#but it's particularly insensitive after you know there was literally a planned terrorist attack for her shows in vienna.
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finnickodaiir · 3 months ago
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themyskira · 7 years ago
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Amazons Attack! - part 8
Continuity is breaking apart.
Time means nothing any more.
And, one third of the way into the miniseries, Will Pfeifer has decided to turn the Amazon invasion into an al-Qaeda/War on Terror analogy.
oh god oh god why did I decide to this.
Part 8: Amazons Attack! #3 — Will Pfeiffer (writer) and Pete Woods (artist)
We open on another Lex News report, which tells us that the Amazon invasion began “days ago”. This directly contradicts
the sequence of events in Wonder Woman, which have taken place over 24 hours at most, and
the very next issue of Amazons Attack! (#4), which opens on “day three”; as AA #3 occurs over two days, this would mean that the issue opens on the day after the invasion
It’s safe to say that, at this point, not only is each book operating on a completely different timeline, every issue is in a universe all of its own.
The important thing to remember is, the invasion has just happened and this entire issue takes place over a single day. This will be relevant going forward.
Also, the Washington Monument (which, if you’ll remember, has already been destroyed twice) got better.
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And just in case you though it was hyperbole — yes, the entire state of Kansas really is on fire.
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Superman puts out the fires in Kansas, while throughout America the entire fabric of society breaks down.
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“Traffic pouring out of Manhattan at a standstill�� as thousands abandon their cars, leaving massive traffic jams… all flights cancelled nationwide. Riots at O’Hare, L.A.X., Sea-Tac. A woman’s shelter firebombed— after rumours of a connection of the Amazons are heard. And every hour, news reports of murders, suicides, assaults…”
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And then Hippolyta—
No.
No, you know what, this is getting ridiculous. I refuse to keep on calling this outrageously offensive caricature of an Amazon Hippolyta.
And then Queen Cuckoo Banana Crackers cuts into the news broadcast to take credit for the attacks across America and to deliver her list of demands.
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“The attacks outside the main theatre of battle… the military base. Kansas. And the ones that haven’t happened yet. I’m responsible. And I have no intention of stopping until I achieve my goal. Once, that goal was my daughter’s freedom from your government’s unjust incarceration. But I’m afraid that time has passed. The stakes have risen. Now I desire something else. There is but one thing that will save your country— and your lives. Complete and unconditional surrender. You have one day to decide.”
Jesus. What is it you want out of this invasion, lady? Diana’s safety? Death to America? The eradication of all humanity? Conquest of the continental United States? Every issue it’s something different. Make up your mind already.
Mad-as-a-Meat-Axe then ends the broadcast by drawing her sword and beheading the hostage news cameraman who’s been forced to film her.
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Fucking what the flippity fuck.
Aside from the decision to portray Wonder Woman’s mother as a bloodthirsty, man-hating feminazi boogeymonster, there are two things I find particularly distasteful about this.
As will become increasingly apparent over the course of this issue, the creators of this crossover are using the Amazon invasion of America as a heavy-handed analogy for the US-led War on Terror. And the stand-in for al-Qaeda and related extremist terrorist groups in this story? It’s a peaceful, egalitarian nation of queer women.
Fuck’s sake, at this stage the Amazons have been repeatedly depicted murdering American civilians beneath war banners topped with the female symbol. This comic is implicitly equating feminism with radical Islamist terrorism.
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And the Amazons’ beheading of a hostage reporter? That’s a thing that was happening in Iraq around the time that this comic was published. For readers in 2007, the 2004 spate of filmed beheadings of foreign hostages by Islamist terrorists would have still been fresh in the collective memory. To draw on those very real and horrifying murders for shock value is revoltingly insensitive and trivialising.
Anyway, Artemis and Philippus watch all this happen in stunned silence, certain now that their queen has lost her mind. Their exchange goes something like:
Artemis: holy shit, Phil, she’s out of control. Philippus: She’s gone mad. Artemis: Golly, whatever shall we do? Philippus: If only there was some other choice besides blindly following her orders! Artemis: This is such a conundrum!
Philippus, the brilliant Amazon general, Hippolyta’s closest friend and confidante (WIFE. WIIIIFE. MAKE IT CANON, YOU COWARDS.), and elected leader of Themyscira. And Artemis, one-time Wonder Woman who clawed her way back from death, Shim’tar and war-leader who is never shy about calling bullshit or leaping into action. Cannot think of any way to deal with a deranged, bloodthirsty queen except to hug themselves and look vaguely sad.
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Cut to Air Force One, and some thinly-veiled criticism of the Bush presidency.
After casually plugging an upcoming miniseries (Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters), the President expresses his frustration at being stuck up in the air in the midst of an invasion. His aide tells him, “Your country needs you to be up here. Safe.” Which… okay? But is Air Force One really the safest place for the President of the United States when the Amazons have soldiers in the air who are apparently capable of destroying top-of-the-line fighter jets with primitive arrows? In what way is the President safer here than he would be in a bunker? Or, I dunno, the JLA Watchtower?
Then the President announces he’s implementing the Patriot Act, I’m sorry, the McCarran Act.
“A relic of the Cold War. Allows arrest of suspicious individuals. Provides for deportation. Imprisonment. Camps. It was created back in 1950 to fight the Communist menace that was supposedly poised at our doorstep. I’d say things are considerably more dire now. […] The country is ripping itself to pieces. The people need to know that they’re safe. Secure. They need to know that someone strong and capable is looking out for them. […] Implement the order. Now. There’s no other way to save the country.”
hoooo boy.
Leave aside the misogyny and the insensitivity and the flat-out bad writing for a moment. Here is the reason that the War on Terror analogy almost immediately falls apart in this comic: Amazons Attack! is fundamentally not a story about terrorism, despite Will Pfeifer’s attempts to retrofit it into one. It’s a story about two nations being manipulated into war. It’s about a sovereign nation invading the United States, overpowering the US armed forces and taking over the capital city.
We’ve seen no threat of Amazon ‘extremists’ infiltrating American society, or American citizens being ‘radicalised’ by Amazons, or Americans conspiring with Amazons to engage in acts of espionage and sabotage, or Amazon ‘terrorist’ attacks on American soil prior to the invasion.  The McCarran Act isn’t relevant to this conflict — they’re fighting a hot war, not the Cold War.
The government and armed forces can’t be complacent about the possibility of American citizens aiding the enemy, it’s true — but when DC and Kansas are being bombed to shit and civilians are dying in the hundreds and the entire country is in a panic, an unsubstantiated fear of radical Amazon sympathisers is hardly the greatest concern. The President ought to be, I dunno, meeting with the Joint Chiefs and keeping on top of the literal war unfolding on American soil, not drafting plans to round up feminists in concentration camps.
But, dang it, Will Pfeifer has already decided that this is going to be a War on Terror story, so instead President not-Bush orders his aide to implement the not-Patriot Act.
(Also: “Implement the order. Now.” What order?! You never gave one! You just threw around a bunch of buzz words!)
Now for this issue’s obligatory dose of patriotic imagery, we cut to the eeeeeevil Amazons lurking among the Korean War Veterans Memorial’s statues of American soldiers, before Batman and Superman take them out.
Batman observes that Superman is using nonlethal tactics and chides him, “This is war.” Superman points out that Batman was fighting the Amazons with nonlethal tranq darts. Batman immediately about-faces and agrees that they are of one mind on this issue. So... why are we having this conversation, then?
Will Pfeifer continues to try to reframe the Amazons’ full-scale military invasion as a series of terrorist attacks, to better fit his War on Terror narrative.
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Superman: But what [Queen Ragebiscuit] said? What she claims to have done? The military base? Kansas? It doesn’t make any sense. Batman: No. It makes perfect sense… if your goal is fear and uncertainty. Attacking the base shows they’re not confined to Washington. Attacking Kansas shows they know how to cripple our food supply. Terrorist strikes aren’t a typical Amazon tactic, but you have to admit, it is effective.
Except, up until this panel, spreading terror has not been the Amazons’ stated goal. I mean, granted, the goalposts seem to move every issue, but of the various goals they’ve had until now (freeing Diana, killing all the humans, possibly world domination), propagating fear and uncertainty through terrorism has not been one of them.
And at least one of those attacks (the Air Force base, where dozens of planes bound for DC were refuelling) was a tactical strike.
But it doesn’t matter, because the Amazons are al-Qaeda now, so they’re terrorists.
Just outside of DC, a support group is meeting at the Athenian Women’s Shelter. They’re discussing their admiration for Wonder Woman and their concern about the invasion when an agent from the Justice Department arrives to arrest them. All of them.
Because in a world of gods and supervillains, the most likely collaborators with a murderous, human-hating invading force is a group of domestic violence survivors who have embraced Wonder Woman as a symbol of hope and empowerment.
The next day’s news is filled with reports of ���waves of arrests” that took place overnight. Again, in the main Wonder Woman book, the war has been underway for less than a day.
Batman stands over the fallen Tom Tresser expositions about the murderbee attack that just happened in Wonder Woman, and an editor’s note reminds us to buy WW #10. Then he adds regretfully that he would send Supergirl and Wonder Girl to get the antidote Tom needs, but they’re MIA along with the rest of the Teen Titans. A second editor’s note exhorts us to buy Teen Titans #48.
I swear to god, like 60% of this miniseries is just promos for other comics.
This is also where we get the infamous “Bees. My god.” panel.
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“Of course, you’ve got bigger problems right now. An Amazon attack, a deadly bee weapon… Bees. My god.”
It’s even funnier because he’s not even talking to anybody here. He’s just monologuing at Tom’s unconscious body.
Oh, and while all this is happening?
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AN EPIC SUPERHERO FIGHT AGAINST THE LERNAEAN HYDRA IS TAKING PLACE. IN THE BACKGROUND.
Power Girl, Big Barda, two Green Lanterns, Vixen, Hawkman, Hourman, Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, Black Lightning and Starman, all battling to subdue one of the most fearsome monsters of Greek myth— 
--but nah, sorry, no time to linger on that, there are more important things happening. So after this one panel, we cut away and return to the excitement of Batman plugging tie-in comics.
Queen Wackadoodle stalks around the Chamber of Burning Books, monologuing about how last issue’s story thread with Donna Troy has gone nowhere. A soldier announces that two visitors have arrived — Wonder Girl and Supergirl — and then we abruptly cut away. Haha! Tricked you! If you want to know how that conversation goes, you’re going to have to read the Teen Titans tie-in story!
Wonder Woman joins Batman, and pauses to marvel over how strong Tom is.
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“I can’t believe how strong he is. I’ve seen Stygian killer hornets tear an Amazon apart — or leave her begging to be killed. The fact that Tom still lives — even barely — says much about him.”
OOOOOH HE’S SO SPECIAL, HIS MANLY MAN STAMINA EXCEEDS EVEN THE MIGHT OF THE AMAZONS! THEIR FRAGILE LADY NERVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SHATTERED BY SO MANY BEE STINGS, AND YET HE ENDURES! ALL HAIL TOM TRESSER AND HIS RUGGED MASCULINE RESOLVE!
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But then Diana continues, ‘welp, wish I could help him or something, but I can’t waste time going to Themyscira for the antidote — I’ve got a mother to kill. Only way to win the war; that’s what Circe told me, and I can’t imagine she’d have an ulterior motive.’
While I’m all for Diana leaving Tom to die in a ditch — this is yet another scene that’s completely incompatible with the events of the Wonder Woman comic.
Here’s the sequence of events in WW #10:
Tom collapses in Diana’s arms
A devastated Diana immediately whirls on Queen Loony Tunes and engages her in combat
They fight
Diana gets Bugfuck Magoo at her mercy, then turns the tables, surrenders her weapon and challenges her mother to go ahead and kill her
There is no room in the timeline for Diana to share this exchange with Batman.
Nor is it necessary. Because none of the things referenced in this conversation — the murderbees, Tom’s brush with death, the search for the antidote, or even Diana’s fight with Baroness Hissyfit — have any bearing on this issue’s story at all. They don’t feature again. They don’t serve to progress the plot. Everything in these two pages boils down to COMPLETELY WASTED SPACE.
News breaks of another attack, this time on a nuclear reactor in Star City. Artemis and Philippus discuss the developments. I’ll paraphrase again.
Philippus: Did you hear? There was another attack. Artemis: This is not the Amazon way, Philippus. This is TERRORISM. We’re acting like TERRORISTS. We shouldn’t be murdering innocent civilians. Philippus: I agree. Artemis: We should be murdering their leaders. Philippus: Exactly. That’s why I’ve sent a detachment to Virginia to kill the remnants of the American government. Artemis: Yeah… it’s just too bad we can’t do anything about our government. Philippus: I know. I simply can’t think what more we could possibly do to stop our Queen. Artemis: Guess we’ll just have to go back to folding our arms and sighing meaningfully at her.
Meanwhile, Green Arrow goes to investigate the nuclear reactor. The disaster has been contained, but it was a near thing — Oliver finds an incredibly high-tech bomb on the site, one powerful enough to have destroyed all of Star City had it not malfunctioned.
And I’m reading this thinking, Okay, well… it’s evil and horrible, but at least the Amazons’ advanced technology is finally getting a fair showing?
So of course the very next panel is ‘Well, obviously the Amazons couldn’t have done this! They’re total primitives!’
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Green Arrow: This bomb is a pretty amazing piece of machinery, one-in-a million malfunction aside. I didn’t know the Amazons could build something like this. Batman: They can’t. Swords, shields and magic? Amazons. Microchips, computers and high-tech weapons? Someone else. Green Arrow: Someone else? Who? Batman: Same people who destroyed Vandenberg Air Force Base. And burned Kansas. And no doubt have other catastrophes planned. The game has changed, Oliver… A new opponent has taken the field.
NOW HANG ON.
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Fake Steel: My boss down at the White House wants some details about Amazon technology. In particular… the unfortunately named “Purple Death Ray”. Diana: I won’t give you that! the destructive power—
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Queen Bazonkerface: Those “innocent people” [humans] want our weapons technology!
This ENTIRE WAR was partially predicated on an apparent attempt by the US government to force Wonder Woman to hand over advanced Amazon weapons technology, so do not come to me with this shit about Amazons being primitive savages.
Back on Air Force One, President not-Bush is still frustrated about being stuck up in the air while his country burns. I would be, too, because the air? Not the safest place to be right now. There are flying horses out there, and supernaturally deadly arrows, and whatever the hell it was that set an entire state on fire, and—
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Wonder Girl: EITHER YOU BRING THIS PLANE DOWN NOW… OR WE’LL BRING IT DOWN FOR YOU!
—and… that.
Fuck.
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But to find out how the hell Cassie and Kara got to the point of threatening to murder the President of the United States, we have to go over to our first tie-in comic, Teen Titans #48, by Adam Beechen and Al Barrionuevo.
I’ll run through this one pretty quickly.
It’s been somewhere between 24 hours and three days since the Amazons invaded, and already the US government has established full-scale internment camps. Helena Sandsmark is arrested and writes to Cassie to beg her not to do anything stupid like try to break everybody out.
So Cassie teams up with Supergirl to try to break everybody out.
They get into a stoush with the military, and the Teen Titans arrive to stop them, but Cassie is irrational and female and preoccupied by some romantic drama with Tim, so she refuses to leave and everybody fights. The camp ends up half-destroyed and Cassie’s mother is injured.
A guilty Cassie cradles her mother, who again urges her not to do anything stupid.
So Cassie and Kara fly off to do something stupid, leaving the Teen Titans to be arrested for “associating with known threats to the United States” (i.e. trying to stop them???).
Cassie and Kara go to Queen Murderpants and ask her to please make peace, pretty please? Lady MacBatshit explains that she can’t, because the President refuses to come and speak to her.
Well, hey, if that’s the only problem, maybe you could, I don’t know, offer a temporary ceasefire, some show of good faith, indicate that you’re willing to negotiate a withdrawal—
‘LET’S KIDNAP HIM!’ says Cassie.
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Cassie: Well… Well, what if we brought him to you? Would you speak to him then? Countess Wackadoo: If you think it possible, then I would… Kara: What’s possible? What are we doing? Cassie: Pulling the President out of Air Force One. I’ll explain on the way.
As they leave, Queen Kelloggs-Crunchy-Nutbar gloats that no negotiation will be necessary once she has the US President as her hostage.
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