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Post by sabongero on Jul 2, 2020 16:56:56 GMT -5
Hopefully, Crimebuster doesn't mind me bumping up this thread of his. I really enjoyed reading the synopsis and commentary on this George Perez run on Wonder Woman volume 2. If he decides to continue it, it would be wonderful. |
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
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Post by Crimebuster on Jul 3, 2020 12:11:59 GMT -5
Hopefully, Crimebuster doesn't mind me bumping up this thread of his. I really enjoyed reading the synopsis and commentary on this George Perez run on Wonder Woman volume 2. If he decides to continue it, it would be wonderful. I don't mind it being bumped at all! I'm not sure if or when I'll ever get back to it, though. It's funny, but even though these issues are just objectively better than the Bronze Age ones pretty much across the board, I find reading and reviewing them to be more of a challenge. Because they have so much more going on, they require more of an emotional and intellectual investment, and I kind of got burnt out just reading them. Whereas the crappy Bronze Age runs of Wonder Woman were so dumb I could just plow through them without much effort. Because they weren't asking nearly as much of the reader as the good issues by Perez. I haven't even finished reading his run, it just eventually made me kind of tired! |
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Post by rberman on Jul 3, 2020 17:22:53 GMT -5
Wonder Woman #1 written by George Perez and Greg Potter, art by George Perez and Bruce Patterson Synopsis: ...Instead of leading mankind, though, the Amazons retreat from mankind, until at last Hercules arrives with an army to challenge them. Unbeknownst to the Amazons, Hercules has been tricked by the lies of Ares into hating them. He pretends to want peace, but when he meets with Hippolyte, he drugs her wine. He and his men capture and enslave the Amazons. Athena visits Hippolyte and reminds her of their duty - to be peaceful ambassadors. She promises to aid them if they return to this path instead of the path of seclusion they had chosen. Hippolyte frees herself and the other Amazons, but in a vengeful rage, they reject Athena's words and slaughter their captors. Hippolyte finally convinces them of the error of their ways, but one of their number, Antiope, rejects Athena and leaves to pursue vengeance. As punishment for their mistakes, Athena sends the Amazons to an island to act as jailers for a deadly, secret menace that lurks there. Hey, I didn't realize this thread was here in the archives! That's great; I had thought about tackling this myself at some point, so I'll just springboard off of what's here already. Perez is fleshing out (in terms of more detail as well as more flesh) the original version of this origin story, which appeared as a small-font text block in All-Star Comics #8 (1941).    Ancient versions of the tale make Heracles the hero, retrieving the girdle of Hippolyta as the ninth of his penitential labors: Then he went through the waves of heaving Euxine against the mounted host of Amazons dwelling round Maeotis, the lake that is fed by many a stream, having gathered to his standard all his friends from Hellas, to fetch the gold-embroidered raiment of the warrior queen, a deadly quest for a girdle. And Hellas won those glorious spoils of the barbarian maid, and safe in Mycenae are they now. ("Herakles" by Euripydes, circa 412BC, translated by E.P. Coleridge) when Melanippe, daughter of Ares, had, gone forth, the hero Heracles caught her by ambuscade and Hippolyte gave him her glistening girdle as her sister's ransom, and he sent away his captive unharmed... ("Argonautica" by Appolonius Rhodius, circa 250BC, translated by R.C. Seaton) Heracles then received a Command to bring back the girdle of Hippolytê the Amazon and so made the expedition against the Amazons. Accordingly he sailed into the Pontus, which was named by him Euxeinus, and continuing to the mouth of the Thermodon River he encamped near the city of Themiscyra, in which was situated the palace of the Amazons. And first of all he demanded of them the girdle which he had been commanded to get; but when they would pay no heed to him, he joined battle with them. Now the general mass of the Amazons were arrayed against the main body of the followers of Heracles, but the most honoured of the women were drawn up opposite Heracles himself and put up a stubborn battle. The first, for instance, to join battle with him was Aella, who had been given this name because of her swiftness, but she found her opponent more agile than herself. The second, Philippis, encountering a mortal blow at the very first conflict, was slain. Then he joined battle with Prothoê, who, they said, had been victorious seven times over the opponents whom she had challenged to battle. When she fell, the fourth whom he overcame was known as Eriboea. She had boasted that because of the manly bravery which she displayed in contests of war she had no need of anyone to help her, but she found her claim was false when she encountered her better. The next, Celaeno, Eurybia, and Phoebê, who were companions of Artemis in the hunt and whose spears found their mark invariably, did not even graze the single target, but in that fight they were one and all cut down as they stood shoulder to shoulder with each other. After them Deïaneira, Asteria and Marpê, and Tecmessa and Alcippê were overcome. The last-named had taken a vow to remain a maiden, and the vow she kept, but her life she could not preserve. The commander of the Amazons, Melanippê, who was also greatly admired for her manly courage, now lost her supremacy. And Heracles, after thus killing the most renowned of the Amazons, and forcing the remaining multitude to turn in flight, cut down the greater number of them, so that the race of them was utterly exterminated. As for the captives, he gave Antiopê as a gift to Theseus and set Melanippê free, accepting her girdle as her ransom. ("The Library of History" by Diodorus Siculus cica 80BC, translated by C.H. Oldfather) The ninth labour he enjoined on Hercules was to bring the belt of Hippolyte. She was queen of the Amazons, who dwelt about the river Thermodon, a people great in war; for they cultivated the manly virtues, and if ever they gave birth to children through intercourse with the other sex, they reared the females; and they pinched off the right breasts that they might not be trammelled by them in throwing the javelin, but they kept the left breasts, that they might suckle. Now Hippolyte had the belt of Ares in token of her superiority to all the rest. Hercules was sent to fetch this belt because Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, desired to get it. So taking with him a band of volunteer comrades in a single ship he set sail... Having put in at the harbor of Themiscyra, he received a visit from Hippolyte, who inquired why he was come, and promised to give him the belt. But Hera in the likeness of an Amazon went up and down the multitude saying that the strangers who had arrived were carrying off the queen. So the Amazons in arms charged on horseback down on the ship. But when Hercules saw them in arms, he suspected treachery, and killing Hippolyte stripped her of her belt. And after fighting the rest he sailed away and touched at Troy.
("The Library" by Pseudo-Appolodorus, 2nd century AD, translated by J.G. Frazer) ...wrought on the shield was one in beauty arrayed as of a Goddess, even Hippolyta. The hero by the hair was dragging her from her swift steed, with fierce resolve to wrest with his strong hands the Girdle Marvellous from the Amazon Queen, while quailing shrank away the Maids of War. ("The Fall of Troy" by Quintus Smyrnaeus, 4th century AD, translated by A.S. Way) [He slew Hippolyte, daughter of Mars and Queen Otrera, and took from her the belt of the Amazon Queen; then he presented Antiopa as captive to Theseus. ("Fables" by Hyginus, 1st century AD, translated by Mary Grant) OK, maybe not such a hero by modern standards. At any rate, we can see that Perez's roofie version elaborates on Moulton's "trickery" version. Hercules is bested by Hippolyta in direct combat, so he drugs her drink, and then he and his men "ravage" the Amazon women before he makes off with her magic girdle.   Anyway, I appreciated the "Classics Illustrated" approach of setting up Themiscyra from the beginning before dropping Diana into it. |
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Post by rberman on Jul 4, 2020 14:10:36 GMT -5
Wonder Woman #2written by Greg Potter and George Perez, art by George Perez and Bruce Patterson Synopsis: We meet Steve Trevor, an Air Force officer and Vietnam vet who has been sidelined due to blowing the whistle about his warmongering superiors. One of those dudes sends him out on a secret mission. Steve is uneasy, and we quickly learn he has reason to be - the general is actually a pawn of Ares.... Hermes alerts Diana to a danger back home. It's Steve Trevor! Or, more to the point, it's his co-pilot, who is a pawn of Ares. The whole mission was a ruse to get the plane inside Paradise Island's defenses. The co-pilot drops a giant bomb on the city, intending to destroy all the Amazons! But Diana shows up, flies in, grabs the bomb and hurls it away just in time. The plane then crashes in the ocean. Diana dives in and rescues Steve... Notes: It's really jarring just how much story Perz and Potter and packing into these comics. Perez is doing 10+ panels per page at some points here. As a result, they can really fit in a ton of story into a short space without it feeling rushed. Overstuffed, maybe a little. But hardly rushed, and this is about as far from decompression as you can get. Why readers these days settle for 1/10th the story for five times the price is beyond me. And the original version was even more compressed, fitting Perez' first two issues into a nine page story which included three densely plotted pages of Steve Trevor trailing Nazi spies, getting captured and strapped into a prototype robot plane which the Nazis remotely command to bomb an American base, wresting control of the plane from the Nazis, and trailing a Nazi plane far out to see until he runs out of gas and crashes on Paradise Island. Whew!  Steve Trevor was way more of an action hero rather than a damsel in the original version. Also, he definitely set foot on Paradise Island, and nobody cared. Someone asked in another thread (The New Teen Titans retrospective?) why one of the Amazons wore glasses in Bronze Age Themiscyra stories. As in Bronze Age comic book stories featuring Themiscyra, though I guess Themiscyra is kinda Bronze Age-meets-Buck Rogers itself. Turns out the spectacled Amazon was present from the get-go, as the resident doctor who runs the Purple Ray.  In the Golden Age version, both Aphrodite and Athena appear to Hippolyta. Ares is not specifically mentioned as a threat, but soon enough he would be a recurring Wonder Woman threat, operating from his base on (of course) Mars.  The first "bullets and bracelets" challenge occurs after the theopany in the Golden Age version, with Diana secretly entering a contest to see which Amazon gets to become Wonder Woman. I wonder whether a domino mask would be sufficient to hide my identity from my own mother.  |
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