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DC Pride #1 - “Finding Batman” (2022)

written by Kevin Conroy art by J. Bone

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WW Historia Divine designs: Artemis

The first feature of Artemis one might note is how here she is depicted as a child instead of an adult woman. It hasn’t been done much, the only other example I can think of being the very recent “Percy Jackson” series. But it does actually kind of make sense when you consider that Artemis was a virgin goddess who rejected all matters of sexuality and love - it makes sense that an enti-erotic eternal virgin would choose to take the shape of a young girl, the less sexualized thing possible. Plus, her and Apollo are clearly depicted in the first issue as the youngest of the gods, due to Apollo having a teenager-like appearance. 

As with all goddesses, Artemis is surrounded by animals - here wild animals which were indeed linked to the goddess in mythology. Bears, boars and deers notably - though she is also seen surrounded by wolves… and here I have to wonder a bit because wolves were rather associated with Apollo than with her. Or maybe those aren’t wolves but hunting dogs? After all Artemis was famous, before all, for being followed by a pack of hunting dogs, and yet here they don’t seem to appear… 

The animal link also appears in Artemis’ outfit, entirely made of animal pieces: antlers, feathers and bird skulls, mixed with pieces of gold and jewels. It seems pretty clear her clothes are made from the remains of what she hunted down. It all gives her a “wild child” look, which does fit very well a goddess of the wilderness and wild places. 

The animal link goes even beyond, as Artemis seems to have animal traits in her very being. Indeed a few times her face seems to take on traits much more animal-like than human (notably her nose changes shape, and her eyes grow further apart from each other). This mixed the horns she wears on her head (antlers + what seems to be ram horns) makes her face look a lot deer-like or goat-like in some panels. 

Another thing to notice would be her eyes - very clearly inhuman, with a black sclera, yellow irises that keep changing size regularly, and large pupils that are usually green but grow black or blue in some panels. The constant change of colors and size does make her eyes look even more animalistic.

Of course, we need to speak about Artemis “transformation sequence”. Each goddess gets one during the rescuing of the souls from the Well, and Artemis’ transformation is the most noticed and graphic. She turns into a centaur. Okay, alright. A bit of a weird choice due to centaurs being the epitomy of savage and brutal masculinity ; but at the same time, a fitting choice as the centaurs precisely embodied the wilderness and savagery of the natural world. This centaur has a BIG collection of horns of all kinds - which makes me think that a lot of the horned animals I identified as escorting other goddesses might have been Artemis’.

But the most noticeable element is what the centaur is made of… Raw muscles, exposed tendons, bloody flesh for the human part ; antlers, giant teeth and other bone pieces for the horse part. Artemis already had a link with bones and horns, but here this is pulled to its most extreme, Artemis making herself an entire body out of the spoils of the hunt. Of course, it also here fits with Historia’s vision of Artemis as a raw and savage goddess, wearing bones and escorted by killer animals: her very panel is her in front of a deadand bloody Acteon. As the goddess of wild animals, she becomes literaly teeth and claws, blood and bones, what natural savagery is about. 

A last note I would point out is that Artemis here seems to be a red-haired girl. You see, she is depicted as very pale with reddish freckles over her face and shoulders - traits typical of those we call “gingers”. We don’t actually see her hair because it is covered in a big mass of feathers - though it is VERY possible that those feathers are actually her hair, due to these feathers actually being red, and thus going well with the “red-haired girl” look here.

EDIT: Correction! These don’t seem to be feathers at all - actually this big mass over her head, upon closer inspection, does seem to be her hair, simply pull up in a wild look and held together by jewels, horns and dead animals skulls… Though again, the mixing with the feathers makes it hard to see where the hair begins and where the feather ends, which might have been the entire point

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Broke:

Belle has Stockholm syndrome because she falls in love with the Beast, her kidnapper.

Woke:

Stockholm syndrome was coined to slander a woman who had been in a hostage situation but openly criticized the poor police response which recklessly put her in more danger and escalated the violence. She was then belittled and discredited publically by the police for this.

So. Yeah. Maybe Belle does have Stockholm syndrome actually.

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On the subject of comic books and emphasis.

Getting some use out of my Tyrannomax extras.

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Why do American comics have this thing where they seem to emphasize way too many random words that don’t make any sense and I spend the whole time reading up and down in a lilting mental voice

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This looks like a fucking parody post, or an edgy edit, but it’s 100% official real Flintstones.

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Wonder Woman Reviews: Historia: The Amazons #3

By Kelly Sue DeConnick (writer), Nicola Scott (artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer), Annette Kwok (colorist).

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Incredible.

It's very fitting this book had a tribute to the tragically late-George Perez in the previous issue because now having read the concluding part of this story, it's the same kind of mythic reinterpretation of Wonder Woman's world that Perez's 80s reboot of the character was. Something DC often tries to poorly with the character, or when they don't just shoe-horn the character back into bog-standard superhero tropes.

While this isn't really a story about Wonder Woman herself, DeConnick definitely joins the great tier of Wonder Woman creators for a variety of reasons but probably first and foremost being her depiction of Hippolyta here.

As I've said in previous reviews, Hippolyta isn't a character many writers try to go deep on outside of a select few (Perez, Jimenez, Simone to name some), and even then it's rarer to see a story about her that isn't ultimately about her relationship with Diana. But other than she's almost always just "Wonder Woman's Mom" and the imposing Queen of the Amazons.

So while this story has retreaded some similar ground before, it's quite refreshing to have a story where Hippolyta is largely the central focus and allowed to stand as a character on her own. And that includes having her questionable decisions that we and in-universe characters are given reasons to doubt, as we see at the end of book. And unlike previous times this has been done, it comes off as a questionable decision that character actually would make and not just character assassination like making her bang Zeus.

Another bit of praise DeConnick deserves praise in this series for is her handling the pantheon. Unlike previous depictions of them in DC's comics, these depictions of the pantheon don't sway to hard in the direction of HBO/CW rejects or the more traditional togas and robes speaking in faux-Shakespeare. They actually look and speak as if the way you'd assume deities would but have some bits of dialogue here and there that don't make them to stuffy to a modern reader.

The scene between Ares and Hera would probably be my favorite "Olympus scene" in the issue. Shows a side of the two (one of which is traditionally the Big Bad of Wonder Woman media) that we don't often see in modern depictions of the Greek pantheon. Though any scene with Artemis is also pretty great.

Much like Jimenez, Scott was a fan favorite Wonder Woman artist for many prior to this book so I was interested when I saw her name attached to this book how this stuff would compare to her prior work on the character in Rucka's run. And unsurprisingly, this was as much of a level up for her as it was for Jimenez when he did the first issue. A certain scene with Heracles was masterfully well done and it'd like be my favorite scene in the book for both her and DeConnick if it wasn't for the ending.

After 10 years, Wonder Woman's true origin finally gets the lovingly rendered modern depiction it deserves. I know this isn't the first instance DC's done the clay origin since making Diana another offspring of Zeus but it's always to nice to not only see it get used but also treated with the respect it deserves in such a high profile project. Especially as DC otherwise blows on with the Daddy Zeus origin. This is just one page but the whole sequence probably surpasses George Perez's depiction of the event back in Gods and Mortals.

I've become fairly uninterested in the direction of DC's comics as of late, especially with the direction of Wonder Woman given what they've already announced. So this makes appreciate this book all the more as just great standalone WW-verse story without being shackled to the rest of the DC Universe. I can only hope the series has done well enough so far to greenlight the sequels.

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"In hindsight, I might have gone a little dark on that last one."

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Dark Horse Presents #112 (August 1996) cover by Paul Pope.

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im tormented by that comic book cover of nakey nightcrawler while wolverine stares at his wiener while a beer bottle is posed like a hardon. his blue ass is sashaying into frame like his ass is out in front of us. it’s painted like the cover of a pulp erotica novel. like this was printed? this is real?

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Joelle Jones - Wonder Girl in “Future State” 

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Batman by Rafa Garres

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Todd is angry. (Flux #2, Oct. 1994)

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"It seemed to roar from thirty years of frustration, confusion, denial, love, yearning...yearning for what? An anchor. A harbor. A sense of safety. A sense of identity. Yes, I can relate. Yes, this is terrain I know well. I felt Batman rising from deep within." -"Finding Batman" by Kevin Conroy (from DC Pride 2022)

In memory of Kevin Conroy, I'm reposting his story in his own words. We were so lucky to have Kevin share a piece of his soul with us through playing Batman for over thirty years, and his loss is heartbreaking for an entire generation who grew up with him as our Batman. I'm incredibly grateful to have lived in a world where he got the opportunity to play that role for us for so long and in so many different productions. RIP to a good man, a legend, and one of the most iconic voice actors of all time.