The Big Three

No, not the car companies. DC's Big Three. Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman. Each of the three are going through some Big Events right now, because comics companies love Big Events, and for all their whining to the contrary, so do fans. Here's a rundown of what the stars of the DCU are going through right now.

Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian

Featuring in part the introduction of Genocide, a dark monster created by an alliance of Wonder Woman's enemies, Simone's Wonder Woman story deals with the gods of Olympus, fearing that their champion has failed and abandoned them, sending a new champion - the Olympian. Simone's greatest strengths are often in character moments, moreso than in action, and the same could be said of Lopresti, but if I have high hopes for this book despite the occasionally schizophrenic tone of the series, it's because it hasn't been hyped to oblivion and turned into a 17 part 4 book event. The first issue was solid-but-not-spectacular, and we'll see how it turns out in the end.

Batman: R.I.P., Last Rites and Battle for the Cowl

Batman: R.I.P. was a competent, enjoyable non-event that DC blew way out of proportion. As a capstone to Morrison's run on Batman, it was really quite good. A metatextual mystery playing on the expectations of fanboys and the conventions of the industry? Lots of fun. As a line-wide event, it sucked. The tie-ins were unimpressive and didn't actually 'tie in' to anything, and the upcoming Battle for the Cowl - an editorially mandate with a novice writer at the helm - doesn't look promising at all. That said, Batman & Son -> The Black Glove -> R.I.P. was an enjoyable run on Batman, and the current Last Rites storyline that follows it up features superstars like Grant Morrison, Denny O'Neil, and Neil Gaiman, so it should be pretty quality.

Superman: 100,000 Kryptonians

No, that art is not official and has nothing to do with the story. According to the board I found it on - You'll All Be Sorry @ CBR - it's some graffiti from Dusseldorf. I just think it's cool.

Anyway, 100K Kryptonians features the return of... can you guess?... 100,000 Kryptonians to Earth, and the subsequent shenanigans. Fan favorite writer Geoff Johns is helming the event from Action Comics, while a personal favorite of mine, James Robinson, is running things on Superman, and relative newcomer Sterling Gates is taking control of Supergirl. Those three books form the core of the title, but a few one-shots have already been released featuring such stars as Jimmy Olson and the Manhattan Guardian. Response hasn't been ridiculously positive to the series, but I've heard few complaints from those reading the arc.

*

And that's that. But, I'd hate to leave our Marvel fans with no good news, so I shall point out that X-Men Noir #1 came out last week to impressive reviews and surprisingly good sales (we're sold out and back-ordered, curse the souls of everyone alive), and Spider-Man Noir #1 hits next week, with Incognito coming up soon as well, making this month an awesome month for Marvel, in my book.

Finally, my first semester of grad school is finished, and I have resolved the issues with my 'net provider, so I return you to your regularly scheduled programming!

DCU Preview: Wonder Woman, Agent Diana Prince and Lasso of Truth, Gift from the Gods

So, as you've probably heard, this week we'll be seeing the last team of the set - Themyscira! Now, Geoff Johns had nothing to do with this team, and this team almost exclusively. No, you have Trinity, Wonder Woman, and (shudder) Amazons Attack! to thank for the long-overdue inclusion of Wonder Woman and her Amazons into the VS System.

Now, the Amazons of Themyscira in the comics have a few things they focus on more than anything else. Equipment and Locations. I mean, their forges, libraries, embassies are all vital to Themysciran culture. They've created spectacular armor and weapons. The Amazons are a force to be reckoned with, as we saw when they invaded America rather out of the blue in Amazons Attack. Equipment. Locations. Armies. Does this sound at all like a team from the past?

Maybe this'll jog your memory...



Now, Wonder Woman has a few obvious downsides on Ahmed. She isn't going to fix up your row to perfection in the middle of the combat phase. She requires a discard. And she'll only find locations with terraform. However, simply reprinting such a genre-defining card as Ahmed seemed like a bad ideas, and her downsides are negligible when compared to her upsides. First, she doesn't share the King downfall, and that's a pretty big one. Second, and perhaps most importantly - Wonder Woman is a legend, and as such, has a suite of legend cards that simply aren't available to Ahmed.

An example? Fine.



The Lasso of Truth is one of the Signature pieces of the Wonder Woman mythos. Not all of the pieces are in this set, but we felt that this one was the most important, and so we've got it here, and it's a doozy.

Now, first things first. It costs 1 to recruit - unless you're putting it where it belongs, on Wonder Woman. Anyone can use the Lasso, but no one can use it quite like her. So, on most people, it's a sacrifice. It's powerful, but is it worth a resource point? On Wonder Woman, however, it costs 0, but it's also harder to blow up, as much equipment hate only hits cost 0. This card makes Wonder Woman a BIG target, as an opponent must stun Wonder Woman if they want to have any hope of getting their effects into play, and we'll see that Wonder Woman becomes increasingly harder to stun as the game goes on. Cards like Carrying the Torch make it so much more potent, giving access to effects that allow you to recover Wonder Woman with ease, slowing your opponent's game down drastically.

So, that's the introduction to Themyscira. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Legendary, pt II

Tomorrow there's a Build A Legend (Silver) Tournament I'm attending. Not a big one, but I still had to build something. I like my Invisible Woman deck, but it's certainly nothing special, and my complete apathy for the characters and teams involved means I definitely won't be sticking with it.

So, for all of you, here's a drastically inferior (right now) deck, the one that I'll be taking with me.

Legendary (pt 2): Beast Boy/Wonder Woman
1
3x Ray Palmer <> The Atom, World's Smallest Hero
4x Aztek, Champion of Quetzalcoatl
1x Elasti-Girl, Rita Farr

2
1x The Chief, Niles Caulder
3x Red Tornado, Elemental Andriod
2x Adam Strange, Champion of Rann

3
4x Beast Boy, Garfield Logan
2x Mento, Steve Dayton

4
2x Negative Man, Larry Trainor
2x Wonder Woman, Ambassador of Peace

5
3x Robotman, Cliff Steele

6
2x Beast Boy, Freak of Nature

7
3x Wonder Woman, Founding Member

PT
4x The Multiverse, Team-Up
3x Forbidden Loyalties, Team-Up
2x Headstrong Charge
4x Call of the Wild
4x Fury of the Amazons
4x Misfits
3x Freak Out

Location
3x Dayton Manor

Equip
3x Lasso of Truth

Now, as I always say, I only build with what I have, normally. No Enemy for me, and I only currently have 2 Mobilize, so that's not the best option. Even so, I think that there are a few changes I would definitely make. First, axe the 1-drops. I generally just don't have much use for the little bastards, other than an early team-up and discard fodder. They're not bad...I'd just rather put more 2, 3, and 4 drops in their place. That's all I'll go with for now, but there are improvements to be made. It's also 62 cards, but that's the price I pay for wanting to do a dual-legend deck while lacking one or two cards. Also, you'll notice 1-ofs like The Chief...yeah, in two boxes of DCL, I pulled 1 Chief, two Mento, 1 Elasti-Girl, 1 Dayton Manner, and 14 Robotman. Friends traded me the rest of the Doom Patrol stuff.

On a decent draw, turn 7 will often be a 15/15-19/19 Beast Boy, a 13/13 Robotman, and a Wonder Woman with a couple Fury of the Amazons. And that should be the ballgame.

In the Know

Because I like to keep you all 'in the know', as it were, when it comes to comic books, here's something that people are getting up in a bunch about.

http://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/31761.html

If you're curious about that journal, it belongs to Greg Rucka, an extremely well-respected comic book writer. I heard about it through scans_daily, which is THE place to go if you're curious about any sort of comic books. It's a good place to be.

Anyway, chime in with your opinion if you want. I think that it was a remarkably short-sighted move on DC's part, though I don't think it was a calculated one by playboy. DC really does need to get on top of the ball with Wonder Woman and figure out what the hell they want to do with her. Because half the time, they bitch and whine about not having enough 'positive female role-models' and how they 'can't seem to hold onto female readers'. And half the time they treat Wonder Woman as a fetish model and think that if they just porn her up enough, she'll be popular.

You might guess which I think Wonder Woman should be.

New School: Wonder Woman

When people talk about comic books, there are a few characters that are always mentioned. Spider-Man is the Marvel stand-out: everyone knows who he is, and most people geeked out to him at some point in their lives. He's the big guy for Marvel - yeah, a lot of people know who Captain America, the Hulk, and Wolverine are, and a few others, but none of them have the power over your average American that Spidey does.

DC is fortunate in that they have three such individuals: Batman (and, by extension, Robin), Superman, and finally, Wonder Woman.

Now, Spidey, Superman, and Batman all have had some good runs on their books, created memorable stories. People know what they're about.

Wonder Woman, on the other hand? ...Amazons Attack. ...Love and Murder. It's stories like those that have given Wonder Woman a bad name recently. More than that, it's that no one knows who she is. I've really only read one Wonder Woman run that I really liked: Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman, for me, nailed a lot of things about the character that I thought had been missing. But, in the end, Rucka had to leave, and she was back to the status quo of terrible-bordering-on-nonsensical writing...



So, when fan-favorite writer Gail Simone decided to take on Wonder Woman, a lot of people were pretty happy to hear the news.

Her first issue, Wonder Woman #14, was okay. Not spectacular, not amazing, and not what the character needed, it was still a step up from the average Wonder Woman story. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep buying it, but Gail Simone is on a very short list of writers who gets 4 issues on anything they do. If I don't like it after that, I'll occasionally check scans to see if it's picked up, but she always gets 4 issues.

Wonder Woman #15 came out on December 12th, and it's in the run for my favorite single issue of the month. Gail Simone was telling three different stories in the issue, and shockingly, they were ALL good. She made me care about characters in four pages that I had never cared about before; I learned things about Amazon culture. Oh, yeah - Amazons have a culture now! There were super-intelligent gorillas, a whole crockpot of gods, Wonder Woman has a new patron deity, and Hippolyta is fighting a guerilla war against super-powered Nazis who have come to take over Paradise Isle. Think about that: Wonder Woman's mom killing super-Nazis...



It's important, however, to pay attention to what Hippolyta is saying, because it looks like it's going to be an important part of Wonder Woman in Gail Simone's run: Amazons are NOT afraid of bloodshed. They are NOT afraid to kill. BUT: they don't want to. They want to forgive you, if you'll just let them. They want to help you. If you won't let them, if you want a fight, they'll jump in without hesitation, without shedding a tear. But they want what's best. Even for their worst enemies. The issue is worth buying alone for Wonder Woman's scene with Captain Nazi, in which she explains the Amazon philosophy for such matters.

I think that's what sets her apart, to me. At her best, Wonder Woman is more dedicated to truth than Batman or Superman ever will be. She may not be as smart as Batman, or have the senses of Superman to allow her to discern truth...but when it comes down to it, it will be Wonder Woman who discovers the Truth. The motive. She'll understand. She'll fight with the best of them, but where Batman would despise you and Superman wouldn't get why you were doing it...Wonder Woman would understand why you were doing it, and if you wanted, she would help you undo it, too. You would still be punished, because punishment is important to learning, but she would help you make things right.

Anyway, what this all boils down to is this: give Wonder Woman a shot. She's got a good writer, finally, and the arc is literally just now starting. It's a great place to jump on, even if you have no familiarity with the character, and Gail Simone is one of the classiest writers working today.

And if you need just a little more convincing...



Yes, Wonder Woman is currently living with a group of super-intelligent apes. Go buy it.

Reading List

Greg Rucka has written some wonderful Wonder Woman stuff. This is the first arc in his respected run.

Alternatively, DC publishes archives of some of the older stories. I can't speak for their quality, but it's certainly a place to start.

Finally, Gail Simone is currently writing a fantastic Wonder Woman title.