Young Romance #1 Preview

[lariatofhestia]

What troubles me about that scene (besides the silly looking breasts) is the whole 'I still don't fit in' business.

This is where I think Azzarello's Diana diverges so dramatically from Geoff Johns. Diana in her own book is confident, eats out, goes to clubs, has an apartment and doesn't seem to have any issues at all with adapting to the world. It's been five years and she seems to be doing fine with adapting. It's the family issues that provide the storyline/drama (as seen in the Heph/Diana panels above)

Yet over in JL/Superman/Romance she's still this long lost outsider which just doesn't jibe with her own book.

Drives me a little crazy ;)

WW does all this fitting in Azz's WW by herself. Alone. There is no evidence whatsoever other than the cosmetic that she has fit it. And she has the truth of her murdering sisters and we expect to believe she's okay? She has basically said here, everything she has learned is a lie. So yes, think about that. You think your mom and sisters are something wonderful and you learn they rape and murder and sell your brothers. And your new father is a philanderer, and you have siblings and cousins that can be monsters and killers and play with humanity. So how is she supposed to feel?

See I don't get why people defend Azz's run as if it is so perfect when it is full of holes. Writers taking his cues and trying to explore it and this is what you will naturally come up with. If Diana is not thrown by all this then she might as well be made of stone.

[lariatofhestia]

Having a closer look at it, I notice Clark is dressed in his regular clothes, while Diana is decked out like she should be sandwiching a pole between her breasts. Either that or she is on her way to film a Spring Break video.

Small surprise the matching thread over on the Superboards seems to have a number of posts with guys basically high-fiving each other about how their hero is going to "hit that".

Man, this sucks.

Not they are not. You visit that board when it suits you and you know Lexrules and Sungod were teasing each other because they know a certain notorious loisfan will come preach at them. The thread does not have all superman posters doing that at all. This is a very skewered and misreprensenting the guys over there.

[brettc1]

To be fair, the outfit she's wearing could have looked good and isn't that dissimilar to what she wore in issue #4 when she was at the club. It's just unfortunate that the artist decided to give her huge fake boobs to squash into that ill fitting top. At least the artist actually looked at the kind of outfits that she wears in her own title.

Does she? Honestly its been a while since the bar scene but I dont remember any of her outfits in the actual title having a bare midriff and hot pants. This outfit just seems like it is trying to hard to be sexy. Or rather for the artist to make her look sexy.

[slvn]

Do you think they allowed themselves to be persuaded by their gods to mistrust and repeal their own princess as well?

I think that Aleka, and some others, had at least some lingering resentment against the princess who had overshadowed them and then left them; and then I think Aleka began to persuade them to scapegoat her to avoid guilt over the killings that Strife inspired. There's an Aleka in every crowd. But I suppose in a way the answer to your question is "yes," in an odd and partial way; I don't think they would have started to agitate against Diana if on of their gods, Strife, hadn't stirred things up by inciting the Amazons to kill some of their own. Do you?

[slvn]

Writers taking his cues and trying to explore it and this is what you will naturally come up with. If Diana is not thrown by all this then she might as well be made of stone.

You can see, at the end of 4 (talking to stone Hippolyta) or 6 (confronting Hera) or 7 (practically having a nervous breakdown in front of Hephaestus) or in her conversation with Siracca about Zeus in 14 or in the scene with Heph in 15, that she is upset by what has happened and by what she has learned. But she's soldiering on. To me, Diggle just made her sound a touch more ...lost. Which is understandable--but it's just a slightly different interpretation, and I like Azzarello's interpretation.

[Gaelforce]

Its always been an oddity to me that, by its very design, Wonder Woman's costume shows off her breasts a lot so she's always got mega-cleavage, yet when she wears street clothes with a revealing top, there's a problem.

And I don't think its really fair to paint the thread in the Superman forum as a bunch of prepubescents salivating. Yes there's been a couple harmless jokes, but for the most part there's just as much legitimate conversation about the preview there as here.

See...there's a difference between showing some cleavage (the top curve of a woman's breasts and the space between them) and this dress which is cut *below* the breasts on the V-neck revealing the top, cleavage and sides of her breasts.

One looks sexy, the other looks trashy.

Now come on Gael, she has to be socially awkward so Clark can educate her.

That's exactly it, which is why this whole relationship is just so lopsided. Yes, they now both have someone they can talk to, but beyond that, it's all about Diana needing Clark to help her establish her secret ID (I'm assuming this is the way they're going since they list 'real name' as Diana Prince in her bio)

I just can't imagine DC doing this with Superman or Batman - retconning one of their characters to have another involved in their basics (i.e. superhero name, secret ID, costume, job, etc.), yet so far we've had Superman setting up her secret ID and, before that, Batman setting up her secret ID, her job and giving her the invisible jet.

Just imagine Superman showing up and giving Batman a black Kryptonian land vehicle and calling it the Batmobile, or Batman handing Superman a pair of glasses...

Well, the place of a god in the world is generally considered different from the place of a human (even an Amazon, I presume). If I suddenly found out that I was the son of Zeus, I guess I'd wonder if that meant I should be conducting myself differently if some way--especially if I lost my entire family (and, in effect, my nation) at almost the same time. That would be confusing and might influence the way I saw myself. Think of issue 5, when she identifies with how Lennox had to discover who he was and what he needed to do even as he found out who he wasn't. She sees beauty in this, bit that doesn't mean it's an easy thing to figure out or do. And even though she carries herself with confidence in her own title, she has moments, like the end of #7, when she shows the wear and tear of all the changes and confusion she has been through.

I guess? It just sort of seems to be reaching. I mean there's the issues of her dealing with her newfound family and godhood (tho' it seems like everyone outside of the book knows it) and having Clark to talk to about that is great, just like him having someone to talk to about who he really is is nice. That's a well-balanced relationship I can live with.

But this fish-out-of-water they've been painting Diana as in JL just strikes a wrong chord with me. I haven't seen any indication in her own book that she's uncomfortable as Wonder-Diana-Woman. She sips her tea and eats her lunch and hits the dance floor and hangs out at the bar without a single thought or comment or indication that this is a troubling or uncomfortable way to live her life.

I just think they're going overboard with her outside of her own book in having her not fit in just so Clark can be her mentor.

[slvn]

I guess? It just sort of seems to be reaching. I mean there's the issues of her dealing with her newfound family and godhood (tho' it seems like everyone outside of the book knows it) and having Clark to talk to about that is great, just like him having someone to talk to about who he really is is nice. That's a well-balanced relationship I can live with.

But this fish-out-of-water they've been painting Diana as in JL just strikes a wrong chord with me.

Maybe you could think of Young Romance as bridging WW and JL. Here in the Young Romance preview, when she talks about not knowing her place in the world, she doesn't say anything about being an immigrant who doesn't understand how American or English society works; instead, she talks about having "lived a lie" and having found out that she's not what she thought she was. If you think of JL in that light, maybe she's a "fish out of water" not so much because she's new to man's world, but because she's just starting figuring out what it means to be a god. After all, in JL 12, she says "we're not like Zeus, but we're not like them (humans) either"--so it does seem like the discovery that she's as much god as human is important context for that conversation.

If Superman helps her become "Diana Prince" AND if Diana Prince becomes a truly core part of the New 52 Wonder Woman, I'll agree with you that this isn't a good thing. But I think it's a stretch to assume that this is going to happen just because some dinky "Who's Who" calls her Diana Prince. I doubt she's going to have a secret ID in her own book anytime soon, and I'm not sure a secret ID that's not in her own book can really be considered a core part of the character. And even if Superman persuades her to try the Diana Prince ID in JL, she may soon decide that it's not for her.

[slvn]

while Diana is decked out like she should be sandwiching a pole between her breasts. Either that or she is on her way to film a Spring Break video.

I prefer Chiang's non-cheesecake rendition of Wonder Woman. But I don't think is a good idea to compare a female character to a stripper just because she's drawn in a sexy outfit on a date--just as it's not a good idea to compare a real-world woman to a stripper just because she decides to wear a sexy outfit on a date. It sounds not just prudish but sexist (which I know you're not, so I'm not reading anything into this--just pointing out how it sounds on the surface.)

Anyway, I thought you'd be happy that the lasso seems to be doing some good in this issue.

[SteveGus]

Nothing as far as I can tell. The gods have whims of their own, remember they're neither good nor evil. He aided Diana once, doesn't mean he can't be against her the next second.

Azzarello's gods simply fail as characters. The vast majority of them, Eros included, don't have intelligible motives or characterizations.

[slvn]

Azzarello's gods simply fail as characters. The vast majority of them, Eros included, don't have intelligible motives or characterizations.

Eros' general motivating principle, simply put, is self-love; "no one loves himself more than Eros," according to his dad (who love him even more. I love the looks on Eros' face when Heph says those things). And he's interested in spreading love (of the addictive sort) but not in helping people deal with it, as we see at the beginning of #7. He is capricious, and sometimes cruel and sometimes kind, as love is.

I don't think he's using the Sirens here, though; I think he's being used by them. He says they already have his weapons,which, since he's still holding the weapons, I take to mean that they have gotten a hold on him. He seems less effete or "hipster" and more "badass" here, in my view,but I'm not sure if it's different characterization or just the sirens' influence.

[pad]

That was my first reaction, and it was probably just an unfortunate writing/editing mistake--but is there a chance Diana has learned something off-panel that we don't know? I imagine Aphrodite may have had a lot of affairs....

Maybe Diggle hasn't had time to read "Wonder Woman" and his editor gave him a general "Wonder Woman is now a demigod" synopsis without going into specific relationships. Still, the editors should have caught that.

Since this is a Valentine's Day special, and the God of Love is in it, I bet all of this will be a test by Eros to see if Superman is "worthy" of Diana's love. Maybe Eros shoots them both at the end of the story.

[Outside_85]

WW does all this fitting in Azz's WW by herself. Alone. There is no evidence whatsoever other than the cosmetic that she has fit it. And she has the truth of her murdering sisters and we expect to believe she's okay? She has basically said here, everything she has learned is a lie. So yes, think about that. You think your mom and sisters are something wonderful and you learn they rape and murder and sell your brothers. And your new father is a philanderer, and you have siblings and cousins that can be monsters and killers and play with humanity. So how is she supposed to feel?

See I don't get why people defend Azz's run as if it is so perfect when it is full of holes. Writers taking his cues and trying to explore it and this is what you will naturally come up with. If Diana is not thrown by all this then she might as well be made of stone.

I think there's a simple reason for Diana not being totally crushed by what happened to her and the Amazons in her own book; Zola.

As much as Zola needed Diana first to stay alive, and then to get her kid back. Diana also needs the tasks Zola has provided to think about something else other than her own situation. So instead of focusing on the bad stuff in her own life, she focuses on the mission that wont wait for her and requires that she stays sharp.

[slvn]

Maybe Diggle hasn't had time to read "Wonder Woman" and his editor gave him a general "Wonder Woman is now a demigod" synopsis without going into specific relationships. Still, the editors should have caught that.

Since this is a Valentine's Day special, and the God of Love is in it, I bet all of this will be a test by Eros to see if Superman is "worthy" of Diana's love. Maybe Eros shoots them both at the end of the story.

Diggle has expressed admiration for Azz and Chiang's Wonder Woman run, and these preview pages reference not only Hippolyta's secrets but Wonder Woman being shot with Eros' guns (in WW 8), the First Born (from recent WW issues), the coming god storm (first referenced in WW 1) and a threat to time (WW 13), so I think Diggle is reading Wonder Woman. He just most likely got details of Eros' parentage wrong--and yes, the editors should have caught that--or, just possibly, is hinting at something about Eros that we haven't learned yet.

[Outside_85]

--or, just possibly, is hinting at something about Eros that we haven't learned yet.

He was adopted! :)

[slvn]

He was adopted! :)

Somethin' like that. I always thought he might turn out to be the "biological" son of Aphrodite's lover War, though raised by Heph as his own. But maybe the real father is a human lover of Aphrodite's.

That still wouldn't explain "cousin," assuming the New 52 Aphrodite is Zeus' daughter (as I thought Wonder Woman 13 implied). But it would explain "demigod."