I was honestly worried about this book. Extremely so. Azzarello is a good writer, but he's confusing to me when it comes to women. His recent Batman: Knight of Vengeance tie in for Flashpoint, while very good, made Martha Wayne the Joker to the Thomas Wayne Batman. Doctor 13, an amazing series with Cliff Chiang, didn't break ground with Traci 13's portrayal, even if she wasn't horrible in it. For me, this comic assuaged that fear. I'm all for it. The problem is, though, what do we make of the voice of Wonder Woman in the book?
Over on the Robot 6 blog, Caleb Mozzocco bemoans the first issue's portrayal of Wonder Woman for not being a compassionate figure. She is a warrior. She hacks off the arm of a centaur and has an aloofness to her entire character. Caleb, like so many others, is in favor of this book. I can only think of one review I've read off hand which was negative of the book while seeming to understand the mythology involved (I did read one which didn't get that its Apollo in the beginning and thus didn't understand that portion of the plot). But Caleb brings up a very good question of what we're to make of who Wonder Woman is.
We all know who Batman is post-Frank Miller. Somewhere between hero and anti-hero who fights crime while crying out for the love of mommy and daddy, unable to hear back. Whether Morrison or Snyder, he is a fairly univocal character. He doesn't kill. He broods while knowing he needs other people. He's pathologically a crime fighter. Its easy to notice when he's written out-of-character.
Superman is less defined than Batman. He's always optimistic and positive, he doesn't kill, he's extremely compassionate and loves humanity. There have been problems in the DCnU portrayal with whether he's too cocky in Justice League (and why he attacks GL and Batman at all) and then in Action Comics where he is confrontational and fights the rats with guns. But, even then, I do think that Morrison gets a young Superman's voice right. He smiles when he runs, he evacuates a building even if it hurts him, he seems to enjoy himself. Those are Superman to me. There are a lot of people who don't get him, so he's less univocal than Batman, but he's still identifiable.
Wonder Woman struggles here. She's compassionate, yes, but how much of a warrior is she? Really, why doesn't she kill? How does she relate to humanity when she's not as identifiably alien as Martian Manhunter nor as human as the other two in the trinity?
In the Odyssey storyline, which I couldn't stomach for more than four issues, she was portrayed as violent. She broke a counter to strong-arm a pawn shop clerk into purchasing an Amazonian artifact. She was doing it to get money someone who needed it, but the overall tone of the character was naive, young, and she lacked true composure.
During Gail Simone's run on the title prior, the goodness of Wonder Woman was emphasized. Coming off of one of the worst things to happen to the character with Amazons Attack as well as, Simone tried to humanize Wonder Woman and emphasize her genuine love even as an outsider to Man's World. Honestly, my only real problem with Simone's run was the alien quality of Diana. There was an exchange I recall between her and Black Canary where she didn't understand her popularity as a fetish object, which just felt a bit tinny to me. Add to that Diana not really getting courtship rituals in the modern era with Nemesis, it just seemed off to me in that regard. Still a great run and one of the first times I really fell in love with the character.
In the Golden Age, Diana was a sexual character who sought liberation from the puritanical Nazi oppressors. She did this through the qualities Marston saw as most feminine. Submission, tenderness, and peace-loving. Two of the three carry through in most portrayal of the character. I'd argue she's a bit too submissive most of the time, but that's another issue since I think Wonder Woman is, of all of the major characters in either company, the best to explore sexuality with due to her origins as a character and I'd like to see her as a sexual dominant as well as pansexual, that's another essay.
In other media, he portrayal in the recent DTV animated movie was off to me because of the gendered violence and that she was a bit too precious. The way she killed Ares in the film also just struck me wrong because of the whole fact Wonder Woman's killing one of her own Gods (this is another issue, though, because I think the Justice League should be battling Ares in addition to just Wonder Woman). In the Justice League TV show, she was kind of bland, honestly. In the face of strong personalities from Hawkgirl, John Stewart, Martian Manhunter and the Flash, she didn't have a great voice of her own. She was a cipher. A necessary pretty face for Batman to leer at from the shadows.
So, who is Wonder Woman in Azzarello's hands? A warrior, first and foremost, but someone who is willing to get out of bed and go to war if someone comes to her and they are under threat. I like this Wonder Woman. She feels, to me, like someone who knows she can kick your ass while, at the same time, being truly willing to do anything for someone who comes to her for help. This panel is, in my opinion, one of the best places where we get her voice under Azzarello:
She will make certain you are safe. Absolutely. She is a warrior, yet she is infinitely compassionate to those who seek her help.
There's still at least one more issue before I'm certain, but Azzarello's Wonder Woman is new yet familiar. She is a violent warrior but she loves life and seeks to protect those who need it. She's a hero.
Honestly, the more I work on this the more I think the person who I'm more worried about seeing an extended take on the character is Geoff Johns. Who she will be in the Justice League series is still up in the air. But here she's a fierce warrior who, the second Zola asks if she's going to kill her, Diana puts her down and realizes she must protect her.
Its nice to see a positive portrayal of women in comics with a week like this. I look forward to this second issue more than any other so far, if only to see how Azzarello and Chiang continue to develop her.
