Wonder Woman by John Byrne Part 1

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I'm gonna post until I fall asleep, so don't freak out if I stop in the middle of an issue or something like that

Dammit I was just waiting for the 6th to coincide with the release of the hardcover

Or at least that's my excuse

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>>92958382
lol it's okay, this kinda falls into my wheelhouse anyway

This was also the first WW story I ever read so there's that too

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I really do not care for the way Byrne inks himself.
Austin/Byrne > Byrne solo

>>92958382
>to coincide with the release of the hardcover
It's already out, that's the release date for bookstores.

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It just looks way too busy for my liking, also digital coloring doesn't do his art any favors

>>92958382
Hey isn't the two of you in the same thread like matter/antimatter

>>92958478
IMO only the beginning is straight-up bad, the rest is just disappointing and mediocre

It's basically a huge excuse for Byrne to do a bunch of retcons to the Demon and New Gods and reintroduce Silver Age Wondie stuff

Which of course I like most of the stuff he brought back but it's clear he did it because he couldn't really think of any stories he wanted to tell.

Even though Cassie sucks at the start by the end when you have Donna, Cassie and Artemis all hanging out they're all really lovable

>>92958580
FUCK

>>92958601
Art also gets better by the end, fortunately.

>>92958633
Saxet is the natural cosmic response to Texas

It's like how Galactus is necessary to cull planets or something. If there are good Wondie stories, there must also be bad.

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This is also kinda timely with the release of the movie because Diana becomes the Goddess of Truth and if you saw the movie, well, you know what I'm talking about...

>>92958601
>digital coloring
This was also 1995, it was not a smooth transition. Image had a near stranglehold on the good early digital colorists.

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My biggest problem with Gateway, other than being pointless, is that it's ugly as fuuuuuuuuck.

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Diana needs to work on her Matches Malone act.

>>92958633
If you ask one anon when Saxet was running the Azz stuff, they are the same person, but so mentally fractured that they don't know it, and have constant arguments with each other.

>>92958910
America's first entirely CGI city!

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>>92959118
Isn't that a Shyamalan movie or something

>>92958910
I'm actually okay with Diana not having a designated home city. It's once again something that sets her apart from other capes, something that is uniquely hers.

It's like that surprisingly awesome tagline from the film ads.
>Metropolis has Superman.
>Gotham has Batman.
>And now The World has... Wonder Woman.
That just speaks for itself.

>>92958910
It's so fucking pointless, and so is replacing the Kapatelises with the Sandsmarks, although Byrne Cassie is surprisingly cute, interesting, and honestly drawn her age.

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>>92959315
Agreed, the idea of Wonder Woman "patrolling" a city feels off to me. Heck, even Superman helps out in other countries once in a while.

Diana patrolling an american city feels off because SHE'S NOT AMERICAN!

She's... what are her people called, anyway? Whatever. She's basically a tourist in America. So that's why her acting globally makes more sense.

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>>92959489
She's an ambassador of peace, ergo, she should be spreading peace throught the world. Her settling down in a city like Boston is okay as a place where she can rest her head and shit, but she should definitely be a global hero.

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Now all Darkseid needs to do is cackle evily and this will become the most cliche ending I've seen in a comic book in a while.

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>this cover
wew

>>92959665
How is Byrne's "Jack Kirby's Fourth World"?

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Speaking of cackling evily, how fucking hilarious was it when Ludendorff and Dr. Poison did that in the movie? Seriously cracked me up shit was so cartoonish. I loved it.

>>92959748
Wasn't Byrne responsible for that stupid Godwave shit? I don't think he really gets the New Gods

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>>92959748
Never read it personally, his WW turned me off the rest of his 90's work like Fourth World, OMAC and Namor, which I heard is mostly about fixing a dangling Iron Fist plot thread than actually fucking Namor.

>>92959883
I have no idea. I actually have not done a lot of reading on The Fourth World in general, but am looking to start soon.

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>>92959883
I've heard Byrne actually doesn't care for Kirby one bit despite working on his characters over and over again, I really don't get it

>>92959784
There were some fun old-adventure-movie scenes in it. I liked the one where Steve impersonates a German officer.

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But yes, Byrne is responsible for the Godwave, from that godawful event Genesis, an event so bad it was retconned out of continuity as soon as it wrapped up.

>>92959784
I've heard they throw a single gas mask into the room to make all the guys fight over it. That's kind of inspired.

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For some reason Byrne really likes his heroes ripping metal apart like it's paper

>>92959996
Well, Byrne did write that "Big Barda is mind-controlled into doing stripteases and almost sleeps with Superman" storyline. Barda's personality was based off Kirby's wife, and Byrne and Kirby were apparently feuding over creator's rights at that time.
http://comicsalliance.com/superman-sex-tape/

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>>92960264
Yeah, the movie really sells you on the fact these guys are A-grade scumbags. None of that tragic past woobie Johns shit.

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>>92960360
Ah, so that explains that.

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That statue screams "DARKSEID IS not impressed"

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>Byrne still can't let go of his Superman run

>>92960383
We can probably expect to see more of Dr. Poison in the comics from now on.

In fact, if this film is a big enough success, WW material will likely see an increased presence in the DCU, more guest appearances and whatnot. At bare minimum, I hope this leads to a second ongoing.

>>92960383

Johns doesn't give everyone a tragic past. I don't think he even gave Sinestro one. He just made him a tragic evil space Hitler.

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>>92960728
I want a video game. Not sure who from though, definitely not Rocksteady or Netherrealm

>>92960646
Oh man, I was looking through the Desuarchive and found this from a week ago. People were discussing the Barda thing, and someone noted that Kirby helped create a character who Byrne seemed to think was based off him.
Full Thread: https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/92750696/
The character is described as a "company man, who when killed, has his spine detach for a new copy to grow from."
Intro page 1:
https://desu-usergeneratedcontent.xyz/co/image/1495/93/1495939542842.jpg
Intro page 2:
https://desu-usergeneratedcontent.xyz/co/image/1495/93/1495939606779.jpg

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>>92960802
Well not exactly a tragic past, but you get my gist. "Bad guys you can see yourself rooting for", which isn't inherently bad but we need some plain evil assholes once in a while too

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What happens with the gods in the movie fits better with Kirby's vision for the New Gods

>>92960863

I don't know if he makes someone like Sinestro someone you can root for... so much as someone where you can see where it went so horribly wrong.

I think I get what you mean though, and I agree. Sometimes somebody is just an utterly evil malignant tumor on the universe.

>>92960863
And this is why Circe needs to be the big bad of the sequel. She's just delicious.

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This, on the other hand, is plain stupid

>>92958960
Her braid is almost as wild as Artemis' Ponytail.

>>92960977
>>92960925

This almost works but it's also stupid.

The New Gods are great, and are also sort of contradictory in a way. They're not really gods of anything. They're not part of creation or such. They're just incredibly powerful beings born out of destruction.

Hell, I'm not sure if the average Apokoliptian or New Genesis citizen counts as a new god or what. The people of Apokolips are treated as disposable slave matter, and yet some are elevated up and have great powers.

Kirby was amazing and erratic. There was no well defined master plan, and it shows.

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Again?

One thing I didn't like about the movie was how dehumanized the German soldiers were. I mean, EVERYONE's read All Quiet on the Western Front, it's impossible for me to see them as dumb cartoon characters like it is for Nazis.

Another reason I think they should have just bitten the bullet and done WWII, everyone's comparing it to First Avenger anyway in a positive way.

>>92959996
I find that hard to believe considering everything Etrigan he does in this run is basically MUH KIRBY

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>>92961061
Morrison tried to fix that later on by making Darkseid the God of Evil, Metron the God of Knowledge and so on, but it was way too late really

>>92961231
These early issues have that classic "she's a warrior" misunderstanding of the character but I gotta give it to Byrne that he backpedals on that pretty quickly.

I feel like he went into this run without reading anything first and then went back and actually read when he realized he was gonna be on this for awhile.

His Cheetah issue is one of my favorite single Wondie issues, actually, because she literally wins through the power of friendship.

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>>92961135
Blood of the Demon was done after Kirby died, right? Maybe that made him change his tune, but everything else I've read of him featuring Kirby characters feels really condescending and sometimes downright malicious (like the infamous Superman/Barda porno stuff)

>>92961158

Their story should probably just be something like there were gods who created the universe, or a previous universe. They kicked off natural laws we've been following forever and ever. Their destruction let off such monumental energies that the New Gods were formed out of the vacuum trying to fill itself. Maybe have like the White Entity be a survivor breaking through the walls of reality and time, and like the hand at creation being one of them letting go of some monumental power that spawned a new creation.

As to the question of who is a god being and just a dude on their worlds, I dunno.

>>92961369

(Forgot an idea.)

Part of the New Gods story is the ultimate human idea of looking for universal truth. So it could all tie together.

The bit of these ideas I'm not sure I'm keen on is how it would add a past age kind of more epic than theirs, which feels wrong to take a light off of Kirby himself.

Also that any future writer would take this kind of dead god idea and turn them all alive which would be dumb.

>>92961359
Byrne hates everything that had the Demon after Kirby. He was really hardcore about him not rhyming, about Jason and Etrigan being the same person, etc. and ignored literally everything after Kirby.

Then people complained that Etrigan didn't rhyme and Byrne brought it back.

>>92961419

I haven't read Byrne's Demon, but most people after him have really fucked up Etrigan. Kirby had him as sort of a total asshole, but kind of a bro who actually liked Merlin.

Everybody else seems to write Etrigan as flat out evil.

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Malicious code my ass

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>>92961135
I have to disagree about the WWII idea, simply because WWI fits so much better into the movie's plot. It was the first great world war, it was even called "the war to end all wars" at its time, it was horribly devastating for the time. It was also the first time weapons such as machine guns and tanks were deployed en masse, and of course, the horrifying chemical warfare that fits rather nicely with Dr. Poison's character. It just makes way more sense that the God of War would be behind WWI than II.

Hell, he was in charge of the armistice, wasn't he? So who's to say he didn't cause WWII as well by dicking over massively the Germans?

>>92961767
WWI works well thematically in this movie but I think if it were written around WWII they could have made it work as well.

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That's right kids, after an arc of Kirby stuff we get... more Kirby stuff!!

>>92961135
Well the German grunts weren't as moustache-twirling as they could have been, only the fake Ares general. The other generals wanted to surrender and he killed them for it

Until the final third, it seemed she wasn't even killing most of the grunts, just beating them up. It was Steve and others who were killing them while she did that.

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What a lovely image

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>>92961973
That sniper was totes dead. Nice callback to Antiope's trick though.

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I call these "Byrne Dots". They're like Kirby Dots, but uglier.

>>92961135
There is the scene at the end with the German soldiers taking off their gas masks, and they're just a bunch of worn-out looking young guys.

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I can't believe Wonder Woman is fucking dead

>>92961973
Yeah I counted five guys that she seemed to have killed but only Lundenganondorf or whatever actually explicitly was killed.

The part that actually irked me was in the beginning when the Germans were invading, there was a shot that particularly disturbed me of I think Artemis firing three arrows and killing three Germans, it made sense because they WERE trying to kill the Amazons but it felt like it glorified the violence too much.

Outside of that it was mostly Diana beating up mooks so not a big deal.

It's really common in the Marvel movies to just kind of skirt over the implied deaths of enemies and this used the same trick. Trying to humanize the soldiers too much would have clashed with the tone, so it is what it is.

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>>92962343
It's also worth noting that the movie makes the point that Diana may have had the wrong approach to fighting the war, she was pretty much on an assassination mission and only at the end realized the only way to change the world is through love, not more violence.

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I think she broke a boob

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Well thank god whatshisname is here

>>92962424
Right. While I feel like it didn't quite hammer that home part of my problem with the movie was the script, which is proof to me that Neil Gaiman and Harlan Ellison's assertion that you can't make a good movie from a bad script is wrong, the fact that it was the theme goes to show how well Jenkins gets Wonder Woman.

Jenkins is a treasure, she's so happy about the movie and responds to like every person who @s her on Twitter.

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Now that is some very Kirby hair

>>92961512
>Everybody else seems to write Etrigan as flat out evil.

I mean he helped Swamp Thing rescue Abigail from Hell

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I wonder what Max Landis thought of the movie.

>>92963094
Muh Etrigan is the one from Swamp Thing and of course Ennis

>>92963110
I bet you $100 he's going to try talking out of his ass about Wonder Woman and how "she's a warrior so she _____".

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Huh, apparently he liked it, that's surprising.

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Surprising because his take on Wondie is pretty much ASBAR WW.

>>92963137
Swamp Thing and Alan Grant for me

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The end for today. I'll be back this Monday. See y'all then.

>>92963313
Thanks for the storytime

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Alan Grant Demon all day

>>92961359
Blood of the Demon AND his Wonder Woman run were done long after Kirby died. He passed away in 1994, Byrne's WW was out in 1995.

>>92962365
Antiope, not Artemis, I believe. She is outright stated as the greatest warrior the Amazons have ever produced and the head of their army, so I feel maybe she can get a pass on being violent. Right from her intro she's shown as distinct from the other Amazons in her attitude to both Diana and violence.

That said, all the action scenes (but one) are like they're out of 300 or BvS and I get where you're coming from.

>>92961359
There's some level of respect to Barda and Scott in that Superman story desu but the story set-up is so shitty from the off that it has an infamous rep. Also it gets shitty about Barda and mind control at the end.

>>92958731
As I understand US law this only results in testimony that can't be used against him, prosecutors could still try and use it against whoever she goes after because he was forced to tell her the truth.

>>92958601
For me the big issue is inks or maybe even pencils - Diana's face looks horrible in pretty much ever panel she's in. The words "meth" and "whore" spring to mind.
Of course it could be intentional.

>>92962693
I'm not questioning that Ellison and Gaian said that, but there's another guy who said it (I think) first and he knew his shit: Akira Kurosawa.

>>92959748
Two words. Not. Good.
Overthought and overwrought, as a review I read somewhere once said.
Byrne is, to this day, a solid artist. I'll never take that praise from him. But, the man shouldn't be allowed to write anything, since all he wants is to put his mark on it, regardless of if it tells a good (or even competent) story.

TL;DR - Byrne wrote it after 1987? Better ignore it.

Thank you.