hissy fit!) The results of my research are still available at Timeline of Wonder Woman's Killings, Post-Crisis

I'm just going to cut-and-paste one entry from my old Timeline. That will bring you up to speed!

1999. Action Comics #761. Written by Joe Kelly.

This story is downright weird. If taken at face value, the following things occur: Wonder Woman and Superman are magically summoned to Valhalla to help the Norse Gods fight an evil demon horde collectively called the Vgrtsmyth. They fight side by side for a thousand years without any vacations. Diana kills enemies right and left. Superman steadfastly refuses to do so. (It is far from clear what happens to any demon warriors whom he knocks down without killing.) He also refuses to sleep with Diana even after a thousand years of being comrades in arms, when he figures his wife Lois is long dead anyway. After they’ve ended the war, Thor (who died and returned during all this) offers to grant each of them a wish in reward for their valiant service. Since the story ends with Superman back in Metropolis, kissing Lois, the implication is that he wished to be returned to the same day on Earth from which he had been yanked away (but we never actually saw how he worded his wish).

This story has always annoyed me, although I can see that Kelly was bound and determined to find a way to hit us over the head with the idea that Superman will always be faithful to his wife, no matter how long the separation or how great the temptation. I prefer to think of the Valhalla stuff as a mystical dream sequence, easily forgotten, which Kelly simply “forgot” to label as a dream sequence, rather than something which “really happened” to Superman for a full millennium “in continuity.” But if we take it at face value, then Superman spent a thousand years watching Diana kill demons practically nonstop, and he learned to live with it, and there is no dialogue in the last couple of pages of the story to indicate that those events were magically scrubbed from his memory before he returned home to Lois. (On the other hand, I’ve never actually seen or heard of any subsequent Superman story which explicitly referenced that thousand-year-war as something which he still remembered after it was over and done with, so maybe he did ask to have all that nonsense wiped out of his memory?)

[P.S. After I posted the above paragraphs, about four and a half years ago, someone pointed out to me that those events were referenced once in dialogue in a later story. Then Superman and everybody else went ahead and forgot all about it!]

Thank you. The only reference I had was a conversation between Diana and Louis in which she said she fought with superman for 1000 years and he kept loyal to the reporter.

[Lorendiac]

Thank you. The only reference I had was a conversation between Diana and Louis in which she said she fought with superman for 1000 years and he kept loyal to the reporter.

That conversation was probably the "single reference in dialogue" which I had completely forgotten a few years ago. By the way, the original story is one of several collected in the TPB volume Superman: No Limits if you want to hunt it down and study it for yourself.

[SteveGus]

[P.S. After I posted the above paragraphs, about four and a half years ago, someone pointed out to me that those events were referenced once in dialogue in a later story. Then Superman and everybody else went ahead and forgot all about it!]

FWIW, the story of the 1000 years in Valhalla were referenced in Wonder Woman v. 2 #170, the 'Day in the Life' issue in which Lois Lane interviews Diana. One of Jimenez's best issues as well. Not sure if this is the mention you were referring to.

[Lorendiac]

FWIW, the story of the 1000 years in Valhalla were referenced in Wonder Woman v. 2 #170, the 'Day in the Life' issue in which Lois Lane interviews Diana. One of Jimenez's best issues as well. Not sure if this is the mention you were referring to.

I've gone back now and checked the comments I got on my original Timeline of Wonder Woman's history of killing people. Yes, that was the story someone else called to my attention. I think that, at that time, I had never read it! When I was writing about "it was never mentioned again" in 2008, what I really meant was that I didn't remember ever seeing the "1000 years in Valhalla and then we came home like it never happened" story get any follow-up in any later issue of Superman's various titles from around 1999 and the early 2000s -- material which I had collected and read. It hadn't even occurred to me that the silly story might have referred to in a later Wonder Woman issue instead!

P.S., inserted later: It appears there was also one quick reference to it in dialogue in one later chat between Clark and Pa Kent in a Superman story. After four and a half years, I'd forgotten that people at the time had called two later mentions of it to my attention; not just one! So it appears that we had this:

1. The story "happened" in a comic by Joe Kelly.
2. It was mentioned once in a later Superman story -- and then Clark and his various writers seem to have forgotten all about it, never to mention it again!
3. It was mentioned once in a later Wonder Woman story as well -- and then Diana and her various writers seem to have forgotten all about it, never to mention it again!

[dupersuper]

I just started reading Wonder Woman, and just finished reading issues 1 through 16 all in one sit down. I really like the series, BUT...when is this supposed to take place in the New 52 timeline? I'm wondering because there has been NO mention whatsoever of her being in the Justice League, and none of the Justice League have appeared in the WW book. I find this a little annoying. If some of these series take place before the majority of DC's titles, it should be mentioned somewhere in the book.

Have people really lost the ability to just assume contained stories in 1 title take place before or after that characters appearances in other titles?

[FrogMan]

Why should we have to ASSUME anything? Like you said, before or after?? It should be made clear IN the book.

I'm "assuming" it takes place before her Justice League appearances, that doesn't mean I'm right, now does it? Like I said, it should be mentioned somewhere in the book. Like in issue one. A simple "5 years ago" on page one would be all they had to do. Then, if and when it comes into the present, put a "Present day" caption in the book.

We shouldn't have to assume anything.

[Gaelforce]

Have people really lost the ability to just assume contained stories in 1 title take place before or after that characters appearances in other titles?

I miss the old days of footnotes. I still see one now and then, 'this story happens before the events of XYZ.' I just think that WW is so disconnected from the DCU that it doesn't matter (which makes me sad :( )