Wonder Woman's Extreme Makeover

I’m not sure what’s worse: a retcon like Spider-Man’s One More Day or an extreme makeover of a character.  Is it laziness on the part of the editorial staff or is it a brilliant shot in the dark?  I’d be willing to go with the latter if there weren’t quite so many retcons and makeovers.  The latest high profile makeover causality is Wonder Woman.  Stars J. Michael Straczynski and Jim Lee gave our favorite Amazon her first makeover in 23 years since Crisis on Infinite Earths.  In that one, her history was rewritten but she kept her costume– now the costume and the history are very different.

They’ve done away with the iconic red and gold bustier, star spangled shorts, and red heeled boots.  Now a younger Diana Prince sports a leather jacket with epaulets, low heels, and leather pants.  They let her keep the tiara and the lasso– otherwise we’d just confuse her with Donna Troy.  The outfit is slightly reminiscent of Storm’s depowered mohawk punk days when she was leader of both the X-Men and the Morlocks.

With issue 600 of Wonder Woman, Straczynski has placed Diana in an alternate timeline where Paradise Island was destroyed twenty years ago, Diana has amnesia about the real timeline, and has she’s been living on the run in Detroit.  Ok, its not Detroit but its some as yet unnamed rough urban intercity environment.  She goes to visit the Oracle for advice.  I was waiting for Morpheus to show up and tell her she’s in the Matrix.  I didn’t hate the story as much as I expected. I do want to know, has everyone else in the DC main timeline realized that Wonder Woman is gone?  If she’s in some sideline reality, what happened to recent events she had a hand in like– Blackest Night and Final Crisis?  Retcon nightmare.

I understand why companies with large decade sprawling comic book multiverse view makeovers and retcons as options. I just wish they weren’t as eager to pull the trigger.  I know all the economic reasons for why these things happen:

(1) They want to capture readers who may have been introduced to the character by a movie, so the logic says they have to streamline the established cannon and history to make it digestible.  Or they want to do a movie, so they remake the character entirely.

(2) They get a hot shot creative team on a sagging book.

(3) Sometimes they just have too, they’ve written themselves into a corner and its the fail safe.

As much as I rail against Brian Michael Bendis and his neverending crossover events at Marvel over the last ten years– at least he’s attempting to break new ground and not retconning everything.  I haven’t enjoyed all of it, but Avengers Dissembled, Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Dark Reign kept most of Marvel’s Silver Age continuity intact.  As a fan I appreciate that.  Readers were not asked wipe the slate clean (unlike Marvel’s failed “Heroes Reborn” storyline).

DC took a chance with Batman, by killing Bruce Wayne two years ago.  Sure they’re bringing him back, but at least they moved the story forward and tried to see what the supporting cast (Dick Grayson, Damion Wayne, Barbara Gordon, etc) would do in Bruce’s absence.  The same with Captain America, we got to see Bucky Barnes ascendancy and how that affected the greater Marvel Universe.  Now that Steve Rogers is back, he hasn’t picked up the shield.  Hopefully it stays that way.

OK enough about costumes and retcons, what did I read last month?

Great Reads

Turf #2

After a six week wait, issue two is finally out.  Its still 1929 and we find that the corrupt NYC cops are fed up with the Dragonmir Clan running amuck and taking out rival gangsters.  They plan to take out Dragonmir, unfortunately the cops don’t know the Clan is composed of vampires.  Meanwhile, Eddie Falco a rival gangster has discovered they are vampires and escapes with his life, but loses most of his crew in a battle royale.  Luckily, Falco has befriended the alien smugglers who crash landed on Coney Island back in issue one.  And now we wait another six weeks for issue three, can’t figure out why since Jonathan Ross recently quit his day job with the BBC.

Good Read

New Avengers #1 (vol. 2)

I guess its standing room only at Avengers Tower, so a handful of the team will work out of the newly restored Avengers Mansion.  Luke Cage will lead his own team with Dark Reign leftover Victoria Hand acting as liaison or chaperon or something.  Not sure what will distinguish this book from the main title since Wolverine and Spider-Man are on both teams.  It does allow, Bendis to continue playing with the Doctor Strange and Doctor Voodoo subplots he had in volume 1 of the New Avengers.

Batgirl 11

Still fighting people infected by a techno-virus in Gotham. Stephanie is trying to find the kidnapped Barbara Gordon. So she resorts to HALO (High Altitude-Low Opening) jumping at 45,000 feet?  Hmm.  I’d buy that Bruce or Dick can pull that off, but if Stephanie is so new to hero game, when did she find time for her certification in military free fall?

Disappointing Reads

I stopped reading Iron Man Legacy, so I didn’t really read a horrible book from last month.  The ones I’m highlighting were just underwhelming.

Batman 600

Grant Morrison returns.  Hmm.  Well I was really happy with Tony Daniel’s take on Batman.  As far as the story.  I was confused.  I need to read it again.  Its a time travel story with multiple Batmans.

Superman 700

Ok so I missed the whole New Krypton storyline.  As far as I can make out this is Straczynski putting the Man of Steel on a new path.  So Superman ignored his obligations to the “small people” of Earth when dealing with the New Krypton crisis.  Now he’s back on Earth seeking some greater perspective.  So he starts walking (kinda like Caine from Kung Fu).  Not flying. This leads into the next issue entitled, “Grounded”.

Avengers 2

A little bored with this one.  The art is great, reminds me of Romita’s run on Uncanny X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man back in the late 1980s.  Having a literal mob of Avengers is unwieldy from a storytelling standpoint.  And shoehorning Marvel Boy into the story was silly.  The Avengers need a time machine to deal with Kang… so they go find Marvel Boy?  There are two people on Earth with functioning time machines, Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom.  Reed is a natural because he’s actually related to Kang /Immortus  and he’s local he’s in Manhattan!  The fight with Wonder Man was nice and then ending with Apocalypse will make me come back next month.