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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2014 16:01:49 GMT -5
My point is that I don't think Azz is being forced off the book because old fans don't like it. It was my favorite of the New52 superhero books, but it's also the only solo Wonder Woman I've read. That will soon change, though, as this thread led to my ordering the fourth Showcase volume this weekend.
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Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 6, 2014 16:42:21 GMT -5
MRP said: I agree with this, but with one exception: some of the zeitgeist that made Wonder Woman able to sustain two features at once was a consequence of World War II boosterism. Both Wonder Woman and the Sub-Mariner were in part popular because even though they were not Americans, they made America's cause their own. In an inversion of the trope in which godlike Americans go to Europe to save the Allies, they're godlike Allies defending Americans and other Allies-- and Wonder Woman even drapes herself in the stars and stripes to reduce any sense of her "foreign-ness." It may not be a coincidence that neither character has enjoyed anything like the sales/popularity they once enjoyed. Wonder Woman was also at her most popular when she was aimed at kids, the primary purchasers of comic books in the Golden Age. Her fame and the complexity of her original setup could make it possible for her to enjoy success with an older audience-- but it would have to be in a format that modern adults would buy, and that ain't the floppy magazine format. Well, Wonder Woman has had more than one feature at once after World War II. In the 70s and early 80s, she not only held her own solo book but also appeared in Adventure Comics or World's Finest at the same time(Dollar Comics days). Currently, she's appearing in her solo book along with Superman/Wonder Woman and Sensation Comics.
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Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 6, 2014 16:47:15 GMT -5
Ahem, to this post - I find Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman destroyed all my love of her from 1965 to 2011 - At 2011 he took over Wonder Woman and it's took DC Comics 3 years to realize that his books are angering old fans like me and alienating fans that knows her history/lineage/heritage and that bothers me too. When you change a character you got to be careful with it and that's why many fans like me are disgusted by Brian Azz when he took over as the New 52 version of Wonder Woman back in 2011. As far as Dr. Poison - and I will back him up Sales of his book/run are basically the same as most of the runs in the past 10 years and like he said it's basically a wash and I know exactly what he means here. I just can't wait for the Finches take over and restore Wonder Woman back to greatness - I'm a big fan of David Finch's art and Meredith's writing as well. By fan of Meredith's writing, you mean the one published work she had at Zenescope? And Finch's art style will not win back the core of fans who see Wonder Woman as a feminist icon that were driven away by Azz's writing, they will see it as further proof that DC doesn't understand what the appeal of the character is. She is not the pin up girl of the DCU, which is basically how Finch draws her. When I attended a seminar a few years back (about 8-10 months into the new52), held at Wright State university looking at Superman and Wonder Woman as metaphors for the immigrant experience, a panel consisting of Mark Waid, Christy Blanch, and several professors of cultural history, women's studies, ethnic studies, Communications and other media related areas, the one thing that incensed them above all others about Azzarello's run was the change of Wonder Woman's origin. The subtext as they saw it, was that in the clay origin Wonder Woman was something wonderful created by women alone-no man had a hand in the creation of her, and she was something wonderful, powerful, and independent, and that by inserting Zeus as her father the powers that be were saying that they could not accept something created solely by woman as being something good and it had to have a masculine presence in it for it to be palatable for them. Add to that the changing of the Amazons from an idyllic race of females to a race that is based on rapine raids on males to perpetuate their kind is basically the company and the writer demeaning anything that women alone could build and insisting it has to have a male contribution in it to be viable. Now take a writer whose only experience is writing for a company that revels in exploitative covers of fairy tale women and an artist who depicts the icon of femininity, strength and independence as a usually submissive cheesecake pin up and tell me that's going to win that audience back? Yeah, not going to happen. The Finch's will get a sales surge just like Azz and Chiang did, and will drop back tot he same old sales numbers WW has gotten forever by the end of the first year of their run (if it lasts that long without constant fill ins creeping in as Finch never met a deadline he could keep up with). Wonder Woman will continue in that rut until DC/WB finds a way to tap into the zeitgeist that made Wonder Woman a cultural icon that has lasted and resonated for 70+ years and do a run on her that appeals to someone other than those fans looking for either cheesecake fan service or cynical anti-superhero counter-runs on the book. By continuing to ignore those things about the character that are continually celebrated in the wider culture and marketing the book towards the fanboy element of the comic buying subset, they are limiting the success they could achieve with the character. Anyone who watches any part of the Independent Lens documentary on Wonder Woman can see the palpable effect she has had on people... These are people dying to spend their money on a Wonder Woman they could support. Azz wasn't it. The Finches aren't either. The problem is, those customers will not be reached by the direct market, and DC will not commit the resources to find an audience beyond it. They are too concerned with getting a bigger slice of the existing pie from Marvel than growing the pie, so sell Wonder Woman cheesecake or bitter anti-heroine Wonder Woman or Superman's girlfriend Wonder Woman to those already buying their comics instead of creating a product that would succeed in a wider market because that is not the market they service. -M Well, Meredith does have one thing going for her that will win back at least a small portion of the audience that stopped reading the book because they thought Azzarello's run was sexist, she's a woman. Other things that will work in the Finchs' favor are their commitment to integrating Wonder Woman's book deeper into the New 52 universe as evidenced by their first issue which will feature the Justice League and Swamp Thing. They are also bringing back a classic Wonder Woman rogue which as a lot of WW fans excited as the book has been completely devoid of her rogues gallery since Azzarello took over. Is this new rung guaranteed to be a goldmine? I'm not sure yet but I have to say, as someone who's been a fan of Wonder Woman over over 30 years and dropped the book after 6 issues of Azz's run, I haven't seen or read anything from the Finchs about Wonder Woman that I don't like so I'm very optimistic at this point.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 6, 2014 17:03:09 GMT -5
Wonder Woman will continue in that rut until DC/WB finds a way to tap into the zeitgeist that made Wonder Woman a cultural icon that has lasted and resonated for 70+ years and do a run on her that appeals to someone other than those fans looking for either cheesecake fan service or cynical anti-superhero counter-runs on the book. I'm not sure how much that cultural zeitgeist registered past the mid to late 40s. I remember reading any number of times that Wonder Woman survived largely due to DC not wanting to lose her back to the Marston Estate and the fact that she was able to sell underoos and pencil boxes to little girls. Her own book wasn't a particularly good seller since the late 40s. And was often below the cancellation threshold if there hadn't been the outside factors.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2014 19:12:20 GMT -5
Well, Meredith does have one thing going for her that will win back at least a small portion of the audience that stopped reading the book because they thought Azzarello's run was sexist, she's a woman. Bluntly that's a gross oversimplification and inaccurate. One of the panelists was asked if she would be happier if a woman was writing Wonder Woman instead of a man, and she looked at the questioner and said gritting her teeth-"that's one of the most sexist views I've heard in a long time, and probably indicates you don't really understand what feminism is or what independent-minded women might actually want. I want someone who will write good Wonder Woman stories, stories that don't demean woman, and my favorite Wonder Woman stories of all time were written by a man and some of my least favorite by a woman, so I don't care what gender the writer is, I care what the writer does with the character and how they portray them..." -M
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Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 6, 2014 19:44:07 GMT -5
Well, Meredith does have one thing going for her that will win back at least a small portion of the audience that stopped reading the book because they thought Azzarello's run was sexist, she's a woman. Bluntly that's a gross oversimplification and inaccurate. One of the panelists was asked if she would be happier if a woman was writing Wonder Woman instead of a man, and she looked at the questioner and said gritting her teeth-"that's one of the most sexist views I've heard in a long time, and probably indicates you don't really understand what feminism is or what independent-minded women might actually want. I want someone who will write good Wonder Woman stories, stories that don't demean woman, and my favorite Wonder Woman stories of all time were written by a man and some of my least favorite by a woman, so I don't care what gender the writer is, I care what the writer does with the character and how they portray them..." -M I am not saying that I think a woman will automatically be a better writer than Azzarello, just that there is a portion of the Wonder Woman fan base that are hardcore feminists that would prefer a female writer on the title.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2014 20:26:03 GMT -5
Bluntly that's a gross oversimplification and inaccurate. One of the panelists was asked if she would be happier if a woman was writing Wonder Woman instead of a man, and she looked at the questioner and said gritting her teeth-"that's one of the most sexist views I've heard in a long time, and probably indicates you don't really understand what feminism is or what independent-minded women might actually want. I want someone who will write good Wonder Woman stories, stories that don't demean woman, and my favorite Wonder Woman stories of all time were written by a man and some of my least favorite by a woman, so I don't care what gender the writer is, I care what the writer does with the character and how they portray them..." -M I am not saying that I think a woman will automatically be a better writer than Azzarello, just that there is a portion of the Wonder Woman fan base that are hardcore feminists that would prefer a female writer on the title. And that is exactly the misguided sentiment she (the panelist I quoted) was reacting too. The gender of the writer doesn't matter-my wife is a hardcore feminist. the panel of scholars whose sentiment I am expressing to you mere mostly hardcore feminists, and the thing they all said in unison-the gender of the writer is irrelevant to whether they like the book or not, it is the content of the story-they way the character is portrayed that matters to them. They don't want a token woman writer like DC is throwing them a bone (here's your female writer happy now? so shut up already about it is exactly the wrong tact to take) , they want a quality writer that writes a female lead that is inspiring, sympathetic, and worthy of their respect and admiration. -M
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Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 6, 2014 20:45:51 GMT -5
I am not saying that I think a woman will automatically be a better writer than Azzarello, just that there is a portion of the Wonder Woman fan base that are hardcore feminists that would prefer a female writer on the title. And that is exactly the misguided sentiment she (the panelist I quoted) was reacting too. The gender of the writer doesn't matter-my wife is a hardcore feminist. the panel of scholars whose sentiment I am expressing to you mere mostly hardcore feminists, and the thing they all said in unison-the gender of the writer is irrelevant to whether they like the book or not, it is the content of the story-they way the character is portrayed that matters to them. They don't want a token woman writer like DC is throwing them a bone (here's your female writer happy now? so shut up already about it is exactly the wrong tact to take) , they want a quality writer that writes a female lead that is inspiring, sympathetic, and worthy of their respect and admiration. -M I've heard feminists make similar comments to the ones you posted above but I've also seen people say that they would prefer a female writer on Wonder Woman because she is a female hero and they feel that a female writer would better understand the character's POV. Will the book see a huge spike in sales because Meredith is a woman? No, but I can see some fans returning to the book because of it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2014 20:59:04 GMT -5
Well the amazing influx of readers at our shop was that 1 person added it to the pull list for the Finch's first issue, coupled with the 2 existing pull list customers who dropped it with Azz''s last issue, we will be ordering 1 less copy of the Finch run than the Azz run most likely. We haven't sold a (non-pull) copy of Wonder Woman off the rack in almost a year (Superman Wonder Woman has 1 pull and averages 1 copy of the rack a month, Sensation Comics has 0 pulls and sold 1 copy of the rack of issue 1 and 2-and that was me, and I decided 2 was my last issue). We ordered 3 extra copies of the first Finch issue just in case we had a walk up sale, but since I order a few months in advance, my orders for the 2nd and third issue are back down to 2 copies, 1 for the pull, one for the shelf-if by some odd chance we sell the shelf copies of the first issue and it results in a new pull, we can up the order via FOC, but so far for us, the Finch's have lowered our sales not increased them.
Seriously, if your intent was to win back readers alienated by the claims of sexism in Azz's run, why in god's name would you hire a cheesecake style artist and a women who has only written for a company that specializes in cheesecake and exploitative covers to be your creative team?
-M
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Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 6, 2014 21:04:32 GMT -5
Well the amazing influx of readers at our shop was that 1 person added it to the pull list for the Finch's first issue, coupled with the 2 existing pull list customers who dropped it with Azz''s last issue, we will be ordering 1 less copy of the Finch run than the Azz run most likely. We haven't sold a (non-pull) copy of Wonder Woman off the rack in almost a year (Superman Wonder Woman has 1 pull and averages 1 copy of the rack a month, Sensation Comics has 0 pulls and sold 1 copy of the rack of issue 1 and 2-and that was me, and I decided 2 was my last issue). We ordered 3 extra copies of the first Finch issue just in case we had a walk up sale, but since I order a few months in advance, my orders for the 2nd and third issue are back down to 2 copies, 1 for the pull, one for the shelf-if by some odd chance we sell the shelf copies of the first issue and it results in a new pull, we can up the order via FOC, but so far for us, the Finch's have lowered our sales not increased them. Seriously, if your intent was to win back readers alienated by the claims of sexism in Azz's run, why in god's name would you hire a cheesecake style artist and a women who has only written for a company that specializes in cheesecake and exploitative covers to be your creative team? -M I don't think DC hired Meredith to win back readers who dropped the book because of sexism but I do think that might help lure some of those readers back. I think DC hired Meredith for a fresh approach on Wonder Woman as she's very new to the market plus they get the added bonus of her A-list husband drawing the book. Don't get me wrong, David isn't a top favorite of mine but he's decent IMO and his art certainly does sell books. From the interviews I've read/viewed with Meredith, she seems to have done a good chunk of research on Wonder Woman and has a good amount of respect for her history, both of which Azzarello is pretty devoid of so that's a huge plus in my book.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2014 21:14:22 GMT -5
Finch will draw at most 8-9 issues a year as he is slow as hell (hello Forever Evil delays, hello delays on every Marvel book he ever worked on), so for nearly a third of the year you will get fill-in artists or late books, which will sabotage any growth a new direction might gain. And if he is A list, he sure causes a lot of books he works on (Batman Dark Knight comes to mind) to underperform sales-wise. The fact that Finch is one of their A-list guys only speaks to how shallow the talent pool is at DC these days. It smacks of a fill in move, let's bridge the book until the spring when our move to Burbank is complete and our "next big thing" will start, not the beginning of a long term run that will bring the shine back to a character that has lost it's luster. But I think we are at a point where we will just have to agree to disagree on this matter, as we both seem pretty entrenched in our views.
-M
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Post by Dr. Poison on Oct 6, 2014 21:44:29 GMT -5
Finch will draw at most 8-9 issues a year as he is slow as hell (hello Forever Evil delays, hello delays on every Marvel book he ever worked on), so for nearly a third of the year you will get fill-in artists or late books, which will sabotage any growth a new direction might gain. And if he is A list, he sure causes a lot of books he works on (Batman Dark Knight comes to mind) to underperform sales-wise. The fact that Finch is one of their A-list guys only speaks to how shallow the talent pool is at DC these days. It smacks of a fill in move, let's bridge the book until the spring when our move to Burbank is complete and our "next big thing" will start, not the beginning of a long term run that will bring the shine back to a character that has lost it's luster. But I think we are at a point where we will just have to agree to disagree on this matter, as we both seem pretty entrenched in our views. -M Fair enough. I do agree that Finch will need fill-ins most likely but that won't be any different than Wonder Woman has been under Chiang for the last 3 years. Tony Akins or Gordon Sudzuka have filled in for Chiang about every 3 to 5 issues. I'm sure DC has something lined up for Azzarello now that he's done with Wonder Woman so maybe you'll find that book to be filling your Wonder Woman void?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2014 21:59:10 GMT -5
I gave up on Azz's Wonder Woman after he introduced Orion. Azz really has no business writing super-heroes. He hates the genre and most of its thematic underpinnings with a passion, and his disdain shows through on nearly every page. His early Wonder Woman read as a dark mythological drama more than a super-hero book, mostly just super-hero trappings, but he had no viable vision for the Kirby stuff and it dragged down the whole thing for me. As I have said elsewhere, it was a decent book but not a good Wonder Woman story or Wonder Woman book. What I did like was Cliff Chiang's art-it was innovative and had a fresh, strong approach to visual storytelling, something that was visibly lacking in he fill in issues even though the fill in artists were competent (though uninteresting). Unless his next project is something for Vertigo that catches my interest (I have tried and failed to read 100 Bullets on three separate occasions), I will likely pass on whatever his next project is, and if it is a super-hero book it will almost be an auto-pass for me.
-M
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Post by Hoosier X on Oct 20, 2014 15:50:22 GMT -5
I finished Showcase Presents: Wonder Woman, Volume 1, a few days ago and took it back to the library. This black and white volume reprints Wonder Woman #98 to #117 and all stories were written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. So artwise, it's fun to flip through.
But, I have to admit, despite my affection for Silver Age DC, it got to be a CHORE to pick this up every night and read one or two stories before going to bed.
I don't want to just bluntly say: "These are all bad stories!" I've been reading Ross Andru-drawn Wonder Woman stories for a very long time. One of the first Wonder Woman stories I ever read was about an invasion by gorilla aliens. I saw it in a mid-1970s reprint "Super-Heroes Battle Super-Gorilla" that also had a Grodd story, a Titano Story and a "New Look" Batman story with the Caped Crusader fighting "The Living Beast-Bomb."
The gorilla aliens are as goofy as hell, but it's not any dumber than a lot of Silver Age stories, and I love Silver Age DC to pieces! The goofier the better! (To a point.) And since then, I've come across more Wonder Woman stories from this era in various reprints, where she fights giants and aliens and then there's the Wonder Girl stories - Wonder Woman as a teenager - where she has bizarre adventures and sometimes gets enmeshed in a little middle-school drama with Mer-Boy or Bird-Boy.
I've always like these stories just fine. They're not classics. They're certainly not anywhere near as good as Superman from the same era. But they read like formulaic Silver Age DC stories like Flash or Green Lantern or Hawkman, just a slightly different formula, more skewed towards simplistic fantasy instead of simplistic science.
But, you know, that's about 20 Wonder Woman stories (give or take) spread out over 35 years. Cram that into two or three weeks and it gets very repetitive. Steve Trevor ignores Diana Prince and tried to harass Wonder Woman into marrying him. The challenge arrives (be it aliens or giants or a one-time generic villain like Professor Menace) and Trevor is usually mixed up in it and Wonder Woman has to save Trevor (and/or Earth) at the same time. Supporting characters besides Trevor and Queen Hyppolita are very scarce. It's just one amazing feat after another with no meaningful subtext beyond "Wonder Woman is amazing but she can't marry Steve because there is too much comic-book evil in the world."
They introduced Wonder Girl stories in this period, the adventures of Wonder Woman as a girl. And these are sometimes kind of fun and imaginative, even if they are kind of nonsensical. But then they introduce Mer-Boy and then they use him a little too much. I've seen a couple of Mer-Boy appearances before (including one with Bird-Boy that doesn't appear in this volume, and he's even more ridiculous) and he's never bothered me before. But seeing him appear in several Wonder Girl stories in a short period of time, he really got on my nerves. He's pathetic. (He's a male mermaid, you see. It's a race of sea people who live near Paradise Island. There's also bird people but they don't show up until later.)
I've read Silver Age DC comics in this format before, but I didn't really have that much trouble with the Batman volumes or the Aquaman volume, for example. (I really loved the Aquaman volume). Even when they sometimes got really stupid (for example, the Outsider stories in Batman and Detective), there was still a nice variety of dumbness, and I might take a day or two off before continuing. (The only volume I disliked more than Wonder Woman was Showcase Presents: The Superman Family, Volume 1, which is just way too much Jimmy Olsen! I read all the Wonder Woman volume, but I took Superman Family back to the library when I had read just over a third of it.)
As I said, the art is great! But Kanigher was just not a good fit for Wonder Woman, not at all. He seems almost openly contemptuous of the demographic - girls - that he is writing for.
I forgot to mention, Wonder Woman's longtime foe The Angle Man shows up in one story but he doesn't look like any version of The Angle Man I've ever seen! He looks like he thinks he's Napoleon or somebody like that.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Oct 20, 2014 15:55:39 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm with you - Unless their are some hidden classics that I'm missing, I'd call Wonder Woman the weakest of the Silver Age DC superhero titles.
I'm not sure about Kanigher being anti-women, though? Didn't he write most (all?) of the Madmoiselle Marie strips? I really dig those, and they struck me as being quite progressively feminist for the early '60s.
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