Tag Archives: Wonder Woman: The Perez Years

MARCH: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell picks up where V1 ended, with Lewis becoming active in the civil-rights movement. Here we see him trying to integrate movie audiences, participating in Freedom Rides (except for a fluke of chance, he’d have been on one bus that got firebombed by white bigots) and participating in the groundwork for the March on Washington. While the struggle is dramatic, I was more intrigued by the politics within the movement, from debates over nonviolence (was it a tactic or a moral principle?), to the widespread conviction the March would be nothing — feel-good speeches by government-selected stooges, what good could it do?

MARVEL COMICS: The Untold Story by Sean Howe traces Marvel’s history from pulp and men’s magazine publisher Martin Goodman deciding to dabble in comics through the lean pre-FF years (Goodman might have shut the line down but he’d seen the industry revive before) through the glory years beginning with Fantastic Four #1, the chaos of the Bronze Age with multiple inexperienced staffers as editors in chief through Jim Shooter’s era as micromanager and onward to the Disney era (surprisingly there’s relatively little on the movies, or Marvel’s earlier TV ventures).

As a comics nerd this is fascinating but the book is so full of errors I can spot I’m not sure how much I can trust it. Among other errors, Howe confuses the Serpent Society mercenaries with the white supremacist Sons of the Serpent, identifies Nick Fury’s infinity formula (an immortality drug) as a Silver Age invention (it was late 1970s) and he claims Batman’s New Look era was a campy attempt to copy Marvel’s style (it wasn’t — see the link for details). That’s sub-par editing by everyone involved.

WONDER WOMAN UNBOUND: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine is the weakest of Tim Hanley’s books I’ve read so far. In fairness, that’s partly because I’ve read so much Wonder Woman and a fair amount about her so a lot of what Hanley has to say isn’t new. He does have some interesting material though, such as pointing out where anti-comics crusader Fredric Wertham made a case for Batman and Robin being a homoerotic fantasy for gay kids, he assumed flat out that Wonder Woman was lesbian, no proof needed (having read The Ten Cent Plague on anti-comics censorship, I think Hanley’s more generous to Wertham than the man deserved, however).

Hanley also discusses how Ms. Magazine‘s book on Wonder Woman plays up the aspects of William Marston’s original philosophy they liked (women can do anything!) and ignored the bondage and female-dominance elements. And he does have a point that the George Perez’ reboot ignores one of the best ideas in Marston, that any woman with Amazon training could become their match and at least in theory equal Wonder Woman.

I disagree, however, with a lot of his interpretations. When Diana tells Steve she can’t marry him until she’s wiped crime from the Earth, Hanley sees her as really, really wanting to quit her job and be her housewife; I hear “Steve, what we have is wonderful, I don’t feel like changing anything” (even when she’s jealous over Steve’s interest in others, she’s not bemoaning having to stay single). And Hanley’s dead wrong to argue Marvel in the late 1960s/early Bronze Age embraced feminism where DC was stuck in the 1950s: while I wouldn’t recommend DC comics of that era to anyone who wants great female representation, Marvel was definitely the weaker (I’ll come back to this point in detail another time). Hanley’s also off arguing that Marvel, with its superior characterization (something it did have, no argument) didn’t do the silly romantic triangles DC did; that requires ignoring Sub-Mariner/Invisible Girl/Reed Richards, Peter Parker/Betty Brant/Ned Leeds, Matt Murdock/Karen Page/Foggy Nelson and quite a few more. Howe’s book does a much better job nailing Marvel for sexism. However Hanley did touch on a couple of points I’ll discuss later this week.

#SFWApro. Covers by Jack Kirby and H.G. Peters, all rights remain with current holders.

The third year of the George Perez Wonder Woman, as I blogged about previously, was much better than I remembered it. Year four, however — issues #36 through 48 — was much inferior. Chris Marrinan’s interior art doesn’t work for me (Jill Thompson, who took over penciling by year’s end, did much better) and the stories are a mixed bag. The first story arc, by Perez, Mindy Newell and Marrinan, is every bit as tedious a slog as I remembered it.

The story involves a group of philosophers, thinkers and religious leaders visiting Themyscira to meet the Amazons and learn about their ways. It’s a tense moment for the Amazons, as some of the visitors are men; some of the visitors are disapproving too. It’s a perfect opportunity for Eris, the Goddess of Strife, to spread her malevolence among the guests and hosts alike. Her accursed apples poison minds; some individuals are completely replaced by magical clones. With some help from Lois Lane, Diana eventually saves the day.

That’s a story that could have worked but it bogs down in endless talk (I think it’s the main reason I remember Perez’ run as being talkier than it is). We get far more detail on the visitors’ backstory than we need. Lots of discussion about faith, and how Amazon society runs (including that some are lesbians while others practice celibacy or “the way of Narcissus” — Perez didn’t think he could get away with openly saying they masturbate). Some of it is just dull, while the rest is dull because it’s such a huge mass of static discussion and conversation, issue after issue, with hints of something sinister going on.

Things pick up when the Silver Swan returns following Eris’ defeat. Her abusive, manipulative husband has gaslighted her into even greater hatred of the Amazing Amazon; the Swan will prove to the world that Wonder Woman is a terrible image of womanhood, a standard no ordinary human being can hope to achieve! Can Wonder Woman defeat her foe? Can the Swan’s former pen-pal restore her sanity?It’s a good, action-packed arc which doesn’t stint on the character side of things. As witness Silver Swan does break free of her hubby’s control and start to rebuild her life. She even succeeds — when Phil Jimenez brought the Silver Swan back, she had a new identity, so presumably this incarnation turned out okay.

Next comes a one-shot story hinting at ties between Pandora and Wonder Woman, which I think pay off later in the War of the Gods crossover event. Then comes a more effective than expected story in which one of Vanessa Kapetelis’ friends commits suicide. Nessie has to deal with it and so does everyone around her. The non-linear story got me lost in spots, but overall it worked.

The third arc is intriguing but also confusing. In the pre-Crisis Wonder Woman history, Wonder Girl was an orphan Wonder Woman rescued and brought to Paradise Island where she trained as an Amazon and took the name Donna Troy. In the reboot era, Wonder Girl was around as a Teen Titan years before Wonder Woman appeared; a retcon eventually explained that she was an orphan trained by the Greek Titans as a gift to Earth, a champion wielding their powers. The similarity of the names, IIRC, was just a coincidence. In Wonder Woman #47-8, they finally meet.

The story involves some leftover “bestiamorphs,” the monstrous creations of Circe, and a cabal of rat creatures created by alien DNA that the Titans (the former Teen ones, not the Greeks) once battled. And mysterious dreams in which Donna sees through Diana’s eyes and vice versa. It turns out it’s all a scheme by Circe, who was behind the ET rat creatures as well as her bestiamorphs. Why? No clue. I’m not sure we ever learned (time will tell). It’s fun seeing Donna and Diana meet, but at the same time it’s a little unsatisfying. Given all the history they used to have together and no longer did, I suspect that was inevitable.

#SFWApro. Covers by Marrinan, Marrinan and Perez, all rights remain with current holders.

Since I last reviewed the George Perez Wonder Woman reboot, I’ve read slightly over another year’s worth of issues, and a busy year for Diana it was.

•Crossovers. Following the success of Crisis on Infinite Earths, crossovers became an annual event. In #8, which is told in a series of letters and diary entries, Wonder Woman participates in the dreadful Legends crossover event. A couple of issues later, she launches a plotline that ties into the much better Millennium crossover. These things can bog a series down, but Perez handles them well. Legends happens offstage and Millennium ties into Diana’s own story.

•The myths. Following her defeat of Ares, Zeus, egged on by Pan (who turns out to be one of Millennium‘s villainous Manhunters) generously offers to have sex with her. Diana refuses; an indignant Zeus commands her to enter Doom’s Doorway below Paradise Island and test herself against the monsters there, to prove her worth as Amazon champion in “the Challenge of the Gods.” Plenty of action, mythological monsters, a big reveal about how closely Diana’s tied to Steve Trevor and the discovery of Hercules, imprisoned there in torment. It’s a good story that gives Hippolyta a chance to shine too. However the Amazons forgiving Hercules for assaulting, enslaving and raping them doesn’t sit as well with me as it did on first reading.

There’s also a minor retcon of John Byrne’s Genesis crossover, which established that all Earthly pantheons are indirectly the children of Jack Kirby’s New Gods. I never liked that (Kirby’s awesome, but he ain’t Homer) and Perez specifically negates it, at least for the Olympians.

•Romance, or at least as close as Perez’ Diana ever came. In Legends she meets Superman and understandably she’s blown away by him. Is the feeling she has when she thinks about him what people in Patriarch’s World call love? It isn’t (there’s a team-up story in Action Comics that settles that) and Diana’s love life goes dormant until the 21st century. I think this suffers from Perez not wanting to get into the possibility of Amazon lesbian love (so Diana would understand love, just without heterosexual examples) though he did touch on it later (Greg Rucka made it explicit).

•Talk and more talk. In an interview (never published, alas) I asked one comics writer and WW fan what she thought of the reboot, and she said it was too talky. I didn’t think so at the time, but I must admit it’s more notable rereading. #8 is mostly people talking about Diana, rather than Diana doing anything; in #17 Diana visits Julia and Vanessa in Greece and there’s a whole bunch more talk. Not that talk is a bad thing — James Robinson’s Starman is conversation-heavy and usually uses its well — but in these books the dialog is not really interesting enough.

•Old foes. In these thirteen issues, Perez reboots three pre-Crisis adversaries, to varying success. First came Barbara Minerva, the post-Crisis version of the Cheetah. Minerva is an archeologist who steals relics she can’t collect legitimately. When she’s not able to steal Wonder Woman’s lasso, she tries taking it by force, transforming herself into the fast, deadly Cheetah (as you can see a cat-woman rather than a woman in costume).

I’ve never thought well of this Cheetah, but rereading I realize that’s not Perez’ fault. His Barbara Minerva has a focus; multiple other writers have used her since, but without any focus. She’s just a Wonder Woman villain with no distinctive motives or goals beyond villainy. That’s damn boring. But that isn’t Perez’ fault, so I apologize for thinking so.Next up, the post-Crisis Silver Swan. Surprisingly for a guy who loves mythology, Perez skipped Roy Thomas’ version (a descendant of Helen of Troy) in favor of an abused woman whose bullying husband has not only empowered her with a sonic cry (science, this time) but brainwashed her with a jealousy of Wonder Woman (quite close to the original Cheetah’s, actually). It’s an effective story, but Thomas’ mythological origin was so much better, I wish Perez had incorporated it (I think it could be done without losing the abusive relationship aspect).

And finally we get Circe, who markedly improves on Dan Mishkin’s version. It turns out the part of Greece Wonder Woman visits is under control of Circe, who lives on an isolated island but uses her shapeshifted slaves (“beastiamorphs”) to monitor the area in animal form; work against her and you die. The resistance sees Wonder Woman’s presence as a chance to get free; Circe sees her as a prophesied threat (as did the Mishkin version, but the prophecy’s easier to understand here).

What makes Perez’ Circe interesting isn’t the curse but that she’s Wonder Woman’s polar opposite. Diana preaches gender equality and friendship between men and women. Circe, by contrast, is a misanthrope who hates both sexes (used by men, shat on by other women, or so she sees it); she’s devoted her immortality to spreading distrust, manipulation and hostility between them, including murdering Hippolyta’s sister Antiope (her marriage to Theseus was too warm and friendly). There’s a passing reference to Circe running various vice enterprises under pseudonyms to further her aims; today she’d probably be running revenge porn websites.

After such a strong beginning, unfortunately, Circe didn’t return until 1991’s War of the Gods crossover, and I don’t think she kept the malevolent MO (both the Cheetah and Silver Swan came back quicker). We’ll see.

Like his initial arc, Perez’ work doesn’t blow me away as much as it did on first reading, but it’s still damn good.

#SFWApro. Wonder Woman covers by George Perez, New Gods by Jack Kirby, all rights remain with current holder.