Post Awesome Things Month: Wonder Woman Picspam!

[beccatoria]

Okay, chaila43 has an awesome idea to do a Post Awesome Things month to counteract the dead air summer feeling around here right now, and I think it's great. Quite a few people are doing it, and I feel super bad for not replying to them all - I've been having a really busy/stressful week, to be honest, so please accept my apologies if you're reading this and I haven't replied. But I did spent this evening hiding from any and all responsibility by capping Wonder Woman pictures of Awesome Bits of the comics I recently read.

Honestly, these aren't the, um, what I consider the quintessential moments, really, because honestly most of those aren't easily capped because they're like whole SEQUENCES that BREAK MY HEART PRECIOUS and require like, context and stuff, but um, have a random collection of DianaCaps anyway!





She is very good at punching.


And practical about one should expect when engaging in tavern brawls in witchsquid hinterlands.


Sometimes she brings gorillas as back-up.

Actually I was originally just going to show the hilarious contextless gorilla-assisted top panel, but I forgot to clip it out and the rest of the page is actually pretty cool and says a fair amount about the character too. So have that also. But mostly, gorillas.


She will headbutt you.


She will also win. But winning might kind of suck.


I wouldn't.


I would.


She knows how to dress for an occasion.


This occasion requires an extraordinary amount of violence.


This occasion requires surrendering to the Hague in full diplomatic attire.


If I were going to war, I would wear this instead of a swimsuit, too.


She likes to hug people. Occasionally it is unsolicited


Occasionally it is a cunning ruse to discuss alien cuisine.


Usually it is full of love.


Sometimes there cannot be hugs.


She is super heroic!


And trained in ambidexterous dual axe technique!


And blind-fighting!


And is fully aware of how to properly address an enemy (a necessary corollary of dressing for an occasion)!


Being a practicing polytheistic superhuman in America can raise complex philsophical issues.


However, as a recent convert to the Hawaiian sky god, Diana promotes religious freedom.


In fact, the more gods with whom she is associated, the more she can defy in a dramatic manner. She has found Zeus is particularly useful for this.


When she defies Athena, Athena usually caves. Diana is a total Daddy's girl.


Oh Superman, I knew I loved you for a reason.


I FIND THIS UTTERLY CHARMING.

But mostly, Diana knows who she is:


And what's important:

Comments

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

omfg she is so AWESOME. what a great picspam!!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

She IS! :D And thank you - glad you enjoyed it!

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

How is she so flawlessly AMAZING? <33333333

*bliss and glee*

One of my favorite pictures of her ever is of her in that yellow ball gown and battle stance and awesome sword. DIANA. DIANAAAAAA.

I know the reboot of her has been very unpopular, and I'm not that fond of it, but it's also brought one of my favorite sequences of her. I should get it and upload it for you, it's beautiful.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I DON'T KNOW BUT I'M VERY GLAD SHE EXISTS. <33333

Yeah, it's such a great picture - it's got such dynamism and sense of movement, plus she just looks tough as nails in a ball gown. I love how later on in that fight, she rips the top of her dress off so she's got her costume plus an awesome floor length skirt on.

I'd love to see the sequence you mention - as I think I mentioned, I didn't like the Straczynski stuff much but I also didn't really stick with it for long (partly probably because I tried to read it before I'd read the Simone and Rucka runs, incorrectly identifying it as a potential jumping on point when I heard about it last year), so I probably never read the bit you're talking about.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

There continues--even in reading these--to be something about the act of reading comics that I find off-putting, but I wish that weren't the case, because she seems fantastic!!! And the whole thing seems clever and witty and just generally great fun. Except...I just really have a hard time reading spatially. Argh!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww, yeah, but I do understand and get it - I do. I struggled to find my footing with reading comics when I first started, and mostly stuck with it because the comic in question was one I really wanted to be reading and it was from the library so I kind of, had a deadline, otherwise I probably would have given up and promised myself to get back to it someday. It really is more different than one might expect. Your eye moves slightly differently over the page - there's the conflict of paying attention to the drawings vs the text. For me it's a great medium now, but I do understand the difficulty it would pose for some. Reading spatially is a good way of putting it - even now I don't think that I'm err, a good native reader of comic books? I still occasionally slip and wonder which panel comes next? But I like the stories enough I keep going.

But yeah, it's a different experience in your mind. So I shall settle for convincing you that she seems fantastic even if I can't also convince you that comics are easy to read. ;)

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that I once wrote a paper about all this. Back when I was doing grad school coursework, I took a course in which we read Art Spiegelman's Maus, and for whatever reason, that's what I decided to write my paper on (even though all the other possibilities were more traditionally written books). And I was particularly interested in the form itself, and the gaps, and I read and cited Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, which is all about how the eye moves over the page, and as I remember, I did pretty well on the paper. But all that has not changed the fact that I still have a rather difficult time reading comics, even if I can intellectually appreciate what they're trying to do. I'm sure practice would help, but feels sort of like a potentially giant hobby, and I'm not really looking to acquire new hobbies right now, especially giant ones. (Other than vidding, apparently.)

On the other hand, Wonder Woman does seem pretty awesome!

(Oh look: appropriate icon is appropriate!)

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Awesome things! She does indeed look very awesome! Wonder Woman > the DA, obviously. I'm intrigued if these aren't even the best bits. If we treat this as my first tiny attempt to read comics, I think I need to practice. I get lost about who's talking to whom and find myself skipping over the pictures to the words, which I think misses half the point. It's such a different medium than what I'm used to, but I am a bit curious about whether I'll get used to it if I give it a good try. If only to see whether I can be convinced to care about gorillas and cake along with mothers and sisters. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad to hear you are intrigued!

Don't worry about the initial unfamiliarity with the format - I went through that too, because it is much more different than you might think, in terms of reading experience. And honestly, to steal a term from pellucid, I don't think I'm a very good "spatial reader" either. I certainly have a tendency to read the words and THEN look at the picture (and probably not as well as I should). I also remember (and honestly still sometimes) getting lost as to who was talking. That's definitely something you get more used to as you get more use to the way that the speech bubbles are drawn. Similarly, it takes a bit of getting used to to grasp how the panels tend to flow when they do nonstandard ones (I mean, it's sensible - you read left to right and top to bottom, but sometimes it can be like the speech bubbles. You have to stop a second and go OH, right, okay, and then keep reading).

What I tend to do is read the words with the picture as background informing how I interpret them, then look at the picture (usually more swiftly than I'm sure the poor artists deserve!) to make sure I was right about what was happening. I think I adopt that method because I'm to damn impatient to make myself read slower but it seems to work for me.

Basically what I'm saying is, I went through that experience too and for me, I definitely did get used to it reasonably quickly. But I probably also had slightly more motivation? I'm definitely really thrilled to hear that this intrigues you though, and honestly, the comic cares more about mothers and sisters too, so you'll probably be okay. ;)

I haven't forgotten about that email I owe you - circumstances sadly dictate it'll probably not arrive til tonight now. ;)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

This post made my evening.

Wonder Woman is so strong and self-assured... I'm not a big reader of comics but if I wanted to see more of her, what would you suggest? Especially if there is something with her and Superman, because the little section with them was adorable. And you're right, that scene where they're eating dinner is utterly charming.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks. :D

I'm not a huge comics reader either, although I am getting more into them these days. But it's great to hear you're interested in reading more of her! :D

Unfortunately, I don't know that much about where the good Superman/Wonder Woman friendship stuff is because I'm not that widely read myself. They have always been really good friends, but most of the two runs of the comic that I've fallen in love with don't feature him heavily. Both of the panels above, though, are from the last issue written by Greg Rucka, in his run (Vol 2 #226) which is kind of a standalone epilogue to his storylines, and is basically a flashback across Wonder Woman's life about her friendship with Superman because in the current timeline she just did something for very good reasons, that devastated him. But you could probably just read it on its own.

As to general reading for her, I guess I'd recommend anything written by either Gail Simone or Greg Rucka.

Wonder Woman Volume 2 ran from issue #1 to issue #226. I would recommend reading issues 195 - 226 as that is Rucka's run and it provides a fairly easy jumping in point. I would include a warning that 195 - 198 are fairly slow and very deliberately takes a stance of talking about how Diana is perceived rather than who she is. This shifts fairly rapidly and ultimately the payoff is worth it, especially in terms of his thematic work with perception vs truth, but I wouldn't blame anyone who read the first four issues for being somewhat underwhelmed having been promised epic battles and tragedy and triumph. The rest of the run, though, is brilliant.

Then Wonder Woman Volume 3 ran from issue #1 - #44, and I'd recommend reading Gail Simone's work on that which is #14 - #44. You could read the first thirteen issues if you want, but you really don't need to. I read them after I read Simone's run and while there were a few things that clarified questions I vaguely had or made me go, "Oh that's what they were referring to" it didn't increase or decrease the enjoyment I had from Simone's run, which was pretty self-contained.

There's a time jump between Volume 2 and Volume 3 that ties into a big universe-spanning, reality-warping event called "Infinite Crisis". And part of the gimmick was that after that all the comic series jumped forward a year to see the characters in new, different situations. I haven't read most of that and it didn't bother me. The two runs work very well as self-contained stories, and basically, the discrepancies between them can generally be explained with the catchall, "there's this missing year; some bad shit went down, don't sweat it."

Unless of course, you want to sweat it. In which case, yay, you obviously like comics a lot now, go read Infinite Crisis then come back and tell me if it was worth it! ;)

Anyway, that was probably so long it was more intimidating than helpful, but I'm really glad you enjoyed the picspam and to hear that you'd like to check out some more about the character. :D

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

If I would like to try reading Wonder Woman comics, where's a good start? (I know nothing about the DCU universe, and the decades of canon in superhero comics are sort of frightening.)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

OOOOH WHAT AN AWESOME QUESTION. ;)

So, the first thing is, yes, I get that the DCU is intimidating. Most of what I know about it is second-hand osmosis information I gleaned from being friends with geeks (well, until reasonably recently that is) and even I feel kind of intimidated at times and am like, "am I supposed to know who this is? Um?"

So the best thing I can suggest doing on this front is just jumping in. I can rec you stuff that's fairly standalone, but I find the best approach to have - at least for me - is not to worry about the decades of continuity, etc., because it's just insane and also, it's constantly being rebooted either partially or completely and it's just an exercise in frustration. I wrote a bit recently about my interactions with the DCU and I mostly view it as like, a mythic cycle and a pantheon of deities about which we tell stories - usually reinventions of the same damn stories.

With that in mind, I recommend Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman Volume 2 195 - 226, and Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman Volume 3 14 - 44. Both tell fairly self-contained stories that I think are enjoyable even if you know not a lot about the DCU as long as you're willing to occasionally go, "okay, that's probably a reference for fans," or, "okay, I'm not sure who this is, but I guess I'm finding out!" It's what I did and it worked out pretty well for me. Occasionally I searched a character out on wiki if I was really curious. That works quite well, though I recommend using regular wikipedia if it has an entry rather than the official DCU wiki because the regular wikipedia will be geared more towards people who don't know that much about the DCU, while the DC wiki is geared towards fans and will give you exhaustive and confusing breakdowns of every version of the character in every parallel dimension or pocket universe or aborted timeline and just...lots of stuff you don't need.

The other thing I'd say is, try to view the Simone run as a thematic and partially literal continuation of Rucka's run, but don't sweat that they do not match entirely. This is because in between the two runs there's a big time jump, a giant DCU crossover event which reshuffled the nature of reality, AND issues 1 - 13 of Wonder Woman Vol. 3 which aren't really that spectacularly great to read, but do contain some more plot. You could read those if you wanted, though it's not necessary - Simone's first story feels like a first story.

As I said, both runs work quite well in isolation, but if you try to connect the two, then you become aware of the missing pieces. My suggestion is to read one or the other (I actually read Simone, then went back and read Rucka even though it's chronologically earlier and it worked fine for me), if you like it, read the author's run you didn't read, then if you're curious, fill in the blanks in the middle! :p

And...that's probably done the opposite of allay your fears about jumping into the DCU.

If that does sound too intimidating, the ENTIRE DCU is being relaunched in September. It's not entirely a reboot as the characters aren't going back to their origin stories and certain key events from their histories are likely to be kept around, but it is a conscious effort to start again at Issue #1 and tell a story that doesn't need you to know what came before.

I don't know if Wonder Woman will be any good (because honestly, right now it isn't, but it's being given to a new person to write), but, um, it's certainly an unintimidating place to start?

Let me know if you want a list of the graphic novels the issues have been collected in or suggestions on where to get hold of them or somesuch.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks for all the detailed input! I'm feeling a bit like the first time when I wanted to watch Doctor Who (talk about massive canon!), and ignoring most of the show's 40 years of history worked just fine in this case, too.

I will make a note of the volumes you mentioned and see if they are available in Germany without too much effort and at reasonable prices. There should be some comic store where I could ask...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hey no trouble, glad it sounds like something you're interested in! :D

Just a quick word on my potentially misleading use of the word "volume" - in comics they use increase the volume number when they start renumbering the comic, which can be for a bunch of reasons not limited to increasing sales, shifting the style, changing the lead character, internal reality shifts in the universe, etc. It gets confusing since sometimes any of the above can happen and they DON'T renumber too. But the point is, with really long-running comics like Wonder Woman, you get volumes that literally last for decades. Wonder Woman Volume 1 lasted from the 40s to the 80s. Wonder Woman Volume 2 lasted from the late-80s to the mid-2000s; they both have hundreds of issues and many graphic novels. Going to the comic store and asking for Wonder Woman Volume 2 is asking for two decades worth of comic!

So, what might help, is a list of the names of the graphic novels the single comics were collected into:

Simone's graphic novels, in order, are titled (with "Wonder Woman:" preceding them), The Circle, Ends of the Earth, Rise of the Olympian, Warkiller and Contagion. Greg Rucka's are called, Down to Earth, Bitter Rivals, Eyes of the Gorgon, Land of the Dead, Superman: Sacrifice (the OMAC Project) (Yes, that's a Superman book, but it's a crossover with Wonder Woman and includes #219 of her comic and is SUPER important for the run, like it has a PIVOTAL moment in it - though there's a really good recap at the start of the Wonder Woman comic in question, you could probably just read that) and Mission's End.

All of Simone's run (Wonder Woman Vol #3 #14 - 44) is also available for digital purchase at comixology.com.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Going to the comic store and asking for Wonder Woman Volume 2 is asking for two decades worth of comic!

Heh! Thanks for pointing this out and giving me the titles of the graphic novels, or I'd probably have made a fool out of myself at the comic bookstore. :)

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

I like when she wears the flappy skirt! It's like Xena! Is that from Rucka or Simone? -- the art is fantastic.

Also I like when she DOES THINGS to ladies! Ahem.

We have been just slammed this week getting ready for our trip/move. Sigh! Miss you and the Cavemen...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Flappy skirt! I think she wears that at various points in both runs, but the one I believe you're talking about is from the Rucka run. Generally I probably prefer the art in the Simone run, but yes, it's a freaking amazing picture there.

I get the whole thing about being busy with trips and moves. ♥ As always no hurry, and you know, Cavemen is a great distraction when it's around but when it's not I appear to be amusing myself by making cracky Wonder Woman vidlets and picspams. :p

Speaking of, would it help in encouraging you to read the Rucka run if I pointed out things like THIS occasionally happened?

(http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i135/beccatoria/wonderwoman/?action=view&current=girlfriend.jpg)

Or, probably more relevantly, THIS?

(http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i135/beccatoria/wonderwoman/?action=view&current=supergayforjulie.jpg)

Rucka's run has no romance subplots for Diana which is interesting and refreshing, but there's a very...understated but consistent, and insistent, queer subtext to a lot of it.

Simone's run is just less understated in general. And on the one hand, it does have a romantic subplot for Diana with a dude (though the ending really doesn't adhere to the traditional narrative for such things and I think it's really more of a c- than b-plot), but on the other it also makes absolutely canonically clear that Diana was raised by a bunch of lesbian co-mommies.

So yeah, basically my pitch is: read Wonder Woman. It is occasionally supergay!

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

HELLO LADIES. I am very in favor of Wonder Woman's consistent queerness (and Amazons in general). Mostly what prevents me from reading comics is the fact that I can only seem to read anything (non-work-related) if its either open in a tab or in my bathroom. I STILL haven't managed to finish the last Harry Potter book. I guess I could get some comics and put them in the bathroom?

Pssst, I think you mean "second wave feminism" in your epic meta post. That's the one from the 1970s.