Wonder Woman 10 (Spoilers)

[Rob_Olivera]

So? Bloodlusted Superman against WW whom he thinks is Doomsday and killed Lois, but at the same time WW is holding back. =)
And I wouldn't use the word dry twig. You'd be surprised at what can you do when you're THAT angry, since he thought he was going against the man who killed him, and is now back and has killed his wife.


You seem to think that the difference is really huge. I don't. Cuz it's not. Because I think I can never convince you, not even by reaching on a consensus that Wonder Woman is almost as strong as Superman. Even DC seems to think so. But you insist that she is somewhere on his radar, maybe something he'll take notice of while flexing his arms.....somedayy.....

Which is weird because you agreed with the "almost" part. So why is it a problem processing that Wonder Woman is 2nd in strength but by a minor difference, or a small gap. That has the same meaning as almost. You agree with the word but not the phrase. Almost =/= maybe can be considered near in another life.

Personally I LIKE and WANT Wonder Woman to be nearly as strong as Superman.

However... it just does NOT make sense when she is portrayed as such, when we live in a world where Adults are the majority of the audience reading the books. Anyone with even a small fraction of Superman's strength level REQUIRES a high degree of invulnerability. But if she had the type of invulnerability required to be that strong, she would basically be bullet proof and wouldn't need her bracelets. Just follow the trend of thought.

They tried to explain this before nu52 saying she was only vulnerable to sharp objects, etc... I just couldn't buy it. They tried to have their cake and eat it too.

I'm not here saying she has been depowered or not... I'm just saying that I like it when she's omni potent, but then.. we run into the above mentioned conflicts.

[Bruce-wayne]

Eh, I think it's fairly easy to explain, people are not new to the idea of weaknesses in comics, if they can buy heroes flying around shooting lasers this shouldn't be that hard to believe. People buy that Batman can do anything since he's at the peak of human accomplishment even though the tasks he does are well beyond that and they know it. Instead of calling it PIS, it's dismissed as "it's Batman". She is quite durable, could be considered quite invulnerable even but her invulnerability has a loophole. Her Achilles' heel, if I may. Not all adults will think that deep and even if they do, it won't really be something that stops them from sleeping at night either...comics aren't always tied to logic, there's an element of magic as well. Otherwise how does Superman absorb energy from the Sun, how and why is he weak to Kryptonite, where did this root from. Not everyone really cares that much.

[Rob_Olivera]

Eh, I think it's fairly easy to explain, people are not new to the idea of weaknesses in comics, if they can buy heroes flying around shooting lasers this shouldn't be that hard to believe. People buy that Batman can do anything since he's at the peak of human accomplishment even though the tasks he does are well beyond that and they know it. Instead of calling it PIS, it's dismissed as "it's Batman". She is quite durable, could be considered quite invulnerable even but her invulnerability has a loophole. Her Achilles' heel, if I may. Not all adults will think that deep and even if they do, it won't really be something that stops them from sleeping at night either...comics aren't always tied to logic, there's an element of magic as well. Otherwise how does Superman absorb energy from the Sun, how and why is he weak to Kryptonite, where did this root from. Not everyone really cares that much.

Well.. to be honest, Superman's ability to absorb energy from the sun is kind of interesting since we do have solar powered things in real life. While not possible, it still seems like a feasible well thought out fiction ingredient. I can also stretch it about the Kryptonite which is supposed to be fragments of his home planet which presumably contains some kind of stored solar energy from a sun that did not affect Kryptonians like Earth's does. I could buy that it could possibly negate our solar galaxy's empowering yellow version.

What I CANT buy is someone being hurt by a bullet and allegedly being able to compare with a being that can stop it with an eyeball without batting an eyelash.

But of course, you're right about the fact that we're not supposed to care at the end of the day.

[Bruce-wayne]

Yea but thing is, who knows that about Kryptonite. People just believe it, just like that. You can stretch it, sure, but you can also stretch the WW invulnerability thing as well.

But yea, the weakness to bullets thing makes a general illusion in people's minds. They just assume that she must be super weak at first glance. But all it takes is to tell those people that bullets are her weakness, her Kryptonite. Not that hard. That's a better solution than just depowering her and giving up.

[Red Bee Jr]

"The fight hate with love" thing only works, in my opinion, if you're thinking of the pre-DCnU Wonder Woman (Wonder Women, actually). I know that Azz's Wonder Woman is heroic - she fight to protect the innocent (Zola) and injured (Hermes) - but that's a lot different than saying "she loves everyone," and being convincing about it.

Personally I think if a writer is going to use that kind of statement as the resolution for his 10-issue story, he should give us a little foreshowing to back it up. Does his Diana approach everyone from a position of love, even to start with? Read over her conversation with Strife - do you come away thinking "even though Strife has caused terrible trouble, we can still tell that Diana loves her," or "Diana primarily dislikes Strife quite a lot, for perfectly understandable reasons"?

I don't come away believing that this Diana "loves everybody," just because the writer has her announce it in one panel.

[Don-Jack]

That's the point: loving everybody doesn't mean you have to say nice and fluffy things all the time.
The same about actions.

[Red Bee Jr]

That's the point: loving everybody doesn't mean you have to say nice and fluffy things all the time.
The same about actions.

From some reason discussions of Wonder Woman are frequently replete with false dichotomies. You know, either Themyscira is an unrealistic My Little Pony utopia with rainbows and unicorns, or the Amazons must be supervillains who seduce and kill helpless men. There's no in between.

I didn't suggest that Diana had to say "nice and fluffy things all the time" to Strife, or anyone else. I suggested that, if the writer wanted us to believe that she "loves everyone," then her interactions with Strife should reflect that she is coming from a place of love. Which it did not. If you're suggesting that there's really no difference between a scene where Wonder Woman approaches Strife from a place of love and a scene in which Wonder Woman approaches Strife from a position of intense dislike (which is what we saw), then either (a) "I love everyone" means nothing at all, or (b) the writer isn't expressing the character's key attribute in her scenes with other characters.

[dshipp17]

From some reason discussions of Wonder Woman are frequently replete with false dichotomies. You know, either Themyscira is an unrealistic My Little Pony utopia with rainbows and unicorns, or the Amazons must be supervillains who seduce and kill helpless men. There's no in between.

I didn't suggest that Diana had to say "nice and fluffy things all the time" to Strife, or anyone else. I suggested that, if the writer wanted us to believe that she "loves everyone," then her interactions with Strife should reflect that she is coming from a place of love. Which it did not. If you're suggesting that there's really no difference between a scene where Wonder Woman approaches Strife from a place of love and a scene in which Wonder Woman approaches Strife from a position of intense dislike (which is what we saw), then either (a) "I love everyone" means nothing at all, or (b) the writer isn't expressing the character's key attribute in her scenes with other characters.

You make very good points about Wonder Woman claiming to love everybody; that's why I said Diana's comment seems to come from someone who is very green concerning the concept, given how she interacted with Hippolyta, right after learning that she had a father; and that would be a very mild example of betrayal, if at all; basically, Wonder Woman's feelings appear to be untested; it's like my 7 year old nephew trying to explain to me that everyone is his friend at school; yeah, to an extent, he is right and he has that fresh perspective that some adults may wish they could have back about life, but experience teaches you otherwise; however, Jesus teaches me to try to learn brotherly love for everyone, which I strive for continually.

[brettc1]

Personally I LIKE and WANT Wonder Woman to be nearly as strong as Superman.

However... it just does NOT make sense when she is portrayed as such, when we live in a world where Adults are the majority of the audience reading the books. Anyone with even a small fraction of Superman's strength level REQUIRES a high degree of invulnerability. But if she had the type of invulnerability required to be that strong, she would basically be bullet proof and wouldn't need her bracelets. Just follow the trend of thought.

They tried to explain this before nu52 saying she was only vulnerable to sharp objects, etc... I just couldn't buy it. They tried to have their cake and eat it too.

I'm not here saying she has been depowered or not... I'm just saying that I like it when she's omni potent, but then.. we run into the above mentioned conflicts.

Forget the science. And I say that as a science teacher.

Look at The Avengers. Thor gets pummeled by The Hulk and comes off with a nosebleed. Yet Loki stabs him with a little metal dart and breaks the skin. And if you get sciency the muscle density needed for a human sized individual to be as strong as Thor and the Hulk would mean that they would weigh so much and put so much pressure on the deck under their feet that either one of them would actually fall right through the Helicarrier and out the bottom.

When the Hulk jumped the laws of physcis dicate that he would leave a crater the size of house every time he landed.

And if Captain America's shield absorbs kinetic energy, why does it bounce off things and fly back to his hand?

The answer is because it does.

[Thebart]

This matters to me, but it does not make any difference whom is stronger than whom. ALL writers will make ANY hero lose a battle when it is destined to be so because the plot demands it. If Wonder Woman had needed to defeat Superman in "Sacrifice", it would've happened. If Superman needed to defeat Wonder Woman because the plot demanded it, it would've happened.

In the latest issue of JL (#10) the very moment Wonder Woman lunges with the sword I KNEW she was going to get her ass handed to her (they all did). Why? Because it was the villain's introductory moment and they NEVER lose in an introductory moment, especially if it's anywhere near the end of the book. There MUST be cliff hangers. Next issue (or whenever this arc ends with this villain) he's going to get beaten by one or all of them.

It's just how it is.

Too true.

In horror movies, the monster/psycho/alien/killer robot at the beginning is absolutely deadly and efficient, picking off its victims like dandruff. Yet when it finally gets to the protagonist, who may be a total noob with little or no survival or fighting skills, it is all of a sudden not quite as fast, deadly, or accurate, allowing the hero/ine to just eke out an escape.

In the nu52 batman, one talon beat batman within an inch of his life. Yet when an army of them was loosed on Gotham, batman's junior associates somehow managed them individually, even though the ones who invaded the manor were only defeated because batman had a killer air conditioning system that could bring the whole bat cave down to subzero temperature.

Btw, I love the thread b/c all my likes/dislikes about this issue were articulated better than I can.

[Thebart]

Ok, I'll get into trouble for saying this, but I think WW, particularly in #10, is rendered too mannish at times, especially around the shoulder. No, I don't want her to look like a pinup, but I think you can portray a strong woman without making her look like batman with boobs.

Incidentally, I also have a problem with batman looking like a body builder contestant at times. I think it's ridiculous, especially at a time when we're all aware of steroids. He's human, and he's supposed to be a billionaire playboy. He should not look like mr. Universe. Anyway, muscles != strength.

[Don-Jack]

The problem is Tony Akins. Also, look at Eros' and Hermes' arms in issue #9. Creepy.

[wagthedog]

The problem is Tony Akins. Also, look at Eros' and Hermes' arms in issue #9. Creepy.

I think Chiang drew Wonder Woman much better in the Zatanna/Wondy teamup issue. Maybe the penciller/inker helped out alot, but his Wondy was drawn much prettier than the one we have now.

[Thebart]

From some reason discussions of Wonder Woman are frequently replete with false dichotomies. You know, either Themyscira is an unrealistic My Little Pony utopia with rainbows and unicorns, or the Amazons must be supervillains who seduce and kill helpless men. There's no in between.

I didn't suggest that Diana had to say "nice and fluffy things all the time" to Strife, or anyone else. I suggested that, if the writer wanted us to believe that she "loves everyone," then her interactions with Strife should reflect that she is coming from a place of love. Which it did not. If you're suggesting that there's really no difference between a scene where Wonder Woman approaches Strife from a place of love and a scene in which Wonder Woman approaches Strife from a position of intense dislike (which is what we saw), then either (a) "I love everyone" means nothing at all, or (b) the writer isn't expressing the character's key attribute in her scenes with other characters.

I agree. The more I think about that scene, the more I feel it is unearned. In all 10 issues, WW just has not demonstrated that ethos. She has been heroic and done the right thing, of course, but maybe no more than Hermes has (and Hermes may not be a hero). I don't recall a scene with Zola wherein she demonstrates much care and concern for her. Rather she seems rather than annoyed with if not condescending towards her charge? (did I not tell you to stay put?!). Look at Hiketeia, in contrast, where her treatment of the girl has very different feel, even though she was bound only by ritual, whereas Zola is being pursued by a vengeful woman who attacked her own people, not to mention carrying her step sibling. More than anything, WW has been shown as a put upon hero doing things out of duty, not love for those she protect, much less her enemies.

So the I love everybody line seems like a bone thrown to long time fans. I rubs me the wrong way considering how they messed up the Amazons.

[Don-Jack]

I don't recall a scene with Zola wherein she demonstrates much care and concern for her.

So read all the issues again. It's your memory.