#I need that splash page where Diana literally punches a panel collage of the entire revised backstory and is like 'NO MORE OF THESE LIES'

[ziyal]

thewivesofriversong replied to your post: “Diana was a clay statue brought to life and her...

first of all: yes. second of all: I don’t suppose you’d be inclined to do like a hate-summary of New 52 WW? xD bc I gave up on it almost immediately but I’m reading Rebirth WW now and it would be nice to have a better understanding everything Rebirth is now deconstructing haha

SURE, I’ll take a crack at it, although I only got up to about halfway through the run so far, I had to take a break so I could scream about how frustrating it was

the premise of the first arc is that a human girl, Zola, was impregnated by Zeus and now Hera wants revenge on her but Wonder Woman is going to protect her. which is actually a premise that I think is pretty cool and I am on board for in theory but it becomes super weird.

Hermes leads Zola to Diana, and Diana takes her to Themyscira to shelter her. but, Strife (Eris, is the goddess they’re portraying here, but for some reason she’s referred to only as “Strife”?) shows up on the island and starts sowing discord. The Amazons turn on Zola once they find out she’s pregnant with a demigod, and Hera shows up to curse them all. Diana’s like “I was made from clay tho??” and Hera flips out and makes Hippolyta confess to Diana that she’s actually the child of Zeus and all that nonsense. Then, Hera in her anger turns Hippolyta into a clay statue (because irony) and turns all the other Amazons into snakes (!!)

Diana is weirdly less upset than she should be about the fact that her entire people were turned into snakes and her mom was statue-fied but whatever. Also she’s like “I’m shocked but I’m glad that it turns out my mother, whom I thought was never my REAL mother, is related to me by blood after all!” bc fuck adoptive parents amirite

Diana, Hermes, and Zola go off on a sort of world road trip trying to collect other demigod children of Zeus because there’s a prophecy about a child of Zeus taking over his throne and ... Zeus has disappeared, leaving the throne empty and the other gods squabbling over it. So all the gods are also trying to get their hands on Zola so they can steal the baby. It basically turns into a tour of this particular writer+artist’s edgy reinterpretation of the Greek gods where Diana goes around and either fights or talks to all of them.

when she meets Hephaestus is where he tells her the thing about the Amazons selling their male children into slavery, because all of them now work for him in his forges, and Diana tries to be like “then you men are all Amazons, too! that makes you my brothers! will you help me?” and they’re like “no, fuck that, Amazons got rid of us and we’re staying with Hephaestus” which... I can’t blame them but it still seemed really sad and cynical

At one point, Zola gets kidnapped by Hades and sucked down into the Underworld, so Diana goes after her. For.... reasons, this ends with Hades trying to force Diana to MARRY HIM so Diana fakes being in love with Hades and he dresses her up in a super gothy high fashion wedding dress and is like “I’ll only marry you if you are truly in love with me” and ties her lasso of truth around her neck like a noose and she admits it was all just a ploy and then rides a horse out of the Underworld on a river of blood. this is an EXTREMELY WEIRD COMIC BOOK, Y’ALL.

After Zola’s baby is born, it is immediately kidnapped by Hermes, who runs away with it, and “protect the pregnant lady by going to different places and meeting weird god characters” turns into “hunt for the baby by going to different places and meeting weird god characters” basically?

There’s a #0 issue where it turns out that Diana was secretly trained to fight by Ares when she was teenager, even though he’s historically one of her enemies and represents the evils of war that she opposes, because why should any of Diana’s talents come from the Amazons, instead of being the best example of her people’s warrior spirit she has to have been trained by the male god of war, fuck this comic

In issue #13, Orion (as in from the New Gods) shows up, which is the literal first time anything from the larger DCU has appeared in the series and I was like “okay, so we’re getting some stuff that has to do with Fourth World or Apokolips or not just Olympian gods, right?” but he just sort of... joins Diana’s party of people (also he hits on her a bunch? I don’t know much about the New Gods but has Orion historically acted like a frat bro???) and the book keeps doing the same shit

Turns out the prophecy is actually about the First-Born, who is a giant super powerful dude that was apparently the child of Zeus and Hera but was imprisoned in ice for thousands of years and just broke out and now he wants to claim his throne. Diana’s about to fight him and that’s where I stopped.

So, I’m on issue #21, almost halfway through the entire new 52 run, and so far Wonder Woman has not: fought any actual supervillains, met any other superheroes, or interacted with any normal civilian people other than Zola. like, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing weird offbeat stuff in comics but ... Diana is not a superhero in this book? She’s a demigod exclusively doing stuff with other demigods and actual gods. Like, maybe we could have a story where Wonder Woman stops some crime or saves some people, I feel like that would be a reasonable thing to expect out of Wonder Woman’s ongoing solo series in a reboot that was designed to bring new readers on board with DC comics?? NOPE JUST GOD STUFF

and I love Greek mythology stuff in general, I am literally so on board for it, but the part that makes it work in the other Wonder Woman mythology-heavy stories I’ve read is that it’s still intertwined with the real world. This is just.... like I said, it feels like the writer liked American Gods a lot, and went “here’s a bunch of WEIRD EDGY DARK reinterpretations of Greek gods and also a new backstory for Wonder Woman that gets rid of almost everything good about her backstory”

honestly, all I can say about it in the positive camp is that the art is really pretty and Diana has some nice character moments every few issues or so.

I’m probably going to finish it tomorrow I’ll let you know what I think of the rest and maybe Diana will actually do some superhero stuff at some point