Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals

Rating:
Summary: Five star art, two star writing.
Review: Decades before Xena: Warrior Princess was even a twinkle in Sam Raimi's eye, there was Wonder Woman. Created in 1940 by Dr. William Moulton Marston (a Harvard-trained psychologist with a law degree and a PhD who also invented the lie detector) to be an inspiration for women everywhere, Wonder Woman remains the world's most recognizable female superhero, thanks largely to Lynda Carter's humorous but respectful portrayal of this feminist (and gay) icon in the 1976-1979 hit TV series. Together with Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman has retained her iconic status as one of DC Comics' three flagship characters through much of the 20th century. However, as a monthly comic, Wonder Woman had become something of a joke by the 1980s - no one really knew how to handle such a strong female character that Dr. Marston had intended to inspire women. In fact, Wonder Woman was treated with much indignity when she was first made a secretary(?!?) in the Justice League of America in the 1960s, stripped of her powers in the 1970s, and increasingly had her character defined by her on again, off again relationship with air force pilot Steve Trevor. Something had to be done, and one of the most acclaimed comic book artists alive today, George Perez, volunteered his services. Wonder Woman was spectacularly relaunched in 1987. "Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals" collects the first seven issues of George Perez?s work on Wonder Woman and retells the origin of the princess of the Amazons, drawing inspiration from the rich fountainhead of fantasy that is Greek mythology. Born to the Queen of the Amazons, granted superhuman powers by their patron goddesses, and trained to be a warrior from childhood, Diana of Themyscira uses all her skills to promote the peaceful ideals of Gaia, the Earth Goddess, and to protect the innocent. In her first adventure away from her sheltered existence on Paradise Island, Diana must stop the mad war god Ares and his sons, Deimos and Phobos, from starting a nuclear holocaust that threatens to destroy all of earth. For someone like me who had loved Greek mythology from a very young age, George Perez's Wonder Woman was an absolute joy to read. Five stars and two thumbs up from me.

Rating:
Summary: All hail the Warrior Princess!
Review: Decades before Xena: Warrior Princess was even a twinkle in Sam Raimi's eye, there was Wonder Woman. Created in 1940 by Dr. William Moulton Marston (a Harvard-trained psychologist with a law degree and a PhD who also invented the lie detector) to be an inspiration for women everywhere, Wonder Woman remains the world's most recognizable female superhero, thanks largely to Lynda Carter's humorous but respectful portrayal of this feminist (and gay) icon in the 1976-1979 hit TV series. Together with Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman has retained her iconic status as one of DC Comics' three flagship characters through much of the 20th century. However, as a monthly comic, Wonder Woman had become something of a joke by the 1980s - no one really knew how to handle such a strong female character that Dr. Marston had intended to inspire women. In fact, Wonder Woman was treated with much indignity when she was first made a secretary(?!?) in the Justice League of America in the 1960s, stripped of her powers in the 1970s, and increasingly had her character defined by her on again, off again relationship with air force pilot Steve Trevor. Something had to be done, and one of the most acclaimed comic book artists alive today, George Perez, volunteered his services. Wonder Woman was spectacularly relaunched in 1987. "Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals" collects the first seven issues of George Perez's work on Wonder Woman and retells the origin of the princess of the Amazons, drawing inspiration from the rich fountainhead of fantasy that is Greek mythology. Born to the Queen of the Amazons, granted superhuman powers by their patron goddesses, and trained to be a warrior from childhood, Diana of Themyscira uses all her skills to promote the peaceful ideals of Gaia, the Earth Goddess, and to protect the innocent. In her first adventure away from her sheltered existence on Paradise Island, Diana must stop the mad war god Ares and his sons, Deimos and Phobos, from starting a nuclear holocaust that threatens to destroy all of earth. For someone like me who had loved Greek mythology from a very young age, George Perez's Wonder Woman was an absolute joy to read. Five stars and two thumbs up from me.

Rating:
Summary: Five star art, two star writing.
Review: First of all, George Perez is about as good a comic artist as you will ever find. There are only a handfull of living grandmasters whom I rank alongside him (Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, maybe John Byrne on his good days).

After the New Teen Titans, Perez's Wonder Woman run stands as his most notable achievement in the craft (Personally, I think his early Justice League of America run is his best work, but that's me.).

Looking again at his run on Wonder Woman, I have a few immediate reactions: first of all, the story hasn't aged as well as I thought it would. The political inuendo is comically outdated by today's standards, with the story subtly attacking US policies that just a few years later would rid the world forever of the evil empire. But the writers didn't know that at the time, so they used the conventional wisdom that the US military buildup would destroy the world instead of liberating it from the leftist doctrines that hate free will.

But keep in mind that all this is just the plot. It manifests itself through politically-naive mis-portrayals of eighties-era events around the would, through cardboard caricitures filling military uniforms instead of three-dimensional characters and through the utterly-impossible-to-reason concept that eighties US foreign policy was playing into the hands of the God of War.

Where it doesn't manifest itself is in the execution of the plot, which is a fairly straightforward action adventure romp. Despite giving a nod to the feelgood virtues of pacifism, Wonder Woman proves to be vicious in combat against Ares' servants, to a degree that Superman or even Batman have never matched. That could have come across as hypocrisy, but instead it plays more as the pragmatism that has always defined soldiers to this day. In this book, Steve Trevor is a wuss, but Diana is someone that a military man will recognize, once she's dirtied up in battle enough.

And, as another reviewer pointed out, this book DOES ironically have a strong pro-life message that flies in the face of the modern feminism also found herein.

Basically, this Wonder Woman is just a murdered fetus given new life. That's pretty cool, when you think about it, and very ballsy of DC Comics in an otherwise left-slanted comic.

Rating:
Summary: George Perez showed what Wonder-Woman can be...
Review: In 1987, George Perez reintroduced Wonder-Woman to comics and made her a charecter with rights and merits that made her as much a joy to write comics on and with greater possibilties to be a multi-dimensional heroine, greater then even Superman or Batman in many respects. In these early Perez stories, Wonder-Woman's cultural background is explored in greater detail with her origins on Paradise Island and coming from a culture where art, science, and technology had developed with a deep respect for both justice and with nature. It is from this background that Wonder-Woman jouneys to the rest of the world and tries to battle injustice and those forces which would bring the human race to their knees. George worked on these stories for about four years and it still remains as the best stories done on the character, Would make a great movie too. Are you listening, Warner Brothers?

Rating:
Summary: bland
Review: the story is inconsistent and goofy, it reads stupid (len wein, what happened to u? what where u thinking?). even the art suffers, not because of george perez (he just does the layouts for this book), but from the lack-luster inker/finisher bruce patterson. do your self a favor and skip this one. what a disappointment

Rating:
Summary: Degeneracy so thick you can cut it with a knife
Review: This "graphic novel" consists of Wonder Woman (second series) #1-7.
#1 is the origin story of the Amazons and Princess Diana. The Amazons were created by a group of Olympian goddesses out of the souls of women who had been killed "by the fear and ignorance of men." The first scene is set in 30,000 BC: a cave-man who just had his left hand ripped off by a saber-toothed tiger returns to his cave and takes it out on his wife by bashing her over the head with a club and killing her. This is told in the second person for no good reason as if you're the cave-man. It turns out later that this was the future Queen Hippolyte and she was pregnant with the future Princess Diana. The author slipped up here because this implies that an unborn child can have a soul. But this was back in 1987 and liberals have made progress since then.
The last part is about the selection of a champion to send into "the world of man" (c. 1987) to prevent Ares the God of War from destroying the world - obviously through Ronald Reagan. The bullets and bracelets bit is not a duel but a final test of Diana after she's won the tournament. The Amazons have only one firearm which they treat as an artifact and keep in the "Temple of Hades." A black Amazon named "Phillipus" (I think that should be "Phillipa") refers to it as an "abomination." This Phillipus fires three bullets at Diana which she blocks and then Diana exclaims "BY THE GODS! What IS that thing? Where did it COME from?" This is after you've been seeing the Amazons using bows and arrows, battle-axes, knives, chains, spears, swords, and javelins.
#2 begins with some narration by Col. Stephen (sic) Trevor (Why not take the degeneracy all the way and re-name him "Josh"?) while he's entering an Air Force base in the middle of a thunderstorm: "Thunderstorms make me nervous. The light...the noise...like gunshots. [Obviously the author doesn't know anything about guns.] When I was a kid, I thought guns were macho. Maybe that's why I joined the Air Force. But in the military, I saw what guns do to people. [From 30,000 feet?] It made me sick. It made me grow up." Later on, you get to see a very macho-looking Julia Kapatelis (quite justifiably) defending her "winter home" with a double-barreled shot-gun. Inconsistent? But this is the twisted liberal mind.
Trevor was some kind of whistle-blower, and has now been relegated to a desk-job. He reports to a Gen. Kohler, who is the liberal vision of a military hard-case. Kohler, due to his "love of aggression," is an agent of Ares and he sends Trevor on a mission to bomb Paradise Island. (The co-pilot is going to do the bombing, and Trevor is going to take the wrap.) Anyway, Kohler has a picture of Ronald Reagan on the wall in his office. That's not there because that's the kind of thing generals have in their offices. One thing I saw when I was flipping through the book was a news-program showing how the world's going up in flames that included a bit about the alleged depradations of the Contras. So this guy's hitting all the bases.
The classical leftism of William Marston is like a refreshing sea-breeze compared to the passive-aggressive liberalism of the "modern" Wonder Woman comic book. Anyway, if you're a die-hard fan and you can get past the rat-like politics you should probably get this book. The Wonder Woman character in here is actually prepossessing, whereas the current one is a super-bimbo with super-attitude. Keep 'em flying!