tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35412263627482679802024-03-13T15:59:57.873-07:00Read 'Em & Weep!A longtime DC Comics reader in the realm of The New 52Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-23583851499620829802017-11-04T23:23:00.000-07:002017-11-06T22:05:52.820-08:00Godsend; Or, Who Is Donna Troy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpC95YZ8EI1Zo5DsAjJntXbuty66loXWbaPgc7DtBuJ4gZqu7gymxsMAGxOi233ntQEiXk95t4Z1M9whzuIPHvzj_7LRHOcv7cBiUVOLaizduFHLr9aesz_BJZ0yvsiGk0HGks_sBuUUM/s1600/wonderGirl.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpC95YZ8EI1Zo5DsAjJntXbuty66loXWbaPgc7DtBuJ4gZqu7gymxsMAGxOi233ntQEiXk95t4Z1M9whzuIPHvzj_7LRHOcv7cBiUVOLaizduFHLr9aesz_BJZ0yvsiGk0HGks_sBuUUM/s1600/wonderGirl.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I never write fan fiction. I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">think</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it, but I don’t write it. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-cacfadb2-8acf-8971-497c-f671bef7e67f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, having gotten into many discussions about the myriad origins of Donna Troy/Wonder Girl, I decided to finally write down one of my own.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It does not fit in with the current (and currently changing) continuity. It is based on a Themyscira that some people, at least, can visit, and a Diana who doesn’t spend 5-15 of her first years as Wonder Woman believing horrible lies about Themyscira, Amazons, her mother, and herself. I’m using a version of continuity that fits with the vast majority of Diana’s long publication history, and that I hope we’ll see again some day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NOTE: The character of Stellanera could just as easily be female, if we wanted to gender-balance the story a little differently. It's not set in stone. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This story actually covers Donna from the ages of 10 to 19. It explains: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her family on Man’s World</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How she got to Themysicra and became part of Diana and Hippolyta’s family</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where she got the name Donna Troy</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How she returned to the U.S., and who she lived with there</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How she got her powers and became Wonder Girl</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why she took on the superhero name Dark Star when she got older</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It can be easily modified to instead use the name Dark Angel, Dark Opal, or something else.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It introduces a number of new characters, including:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fay Harbin (later known as Donna Troy), her divorced parents Doreen and Mike Harbin, and Mike’s new partner Elijah Moffet. (Mike and Elijah later marry, and have a young son.)</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A major supervillain, the Knight of Mirrors - formerly an Amazon named Aidia, now partially possessed by a “mirror elemental” named Liucar</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A odd and friendly character named Stellanera, who is the son of the titan-goddess Selene, serves as a messenger and servant to a group of “goddesses of the night,” and who keeps an eye on young Donna at their instruction</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another supervillain, the Tennebrae, also called the Shadow Moth - a faery sorcerer with a long relationship with Stellanera</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is obviously not meant to be a comic book script. It’s just an outline, and largely unedited. But it covers what I had in mind. I’m imagining it might fill a 4-part miniseries.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GODSEND; OR, WHO IS DONNA TROY?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 1: Fay Harbin</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fay Harbin is a bright, curious, bold 10-year-old. Her parents, Doreen and Mike Harbin, divorced several years ago when her father came out of the closet, and she mainly lives with her mother and her stepfather, although she’s still close with her father and his new partner, Elijah Moffet.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doreen remarried quickly - maybe too quickly - to a charming and wealthy older man whose business Doreen knows little about. In part, he buys, sells, and collects antiquities and archeological artifacts (some, perhaps, illegally). He has a 17-year-old daughter of his own.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fay, her mother, and her stepsister live in one of her stepfather’s smaller houses. (He has several.) He travels a lot for work and is often away. One day Fay finds a beautiful full-length mirror, made of silvered crystal and rimmed with fluted marble, in a spare bedroom. She’s fascinated by it. She goes back day after day. She looks at herself in it, plays with her toys in front of it, sometimes just stares at it and concentrates for minutes on end. It’s enchanting.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One day, while she’s staring at it, it fogs over. When the fog clears, seconds later, she’s looking into another place: a room with tapestries and shields and spears on the wall. And there is a young woman, wearing clothing of white fabric like a picture from an old storybook. The woman can see her! They both put their hands to the flat surface of the mirror, as if touching each other. They mouth words at each other. They smile. Then the mirror fogs over afgain for a moment, and is just a mirror again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fay tries this again day after day. She doesn’t tell anybody about it, for fear they might make her stop. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 2: The Mirror of Troy</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Weeks later, 21-year-old Diana, Princess of Themyscira, brings the Amazon Aidia to a seldom-used room in the Royal Palace. It has tapestries, shields, and spears on the wall, and a full-length mirror made of some silvered crystal, set in marble. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aidia is the Amazon’s crafter and scholar specializing in glass, crystal, and mirrors, known for her amazing glass sculptures. Diana explains she has seen a young girl in the mirror - twice now! Having known no other children while growing up on the island, she’s very excited about this, and wishes she and the girl could speak to each other.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aidia explains that the mirror is known as “the Mirror of Troy,” because it was part of the treasure taken from Troy after the Trojan War. It was originally created by Daedalus for the Trojan royal family, and was said to have some magic to it - but Aidia had no idea what, or how it would work. But it seems that he created a second mirror linked to it, which was left behind in Man’s World. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 3: The Burning House</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fay, her mother, her stepfather (home for once), her stepsister, and a few servants are all in the house, in various rooms. Unbeknownst to them, some agents hired by an enemy of the stepfather (he does have enemies) are outside. They firebomb the house, which begins to burn. Fay runs to the room where her mother is, but the flames are out of control and the wooden beams are collapsing. Her mother yells “Run, Fay!”, and is then engulfed in fire and falling timber. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Desperate, Fay runs to the spare bedroom where the mirror is. She puts her hand on it and screams for help, crying. A fog appears in the mirror. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 4: The Rescue</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana and Aidia see the mirror fog over, and then see the child in a room full of flames. Diana puts her hands on the mirror. “We have to help her!” she says. “Is there any way to reach that place?” </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t know!” says Aidia. Diana and the girl focus all their will, and all their fear, on the mirror and each other. Aidia remembers a fragment of a spell she read about in an ancient book for calling upon the mystical powers of the Realm of Mirrors. She has no idea if it will work, but she begins to chant it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And, just as the child begins to collapse, it does work. The mirror becomes a portal between the two rooms; Diana’s hand passes right through, and then she enters the bedroom. Part of the roof has already caved in, injuring the child; Diana pushes the debris away, grabs her, and steps back through the mirror, away from the fire and the falling room. The mirror shatters, shards cutting the child, Diana, and Aidia. The portal is gone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 5: Donna Troy</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The unconscious child is tended by the Amazon healers. When she wakes up after a day, Hippolyta uses an item called the Staff of the Messenger (associated not with Hermes, but with Iris, the goddess of the rainbow) so the girl can understand and speak their language. It turns out that, due to the physical and emotional trauma, she has amnesia. As is not uncommon, she can remember ordinary things - cars and televisions and the United States - but not her name or her family or what she was doing before she was rescued. She quickly sets about to learn their language for real.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana visits her every day, and the girl looks up to her tremendously - Diana’s her hero. They discuss what to call her; Diana says that, since she came through the Mirror of Troy, they will call her Troy. After a few days of this, they have the following conversation:</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Troy: I don’t remember much, but where I come from, people have two names. Like William Shakespeare or Betty White.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana: Were they friends of yours?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Troy: I don’t know. I just remember the names.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana: So what other name would you like?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Troy (shyly): How about… Donna? I remember that’s a name too, and it sounds a little like Diana….</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana: That’s good! We’ll call you Troy Donna!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Troy: No, it works better the other way.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After that the Amazons call her Donna Troy, or Donna, or sometimes Troy.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aidia - also a hero in all this - tells Hippolyta that she thinks she can make something interesting - maybe even something magical - out of the leftover broken pieces of the Mirror of Troy. The queen encourages her to do so, an Aidia begins her slow, painstaking work.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 6: Donna on Themyscira</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna Troy recuperates. For the next two years she lives among the Amazons, who treat her like family. Diana, who never knew another child when she was growing up on Themyscira, enjoys showing her the places where she played or sometimes hid from the grown-ups. Hippolyta considers Donna another daughter. Donna even gets some Amazon training, appropriate to her age and abilities.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On one or two occasions, inadvertently, Donna - alongside Diana or other Amazons - encounters monsters on the island or other dangers. Despite her small size and limited strength, she show great bravery and a willingness to protect others.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once or twice we - the readers - notice an odd young man watching her. He is hiding behind a tree, or perched on top of a building, and he is translucent, so we’re not even sure if he’s a physical being, or a spirit, or something else. He has black hair and brown skin, wears a toga dyed a deep twilight purple, and has a circlet made of stars on his head. Donna and the Amazons show no sign of seeing him.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, Aidia works with the pieces of the mirror in her studio. She seems to be creating a suit of armor - silver and light blue and green - a mace, and a mirrored shield. No one else knows the truth: when the Mirror of Troy shattered, it unleashed a mystical mirror being - a mirror elemental, let us say - named Liucar. “He” merged with Aidia, who had just been chanting a strange mirror spell. Now their personalities are mixed together. And Liucar is an amoral creature, angry, bitter, and perhaps a bit mad from being imprisoned in a pair of mirrors for more than three thousand years. He brings out Aidia’s worst traits: a desire for magical power, and a resentment at feeling unappreciated. She particularly dislikes Diana and Donna, who Hippolyta and the Amazons dote on, even though they have contributed nothing to their culture - while Aidia has served faithfully all these millennia! Influenced by Liucar, Aidia tells no one what is happening to her. </span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 7: The Knight of Mirrors</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana notices a change in Aidia’s attitude, and is suspicious. No one else does. So when Aidia sneaks into the Queen’s Chambers to steal some magical artifcacts, it is Diana that follows her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They fight. Aidia reveals herself as the Knight of Mirrors - drawing on the mirror elemental Liucar’s powers, she can conjure her armor, weapon, and mirrored shield to herself. This grants her powerful abilities - among them, she can create illusionary duplicates of herself, and use the shield as a hypnotic focus, disorienting her opponent. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Diana, of course, puts up a good fight. The battle spills over into the courtyard, where Donna is being trained in archery by one of the Amazons. Seeing Diana attacked, she and her Amazon teacher shoot arrows at Aidia. This is not effective, but it does distract Aidia for a moment. In that moment, Donna sees herself in the magical shield, made from the mirror that brought her to the island - and her memories begin to flood back. She remembers her mother, and watching her die; she remembers her father and his partner; she remembers her life. </span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hearing the sounds of combat, more Amazons pour in. The Knight of Mirrors is inexperienced with her powers, the the connection between Aidia and Liucar is still sometimes hazy. She realizes she is outnumbered and, using her illusions to confuse the other Amazons, she flees back into the Royal Palace. There she finds an ordinary mirror hanging on a wall, and using another of her new powers, she steps through it to… who knows where? Perhaps even she doesn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 8: Donna’s Decision</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna is devastated by the emotional shock of regaining her memories, especially seeing the death of her mother. It takes her hours to calm down. She explains to the Amazons who she really is. </span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hippolyta gives her a choice: she can remain with the Amazons, her new family. Or she can return to Man’s World, and her father. It’s up to her.</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After a day of thinking, talking to Diana and Hippolyta and the other Amazons, crying, and walking around parts of the island (we see the strange man in purple watching her from atop a boulder), she decides - with great difficulty and sadness - that she wants to go home. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hippolyta turns to the nereids who live in the waters around Themyscira for help. They have the power to swim through the barrier that separates Themyscira from the rest of the world. But they are famously mischievous and unreliable. However, one of them, Themisto, owes Hippolyta great favor. She swears she will take Donna Troy home. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 9: Stellanera</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That night, in her bedchamber, Donna is awakened by a strange man in a purple toga. Oddly, although she doesn’t know him, and she has never seen a man on the island, she is not afraid. She asks his name.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ve had so many names! Call me Stellanera. I am a messenger from Artemis, goddess of the moon, and other patrons. They have watched you in your time here, and seen your bravery, your kindness, and your spirit. Here, they have a gift for you.” He gives her a silver bracelet with a beautiful dark opal inset.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Thank you,” she says. “What’s it for?”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Oh, it will allow me to check in on you from time to time. I think we’ll be great friends! And you can use it once - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but only once!</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - to call upon the the patrons to give you a boon. A godsend.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“What kind of boon?”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“One so close to your deepest desires that even you may be surprised by it! So be very careful.”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Donna wakes up in the morning, the man is gone, and there is no bracelet. She realizes it had all been a dream.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 10 - The Nereids</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna makes her tearful goodbyes to the Amazons, most especially Hippolyta and Diana. She owes them her life, and they’ve treated her like family. Themisto and a few other nerieds take Donna into the ocean. As long as they surround her, they can grant her the power to breathe underwater, and be unaffected by the cold. They conjure magical currents and take her on a dreamlike undersea voyage back to Man’s World. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They leave her in the waters just off a beach on the Oregon shore. At the last moment, as they’re waving goodbye, Themisto hands her a silver bracelet with a dark opal. “From Stellanera,” she says, winking, and they are gone.</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 11 - Return to Man’s Land</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna allows herself to be “rescued” by a lifeguard, and is taken to a hospital. She knows that no one in Man’s World is supposed to know about Themyscira, and if she told the truth they wouldn’t believe her anyway. So, drawing on her personal experience with amnesia, she tells the doctor she has no idea where she has been for the last - she looks at the calendar - two years!</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She calls her father in Portland, who is astonished and thrilled that she is alive. He and Elijah (who are now married, and have an infant son) drive out to get her.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As much as she hates lying to them, she tells them the same story. They take her home. She is examined by doctors and psychologists. They come up with a theory: somehow she survived the fire, and was then kidnapped and held captive for two years. She was psychologically abused, and perhaps physically as well. (There is evidence of old injuries, from the collapsing, burning house, and from a few minor accidents on the island.) She escaped, and has repressed the whole horrid experience. And perhaps her physical injuries contributed to her amnesia as well. The doctors say they will have to be gentle with her.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 12 - The Normal Life of Donna Troy</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She settles into life at home with her father, his husband, and their year-old son - her brother. For a few months there are a lot of news articles about her - the mystery girl who vanished for two years, only to reappear alive! But then the reporters find something else to write about.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She goes to school. She is very smart, and quickly makes up for lost time. She makes friends, she plays soccer, she develops an interest in photography. After a while she asks her family if they would call her “Donna.” Her psychologist says this is not unusual for an adolescent, especially one who may wish to distance herself from some trauma in her past. (Later she will have her name legally changed to Donna Troy Harbin.)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a good life. She has a loving family. Elijah, her father’s husband, adopts her. She likes having a little brother. She misses her mother terribly, of course. And she misses her family from Themysicra, but she can’t talk to anybody about it.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 13 - Conversations with Stellanera</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Except Stellanera. From time to time he appears to her, when she’s wearing the bracelet and she’s alone, in a translucent, almost ghostly form. They talk to each other, quietly. (Her fathers, if they hear her, may think she’s playing with her stuffed animals. The doctors say it’s not unusual for someone who has “been through what she has” to have imaginary friends.) She tells him what her life is like, and what she misses about the island. They becomes friends, of a sort.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And he tells her his own story, which has to do with Selene, the titan-goddess of the moon. Hundreds of years ago Selene fled some family intrigue or danger, and lived for a while, incognito, on Gemworld. There she met and married Silcar, Lord of the House of Opal. Stellanera - then called Umbraster - was the second of several children. When he grew up, Umbraster became something of an adventurer, traveling throughout Gemworld, visiting many places on Earth, and other realms besides. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We see some flashback panels of him - in Renaissance Florence, in Weimar Berlin, in Gorilla City, in Prohibition Chicago - and we get the impression he was something of a hero. But he doesn’t use that world. Donna also hears some of the names he used: Dunklerstern, Estrella Obscura, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mörk Stjärna. Later she translates some of them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some decades ago, Stellanera tells her, he visited his mother to learn more about his heritage. This lead to him taking on the position of messenger and servant - “executive secretary,” he likes to say - to a loose association of goddesses of the night, the moon, and the stars: Selene, Nyx (“</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She’s</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a scary one!”), Artemis, Asteria, and others. It’s been an interesting job. And it led him to Donna.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes he asks her genially if she wants to call upon the bracelet for a boon, a godsend. But she’s a little afraid of it, because she’s not sure what her deepest desires are. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 14 - Wonder Woman</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After Donna has been back for two years, Diana makes her way to Man’s World and takes on her role as Wonder Woman. Donna sees her in the news, and is thrilled: that Diana’s okay, that she’s in the U.S., that she’s an immensely respected superhero saving lives. Donna thinks about contacting her, but she doesn’t know how. And Donna’s just an ordinary teenage girl living in the suburbs now, after all. Also, if she got in touch with Diana, she might have to tell her fathers how she lied to them, and what really happened during her two years away… She ponders all this, but wishes she could talk to her “older sister.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 15 - The Knight of Mirrors Attacks</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months later the question is taken out of Donna’s hands. Aidia, the Knight of Mirrors, enters Donna’s home in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep, using a full-length mirror as a portal. She kidnaps Donna and takes her, through the mirror, to a museum in Portland where an Egyptian exhibit is on display. She easily dispatches the guards. Donna is terrified, and expects to be killed immediately. But Aidia wants to use her as bait.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aidia explains to Donna that she has added a new item to her arsenal, the Stone of Hathor, which she found in this very museum. The Stone is a small, pyramid-shaped item, about two inches along each side, with each face made of a different substance: gold, copper, iron, and a silvery mirror. Each is also etched with Egyptian symbols. Aidia wears it on a chain around her neck, and says that it enormously increases the power of her mirror shield - enough that she can take on Wonder Woman herself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She binds and gags Donna. Using her mirror shield, she reaches out to Diana of Themyscira. After a while she makes contact with Diana, appearing in a mirror Diana is walking past in Etta Candy’s home. She shows her she has Donna, tells Diana where she is, and tells her to come to them - alone, if she wants Donna to live.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 16 - Wonder Woman vs. the Knight of Mirrors</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman goes to the museum - alone, of course. She and the Knight of Mirrors have a major battle. But Diana doesn’t know that the Knight’s powers have been amplified by the Stone of Hathor, so she holds back. </span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aidia begins to drain Diana’s powers, and her very life force, into the reflection of Diana in the mirror shield. Diana had no idea the Knight of Mirrors could do this; it catches her completely by surprise. Weakened, battered by the Knight’s mace, losing more energy with every second, she soon collapses, helpless. Donna is horrified. But what can she do?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 17 - Wonder Girl</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing, and one thing only. She concentrates on her bracelet, calling upon it mentally, praying for a boon, a godsend, anything to help her sister Diana. Stellanera appears to her, and she implores him with her eyes. He nods his head. A crackling energy from the bracelet envelops Donna, and she is transformed. She is filled with power - stronger, faster - and she tears her restraints off. The boon has also created a costume for her (a “Wonder Girl” costume that we would recognize), and a silver lasso. She attacks the Knight of Mirrors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aidia doesn’t take Donna terribly seriously. She hits her with her mace, and Donna falls to the floor, seemingly stunned. She leans over Donna and grabs her by the throat; she wants to strangle her with her own hands. But Aidia has underestimated the new Wonder Girl, who, although injured, is faking her helplessness. Using her newfound strength, Donna rips the Stone of Hathor off the Knight of Mirror’s neck. (Diana would not have known to try this.) Donna jumps back, and then - guided by intuition, or a guess, or divine inspiration - she throws the Stone as hard as she can at the mirror shield, which shatters, knocking Aidia unconscious. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The mirror shield destroyed, Wonder Woman begins to recover. Diana and Donna have a joyful reunion, hugging each other. Diana contacts Steve Trevor and arranges for ARGUS agents to come and take Aidia into custody. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When that’s done, it’s time to return Donna to her home and family. Donna finds that, with a simple thought, she can cause the bracelet to restore her ordinary clothes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 18 - Donna Plans Her Career</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana takes Donna home. Her fathers, having discovered her missing, are frantic, and have already called the police. But with Donna back, and Wonder Woman insisting that everything is okay, the police leave.</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana stays, but lets Donna explain the circumstances to her two fathers privately. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She tells them the whole story, from start to finish. At first they are furious at being lied to, but eventually they understand why Donna did it. Then she explains that she has been given these powers for a reason: to assist her sister Diana, Wonder Woman, in helping people and protecting the innocent. They object to this quite strenuously. But Donna explains that there are dangerous people and dangerous forces in the world, and that she already has “enemies” (the Knight of Mirrors, at least). If she’s going to deal with the world that she’s now a part of, she’s going to have to get some experience. Wonder Woman, invited back into the conversation, promises she will train Donna as best she can, and work to keep her safe. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman is very persuasive. Finally Mike Harbin says, “Okay. But you’re still going to school. And you’re going to start slow. Stopping muggings and rescuing treed cats for a while, before you take on any… supervillains. Or otherwise you’re grounded!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 19 - Wonder Girl Explores Her Powers</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna experiments with her new identity. She always has her powers - strength, speed, ability to fly. She can use the bracelet to conjure up her Wonder Girl costume and lasso, or reverse the process. And she finds - as a small, extra gift from the goddesses of the night - that when she is in costume she looks a little different. Her hair is longer and darker, her eyes are a different color, and the shape of her face is just slightly changed - enough for people who know her as Donna to say, “Hey, Wonder Girl looks a lot like Donna, but not quite.” And so she can keep a secret identity, at least for a while. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She speaks with Stellanera again, and he makes it clear that, sadly, he will no longer be coming to chat. She’s on her own now. “Will we ever see each other again?” Donna asks. “I hope so,” he says, “but I am given my tasks by the goddesses, and watching over you is no longer one of them.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 20 - Wonder Girl’s Superheroic Career</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next five years are interesting ones for Donna. She goes to school, makes friends, goes on dates, gets good at photography, babysits her kid brother - and fights evil as the teen superhero Wonder Girl: sometimes by herself, sometimes with Wonder Woman, and increasingly with the Teen Titans, the team where she finds her greatest allies and closest friends. </span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman follows through on her promise to train her. And sometimes (during summer vacations) Donna returns to Themyscira, to see Hippolyta, who she loves as if she were her own mother, and learn more about the Amazon ways.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 21 - The Abduction of Stellanera</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One day Donna is astonished when a nearly-invisible image of Stellanera appears to her, for the first time in five years. He is injured, weak, almost powerless. He manages to tell her, in a voice that is less than a whisper, that he is trapped, and he gives her the location, which is a long-abandoned convent in Pennsylvania. Then he fades away.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We switch to Stellanera. He has been abducted and imprisoned by the Tennabrae, a fairy sorcerer, who appears as a young man with wings like a Death’s-Head Moth. We learn from their conversation that at one time, a century or so ago, they were friends, and even heroes together. But Stellanera learned that the Tennabrae was really only interested in increasing his power, no matter what the cost, and they went their separate ways.</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Tennabrae used their old friendship to trick Stellanera, and locked him up in this old building. He has conjured several demons to stand guard. Meanwhile he is torturing Stellanera for information: “What are the weaknesses of the goddesses of the night?” He wishes to steal some of their enormous power - and maybe find a way to kill them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stellanera: “They don’t have weaknesses. They’re goddesses!”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Tennabrae: “Oh, come now, child of a titan! We both know better than that.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 22 - Wonder Girl to the Rescue</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna enlists the help of some of her Titans superhero friends and rides to the rescue. There is a long, suspenseful, complicated battle between the heroes and the Tennabrae and his demons, but Wonder Girl’s team ultimately wins, driving the demons back to Hell. The Tennabrae, injured, manages to flee. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scene 23 - Dark Star</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donna releases Stellanera and tends to his injuries. This is the first time they’ve met face-to-face, but they’ve been friends for years. Stellanera explains the situation, and tells Donna there is a reason the Tennabrae picked this old convent. In the 1920’s, it was attacked by supernatural beings who were driving the sisters to madness and suicide. Stellanera and the Tennabrae, learning of the attacks, came and battled the evil forces, defeating them. (The Tennabrae’s precise motives now seem unclear, but maybe back then he wasn’t power-mad yet, or not as much so.) “We were a team, like you and your friends,” Stellanera tells her. “They called us Dark Star and the Shadow Moth.”</span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He thanks Donna for everything she’s done. “I don’t understand,” she says. “You work for goddesses! Why didn’t they help?”</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“They did,” he says. “They sent you. My Wonder Girl!” </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He kisses her on the forehead, and then looks at her. “But then, you’re not really a girl anymore, are you? You’re an amazing woman! Maybe that’s not the right name for you anymore?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ve been thinking about that,” says Donna. Her friend Dick Grayson as already become Nightwing. Wally is the Flash, Roy is Arsenal, Garth is Tempest. “You don’t use the name Dark Star any more, do you? How would you feel if I carried on that heroic legacy?”</span></div>
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Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-70017530459809965672015-10-27T19:49:00.000-07:002015-10-28T02:03:58.889-07:00Supergirl & Mom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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I watched the <i>Supergirl</i> pilot last night. Mostly I liked it. There's a lot to be said about the show, positive and negative, and certainly some judgments should be put off until they have a few more episodes under their House of El coat of arms and find their feet (so to speak).<br />
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But given what I've discussed on <i>Read 'Em & Weep!</i>, I would be remiss not to mention immediately: here we have the rare, and well-done, example of the Maternal Narrative for a major superhero.<br />
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Conventionally Kara Zor-El owes most to her father Zor-El, brother (and thematic twin) to Jor-El, Superman's father. In the earliest version of Supergirl as an ongoing character, Zor-El was, like his brother, a brilliant scientist. He saved Argo City and its inhabitants from the destruction of Krypton, and, when even that remnant was doomed, he put young Kara in a spaceship he had created and sent her to Earth. Her mother did nothing of note, and the amount of thought that went into her characterization can be seen in her name: Alura. She was alluring. Presumably that's why Zor-el married her. We get it. (Later it turns out that Zor-El also invented a Survival Zone Projector, twin to the Phantom Zone Projector, and saved himself and his wife.)<br />
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On Earth, Superman immediately takes charge of his younger cousin, insisting she not use her powers in public, treating her as his "secret weapon," and subjecting her to a series of tests (which she undergoes willingly or unwittingly) before he permits her to take on a public role as Supergirl. She accepts this with little or not complaint - he is, after all, an older male relative, and therefore <i>in loco parentis</i>.<br />
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Subsequent iterations of Supergirl rearranged a lot of these details, but Zor-El's preeminence was rarely threatened. Alura did get her shot in the <i>New Krypton</i> arc of Superman stories (2008-2009), ruling the Kryptonians of New Krypton after her husband's death, warring with Earth, and generally being unpleasantly aggressive. (Yes, I would use the same phrase for a male in her position. And I feel like I should add "Not that there's anything wrong with that....") In my opinion, the story was a disaster on several levels, especially showcasing Superman's utter failure - finally given a second chance to "save Krypton," he bungles it completely, a fact that leaves him oddly unaffected. Alura dies along with virtually all the other New Kryptonians, and this more commanding and influential depiction of her sinks without a ripple. (Fun Fact: Zor-El has <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zor-El">his own Wikipedia page</a>. Alura appears in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_DC_Comics_characters#Alura">List of Minor DC Characters page</a>.)<br />
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If I remember the origin of Supergirl in The New 52 correctly, Zor-El - although very different in personality - once again builds a spaceship and sends Kara off in it. I believe Alura was a little more active than usual - fighting violently with her husband to stop him. It didn't make much of an impression on me. In any case, Zor-El survived in an amnesiac state as the supervillain Cyborg Superman, so he's still around. Alura? Not so far.<br />
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The TV pilot takes a completely different approach which centers Alura and her relationship with her daughter Kara. It appears that Zor-El is still a scientist and built the spaceship, but in the departure scene Alura seems to be calling the shots; she has the plan, and she's explaining things to Kara. Years later, when the inevitable hologram-from-Krypton appears, it's Alura talking to Kara about her hopes for her daughter, and her pride in her.<br />
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In addition, the pilot introduces Fort Rozz, a Kryptonian prison for both Kryptonian and non-Kryptonian prisoners, which somehow followed Kara from Krypton and in and out of the Phantom Zone to Earth. The prisoners want revenge on Alura, because she was the judge who sentenced them to Rozz - with her dead, they're willing to take it out on her daughter. (Of course, if Alura hadn't stuck them in that prison, they'd all be dead now, but a philosophical take on fate isn't common among supervillains.) The general who leads this superpowered criminals? Supergirl's aunt, Astra, the twin sister of her mother Alura.<br />
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This is the unusual Maternal Narrative, in which that hero's mother is the stronger influence on the hero and her journey. Her father, a perfectly decent and competent individual, simply receives less attention and emphasis. And Kara's connection from her mother to her aunt - another female relative - provides key plot materials and, presumably, the series' Big Bad.<br />
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On top of this, Kara's closest relationship is to her human sister (by adoption) Alex. And Kara's boss, Cat Grant, is a powerful woman whose demands and expectations will also affect Kara's life and careers, both at CatCo and as a superhero. Combining all this, we have a show that - although it includes significant male characters (Winn Schott, James Olsen, Hank Henshaw, and the oft-mentioned but absent Big Guy) - places the hero's mother in a position of primary importance, and uses the relationships of the hero to her mother, other female relatives, and women in general to inform both the narrative and characterization. And passes the Bechdel Test multiple times in a single bound! Or, episode.<br />
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Now, I wouldn't say that the show's creators are necessarily in the business of interrogating gender norms. It's more that they're inverting some of them, as a way to distinguish Supergirl from her better-known cousin. In many versions (particularly movies and TV shows), he is shown reacting to, and interacting with, a projected version of his dead father. They didn't want to duplicate that too obviously, so they used her mother instead. But I don't think that was their sole motive. In any case they have created a truly female-centric superhero show - not just in terms of the sex of the protagonist, or in the character count, but in making relationships between women central to the show. Good on you, <i>Supergirl</i>!<br />
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Of course, it's still Kara Zor-El and the House of El. I think just about every world in the DCU uses patronymic lineages. It's like a law of physics. <img alt="" border="0" class="inlineimg" src="http://community.comicbookresources.com/images/smilies/redface.png" style="background: white; border-radius: 0px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px; max-width: 100%; padding: 8px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Embarrassment" /><br />
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I have my concerns about certain aspects of the show. The use of Fort Rozz as a Villain of the Week machine seems very contrived, especially since the violent, angry, superpowered villains have for some reason chosen to remain hidden until <i>just right now</i>. (I imagine we'll get some explanation related to the plans of General Astra. We may even get a reason why a physical, maximum-security prison would up in the Phantom Zone.) I found the introduction of the high-tech, top-secret government Department of Extranormal Operations - with its control panels, its tough, untrusting commander, its key agent with mixed allegiances - to be flat and overly familiar. (I also find the fact that Alex has been feeding information about her sister to a government organization for years, while hiding that fact from Kara and lying to her about what she does for a living, to be more disturbing than the show treats it.) And I think the constant references to The Hero Who Must Not Be Named are going to get old fast, and raise questions the show may not be ready to answer. It's 2015, and both Kara and Clark can fly faster than sound. They are the only two people in the world (that they know of until now) who share certain experiences, issues, and powers. What - they don't call, they don't Skype, they don't visit? Surely she's going to tell him about Fort Rozz, and the presence on Earth of her evil, Kryptonian, superpowered Aunt Astra - and he'll want to help! Right? The answer to this is presumably dictated by CBS, but providing an explanation that works within the show may be a different matter.<br />
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But you know what? It's only been one episode. And I like the show, for more reasons than just seeing the Maternal Narrative surface on mainstream TV. I particularly like the fact that this Supergirl is a friendly, kind person who enjoys using her powers and delights in helping people. I hope they keep this up. It bucks the trend of many modern superheroes, who are lost in grim-n-gritty angst. The Supergirl of The New 52 was defined by her alienation, her emotional distance from her cousin Superman, and ultimately her anger - to the point where the writers felt that it made perfect sense for her to become a Red Lantern. And for some reason she doesn't have her own comic anymore, or even belong to a team that does.<br />
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I like this one better. I'll keep watching.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But you enjoy flying, right? I mean - who wouldn't??!?</td></tr>
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<br />Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-41659903115077956012015-07-10T18:45:00.000-07:002015-07-10T18:45:51.105-07:00Selina Kyle-Wayne: NWM*(* <i>Not Worth Mentioning</i>)<br />
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From <i>Earth 2: Society #2</i> (2015).Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-88160147324790190292015-07-10T18:17:00.001-07:002015-07-11T13:48:33.491-07:00Bruce Wayne vs. Healing: H'ood Win?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNrQywL7iRgyOFwNeSQzYghygx5hDLuzpsoMLFbgEvzDaDOUHuuw3U33q1f6Nwo9vUJU6hlIcgXvNhNL6fGqI47y89TZAF0pS_OsmLEwmHaY4PX7v4zewXrAXf_kCRVYFr5YI8G5Jjjw/s1600/jerkBatman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNrQywL7iRgyOFwNeSQzYghygx5hDLuzpsoMLFbgEvzDaDOUHuuw3U33q1f6Nwo9vUJU6hlIcgXvNhNL6fGqI47y89TZAF0pS_OsmLEwmHaY4PX7v4zewXrAXf_kCRVYFr5YI8G5Jjjw/s320/jerkBatman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I understand that stories require conflict, including interpersonal conflict. Superman and Batman (much like McCoy and Spock) are often used to represent different points of view: Superman, trusting and hopeful; Batman, suspicious and pessimistic. Sometimes, however, this simple (sometimes simplistic) scheme gets twisted, and supposedly smart characters wind up saying absurd, out of character things.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">JLA</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> #2 (2105), the Kryptonian god Rao, newly arrived on Earth, sends his prophets into hospitals across the country (America first?), where they fully cure thousands of people, including those who were considered terminal. Most people see this as a good thing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Bruce Wayne does not. Now, I would expect him to say: We don’t even know what Rao is, much less his motives. Are there side effects or hidden costs to these cures? Will there be an expectation of payment later on? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Or even, maybe: What if there were suddenly no illness in the world? Could the world handle the overpopulation, the increased use of resources? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">And I’d credit a general distaste for anyone arrogant to call himself a god. Although Bruce’s friend Diana seems to get away with it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But Bruce goes a different </span><span class="skimlinks-unlinked" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">way.When</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> Alfred says, “They seem to be healing </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">everybody</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, no matter how sick or injured,” Bruce complains: “Yes. </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Everybody</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">, Alfred. Good and Bad. Thieves. Criminals. Rapists. </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Worse</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">. The world would be better if they died as they were </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">supposed</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> to. What kind of church gives </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">that</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> kind of </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">evil</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> a second chance?”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Really, Bruce? That’s where you’re going to draw your line in the sand? Because by the same reasoning (and I use the word with some doubt), he should be opposed to all doctors everywhere. After all, doctors also try their best to save people, usually without considering whether those people are “supposed” to die (whatever </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">that</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> means), or even whether they are good people or bad people. Ordinary doctors may have a worse win/loss record than prophets of Rao, but certainly Bruce Wayne (whose father was a doctor) does not believe that - through luck, fate, or karma - only the good people are saved, and the bad ones thankfully die.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Further, Bruce should be opposed to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">himself</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> as Batman. Metaphorically, Batman is a kind of doctor - he saves people who would otherwise die. Does he investigate their morals first? When Batman prevents the Joker from killing another 10,000 people, or helps the JLA stop an alien menace from destroying a city, some of the people he saves might very well be: “Thieves. Criminals. Rapists. Worse. The world would be better if they died as they were supposed to.” What kind of superhero gives that kind of evil a second chance? But I don’t actually remember Batman actually taking this question into account. It’s a standard by which he will judge Rao and his followers, but not himself or his do-gooder friends.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">When Alfred talks about the Biblical concept of a kindly and forgiving god, Bruce goes further: “Who was God being </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">kind </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to when my parents were </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">murdered</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">? If Joe Chill was [</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">sic</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">] dying, I’d fight </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">every</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> single one of those prophets to </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">stop </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">them from saving him.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This is utterly out of character. As a rule, Batman doesn’t even let his worst enemies die if he can prevent it - even if it means risking his own life. We have seen him reach out a hand to stop the Joker from falling to his death. If a doctor were treating Joe Chill for life-threatening injuries, would Batman actually stop the doctor? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Doctors are supposed to treat everyone in need, regardless of their moral or legal status, and then let the legal system take its course. Even convicts on death row get medical care. Bruce Wayne has never tried to put a stop to any of this. Why would he treat the prophets of Rao any differently - lacking any proof that Rao has evil, ulterior motives?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As for “Who was God being kind to when my parents were murdered?”, I can’t provide an answer for the Abrahamic God; Bruce will just have to devote more time to the study of theodicy for that. But as for Rao, Bruce knows the answer. Rao makes no claims to being omniscient or omnipotent, and he has been traveling the universe. He wasn’t around when the Waynes were murdered - any more than Superman or the Flash was - through no fault of his own. So it’s not really a fair basis to judge him on. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">On the other hand, if Rao is really what he says he is, then perhaps he can help people create a world in which another young child is less likely to lose his parents to the next Joe Chill. Or his prophets can come along and save the parents as they lie dying in the street. Bruce might want to consider this possibility, when he’s done feeling sorry for himself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Look, I understand Batman looking a gift horse in the mouth; it’s his nature. And, comics being what they are, I’m sure there’s something hinky about Rao’s seeming generosity, and ultimately the JLA will have to take him on, after fighting amongst themselves for a while.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But to condemn Rao for saving people simply because some of those people may be bad guys, when Batman and his friends save people </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">en masse</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> for a living? To say that he would stop someone from saving Joe Chill from dying, when we’ve seen Batman save his most evil and murderous enemies from certain doom? To dismiss the possibility that Rao is genuinely kind, because where was he when Bruce’s parents were killed, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">huh</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">??!?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">That’s crazy talk. It’s self-contradictory, irrational, unfair, and petty. And therefore - I would hope - out of character.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But then, I don’t know which Batman I’m reading about. Now that DC has adopted the policy of “story over continuity” (whatever </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">that</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> means), maybe this Batman has never saved an enemy. Maybe this Batman follows up on all his rescues to make sure they’re fine, upstanding citizens, and acts accordingly. Maybe this Batman is irrational and petty. Who can know?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Will he be the same way for the next JLA story arc? Or even next issue? What are you, a continuity freak? </span><img alt="" border="0" class="inlineimg" src="http://community.comicbookresources.com/images/smilies/redface.png" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Embarrassment" />Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-10440586282176556322015-05-29T21:19:00.003-07:002015-05-29T21:32:31.717-07:00Are You Ready For The NEW DC UNIVERSE?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsYmM_UEs5R95pc0eX4kVRghkeuLhH9gA9E4raHG56StXAyY0JFfKrEJzkxbQqu1VwQbirN4VOGSw4nd4W6tF10ovhZT2OlhNSjB1X5gUhncbcrK6b_vjXehAIrDpPbZGyjVMdXir2r1E/s1600/unsolidUniverse3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsYmM_UEs5R95pc0eX4kVRghkeuLhH9gA9E4raHG56StXAyY0JFfKrEJzkxbQqu1VwQbirN4VOGSw4nd4W6tF10ovhZT2OlhNSjB1X5gUhncbcrK6b_vjXehAIrDpPbZGyjVMdXir2r1E/s320/unsolidUniverse3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well, <i>THAT</i> explains a lot!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wasn’t even ready for the last one.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">About five years ago, the DC universe had experienced years of major upheavals, including retcons, all the way through </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infinite Crisis</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I was anticipating seeing what it would look like when the dust cleared.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And we had </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blackest Night</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brightest Day</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which set up a whole new set of mysteries, conflicts, and the beginnings of story arcs. (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brightest Day</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was more set-up than story.) They introduced the first new Aqualad in fifteen years, and I was intrigued. They changed Hawkgirl into some lost air elemental thing that Hawkman had to find, and I was annoyed - Hawkgirl deserves better than to be an off-panel damsel in distress, the object of some “important” character’s quest - but I was curious about how the issue would be developed and resolved. (I’m a fan of the JSA Hawks.) So they had my attention - and my expectations, which I think it is fair to say they had set.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then DC said: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nah. We’re going to junk all that.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> And they created The New 52, with its own set of mysteries, conflicts, and the beginnings of story arcs. Because they were bored with the ones they had just created? I don’t know. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ER-AX9Volb7uguA34l2xaamCkx15UVZxMXtZ0zgkZ2tZy28GchmkuWBpN4SwwKgRNGfUKTy_lFHREwMW7HONlTNYlFpx2iCtXQKf2k_1VXwrqqtKsD5tWPQXF4fq8-i7KwrsYMyDBKE/s1600/unsolidUniverse2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7ER-AX9Volb7uguA34l2xaamCkx15UVZxMXtZ0zgkZ2tZy28GchmkuWBpN4SwwKgRNGfUKTy_lFHREwMW7HONlTNYlFpx2iCtXQKf2k_1VXwrqqtKsD5tWPQXF4fq8-i7KwrsYMyDBKE/s400/unsolidUniverse2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When The New 52 was created, it had a built-in overall story arc. A new character, Pandora - depicted as some sort of cosmic weaver or multiversal puppet master - apparently leveraged off the Flash’s failed attempt to fix the evil changes to history made by the Reverse-Flash and restore the pre-</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flashpoint</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> timeline (the one I had been primed to explore) to merge three universes - DC, Wildstorm, and Milestone - into one, because the heroes from all those universes would be needed to counter some vast, approaching threat that she could see coming. And so we had the 52-verse.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, merging fictional universes is a very difficult thing to do well, at least if you want the result to be an interesting and coherent fictional setting. It takes a great deal of careful thought, and, if multiple writers and editors are involved, a great deal of coordination. I’ve rarely seen a good job of it. It’s one thing to incorporate something like Bram Stoker’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dracula</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> into the Marvel Universe - the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dracula</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> setting and backstory is narrowly constrained, so you can make it fit. But, just for example, combining the histories Earth-1 and Earth-2 into a single timeline post-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crisis on Infinite Earths</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - that’s much harder. Especially since (i) they are already versions of each other, with overlapping characters and events; (ii) some heroes basically started over from scratch, but others (who were interconnected with the former) just kept on keepin’ on; (iii) the creative staff did not nail down what they wanted to do with certain (problematic) characters, and used them before their status was determined; and (iv) some writers and editors were obviously committed to the project, but others seemed to have a attitude of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Really, Who Cares, It’s Just Comics</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which is why the post-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CoIE</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> DCU, despite its charms, was at least as messy as the universes that had come before, if not more so. And why writers kept returning over and over again to disparate versions of previous events, as though obsessively scratching at scabs, rather than let the universe develop forward. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reading The New 52, I get no impression that they learned anything from their previous attempts. Or maybe they learned: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Bother</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It didn’t feel to me like they were creating a fictional setting, a shared universe, a timeline (whatever phrase you prefer). It felt like they were throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what would stick. The immediate contradictions, the incoherent characters (if you can explain how an amnesiac alien with no academic credentials quickly became one of the most renowned archaeologists on Earth, feel free), the complicated but unexplicated backstories, the constant eventification, the jump to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Future’s End</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the destruction of the fledgling Earth-2 - there were some good stories mixed in, but taken as “the DC Universe” (which is, after all, how it was marketed and sold), it was just a mess.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the merging of the three universes, which was supposed to give the whole project some shape…. Pandora reappeared, but with a character, backstory, and powers that seemed disjoint from her role at the beginning of things. Milestone was reduced to a poorly-handled Static Shock (with Hardware in the background), quickly - and, in my opinion, sadly but appropriately - cancelled. (I was a big fan of Static in the Milestone era. One of the things I liked about him was the relatively normal, grounded setting of his family and school friends. They tossed that entirely.) Hey, where was Icon? He might have helped out against the Crime Syndicate. Or anything. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Wildstorm Universe? Mostly represented by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stormwatch</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, with a connection to the DC Universe given by a very confused Martian Manhunter - was he a superhero, or did he have contempt for superheroes? Had he ever been in the JLA, or was that a typo? Anyway, cancelled. As was Voodoo. Every now and then there would be a Daemonite story, but it never felt like they belonged there. The idea that the universes were brought together for a reason? It seems to have faded away. Quickly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look, on one level I’m easy. I love superheroes, always have; I grew up on them. And with the characters I’ve known and liked for decades? I’ll give it a try, I really will.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But on another level: I’ve got standards. For comics, movies, TV shows, books. I want to read about characters, with personalities, who react to their experiences </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> character, and are even changed by them. I want to read stories that have been thought through - stories where the writers seem at least as interested as they want me to be. And if you’re going to create a fictional setting, especially a science fiction/fantasy setting, I want to to be an interesting one, a coherent one, one that is worth exploring. I grew up on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lord of the Rings</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> too, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dune</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I don’t expect perfection, really and truly. But I expect a good-faith effort.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is particularly true with serialized fiction, where presumably they want me to come back month after month. There I expect the writers to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">follow through</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If they create a mystery and give clues over time, the mystery should ultimately be solved, and in such a way that the clues are meaningful. If they set up a character’s quest, we should be able to see the quest succeed or fail. If they start a story arc, the arc should be continued, not dropped like a hot rock. When I trust that the writers will follow through, then I will come back month after month - even though not every month is a home run.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At DC, they seem to have lost all interest in this. Frankly, they seem bored. Bored with their characters, bored with their stories, bored with their universe. They keep breaking things, like kids with an old toy, rather than developing them over time. They create mysteries, conflicts, arcs - and then just abandon them. They use frequent and arbitrary retcons to make things easy on themselves. Why should I be interested? What’s the payoff? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look, I’m not a little kid. I understand that the so-called “DC Universe” is not a real place, and not primarily a work of art (although it can be) - it’s a marketing tool, plain and simple. But just because something is marketing doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be truth in advertising.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">THE NEW DC UNIVERSE! New characters! New mysteries! New story arcs! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why should I be interested? Spend money, time, emotional investment? I’ve been there before. And the payoff is smaller and smaller each time. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MISSING: Have You Seen This Man?</td></tr>
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Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-68331689664534917192015-05-05T20:17:00.002-07:002015-05-05T20:19:19.982-07:00Mom And I Would Read Books Or Play Board Games Until He Was Done<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgik6lsyb9L2mVRqrJEgULbNrhTC6N5XZqVpimmYIL6Ms-9xwYYMUxG3dDVYCBbAiyL6_ZolpXfuJrSKXN8xOPuXxLoijGQrqfaQva4FJ1umzVZQ20LTISQD6QYg214x_i0Ke5_s-4TbG4/s1600/thomasWayne2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgik6lsyb9L2mVRqrJEgULbNrhTC6N5XZqVpimmYIL6Ms-9xwYYMUxG3dDVYCBbAiyL6_ZolpXfuJrSKXN8xOPuXxLoijGQrqfaQva4FJ1umzVZQ20LTISQD6QYg214x_i0Ke5_s-4TbG4/s1600/thomasWayne2.jpg" height="283" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gotham</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is kindly offering me another example of the ubiquitous <a href="http://doctorbifrost.blogspot.com/2015/04/wonder-woman-and-paternal-narrative.html">Paternal Narrative</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both of young Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed, and he is obsessed with finding out by whom and why. Increasingly everything he thinks, says, and does is focused on his father. A Wayne Enterprises exec tells him that Thomas Wayne and Grandfather Wayne knew all about the company’s illegal activities, and accepted them. Lucius Fox says Thomas Wayne was a stoic. Alfred insists that, if Thomas Wayne had a secret life, Alfred would have known, and also that Thomas Wayne was a good man. “Even good men have secrets,” says Bruce, and sets out to find them in his father’s study.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He doesn’t even </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">think</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about his mother, who was also murdered. Did she know what was going on at Wayne Enterprises? Was she a good woman? Did she share Thomas’s secrets? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did she have secrets of her own?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently that’s too absurd to even be considered. I’m not even talking about the fact that the plot points ceaselessly at Thomas Wayne, as Bruce adds his father’s picture to the Murder Wall and searches through his books. The plot will go where the plot will go. It’s that Bruce, and Alfred, and Selina, and, of course, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the show itself</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> doesn’t take out a single moment to suggest, hey, Martha Wayne was also killed, maybe we should think about the possibility - if only briefly - that it had something to do with her. Even if that line of investigation leads nowhere, shouldn’t it be on the Wall?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We get a glimpse of Martha Wayne’s life from Bruce. When his father was in the study, the door locked and everyone forbidden to disturb him (and when, it turned out, he was descending into his secret Batcave), “Mom and I would read books or play board games until he was done.” In this scenario Martha is quite precisely reduced to the level of a child, doing the same things as her pre-teen son while her husband, a Master of the Universe, pursues his important and hidden goals. Although maybe she was reading a more sophisticated book. Maybe.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thomas Wayne actually had a very busy public life. He was a medical doctor - I don’t know what kind of practice he had, but it’s hard to imagine him letting his M.D. go unused while there were people out there who needed treatment. And he was the CEO of a major multinational corporation - the number of meetings and business trips that implies is enormous. Let’s just imagine the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">possibility</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that Martha Wayne, in her free time - after young Bruce went to sleep, or while the highly reliable butler was watching him - had a secret life all her own. Maybe she investigated the nefarious dealings of Wayne Enterprises, while her husband maintained a false front to keep his criminal executives distracted and unsuspecting. Or maybe Thomas is building equipment for her down there in the cave, and at night she goes out as a vigilante, protecting the poor people of Gotham from the crime and corruption that infects her beloved city. Maybe this is what got her killed (with her husband as collateral damage), and she is the good, stoic, determined, secretive hero that Bruce should aspire to be. Imagine!</span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-b4a8325c-2736-6136-228a-cff56f62c6cf"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that’s silly. She’s just someone’s mom.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE01OYw5tZqZXVmiM6POvN7W0Bcp8y8X_WUDaciyu6M57BZJ9Qhk9QgxS0TYlwkRg3u6VYh8XqgiUQ60jn1rAQDQC7uXeupi0yn8G2pUijTGp-6HxQ13DyyfrDg-Aar1fQ0e_ZItM3kVw/s1600/bruceWayne4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE01OYw5tZqZXVmiM6POvN7W0Bcp8y8X_WUDaciyu6M57BZJ9Qhk9QgxS0TYlwkRg3u6VYh8XqgiUQ60jn1rAQDQC7uXeupi0yn8G2pUijTGp-6HxQ13DyyfrDg-Aar1fQ0e_ZItM3kVw/s1600/bruceWayne4.jpg" height="400" width="253" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And Mother... Mother!... Where did you leave the meatloaf recipe?</td></tr>
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Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-59364850350700748642015-04-08T18:55:00.000-07:002015-05-16T00:28:28.481-07:00Wonder Woman and the Paternal Narrative<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Author’s Note: </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a long one. At first glance it may look like a critique of Brian Azzarello’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Wonder Woman</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And it is, although there are many aspects of his work I don’t touch upon. But it’s actually a discussion of the almost-universal Paternal Narrative, the scarce-as-hen’s-teeth Maternal Narrative, and the way female-centric stories are represented (or not) in DC Comics and elsewhere - all seen through the lens of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Wonder Woman</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #1-35.</span></div>
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<h2>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Wonder Woman and the Paternal Narrative: the Rise of Wonder Woman, the Fall of Women</span></b></span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“We’ve cleaned her up. You can describe who she is now. She’s got the specific description now just like Batman or Superman. She’s the daughter of a god.”</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - Brian Azzarello</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In heroic literature there is a tradition called the Paternal Narrative, also known as “Luke I Am Your Father” Syndrome. (I’d say </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Patriarchal Narrative</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but that word is used in so many different contexts that its meaning gets overloaded.) It states that, if a hero’s parents are important to his story, the father will be of most importance; the mother will be secondary or even irrelevant. The father may be a powerful man - heroic or villainous - from whom the hero gets his skills, personality, or powers. The hero will try to measure up to, oppose, reconcile with, or redeem his father. The mother may be given some interesting backstory, often after the main tale is told - or not - but mainly exists to link child and father.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is, of course, common throughout the primary tales of Western literature (Hercules, Jesus), modern popular culture (Luke Skywalker), and certainly mainstream comic books. It’s rife in DC Comics, and always has been.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a child, Hal Jordan sees his test-pilot father deliberately and heroically crash his plane to save innocent people on the ground. Jordan goes on the become a test pilot, and then, as Green Lantern, a great hero, overcoming fear and risking his life for others just like his father did. Can anybody tell me what Hal Jordan’s mother did? Did she have a job? Raising three sons as a single mother is an eminently respectable and difficult thing to do, but the Hal Jordan story does not highlight or even depict this in any way, or suggest how it causes Hal to become the hero he becomes. It does not drive the narrative or the characterization.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you read Superman over the decades, you see Jor-el as the most brilliant scientist on Krypton, who predicts Krypton’s destruction when everyone else gets it wrong. He is the creator of the spaceship that takes the infant Kal-el to Earth, as well as virtually every important invention on Krypton, including the Phantom Zone projector. In some stories he gets to come to Earth briefly before Krypton explodes and be a proto-Superman. Silver Age stories traced his ancestry through a lineage (all male) of amazing scientific minds. Throughout all this, Lara is… his devoted wife. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Modern stories may try to flesh out Lara a little more - she’s a member of a warrior clan, she comes from an important family too. (She’s even given a maiden name!) But it doesn’t add up to much, and it doesn’t stick. Read this description of Jor-el from The New 52’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">World’s Finest</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #27 (“The Secret History of Superman & Batman”), published in the “post-feminist” year of 2014: “[He] strode across the giant planet like a titan, a last genetic remnant of the ancient days when their sun was strong, their lives long, and their deeds a song of glory.” (Admittedly Lois Lane, telling the story, mentions that this is Clark’s version, and he “always did tend to overdo the melodrama.” But she doesn’t contradict him.) Here’s Lois’s report on Clark’s description of his mother: “---“. In this particular story, Jor-el’s attempt to save Krypton results in its premature destruction, and Lara has to suggest that he use the tiny rockets he has built to save some children. But none of this is played for irony; Lara and Lois still praise his brilliance, courage, and integrity. Certainly nobody thought the story might be centered around Lara instead.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9_qvIdDEwo5dK3UsNRSY_t7dAV-wsJnhKC4lw_ve1tn87i8ZfwK8lcVVyT7WBfovhW-LvGgxGUYApRsmnLJxhQU4X7JB4l1YIXAcT4y2o7wkKm_wjR5GGZ74eAhG9egVx_TDs0WxbZY/s1600/superman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc9_qvIdDEwo5dK3UsNRSY_t7dAV-wsJnhKC4lw_ve1tn87i8ZfwK8lcVVyT7WBfovhW-LvGgxGUYApRsmnLJxhQU4X7JB4l1YIXAcT4y2o7wkKm_wjR5GGZ74eAhG9egVx_TDs0WxbZY/s1600/superman.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"And your mom - I hear she was nice."</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="line-height: 1.38;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="line-height: 1.38;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="line-height: 1.38;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="line-height: 1.38;">In every version of Krypton that we’ve seen, children take their family names from their father - it seems to be a default for all worlds in the DC multiverse. And so we have Kal-el, Kara Zor-el, and characters who wind up being named Kon-el and H’el despite their more tenuous relationship to the family. There are countless references to the House of El. The House of Van? I can’t tell you much about that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bruce Wayne sees both his parents murdered before his eyes, and admittedly the image of his mother’s pearls falling to the ground is common. But when he sits in the Frank Miller chair in Wayne Manor, bleeding to death, he calls out to his father - not his parents - for a supernatural sign that he shouldn’t die. And he constantly encounters busts of his father in the house; they must have had a mold made. In some Silver Age stories, Thomas Wayne dons a costume and acts like a proto-Batman. Martha Wayne, like Lara, has been given a little backstory in recent years, but the idea that in any version of Batman - Earth 1, Earth 2, New Earth, anywhere - his mother would be the admired doctor from a wealthy family, and his father a helpful sort who uses his spouse’s money for philanthropy, seems outside the character’s mythos. And would inevitably be condemned by some as “too P.C.”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Paternal Narrative applies to female characters as well. Kara Zor-el’s father was, for most of his existence, a literal twin of Jor-el, both biologically and as a character. He saved Argo City, created the Survival Zone, and built the rocket that sent his daughter to safety and her superheroic role. If you want to know how much thought went into her mother’s role, look at her name: Alura. She’s alluring, we get it. (In some stories, especially the New Krypton saga, she gets to do more. These are not typical or lasting.) Helena Wayne, the pre-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crisis On Infinite Earths</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Huntress, is the daughter of both Batman and Catwoman - but is generally known as “the daughter of Batman,” as he is a far more important and better-known character than Catwoman, who is essentially a member of his supporting cast. (The Huntress’s origin, including the death of her mother, was built around Selina Kyle’s fear that her husband Bruce Wayne would judge and reject her for unwittingly killing someone in the past. He judges, she fears.) After </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CoIE</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Helena Bertinelli’s origin as the Huntress was based on the fact that her father was a Gotham City mafia boss; her heroism is defined in opposition to his criminality, and her struggle not to be as brutal as he was. If her mother is anything other than “the wife of a mafia boss,” I’ve never heard it. (In one storyline Helena discovers that her father was actually a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">different</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> mafia boss, who had an affair with her mother. This revelation is a key point in the plot. Her mother is still a cipher.) In The New 52, the Huntress is again the daughter of (Earth-2’s) Batman and Catwoman. But count the number of times she mentions her father compared to mentioning her mother. She was Robin to his Batman. Batman’s life on this Earth is, as usual, of vast importance; he, Superman, and Wonder Woman died saving the world, and there is a grand statue celebrating their sacrifice (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Earth 2: World’s End</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #1). Catwoman is unceremoniously blasted out of existence by a parademon, and people don’t really talk about her after that. When Huntress, corrupted by an evil New God, confronts her grandfather Thomas Wayne, she screams “Where were you when my father died?” Presumably she remembers that her mother died too, but she doesn't mention it. (Oh, yes, it turns out that Helena’s paternal grandfather, Thomas Wayne, is alive, and takes on the Batman identity after his son dies. Catwoman’s remaining family, if any, is not part of the narrative. It’s all daddy stories around here.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jade was a popular (and much-missed) DC superhero, the daughter of Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, and Rose Scott (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nee</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Canton), the briefly reformed supervillain Thorn (the Golden Age “Rose and Thorn”). Jade’s powers, down to their color-coding, were taken entirely from her father, and her storylines were heavily influenced by her relationship to him - their finding each other, accepting each other, becoming truly father and daughter. Her mother, believed to be dead, showed up for one arc and then conveniently died. There was a single 8-page story that toyed with the concept of her having some of her mother’s plant-based powers, but it was immediately forgotten because it didn’t fit in with the character concept: Green Lantern’s Daughter. (Her brother Obsidian’s powers - shadow-based rather than light-based - were not derived from their mother either, but from the influence of either the villain Ian Karkull or the alien force Starheart, depending on the story. And his stories also heavily Alan-Scott centric. Really, their mother could have been anyone.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My examples are taken from DC superheroes, but they don’t need to be limited to them. From my earlier days reading Marvel, I know a great deal about Reed Richards’ father Nathaniel - his time machine, his disappearance, his schemes. I know nothing about Reed’s mother. Indiana Jones spent an entire movie having an adventure with his father, leading to their reconciliation. I suppose he had a mother at one time. For three “episodes,” Luke Skywalker yearns for, recoils from, and is finally saved by his father, from whom he inherited his midichlorian powers. His mother is not even mentioned until the following three prequels, where she exists mainly to explain Anakin’s character development; she dies in childbirth, and her specific character traits and history have no direct impact on Luke’s story - and she has no powers to pass on. Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr…. Well, you get the point.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are some exceptions. Aquaman inherits his powers and royalty from his mother, although I feel sure that readers are far more likely to remember his lighthouse-keeper father; Atlanna’s fate - and powers, if any - were always so vague and mutable to making it hard to say exactly how she influenced her son’s heroism . (Another aquatic hero, Namor the Sub-mariner, was more influenced by his mother. These stories were inspired by old legends of human men taking mermaid or selkie brides.) Some second-generation heroes avoid the father-based narrative - Infinity, Inc.’s Fury (Hippolyta Trevor) was the daughter of Wonder Woman and the entirely human Steve Trevor; after </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crisis on Infinite Earths</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, she was ostensibly the daughter of the earlier Fury (Helena Kosmatos), although there are large gaps in that story that never got filled in. (Digression: this is one reason I was unhappy when The New 52 took hold - mysteries from the previous continuity would never be resolved.) Other legacy characters, however, such as Jesse Quick, were based on their fathers even when both parents were superheroes. In any case, these examples pale in comparison, in both number and narrative strength, to the far more common Paternal Narrative.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And now I’ll tell you a secret: I am not opposed to the Paternal Narrative. I’ve used it myself sometimes. It’s familiar. It resonates with stories familiar to us from childhood, from Greek myths to Biblical tales. (Admittedly those stories stem from sexist cultures, but most of us are not about to throw them out.) It is useful in some cases precisely because it does </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> challenge assumptions that a writer may not wish to engage with in a particular story. It even has a (weak) “bioliterary” excuse: given the facts or pregnancy, it’s easier to write a story in which characters are surprised by who their father is than by who their mother is. Although I’m not sure “easy” is always the best storytelling choice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I am opposed to is the Paternal Narrative’s relentless </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>ubiquity</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the way it can be expected to pop up in almost any story. It is so standard, so easy to make a key element of a story be:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The hero’s father was a hero/villain/adventurer/inventor,,,,”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The hero wishes to live up to his or her father’s example; or is afraid of becoming just like his or her father....”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The hero’s life changes when he or she discovers that his or her real father is….”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fathers, in these stories, have significant traits, character arcs, influence. Mothers are generally far less well defined, mainly used for their biological function: she gave birth to the father’s child. Not much more needs to be known. The message this communicates is that the hero’s father has a vital and specific role in his child’s narrative, the mother a generic role that could be played by any non-specific woman. Men’s personalities drive the narrative, whether the hero is male or female; women give birth, and don’t need much of a personality. (A mother with a strong personality would often get in the way in a story like this. It’s no surprise so many die in childbirth, or not long after.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was exactly </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> well-known, easily recognized - “iconic” - DC superhero (not second-generation, not a legacy) that not only avoided the Paternal Narrative, but subverted it, presented us with a real counterpoint to it. Exactly one, and that was Wonder Woman.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman - Diana - was the daughter of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. Hippolyta raised Diana, trained her, taught her the Amazon values. She continued to be an important presence in her daughter’s life. In many ways, Diana’s strongest ongoing relationship was with her mother. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her father? He is, at best, implied - some man with whom Hippolyta had a relationship or marriage in the past. He is not named; he does not have highly-defined, specific characteristics. In some versions of the “clay origin,” he doesn’t even exist. In any case he is not a significant part of Diana’s story. He does not bestow upon her powers, motivations, or her family name. This is the inversion of the Paternal Narrative, the one story - one! - that implicitly challenges the assumption that that father’s character and actions are of primary importance, and the mother’s a distant second. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s more to this challenge. Diana is raised on Paradise Island, where her mother and her Amazon sisters have created a healthy and loving society. They worship the goddesses of Greek myth - in the early stories, Aphrodite, goddess of love, defined in opposition to Ares, the god of war; in later stories, a collection of Greek goddesses including Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, and Hestia. The goddesses grant Diana her amazing powers. (In some versions Hermes is involved, and in one that I can remember, Hercules; but usually it is one or more goddesses.) The Amazons are trained warriors, quite capable of fighting to protect their home and innocent people. But they prefer love to war, and when possible rehabilitate their enemies instead of killing them. (They have a whole island dedicated to it!) These are the people who, along with Hippolyta, taught Diana their ways.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">None of this is an accident. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">William Moulton Marston, who created Wonder Woman, was, for all his pe</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">rsonal idiosyncrasies, a feminist. (Ah, another overloaded word!) He believed in the value of women, a value not based on men. He wanted to depict an image of what women might accomplish if not subject to oppression, discrimination, and male supremacist assumptions. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> was not simply a story of One Exceptional Woman who is as good as men - that’s a sexist stereotype exemplified in the early superhero teams (Justice Society of America, Justice League of America, Teen Titans, Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men) which, at their inception, each had several male members with varying personal characteristics, and one female. No, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;"> was about more: the value of women and of female relationships, unimpeded by male authority. Even Etta Candy and the Holliday Girls, often seen as comic relief, were a formidable group of young women: brave, loyal, and willing to fight for the good.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was a radical idea at the time, and was certainly not reflected in any other mainstream comic book. It was partially hidden behind some of the weirdness of Marston’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> stories, with their emphasis on dominance, submissions, being getting chained up, and the like, but it was central to his vision for the character. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the idea is still important and meaningful today. Some people may insist that we actually do live in a post-feminist world, where men and women are judged on the same criteria and have equal opportunity in all things. But it’s not the case - not in the world, not in the U.S.A., and certainly not within the context of DC comics. Yes, we have more female characters than we used to; teams now have more than one female superhero. And women characters have a wider range of personalities and roles than they used to. But, as my earlier examples showed, the Paternal Narrative - and its implicit message - still dominates. And if you make a list of New 52 comic book series headlined by an individual hero, you’ll find far more male superheroes than female. If you take away the headliners who are based on, or spin-offs from, male characters who are far better-known and more important, you are basically left with Wonder Woman. She is the one headlining female superhero who is independent of a male progenitor in the literary sense. We haven’t exactly reached Peak Female Superheroes yet. Marston’s message is still important.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the decades Wonder Woman has gone through many variations, like most superheroes with a lengthy publishing history. But through it all she maintained her female-centric origin and hero’s journey: her powerful, significant, influential mother; the Amazon sisters she learned from; and their goddesses. She was essentially the only exemplar we had of the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maternal Narrative</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, in which the hero’s mother, in all her specificity, plays an indispensable, long-term role, and her father is secondary or even irrelevant to her story.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The New 52</span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until The New 52, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brian Azzarello and his editors, with their need to “clean [Diana] up” and give her a “specific description”:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now I, along with many others, might suggest that Wonder Woman already had a specific description: “Diana, daughter of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, is granted great powers by the goddesses of Greek myth, learns the skills and values of her Amazon sisters, and brings them to the larger world as the heroic Wonder Woman.” Although barnacle-like details have been added over the years (as they have been to all major superhero origins), I never found this core description confusing, or something that needed to be cleaned up. It’s only “broken” if you judge it by the all-encompassing expectations of the Paternal Narrative: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t get it, where’s the crucially important father?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> But in many ways that was the point.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, Azzarello did not simply give Diana an important father. He gave her a father who is one of the two great patriarchs in Western culture and literature (the other being God). Here are some comparisons between Diana’s father and mother:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zeus is far better known to the general public.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zeus, king of the gods, is far more powerful and influential than Hippolyta.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zeus, rather than the goddesses prayed to by Hippolyta in previous versions, is the source of DIana’s great powers.</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He overshadows her in every way. In comparison, Huntress’s parents Batman and Catwoman are practically equals.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But maybe this elevator-pitch version of Diana doesn’t do Azzarello’s vision justice. Instead, let’s look at the 34-issue story he tells.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this story, Azzarello seems totally uninterested in Queen Hippolyta and the Amazons she rules. By issue #4, Hippolyta is turned into a stone statue, and the Amazons into snakes. They appear in a few flashbacks (more on that later), but they play no role in the story until they are restored in issue #29. A mother with a strong personality may just get in the way of the Paternal Narrative, so she’s set aside. Diana does not make the restoration of Hippolyta and the Amazons a priority; she rarely speaks about it. She certainly never seeks out any help from colleagues she may know (such as Zatanna) to see if they can help. When Orion arrives, she does not ask him if his New Gods might be able to reverse the curse that has incapacitated the entire community she grew up with. It doesn’t seem to be on her mind, or the writer’s.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana, you see, is busy with the world of Zeus. Although Zeus is not physically present (as far as we know), every single character in the story with the exception of Orion is there precisely because of their relationship to Zeus: his lover Zola (and later son Zeke), his wife and sister Hera, his brothers (Hades, Poseidon), his children from Greek myth (Apollo, Hermes, Artemis, Athena, and so on), his newly-invented modern children (Lennox, Milan, Siracca, etc.), plus a few more like his grandson Cupid. Every one of them is reacting to his actions: getting Zola pregnant (which drives Hera and thus everyone in opposition to her) and vacating the throne (which drives the many relatives who want to rule Olympus). Even in his absence, he is the pivot point around which the entire plot turns. This is the Paternal Narrative writ large, although there turns out to be even more to it in the end.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was perhaps hasty when I said that Azzarello wasn’t interested in the Amazons. He does quickly have them all turned into snakes. But that doesn’t stop him from reversing any value they ever had as a loving community of women independent of men, as created by Marston.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Diana first travels to Paradise Island, with an injured Hermes in tow, we hear a voice: “Can you smell it, sisters? Our air be putrid with musk. Aye, what hangs between the shanks now fouls my nose. Perhaps I shall take my blade and separate the offense from the offender. Leave them to shrink and wither on the sand.” When Wonder Woman speaks against this, the voice asks “Who dares?”, as if no one would.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The word balloons are distorted and not associated with any character. When I first read it, I thought it was the spirit of Paradise Island itself, which would have been somewhat damning. Reading on, I guessed it was Aleka. But in any case it is the first words we hear from any Amazon, and none of her sisters contradict her in any way. Even her queen doesn’t chastise her for threatening castration against a male guest (and a god, at that). I don’t think we ever hear an Amazon speak a contrary opinion; Aleka’s floating voice is the only one the writer gives us on the subject. If it’s not the common Amazon view, why not let us hear from someone else? As it is, this depiction of the Amazons has enough editorial support to spread to other series and writers: in her first appearance, in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demon Knights</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #1, Exoristos, an exiled Amazon, says “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I come from an island where men are castrated and women are pleased.” This seems to pass for casual conversation among the New 52 Amazons.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(When I speak of “the Amazons,” I am excepting Diana, who seems different from them and not representative in her opinions.)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This happens to be a common sexist stereotype of independent or feminist women: that they hate all men to the point of wanting to castrate them. It brings to mind Rush Limbaugh’s “man-hating feminazis.” </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Azzarello’s depiction of the Amazons as man-haters goes much further. Later we learn that, to replenish their ranks, they go to sea, board boats crewed by human men, and seduce them. Then we see an image of the Amazons holding their swords to the necks of these men: “Their lives… are drained from them,” and they are thrown overboard, dead. (The most reasonable interpretation is that the Amazons kill them; they don’t actually look “drained,” by sex or magic, when they’re being threatened by swords.) </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nine months later the Amazons give birth. The girls they keep; the boys… apparently, the Amazons are willing to kill them too. Fortunately, the (male) god </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hephaestus rescues them, trading weapons for the infants, and raising them to work in his smithy, where they say they are not slaves; they are artists, and happy. One says that without Hephaestus, they would have been “thrown in the tide -- to drown, unloved.” Hephaestus proves to have the empathy that the Amazons entirely lack; he mentions that his mother (Hera) cast him out to die, and because of that experience he could “never allow” that to happen to the unwanted male children of the Amazons. He’s a good guy. They’re murderers. And Hippolyta is the queen of the murderers.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(The murders seem completely gratuitous. Perhaps the Amazons are worried that sailors, left alive, might follow them back to Themyscira. If so, there’s an easier way to do all this. Take a boat to an island or the shore of a continent. Liberate some local clothes. Have sex with a man. Go home. Is this beyond them, or do they just like killing men?) </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These goes beyond sexist stereotypes, and begins the echo the views of paranoid misogynists. I am reminded of Pat Robertson’s quote: “Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” (I am not suggesting Azzarello shares these views, only that he finds them useful, and somehow appropriate, in a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> story.)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so one of the core themes of Marston’s Wonder Woman - that of the value of independent (dare I say feminist?) women, their relationships, and what they can accomplish together - is entirely repudiated. Independent women, rather than creating a healthy and loving community that the world (and Diana) can learn something good from, in fact become man-hating, castration-loving malefactors who murder the men they use to impregnate them and would likewise murder their own male infants if a kind (male) god didn’t offer them a better deal. They are essentially supervillains. Wonder Woman and the rest of the JLA should capture them and lock them up.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Admittedly, Azzarello does not directly tell us that all communities of independent women would turn out this way. He simply takes away the one example we had of a good community of such women, and replaces it with a horrific one. Just as Aleka’s voice seems to represent all Amazons, because none of them contradict her, so too do these vicious Amazons seem to represent all communities of independent women - because there are no alternatives within the world of the narrative. The change he has made to the Amazons of Paradise Island - who have always had an extremely significant symbolic and thematic role in the Wonder Woman saga - is so enormous, and so ugly, that one looks for some suggestion that they do not symbolize a theme opposite to Marston’s: that a community of independent women would be evil and murderous. In vain. The only thing to compare them to is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hephaestus and his assistants, a community of happy artists brought together by the compassionate god who saved them from the evil women. And that community is all male.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<h2 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Arguments from Culture & History</b></span></h2>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have read several suggestions for why this change should not be seen as having any significance:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is just the Amazon’s culture. We can’t blame them for that.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> You could say the same thing about the Khunds, with their quirky little cultural tendency to conquer inhabited planets and decimate the native populations. Or the followers of Ra’s al Ghul. Or even the Joker, with his little culture of one. There’s a difference between explaining actions and excusing them. In the context of a DC superhero comic book, what the Amazons are doing is murderously evil - the JLA exists to stop people like this and have them locked up for crimes against humanity. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could buy this argument if we were talking about a race like the Formics (from Orson Scott Card’s </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ender’s Game</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and its sequels), who were biologically and psychologically totally alien to humans. They were hive minds, and didn’t recognize individual organisms - human beings, or even their own individuals - as anything other than tools of a common mind, so they didn’t recognize killing one as wrong. But the Amazons are human, have sex with human men, and give birth to human babies, male and female. They have no such excuse, only selfishness and violent hatred. I don’t see what makes them different from any other DC villain.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s worth noting that, despite this practice being an accepted part of Amazon “culture,” they kept it a secret from Diana (and presumably other new-generation Amazons) even after she became an adult. (She had to find out from Hephaestus.) Somehow they understood that it’s nothing to crow about.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Greeks portrayed the Amazons this way, so you can’t complain - it’s just history!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It’s true that in some (not all) versions of Greek myth, the Amazons are less than kind to their male lovers or male children (although The New 52’s version tends to the extreme even of the Greek versions). But that’s not history; it’s the fictional stories the Greeks told about a group of people they had no contact with. (Most historians believe that the Amazons never existed, and that the stories were inspired by some tribes where both men and women fought in battle, creating a legend of “women warriors.”) And the Greeks were an intensely sexist, patriarchal culture. It is no surprise that they imagined that a group of independent, self-governing women would be strange, dangerous, and a violent threat to men. The problem is, if you unquestioningly incorporate the Greek version into your stories, you risk incorporating their sexist beliefs as well. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marston, a well-educated psychologist, would have known all about the original myths. He made a deliberate choice to make his Amazons decent human beings, followers of the goddess of love instead of the god of war, so they could represent a positive view of a woman-centric society - in a genre (and a culture) almost entirely male-centric. His message was that a community of women could be a good, moral, and loving, even without men to guide them. Diana - Wonder Woman - epitomizes them; she takes her values from Hippolyta and he Amazons (and the positive aspects of the goddesses they worship) and brings them out into the larger world.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Azzarello completely reverses this message. His Amazons are not only grotesque, murdering villains, they are villains in exactly the way misogynists claim they would be: man-hating, castrating, androcidal, and - unless stopped by a male god - child-killing. In this version of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it turns out the sexists were right.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<h2 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The Amazon & Goddess Influence (or lack thereof)</b></span></h2>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Wonder Woman learned her values from these women, it is only because she didn’t understand them. It is stated that Wonder Woman “loves everyone.” She didn’t get that from them - they hate, and they kill the helpless. In addition, young Amazons taunted Diana simply for being different, calling her “clay,” a refrain they return to as adults whenever they are in disagreement with her. Their values are frankly horrible. And Diana’s mother, the queen, does nothing to set them right.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Both the claim that Wonder Woman loves everyone, and the persistence of the clay origin even as a falsehood, are problematic for reasons that don’t pertain directly to the subject of this essay. I hope to address that in a later piece.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In any case, Diana doesn’t look to her fellow Amazons for guidance or as role models. Finding an outpost of murdered Amazons (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Batwoman</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #13), Diana says to Batwoman, “”I don’t always understand my… </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sisters</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. But none deserved to die like this.” I suppose that’s better than “who cares?”, but it is not exactly a ringing endorsement of their kinship. She can barely bring herself to call them her sisters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At this point about the best thing you can say about the Amazons is: well, at least this pit of vipers produced </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one good female</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, although it’s a mystery how. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Diana didn’t even really get her fighting skills from the warrior Amazons. Yes, she practiced alongside them. But it turns out that Ares secretly and benevolently trained her. Martial lessons from the (male) god of war trump lessons from the long-lived but essentially human Amazons any day of the week. They don’t really contribute much to her, do they?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The goddesses do not fare much better in this portrayal. In most versions over the decades, Wonder Woman is in conflict with some goddesses (such as Eris), but gets succor and positive guidance from others - they represent something good. In Azzarello’s story, the goddesses of Greek myth are, to a one, petty, shallow, selfish, and deceitful, and Wonder Woman is opposed by every one of them. The sole potential exception is Athena - but she’s offstage for the entire tale. (Ostensibly. The truth is arguably worse.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, it could be said that the goddesses don’t come off any worse than any of the rest of the deities. But this isn’t true - both Ares and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hephaestus seem to be more helpful and selfless than any of the female deities. Hephaestus, in particular, is a model of empathy and care, rescuing the male children that the evil Amazons would have discarded.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Things I've Been Told</b></span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For Reference’s Sake: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things People Have Told Me About My Opinion On This (with responses)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You just hate change. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not true. There are some changes I quite like. I thought Alan Moore’s change, in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Swamp Thing</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, revealing that the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland - that Alec Holland was dead and the Swamp Thing was a supernatural creature built on the template of his memories and personality - was brilliant. (Now essentially reversed in The New 52, not a change I like.) </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_7d8aTP-94Bu5Zzi_R6FL8ejytSvRkEkzUFih0WNBeSIP44tr2w-BDP4dPJcLeCgIIDj7ft9A6DLRCvVN8NYONOUUoi2dinqHZ9PVGsmBBiKOvulQDNbea0y03Fe1JlpUR3F-U1Vaj0/s1600/aphrodite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_7d8aTP-94Bu5Zzi_R6FL8ejytSvRkEkzUFih0WNBeSIP44tr2w-BDP4dPJcLeCgIIDj7ft9A6DLRCvVN8NYONOUUoi2dinqHZ9PVGsmBBiKOvulQDNbea0y03Fe1JlpUR3F-U1Vaj0/s1600/aphrodite.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I was ready to be done with the clay origin. It’s charming and has a mythic resonance, but I don’t think it’s essential, and for some people it does make Diana’s origin “confusing.” (Is she human? A golem? Does she have a soul? That kind of thing.) I wouldn’t have been disappointed if they kept it, but this time around I was hoping that Diana’s father would be a human man - decent, kind, but not exceptional - that Hippolyta meets and has a brief affair with during an adventure in Man’s World. (In my imagination, he’s dead by the time Diana becomes Wonder Woman, but she discovers she has human relatives.) I think this would have given her a stronger connection to the world outside Themyscira.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But just because I like some changes doesn’t mean I have to like all changes. I think changing Diana’s tale from a quite rare Maternal Narrative to a highly standard Paternal Narrative, and changing the Amazons from a model of positive possibilities of a community of independent women (not meant to be perfect, but meant to be honorable and worthy) to a picture of the ugliest, most misogynist stereotypes of feminists, completely discards what made Wonder Woman and her supporting cast unique and meaningful, and turns them into the opposite of the pro-women story they were meant to represent. This change I don’t like.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You think fathers shouldn’t be important. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, I just think that making fathers the most important every single time, while mothers take a backseat again and again, sends a sexist message (whether the writer intends it or not). And in this case it is contrary to the original theme of Wonder Woman (which is still an important one), and imposes a unimaginative conformity on her hitherto deliberately non-stereotypical narrative. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that the Amazons are evil and mean-spirited makes Diana even more heroic, because it gives her more to overcome! </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do people really think like this? Just as an example, imagine that, in The New 52, Ma and Pa Kent were revealed to have been KKK members who participated in the lynching of several black men. Would readers applaud that revelation, because it would make Superman’s heroism look so much more impressive?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As far as I can tell, nobody - writers, editors, publishers, readers - thought that that change was necessary. The Kents are still wonderful people who instilled their son Clark with strong, positive values, and we still love him as much as ever.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is quite possible for an author to give Diana challenges to overcome without making the women around her - her family, who once instilled her with strong, positive values - into horrific (and stereotyped) feminazis.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re saying </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Azzarello is a bad writer/a sexist. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not. Some of his writing is very good; some of it I have issues with. I’m not the right audience for his grotesque, generically-named gods, but that’s just me. I understand that a lot of people are big fans of his </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and I’m not telling them they shouldn’t be. I’m glad they’re enjoying themselves.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For me it’s not an either/or question. You can be a good writer, and bring something fresh and new to the character, without throwing away the things that made her narrative uniquely female-centric and replacing them with sexist tropes.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for whether he’s sexist, I doubt it. In any case I’ve never met him; I’m only talking about his work on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I do wish that he, and everyone involved in the project, had been more interested (than they appear to be, based on the content) in the reasons she was created, and in the role that she and her supporting cast have played in addressing issues of gender and sexism in the comic-book world. Wonder Woman was never intended to be “just another superhero, only a woman,” any more than Captain America is “just another superhero, only an American.” Changing the nature of the Amazons in Wonder Woman, and the relationship between Diana and her mother and the other Amazons, is not merely cosmetic; it’s thematic. So what new theme is Azzarello communicating with this story?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I understand that some readers consider this unimportant. Amazons killing shipsful of men! Wonder Woman as the girl Hercules! It’s exciting! It’s kewl! That’s all that matters. I’m not one of those readers. I think the stories we tell reflect the society we live in, and influence it. They exist in context, and they’re part of an ongoing discussion that authors and readers have with one another. They communicate messages, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. Superhero comics got their start in a very particular era of American history. Because of that, women characters were marginalized, non-white characters rare and highly stereotyped, and gay characters essentially non-existent. And today’s comics trade on nostalgia and familiarity, making powerful - and sometimes quite wonderful - use of what came before. But if we don’t temper that with an awareness of the prejudices that were baked into the old stories, we run the risk of propagating the sexism (and racism, and homophobia) of the past into the present and the future - even without intending to. Just by not paying attention to these issues.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does that make Azzarello a bad writer? No. In fact, it’s not entirely about Brian Azzarello. The history, the context that makes these issues significant - they’re not his fault. But they are the environment he’s writing in. I simply wish that the creative team responsible for recreating </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for The New 52 had been more interested in these concerns. (That may be patronizing on my part. It may be that they have expressed exactly the themes they were going for. That I don’t know.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You think all female characters must be perfect and saintly.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Not at all! Bring on Circe. Bring on the (redundantly-named) Female Furies. I love a good female villain. And I don’t think Hippolyta and the Amazons should be without flaws, either. But you can give them flaws without making them murderously evil, and certainly without making them evil in a way that exemplifies the worst, most misogynistic stereotypes of independent women. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(This is not just a gender dynamics issue. I feel the same way about the Guardians of the Universe. Give them flaws related to their aloofness and hyperrationality? Sure. Make them lying, murderous psychos driven by mad prophecies who - for some reason - never managed to design a working cut-off switch for their inventions? Good way to toss out the whole concept, rather than use it interestingly. I see enough lying, murderous psychos in comics.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You hate men. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My husband will be surprised to hear it. I don’t hate men. And I don’t hate male characters. Certainly I shouldn’t need to explain the difference between that and believing that men don’t need to be a (or, really, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) dominant factor in each and every narrative - especially not Wonder Woman’s.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>The End of the Story</b></span></h2>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Azzarello’s defining, three-year story approached its end, he did not temper his messages (intended or otherwise) about women independent of men, in the form of the Amazons. If anything, he upped the ante. First, when the Amazons - but not their queen - are restored, and Diana takes on the role as their monarch, she demands that they dedicate themselves to protecting Zeke. “But the child has a….” whines one typically phallus-hating Amazon. Diana - the good Amazon - will have none of it. Also, they must accept their brothers (saved by </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hephaestus) onto their island and into their company, to fight alongside them. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do I think the Amazons should protect an innocent child, regardless of genital status? Of course. The problem I have is that the author has created Amazons who wouldn’t want to - an evil community whose first step towards redemption, dictated by the One Good Woman among them, is to stop being so sexist (!) and help out a male. Somehow the once female-centric Amazon tale has become all about men, and how the Amazons treat them. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The final battle takes place. Diana condemns her eldest brother, the First Born, to another few millennia of soul-destroying solitary confinement, hilariously calling it “tough love!” (If she really loved everybody, including him, she might have done the same - out of necessity - but she would have regretted having to.) And then the story-driving secret is revealed. Zola is not Zola; she is Athena, who, at Zeus’s request (command?) lived a human life as Zola, not even knowing she was actually Athena, and gave birth to Zeus’s child Zeke. And Zeke is not Zeke - he is Zeus! Zeus, king of the gods, the great patriarch, has engineered all the events we’ve seen so that he can experience renewal by being born as a child </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7000007629395px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(his own)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Apparently immortality is boring.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, to accomplish his selfish goal, he created a civil war within his immensely powerful family, put the entire race of Amazons at risk of extinction, and occasioned the death of several of his children. He had sex with his own daughter at a time when her ability to meaningfully consent was questionable (as she did not know who she was or who he was), and essentially used her as a living incubator. She seems fine with this. In fact, he has used everybody, with little or no regard for their lives, and could be considered the true villain of the entire piece. But nobody takes him on for that. Diana (who has fought gods right and left) does not rebuke him, much less oppose him. (She saves her one objection for Athena, asking her to allow the Zola persona to continue - for her own sake, yes, but also to take care of the all-important child. The Amazons, it turns out, have pledged to protect, not an innocent child, but the Great Father Zeus himself.) The general attitude seems to be a muted “oh, now I get it.” Because what is more fitting in a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> story than acquiescing to the selfish, reprehensible machinations of the greatest patriarch of all?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I doubt that we will ever see, in whatever constitutes the mainstream DC universe in the future, a return to the female-centric Maternal Narrative that, previous to this, has always been an integral and meaningful aspect of Wonder Woman’s story. The Paternal Narrative is too habitual, too customary. It is the zero-energy state of the hero’s journey - once you’re there, it’s hard to tunnel out of. (This is, of course, precisely why it was significant, and interesting, that Wonder Woman bypassed it.) And it’s hard to see how the damage done to the thematic role of the Amazons can be repaired, now that they are murderous, hateful villains, and Diana has mainly defined herself by her distance from the attitudes of her “... </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sisters</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” In order to “fix” the Guardians of the Universe, the writer had to kill them all off and replace them with a different group of Guardians who had been hiding in a pocket dimension for a billion years. It would be hard to implement a similar solution for the Amazons, even if they saw the need.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Should we be relieved that he’s making sure that Diana, while strong, at least shouldn’t be considered a feminist? And I’ll note that no new creative team on Superman has ever felt the need to say that their character will be “handsome, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> strong.” Or even mention handsome at all. I guess it’s assumed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the end, Athena godsplains Zeus to Diana: “Father… wanted more for you. Strife was told the secret of your birth… [and that started] you on the path to godhood…. You all played your parts splendidly.” In other words, Diana’s father is not only responsible for her powers, and for the relationships and conflicts that have filled her story. He has also planned out her life (without checking with her, of course), and has turned her into the women, goddess, and hero she is today. Diana seems content. This is the Paternal Narrative, supersized</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Thanks, Dad!</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline;">After all, who would this Diana be, without an all-powerful male figure influencing every aspect of her story? Only: Daughter of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, granted great powers by the goddesses of Gre</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; line-height: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">ek myth, who learns the skills and values of her Amazon sisters, and brings them to the larger world as the heroic Wonder Woman..</span></span></div>
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Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-9041035856609125322015-02-18T19:49:00.000-08:002015-02-18T19:49:12.048-08:00Doctor Bifrost Tells More<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhpfQF6C_5Ljs0og0vP5RG_jBJ8n1s7pEWQWyOUenVGMSucg3YrQ7XVoSE-01m98q2D-NggiaAgg7AGQ5tR4f7nU8xcBkyMEaCy2b2STrsp6roxwuG6tqLkZbPu8hkd4qv5gC1613Gk0/s1600/piper2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhpfQF6C_5Ljs0og0vP5RG_jBJ8n1s7pEWQWyOUenVGMSucg3YrQ7XVoSE-01m98q2D-NggiaAgg7AGQ5tR4f7nU8xcBkyMEaCy2b2STrsp6roxwuG6tqLkZbPu8hkd4qv5gC1613Gk0/s1600/piper2.jpg" height="294" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hartley addresses Wally's question: isn't the Joker gay? 1991</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you read my intro piece, you know that I believe in the value of worldbuilding. Yeah, I’m one of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. A Consistency & Continuity Freak. Although in fact I think that continuity and consistency are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to decent worldbuilding. And I also accept that worldbuilding can’t be the be-all and end-all of a story, and that there are sometimes trade-offs with the other important aspects of storytelling: dialog, pacing, character, theme, and so on. Mainly I look for a good-faith effort.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-e06aef48-9ff0-795c-ff31-517d9d77eb23" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s something else I believe: the stories we tell one another are important. They reflect how we feel and they reflect our culture. And they influence how we feel and they influence our culture.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And stories don’t exist in a vacuum. When I read a story, I don’t experience it in isolation. I read it in context: as a part of all DC Universe stories, as an example of a genre, as a continuation of - or a response to - all the stories that came before. That’s not really a choice on my part; it’s just the kind of reader I am. I think stories (and the people who read and write them) are in a constant, churning conversation with each other, and I’m aware of that in the same way that I’m aware of whether a new Green Arrow costume looks cool or whether the pacing of a story arc is expertly done. It’s all significant to me as a reader.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when I see Starfire in the first issues of The New 52 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Hood and the Outlaws</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and someone quickly says, “Hey, she just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">happens</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be an alien from a planet where the girls are really hot and don’t like to wear clothes much and will have sex without strings with you and your buddy both, ‘cause it’s an alien planet, bro!” I can think, yeah, she’s just one character, she just “happens to be” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> character. But I also think of the character in the context of how women have been portrayed in DC Comics over the years, and the roles of women in adventure stories, and how women are treated more generally in our culture. And then I have a somewhat different reaction. And I am aware of the choices that the author and artist and editor have made, and that they haven’t made them in a vacuum.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or when I look back on my much earlier days as a reader - a gay kid who didn’t want to admit that even to himself, and saw no (apparently) gay characters in superhero comics at all - or for that matter in the movies and TV shows I was watching, or most of the science fiction and fantasy I was reading - and I remember that the first characters I saw in a superhero comic who could be thought of as gay were two brutal, campy thugs in a public shower room who threatened to rape Bruce Banner (poor choice of victim, that)... well, I can think, hey, there are bad, violent gay people in the world, and these just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">happen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be two of them. Or I can think, in a larger context, that comics creators have chosen for years to avoid showing any gay characters in comics, and these two violent, ugly stereotypes are the first ones who want to present? In a society where many people already have negative stereotypes about gays, and violence against gays was all too common, what message is the writer communicating with this choice?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, I’m one of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You can call me a Social Justice Warrior if you want, I won’t flinch. I know it’s usually meant derisively, but it’s not a bad thing. And I grew up on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Star Trek: The Original Series</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and remember how quietly amazing it was that the bridge crew were not all white male Americans. And I understand now, as I didn’t then, the impact that the presence of Lt. Uhura had on the young African-Americans watching the show, who had never seen a person who looked like someone from their community in a role like that. (I also know that when Kirk and Uhura kissed - even though they were forced by a mind-controlling villain - that some stations in the South wouldn’t air the show.) And I know that none of this was an accident - it was a choice on the part of Gene Roddenberry, who had to fight with the network and the advertisers and even the audience to make this happen. I look to JRR Tolkien as my earliest mentor in worldbuilding. And to Gene Roddenberry as an early Social Justice Warrior in the pop-culture science fiction world. And I don’t forget either one of them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think this stuff is important. And interesting. (Also: complex, nuanced, and not at all obvious or easy, even with the best of intentions.) So if you don’t want to read a feminist analysis of The New 52 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wonder Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or an essay on the representation of marginalized groups in superhero comics, or why I thought that the Pied Piper had the best coming-out scene in mainstream comics - well, there’s a lot of other blogs out there. I wish you well.</span></div>
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Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-2329172631764578752015-02-13T17:50:00.001-08:002015-02-13T17:56:16.072-08:00Versace of Apokolips<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I glanced at the cover of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">World’s Finest</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #30, featuring Intri: Warrior of Apokolips (a.k.a. The Goddess Who Can’t Get Anything Done), and couldn’t help but notice that outfit! Cape. Armored gauntlets. Right breast covered in armor. A very low-cut armored bikini bottom, with orange thigh-coverings beneath, then armored leggings and boots. The naked low-cut midriff favored by many costumed females (especially the Bad Girls), leading up to her naked midsection and… naked left breast? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But that’s exactly what it looks like. The flesh color is a little darker than her left forearm, but that just seems to be shading from her cape. It’s certainly not the orange color covering her thigh. The only thing that tipped me off that I wasn’t looking at a still from a movie that had to argue its way down to R? No navel or nipple. I just assume Apokoliptons have navels and nipples. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of her scenes in the comic don’t make the dress code any clearer, and in fact it’s more… let’s say, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">revealing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - because she doesn’t even have bikini-bottom armor. The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.7000007629395px; white-space: pre-wrap;">basically flesh-colored </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">cloth (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt here) continues down her crotch and around the back to her buttocks, where she looks completely nude - maybe with a little body paint there, but nothing more. (From the front she looks like a Barbie doll down there, of course.) I looked around the comic to see if I could find a corresponding image of Superman, who after all also has a very tight costume, but no - Kryptonian ass-crack is not in view.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a few panels where the “cloth” looks a little more like orange body paint, but mainly Intri looks like she’s getting ready for Hippy Hollow. Or maybe Burning Man.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many years ago, visiting Universal Studios, I happened to meet She-Ra, Princess of Power, and several of her heroic, brightly-clad friends. “Where do you get those </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">costumes</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?” I asked admiringly. “Oh,” said Flutterina, “we just wake up in the forest this way.” (Later, during a group photo, He-Man groped my butt. But that’s a story for another day.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The forest has not done Intri any favors. Nor have her hair and make-up people - assuming, that is, that she’s meant to be stern but beautiful.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intri’s story, it’s worth noting, makes no sense at all. She went to Krypton (of the Earth-Two universe) when it was exploding, and offered to Jor-L and Lara to save the planet in exchange for the infant Kal-L. They turned her down. (Not a second is wasted on the moral complexity of the issue. And later Lois Lane says, without evidence, that she doubted Intri could or would have saved Krypton.) But Jor-L and Lara have no superpowers on Krypton, and the world was falling apart around them. Intri could have just grabbed the kid and Boom-Tubed out of there. She’s a cruel, powerful goddess, and a warrior of Apokolips. She doesn’t need </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">permission</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Yes, I know it’s Jor-el and Kal-el. Now. But when they were first introduced in 1938 - and, traditionally, in their Earth-Two incarnations prior to The New 52 - they were Jor-L and Kal-L. I think it was considered science-fictiony.)</span></div>
Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-73884377282204397232015-01-06T23:08:00.000-08:002015-01-06T23:13:34.406-08:00Ice Ice Baby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red Lantern</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> #35: Guy Gardner and Tora Olafsdotter lounge on beach chairs on the sands of Dubai, chatting. She suspects that he’s interested in taking on the possibly superpowered dictator of Qurac, just across the water, but he’s charmingly coy. Later, alone, he does attack said dictator Shahkavat, but their fight is interrupted by the arrival of four New Gods serving Highfather in his hostilities against Lanterns. Outgunned, outnumbered, Guy is about to be killed by Malhedron when he is rescued by… by… </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Green Lantern Simon Baz.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In violation of Chekhov’s maxim - and of her own superheroic impulses and any concern she might have for Guy Gardner - Tora is nowhere to be seen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I was disappointed. In her day, Tora - known as Ice - was a respected superhero. Princess of a hidden race of ice people (or, well, highly confused and traumatized metahuman member of a Gypsy-like family, depending on the story), member of the Global Guardians and Justice League International, partner (with </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beatriz DaCosta) in the two-person villain-thrashing team of Fire & Ice, Tora can fight and rescue with the best of them. But we’ve seen very little of this in The New 52. Why bring in Tora, and not let her do anything superheroic, just when it’s called for?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I understand this is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Godhead</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the New Gods vs. Lanterns mega-event, but frankly I think it would have been interesting if a non-Lantern had gotten involved. Even if Simon was necessary to the plot, have them </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">both</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> come and help Guy against four - count ‘em, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">four</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - New Gods. Don’t treat Tora, in one of her rare modern appearances, like so much cheesecake.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know what Tora Olafsdotter (</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if that’s even her name….)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> gets to do in this story?</span></span></div>
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<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pose in a bikini for a brightly-lit full-page pin-up</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Act like a sour ex-girlfriend, nagging Guy about his lack of communication skills</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chill his lukewarm beer</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not help</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I guess Woman </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Refrigerator is better than Woman </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Refrigerator, but really - why not give her something to do?</span></span>Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-24898806228556623012014-12-15T15:16:00.001-08:002014-12-15T15:19:44.984-08:00We Thought "Daguerreotype" Would Be Too Confusing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<a href="http://www.towleroad.com/2014/12/batgirl-creative-team-issues-apology-for-transphobic-villain.html">Batgirl Creative Team Issues Apology For Transphobic Villain</a><br />
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Quite right.<br />
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In the abstract, there's nothing wrong with a villain, or any character, that happens to be a crossdresser. But in the specific: the false association of crossdressing with insanity, dishonesty, and violence is an old and ugly stereotype. (See DRESSED TO KILL, and, on a related but not identical note, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.) It has been used to justify prejudice, discrimination, and violence against crossdressers and other trans* individuals. Do you really want to play to active, dangerous stereotypes?<br />
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It's like introducing a Jewish villain named Captain Yarmulke whose M.O. is to steal money from church collection boxes and use it to finance his anti-Christian entertainment empire.<br />
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Worse yet, it's like introducing that villain when you have no other Jewish characters in your comics. In the real world, there are plenty of crossdressers who are otherwise quite ordinary people - decent, kind, hardworking. But Batman never runs into them in his nightly rounds, and Animal Man doesn't happen to like dressing up like Amy Poelher in his off hours. If the <i>only</i> place for a crossdresser in your comic-book milieu is as a murderous psychopath, that sends a message, whether you intend to or not. And it's a very ugly and damaging message.<br />
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I was impressed with the apology. It wasn't defensive. It wasn't "We're sorry if someone was offended." It was: "We didn't mean to hurt anyone, but we did. We're sorry. We see the mistake we made, and we won't do it again." These folks would make lousy politicians.<br />
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Actual crossdressing superhero, ca. 1940</div>
<br />Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-16711769268050173812014-12-14T01:15:00.000-08:002014-12-16T01:43:43.669-08:00Pick an Amulet, Any Amulet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWj7Uk30a2BwvWmcpCS0LZ3mrQNK1iiLNw2WIRhSwRCxQZdsHV0cEjPKDrvWyYrJBn_W_jsZcvLsvm704MWLmor9yaLdyUxaghzjED76Fx7BnjVmCXGUL6gb65Dcb5Y8yFuVzhpjIBW84/s1600/conShow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWj7Uk30a2BwvWmcpCS0LZ3mrQNK1iiLNw2WIRhSwRCxQZdsHV0cEjPKDrvWyYrJBn_W_jsZcvLsvm704MWLmor9yaLdyUxaghzjED76Fx7BnjVmCXGUL6gb65Dcb5Y8yFuVzhpjIBW84/s1600/conShow.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last night’s CONSTANTINE wasn’t very convincing, probably because it - like most of the episodes - was rushed. In their haste to get to what they considered key scenes - ConJob uses Anne Marie as bait! Chekhov’s Amulet comes through! - they skipped the details that would make any of it make sense.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My main problem was with the character of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lamashtu, the villain. A sister of Eve’s who turned down Adam’s proposal in order to become a goddess of Hell, she is as old as humankind (give or take the show’s anthropology, which is unclear). She is capable of disguising herself as a nun (did she replace one, or has she been Sister Luisa all along?) and interacting with humans without difficulty. And she has set aside her hunger for babies in order to keep them alive for the Brujeria, so she’s not an immediate gratification freak.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She knows there is a well-informed occultist wandering around. She knows Sister Anne Marie personally, and how upset she is about the disappearance of the babies. She knows the two are working together. And yet, when Anne Marie offers up an infant to her as sacrifice, it doesn’t even occur to her - as it would to any reasonably bright 8-year-old - that it’s a trap. (Just to make it more obvious, Anne Marie is openly wearing the Amulet of Pazuzu, Lamashtu’s enemy.) And she flits Flash-style around the hallways and never even notices the three grown men who are watching her and not really very well concealed. She now seems to be one of those near-mindless, obsessive spirits you sometimes see in shows like this, unable to think or plan. In order to drive the plot, whether it makes sense or not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And consider: when John goes to Mexico, he knows that a baby is missing, but he has no idea what he’s dealing with. A fairy, a nursery demon, he speculates? He surprised to realize it’s one of Eve’s evil sisters, and then he still has to figure out which one. And yet somehow he just </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">happens</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to have with him the Amulet of Pazuzu, Lamashtu’s ex. I wonder how many amulets he was carrying in his suitcase? Maybe it’s bigger on the inside….</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The show has seemed rushed to me from the beginning, getting to “the map with Rising Darkness sites marked in drops of blood” and the “supernatural safe-haven house stocked with every artifact we will ever need” (obviously taken from the House of Mystery) stage much too fast. In the comics, the best Constantine stories often moved more carefully, as he cajoled, traded with, and defrauded a half-dozen different people and demons, while dealing with the fact that they were doing the same. And the personalities of the characters involved were more complex, and played more of a role. Too complex for a TV series, I suppose. I think I’d enjoy CONSTANTINE better if a story like last night’s worked itself out over four episodes - a whole one dedicated to wheeling and dealing for the Amulet of Pazuzu, as contrasted with “I just happen to have here….” John wheeling and dealing can be more fun than him casting spells. And a convent haunted by a baby-snatching Hell goddess, and staffed by John’s former one-night-stand and occult mentor, now a nun? Stuffing that into one hour means you miss out on some of the parts that could be interesting, and - as in this episode - hand-wave the rest and hope nobody cares. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was pleased that this episode continued the Vertigo Constantine tradition of drawing on actual folklore and mythology. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamashtu">Lamashtu</a> was a Mesopotamian demon/goddess (daughter of the skygod Anu) who was known for kidnapping new-born children and eating them. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazuzu">Pazuzu</a> was, in Assyrian/Babylonian mythology, ruler of the wind demons, was the son of the god Hanbi, and had a serpentine penis. (Oh, the details of old myths!) And, although evil himself, he was a rival of Lamashtu; amulets with his image were used to protect people from her. (Their star-crossed romance, and Lamashtu’s relationship to Eve, are not part of the myths.)</span></div>
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(Actual amulet of Pazuzu, 1st millennium BCE, now in the Louvre.)</div>
Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3541226362748267980.post-63244207228346783952014-12-05T23:29:00.000-08:002014-12-16T01:44:17.648-08:00Doctor Bifrost Tells All!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz7NpmBeK784IHawRRm7vLGPS1SzVDl6aw3gF2yJp941eI7ZzkchM3e9AyMWeYmsoKh7bc9dOBSV0VQhVaX8gddJY7ujwrF0f54v3mpsN3ohxjTf9g1MRoBWHTo0rb8-_fNGdOYArqq9U/s1600/batmanBifrost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz7NpmBeK784IHawRRm7vLGPS1SzVDl6aw3gF2yJp941eI7ZzkchM3e9AyMWeYmsoKh7bc9dOBSV0VQhVaX8gddJY7ujwrF0f54v3mpsN3ohxjTf9g1MRoBWHTo0rb8-_fNGdOYArqq9U/s1600/batmanBifrost.jpg" height="200" width="190" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was four years old my father would read comics to me while I looked at the pictures. One day he noticed I was reading along with him. That’s how I learned to read. I knew the word “invulnerable” long before most of my friends.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I sent my first letter to a comic book letter column (probably </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letters To The Batcave</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) when I was five. My dad helped. In those days you sent a question on a postcard, and, even if they didn’t print it, you got an answer back on an official DC postcard! My question was, “How do they use the Bat-signal during the day?” The answer came back: “They bounce it off of clouds.” I’m still not sure what that means.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I grew up on DC, but about the time I was 12 I mainly switched to Marvel. There were a number of reasons, but one sticks out in my memory. Someone had a letter published (possibly in </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Metropolis Mailbag</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) asking “How come the Atlanteans in </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Superman</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have fishtails, but the Atlanteans in </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aquaman</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have legs?” Their answer (paraphrased): “It’s just a comic book. We keep some things the same, like Ma & Pa Kent’s names, but we don’t think we have to pay attention to details what the Atlanteans are like in different comics.” And this seemed… wrong to me. Worse than wrong - boring. It seemed to shut down the imagination I brought to my reading. I mean, Superman and Aquaman were friends - what if they went to Atlantis </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">together</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? See, I had just read (and fallen deeply in love with) </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lord of the Rings</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and, even if I didn’t know the word, world-building had become an interesting and important idea to me. (Of course, if you asked them 20 years later, they would explain that there was more than one city with the same name, Atlantis, and then write stories about the relationships between the cities. But at the time their official, stated policy was: we don’t care, and you shouldn’t either.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marvel seemed to be building a more interesting, more consistent world. (I realize now that a lot of that had to do with the fact that they were newer, with less accumulated baggage; smaller; and one man, Stan Lee, was writing most of the comics. But they did have some writers for whom world-building was a genuine interest.) Each month I bought every comic set in the Marvel Universe. But it wasn’t really sustained. I could write a lengthy essay on how Marvel Comics built and maintained a fascinating “shared universe” - and then, over time, neglected it and let it get sloppy and confusing. In fact, I did. And then pretty much drifted away from comics.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But during all this time I always kept an eye on what was happening over at DC, reading fanzines, glancing at comics in the store. Those characters - they were my people! (Fans get proprietary; territorial; tribal.) And I never went very long without buying a copy of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Legion of Super-Heroes</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Really, how could I?</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I came back in 1986 for </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crisis on Infinite Earths</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Loved it. The story was fascinating, unlike anything I had seen; the art was great. And now DC could start fresh, without all the accumulated baggage (inconsistencies, multiple conflicting versions, antiquated concepts) of the past. Thanks in part to Marvel, a lot of people (readers and writers) were interested in a shared universe that actually had some coherence. DC could design one and move forward from there, with fresh versions of the characters I was still interested in.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DC’s follow-through didn’t exactly have me jumping for joy. They couldn’t decide what they wanted - fresh start, or their entire publishing history mashed up together. Editorial planning and communication seemed weak. Very quickly characters and stories started tripping over each other; new baggage piled up fast. (I’m mixing my metaphors.) And, having had a great success with </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CoIE</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, they seemed to think they needed to have something just like it each year - if not a history-changing retcon, then at least a massive, all-heroes-on-deck, let’s-change-direction, everything-you-know-is-wrong maxi-series with infinite crossovers. Most of these seemed uninspired, obligatory, and not very good. </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CoIE</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> worked in part because it was so novel. Its replicas weren’t. And they made it harder, instead of easier, to create a coherent shared universe, because of the constant churn, like ripping up your rose bushes before they can bloom. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I was very curious to see what would happen next. And there were some writers who I thought were doing a good job. So I continued reading DC, buying a sizable number of their comics every week. I got invested, to some extent against my better judgement. This is a personal paradox I deal with - even when I’m not really enjoying a continuing story, part of me still keeps asking, “And then…?”</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After that, the long, confusing, and numbing trek through </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Identity Crisis</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Infinite Crisis</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Final Crisis</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I read them all, and articles about them, and I still won’t pretend I can tell you what went on. The stories seemed at odds with each other and themselves every step of the way. (I saw more climactic moments and final fates for Jimmy Olsen and for the New Gods than I cared to keep track of.) I had a multitude of criticisms, believe me, and I was mainly around to see what would rise out of the wreckage. But </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blackest Night</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brightest Day</span><span style="color: black; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> both had their charms, and made good use of some characters I enjoyed. Oh, forgive me, but I found myself intrigued by Jackson “</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kaldur’ahm” Hyde, the new Aqualad. My paradox kicked in: “And then…?”</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flashpoint</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the New 52. DC kicked over the table again. And if I was interested in the new Aqualad, or any of the other mysteries, developments, and ongoing plots of the DC Universe I’d been following, well, that was just my mistake, wasn’t it? I thought this broke the implicit agreement between readers and writers of ongoing sagas: you get interested in the situations we set you, you keep coming back (and buying) every week (even through the weeks and months that aren’t very good), and we’ll show you “what’s next.” But of course, DC is a corporation, and the writers are employees, and the promise is just a marketing tool, somewhat lacking in sincerity.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That makes it a little hard to get invested in the New 52, doesn’t it? I mean, fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice - we won’t get fooled again. But, interesting writers, interesting artists - I decided to give the New 52 my best shot. I will admit, it’s pushed a lot of my buttons, particularly the big red ones that say </span><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DO NOT PUSH THIS BIG RED BUTTON</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I will admit, I’m not buying as much of it as I started out with. But these are the characters I grew up with; this is what DC has decided to do with them; and, as you might expect, I have opinions. So I thought I’d write some pieces about them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read ‘em and weep!</span></span></div>
Doctor Bifrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17216606349334579015noreply@blogger.com0