Wonder Woman #37: The issue that guarantees DC will need to reboot again soon

When Wonder Woman #36 was released last month, I struggled a bit with whether to bother reviewing it or not, and ultimately decided that the character was important enough that the debut of the new creative team on her main comic book series during a pretty critical time in the fictional character's history was a big enough deal to go ahead and do so, even though the book turned out to be every bit as awful as anyone familiar with that creative team assumed it would be.

So, what's my excuse this month? The last page, which features a big reveal as a cliffhanger ending, a reveal so big that I may have released a strangled "Oh no!" from my throat when I read it in disbelief. It was, quite literally, the last thing that should be included in a Wonder Woman comic set in the New 52, which was, you'll recall, created to streamline and simplify the DC Universe into a more welcoming place for new readers.

This post will obviously contain spoilers, well a spoiler, which is why I'm writing about it now, a few weeks after release. Anyone who is reading Wonder Woman monthly should have gotten to that terrible, terrible page by now; anyone trade-waiting, you've been warned here, so don't try and make me feel bad if I spoil the ending for you in the course of this post.

In the previous issue, Wonder Woman took a shower to wash all the blood from her latest adventure off, while thinking about water. Cyborg called her and the rest of the Justice League up to their satellite headquarters, where he explained villages full of people have been suddenly disappearing, as if being swallowed up by the Earth instantly. They split up into groups to investigate the scenes of the disasters or crimes or whatever, and Wonder Woman happened to see Swamp Thing standing nearby one. So she did the most Wonder Woman-ly think she could think of, and ambushed him, almost flying kicking his head off. She then proceeded to scream accusations at him while punching whole chunks out of his body.

When Swamp Thing and teammate Aquaman finally got her to calm down, and Aquaman asked what that was all about, Wondy explained that she's just been under a lot of stress lately: She's the current Greek God of War, she's acting Queen of the Amazons, she's Superman's girlfriend and she's on the Justice League. It's a little overwhelming for any woman, even a Wonder Woman.

Then she went back to Paradise Island, to find the Amazons bickering over her divided loyalties and the fact that she let some male Amazons (don't ask) on to the island to live with them, and then she gets more bad news: Her mom, who was turned into what I assumed stone during the early issues of the New 52 relaunch, was "dead;" her stone form melted away in the rain. Writer Meredith Finch didn't get into it last issue, as that was the shocking cliffhanger ending of the last issue, and doesn't mention it here, but the art seems to suggest that Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons wasn't petrified, but turned into clay, and then washed away in the rain, because neither Wonder Woman nor any other Amazon thought to, like move or cover her in case it rained. It was as if their mother and/or queen was a bike, left out in the rain by a careless child, and now she's all rusted. Only instead of rusted, she's dead.

And that's where the first issue of Finch, pencil artist David Finch and inker Richard Friend left off. Ready for the second chapter of their story?

THE COVER

Wonder Woman is once again posed awkwardly, apparently bound from the ankles to the knees and hopping around a battlefield, while gesturing with a gnarled, three-fingered hand at a metallic-looking bird (presumably a Stymphalian bird of the sort Hercules dealt with during his sixth labor) as it crashes into her logo.

Two other Amazons in scanty armor stand around, looking up at the birds, one of them smiling rather happily—perhaps she's pleased that Wonder Woman's logo seems to be preventing the birds from getting to them. A third Amazon with her back to the reader draws back a bow, preparing to fire an arrow a bird trying to squeeze through the narrow opening between the issue number and credits on one side and the Wonder Woman logo on the other.

PAGES 1-3

Credit where credit's due, the general conception of these metallic monster birds is pretty cool. On the three-panel first page, we see some Amazons dressed as they have been for a decade or two (or maybe even three now), in bits and bobs of Bronze Age armor, as if they're all dressing up as Naughty Spartans for Halloween.

There's a red-outlined black "SCRREEECH" sound-effect (thanks to letterer Dezi Sienty) as the birds rocket out of the sky toward Paradise Island like bottle rockets, and then they hover above the Amazons.

That's followed by a double-page splash—the 20-page issue's first of two—in which the birds engage the Amazons. Here we get a sense of how big they are, standing about as high as an Amazon, so, you know, fucking huge for a bird, and we see one of the Amazons has a cool undercut hairstyle. Yes, they may only use weapons from the time of Christ, but they do keep abreast of current trends in hairstyle.

One of them's like, "Hey, where's Wonder Woman?" and the other's like, "I don't know; I wish she was here as often as these giant monster birds are here."

I paraphrase.

PAGES 4-5

Meanwhile, on the set of Macbeth, a Dark Lord of the Sith and the witch from Snow White stand on either side of a boiling cauldron, while a lady dressed like an Amazon kneels before them, reluctantly handing her/a baby over to them. The Sith lady raises a knife and kills the baby—off-panel, of course. DC may have gotten a lot more graphic and gory over the last decade or so, but they haven't gone so far as to show babies getting stabbed to death yet.

PAGES 6-9

There's a full splash page—actually, about a page and a half; it would have been another double-page splash, but for four small-ish panels running down the right-hand side of the spread of an athletic, dark haired man fighting an athletic, dark-haired woman, both of them armed with staffs and wearing work-out clothes. The woman is Wonder Woman, which is made clear by the fact that the man calls her "Diana." The man turns out to be Superman, which is only made clear on page eight, when Diana calls him "Clark." They are in a vaguely eastern-looking place on pages 6 and 7, and then there's no backgroun on page 8, and it's not until page 9 when they walk into a generic metal room that it becomes clear they were probably in the Justice League's version of the X-Men's Danger Room (which Brad Meltzer called "The Kitchen," but which I thought—perhaps hoped—was New 52-ed away with the rest of Meltzer's run).

Superman tries to talk to Wonder Woman about her feelings, particularly regarding her clay mother having been melted away by the rain, and she tries shutting the conversation down.

He keeps pushing until she snaps and yells at him, and then walks away saying, "Grief isn't a luxury I have time for."

PAGE 10

The Sith lady is walking away from the witch from Snow White and the boiling cauldron. She's holding the baby—Alive? Dead?—in her hands, while the Amazon lies prone on the ground, a stream of red blood pouring from her. I guess she killed the mother, not the baby. Or maybe she killed both? It's unclear.

The witch looks into the pot, in which Wonder Woman's mom's clay face appears to be boiling, and the witch sheds a single tear (those are the panels atop the post; Wonder Woman's dead clay mom being an "ingredient" in the pot will become weirder on page 20, so keep in mind that she's in there, okay?).

PAGES 11-13

Wonder Woman, now wearing her Wonder Woman costume, appears before "the council," the group of Amazons who were complaining at her last issue. Their leader appears to be the wicked witch. They demand that Wonder Woman choose to either stay with them permanently to serve as their queen, or abdicate to someone else. While the argument continues, a lady runs in and says they're under attack.

"Quickly," Wonder Woman shouts, "Sound the alarm!"

PAGES 14-15

The book's second two-page splash (yes, 20% of this book is devoted to just two panels), as Wonder Woman, now wearing an entirely different costume including a battle skirt, cape and shoulder armor, disembowels one of those bird things with a sword.

What happened to "quickly," Wonder Woman? You still had time to change, did you?

Also, here it becomes clear that the birds are machines, as when Wonder Woman chops the bird open, gears and wires and metal pieces fall out of it. They are basically like scary, giant versions of Bubo from the good Clash of The Titans movie, then.

PAGE 16

Wonder Woman gives battle orders while she and the Amazons fight the birds. One of them swoops for the old witch lady, and Wonder Woman says "Derinoe, NO!," so I guess I should start calling that lady Derinoe now, and then Wonder Woman says "HRRAGH!" and cuts off its talons.

PAGE 17-18

Derinoe is mad at Wonder Woman for saving her, and Wonder Woman changes the subject, asking what those things are. They are "man-eating Stymphalian birds--Ares' idea of pets," one of the Amazons says, noting they started attacking about a week ago. They are apparently flocking to the island, as that's where Wonder Woman lives, and as the God of War, they apparently belong to her now.

Wonder Woman makes a face of grim determination and is right in the middle of swearing to take care of the problem, when Cyborg calls to say another village vanished, and Wonder Woman flies away to deal with that, saying she'll be back to deal with the whole giant man-eating* metal bird problem soon.

PAGE 19

A vaguely insect-like humanoid in a loin cloth stands before the glowing throne of a dark-skinned, red-eyed lady who may or may not be of the same species as him, in a room that looks like a mixture of sci-fi stuff and an anicent temple.

"It is begun, my lady," the bug guy says, his words encapsulated in a scratchily-drawn dialogue balloon.

"And the traitor?" the red-eyed lady says, speaking in her own font.

PAGE 20

Here, see for yourself:

So meanwhile, there's a cauldron, with a naked dark haired lady floating out of it. This is probably meant to be the same cauldron from earlier in the book, but there's no background, so it could be anywhere, really. It's probably not in the temple of the bug guy though, as his answer appears in a narration box, as if the scene has changed.

The important bit, is of course, the dialogue coming from off-panel, which is probably coming from Derinoe, as her dialogue bubbles are shaped like that, but it's unclear. This page probably could have used another panel or three, like an establishing shot for location, an establishing shot for who the fuck is talking, and then the reveal.

That, or David Finch coulda drew a background and had the speaker appear on the page.

But it's the words that are the really troubling part: "DONNA TROY."

I'm assuming everyone who managed to read this far knows exactly who Donna Troy is; the fact that Meredith Finch could use the mention of her name alone as a cliffhanger indicates that she at least expects readers to know who Donna Troy is, and for that knowledge in and of itself to prove extremely dramatic (This is odd, as Meredith Finch has said in interviews she's not very familiar with Wonder Woman, and has really only read the previous New 52 run, during which Donna Troy never appeared).

If you are, skip these next four paragraphs. If not, read them.

Donna Troy, along with the Legion of Super-Heroes and Hawkman, is one of the biggest continuity "problems" in DC history, a scab that creators can't seem to stop picking at. That's because her original appearance—along with the sidekicks that formed the first iteration of the Teen Titans—was a mistake. "Wonder Girl" wasn't Wonder Woman's sidekick, but Wonder Woman herself as a teenager (similar to Superman and the original Superboy), and she regularly teamed up with grown-up Wonder Woman via time-travel (along with Wonder Tot, Wonder Woman as a toddler) because, you know, comics.

Once introduced to the Titans, however, she needed a new identity and origin, so Marve Wolfman and Gil Kane came up with an origin in a 1969 issue of Teen Titans, in which Wonder Girl was a human girl Wonder Woman saved from a fire and, unable to find her parents, brought her back to Paradise Island and gave her Amazon powers. The origin is expanded by Wolfman and George Perez in 1984 storyline "Who Is Donna Troy?". And then Crisis On Infinite Earths strikes, Wonder Woman's continuity is radically rebooted, so that she was making her debut in the late 1980s, retroactively erasing all of her adventures in Man's World prior to that, and thus severing her from Wonder Girl/Donna Troy, which, of course, is a bit of a problem.

So then we get "Who Is Wonder Girl?", divorcing Donna Troy from Wonder Woman and marrying her origins instead to "The Titans of Myth" (She also gets a haircut, new costume and new codename of "Troia"). In the '90s, John Byrne revised her origin again, now making her a magical duplicate pesudo-sister of Wonder Woman's, adding in some parallel dimension jazz. Then, leading into Infinite Crisis, Phil Jimenez brings her back from the dead and re-clarifies her origin again, in a storyline entitled "The Return of Donna Troy?" The new status quo hardly mattered, as the multiverse would go through a series of cosmic reboots to history/continuity—Infinite Crisis, 52, Final Crisis—in the next few years, one effect of which was reverting Wonder Woman to her pre-Crisis timeline, in terms of how long she has been in Man's World anyway (around the same amount of time as Batman and Superman, rather than years and years later).

When the next and latest cosmic re-set button was hit during the climax of Flashpoint, it wiped out Donna Troy's entire generation of superheroes—or, at least the less popular ones. Fellow Titans Nightwing, Cyborg, Starfire and Roy Harper remained in the new continuity, as did Donna's one-time boyfriend Kyle Rayner, but they all had new origins, and none of them were ever Titans. That's one way of dealing with the Donna Troy problem, then: Simply removing her from existence.

And now? She's back! I'm sure there were plenty of people bummed out about her being erased from existence, just as there were plenty of people bummed out about The Flash Wally West being wiped out of existence thanks to Flashpoint, but one thing Wally West's New 52 debut has demonstrated, it's to be careful what you wish for.

Over the decades, there have literally been hundreds of pages devoted to explaining who the hell Wonder Girl/Donna Troy is and how to make her fit in the current DC Universe, but the problem remains that the DC Universe is itself being altered so frequently, that every new explanation of the character needs constant revision. If she's going to work, she needs to do so in a way that's not too closely tied to a time period, or to Wonder Woman or to the Titans. This might work, although given the poor quality of the first 40-issues of the Finch's Wonder Woman I don't exactly have any faith it will, but, like Wally West, Donna Troy is probably a casualty of the New 52 reboot better left dead.

She belongs to the a now lost generation of characters, who don't fit into the DCU in any logical way anymore (Dick Grayson's still here because he's a popular character, but he doesn't make sense in a six-year timeline, and makes less sense the more a reader thinks about him). And like her generation of sidekicks-who-grew up, Donna Troy has been replaced by other sidekicks. She can't be Wonder Girl, because there's already a Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark, who survived the continuity purge of Flashpoint; I'm not sure what her deal is, or why she exists, as The New 52 Teen Titans hurt my eyes too much to read).

And unlike Grayson, Harper and even former-Aqualad Garth, Donna never developed a decent identity and codename to grow into her own, independent superhero. She's a great character, but she's a great character for the pre-Flashpoint DCU, not the New 52, where she's more likely than not just going to irritate the (relatively) few people who want to see Donna Troy in the modern DCU again, and create another seeping continuity wound that will need healed by a future creative team.

I suppose we can begin a countdown to the next "Who Is..." storyline making sense of the character. Might I recommend the title "Who The @#$% Is Donna Troy Supposed to be Now...?"


********************

Say, so we've had a book with this title...

...and one with this title...

...how is it that there's never been a comic book called Wonder Girl and The Legion of Super-Heroes or Donna Troy and The Legion of Super-Heroes...?



*Say, do you think an all-female society would use the word "man-eating," or would they instead use "woman-eating," or, at the very least, "person-eating"...? "Man-eating" seems a strange term to develop in a society that has been pretty much devoid of all men for pretty much ever..

Is Donna Troy the first superhero to join the Justice League who doesn't even have a superhero name?

Despite my extreme dissatisfaction with writer James Robinson's recent Justice League work (three issues of JLoA, and what I've read of his Cry For Justice series), I'm still sort of looking forward to reading his JLoA #41 on Wednesday.

It's the issue in which he and collaborator Mark Bagley finally unveil their weird new line-up (which seems to be half-Titans, half-Cry cast), and I'm pretty curious about how exactly they're going to proceed, given that it will be set after the conclusion of Cry (currently scheduled for release on February 24...Robinson's last three issues have also been set after that unfinished storyline, but this issue may be more significant in that it involves characters currently tied up in Cry) and also after Blackest Night (which doesn't conclude until March 31).

That seems like an awful lot of convoluted continuity gymnastics, mostly stemming from the fact that Cry is apparently way, way, way, way behind schedule, which is a less-than-ideal situation if a half-dozen or so other books are tied into the conclusion of the series. (Based on the characters appearing, for example, JLoA will have more than a little bit to do with Titans and the Superman books...in fact, this review of a new issue of Titans, for example, suggests it is closely tied to the events of Cry and Robinson's JLoA).

Anyway, here's a little preview of this Wednesday's issue, from DC's Source blog. There's a scene where the former Wonder Girl Donna Troy, whose superhero identity is, um, "Donna Troy" talks to a cop about the fact that she doesn't even have a superhero name (I re-posted the relevant page above, but see The Source for the whole shebang).

I try not to think too much about Donna Troy, and am rarely forced to, but her joining the Justice League, DC's premiere superhero team, really just underscores the fact that she's lacking in one of the pretty fundamental, base-line requirements to being a superhero at all. Maybe even more so than superpowers or a costume, you gotta have a superhero name.

It really seems like the sort of thing that would be in the Justice League charter, like the monitor duty requirement or a "no duplication of powers" rule.

Has any other superhero ever joined the Justice League without having a superhero identity to go by? Excepting those who serve more as mascots, administrators or honorary members (Your Snapper Carr, Oberon or The Yazz types), the only one I can think of is Zauriel, who at least had the benefit of not being a human being and not having the sort of name you might find in a phone book.

Wonder Woman Wednesdays: A Complete History of the Amazon Peoples

(Above: Or you could just read this, which features extensive back-up features written and illustrated by Phil Jimenez which condenses all of Wonder Woman's post-Crisis history into a few nice looking pages. Most of the character images near the end of the post are Jimenez's.)

Yesterday Newsarama.com ran a version of my Complete History of the Amazon Peoples (post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, post-Infinite Crisis/52). But in the off-chance that it just wasn’t wordy and/or nerdy enough for you, I’ve decide to present a previous, longer, more detailed version here, complete with some additional thoughts that just occurred to me in the last day or so, for the most masochistic among you. (Plus, it’s Wonder Woman Wednesday here at EDILW, so Amazon history seems especially apropos). Enjoy!

A Complete History of the Amazon Peoples

The history of the Amazons began over 30,000 years ago, but don’t worry, I’ll be sticking to the highlights only here. Not much happened those first 27,000 years of interest anyway.

The Amazons’ story begins with a pregnant woman killed by her mate. Gaea, goddess of the Earth, took pity on the slain woman, and placed the victim’s soul in a well, known as the Well of Souls. Because it was a well in which souls were kept, you see. Over the millennia, Gaea would place the souls of all women unjustly killed by men into the well.

In 1200 B.C., the Olympian goddesses Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Demeter and Hestia pooled their powers to create the Amazons, their very own, all-female race of human beings, each reincarnated from one of the souls from Gaea’s well.

Three thousand women strong, the Amazons founded the city-state Themyscria in Asia Minor, and looked to sister-queens Hippolyta and Antiope for leadership. The Olympian war god Ares sent Heracles and an army of men to Themyscria, where he proceeded to seduce Hippolyta, and, in short order, ransack the city and enslave it’s populace.

The defeat split the Amazons into two factions. Antiope lead the Amazons bent on vengeance into Greece after Heracles, while Hippolyta and her followers fled across the Atlantic, rebuilding Themyscira on an island in the Bermuda Triangle that was concealed by storm clouds. (It was a pretty nice place, and would later gain the nickname “Paradise Island”).

There, hidden form the rest of the outside world, Hippolyta’s Amazons were granted immortality by the goddesses and were charged with the sacred task of guarding “Doom’s Doorway,” which lead to Pandora’s Box, buried beneath the island. The Amazons took to wearing bracelets, symbols of their defeat and enslavement at the hands of men, and spent centuries in seclusion, with no man setting foot on the island.

Antiope’s faction, meanwhile, settled in Egypt, founding their own city-state of Bana-Mighdall, hidden from the outside world by sandstorms. They remained mortal, and devoted themselves to the arts of war and killing, renting themselves out as assassins and mercenaries.

A few millennia later, the Amazons started getting occasional visitors, perhaps the most notable one being U.S. pilot Diana Trevor, who crash-landed there, and joining the community, eventually giving her life in a battle against monsters from the island’s box. In honor of her, her uniform and medals were turned into a coat-of-arms (And that’s why Wonder Woman’s costume looks like the U.S. flag, got it?).




World relations took a giant leap forward when Ares launched a plot to destroy the world. Hippolyta decreed a contest to choose the single greatest warrior to send to so-called “Patriarch’s World” to challenge Ares. Her own daughter Diana, magically created out of clay and gifted by the goddesses and the god Mercury with life and super-powers, entered the contest in disguise and won.

She became known as “Wonder Woman,” fighting against Ares, joining the Justice League of America, and gradually becoming not only a superhero, but also an ambassador of the Amazonian way of life and, eventually, a political diplomat representing Themyscria in the United Nations. (For more on the contest, struggle against Ares and Diana’s debut in the U.S., see trade paperbacks Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals and Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Gods by George Perez and various; and keep in mind Infinite Crisis knocked large swathes of these stories, out of continuity, and we’re not supposed to mentally rewrite them while rereading so that they’re set about a decade earlier than they are in the actual books. Or something).

Gradually the shores of Themyscira were opened up to the outside world, and Hippolyta and other Amazons journeyed into the United States, and the goddess Circe started causing no end of trouble, initiating a “War of the Gods,” reuniting the Antiope’s descendants with the Themysciran Amazons (which leads to a civil war), and sending the whole island into another dimension for a time—ten years for those in the dimension, about one year time for those not in that dimension).

She wasn’t the only evil divinity to cause problems on Paradise Island. Apokoliptian dictator and self-proclaimed dark god Darkseid invaded Themyscira with his armies, killing over a thousand Amazons (To witness the conflict firsthand, check out Wonder Woman: Second Genesis by John Byrne).

Not long after, the Amazons went to war again, this time in another civil war between the Bana-Midghdall faction and those who have lived on the island for centuries. The conflict was settled only when Hippolyta and Diana decided to end the monarchy, renouncing their queenship and princessship (um, is that even a word?) for a more demoractic form of government. Hippolyta’s longtime friend and confidant Phillipus becomes the island’s leader, under the title of Chancellor (This round of Amazonian strife can be read about in Wonder Woman: Paradise Lost and Wonder Woman: Paradise Found by Phil Jimenez and various others).

But wait, there’s more war yet to come! The Amazons joined force with the unlikely alliance of President Lex Luthor’s United States, Superman and heroes of earth, and Darkseid’s Apokolips in a battle against Imperiex in a sort of war of the worlds (That’s Our Worlds at War to us readers here on Earth-Prime; recently re-collected from two fat trades into one giant, fat Complete Edition). Many of them lost their lives, including Hippolyta.

Afterwards, Themyscria was once again transformed, this time into a sort of university devoted to cultural exchange and learning, open to men, women and intelligent creatures from all of existence. The architecture remained Greco-Roman, but had a bit of a sci-fi twist, accentuated by the fact that the island included an archipelago of smaller islands which floated in the air. Now rather than a single Wonder Woman attempting to spread peace and Amazon ideals throughout the world, the world could come to Themyscira, and the Amazons could promote peace through open engagement, their most open engagement since they’d left Europe millennia before.

This didn’t last long either. The floating islands were destroyed in a fight between Hera and Zeus, and the Amazons again began to draw inward, just as the U.S.A. was parking battleships nearby and contemplating invasion. They were beat to it by the armies of OMAC cyborgs, lead by the hidden, artificially intelligent Brother Eye, which sent them to Themyscira to destroy Wonder Woman, revenge for her killing of Brother Eye’s boss, Maxwell Lord who (Superboy punch!) it turns out was actually an evil scumbag bent on the eradication of metahumans and world domination by his own Checkmate organization all along, and not the slick but noble leader who legitimized the Justice League as a world power with official status years ago (These stories are collected in trade, but I can’t in good conscience recommend anything past the point in which Diana regains her eyesight because, come on? OMACs? Max is a villain? Pfft).

While the Amazons fought back against the OMACs with machine guns, swords and their own ultimate weapon, the Purple Death Ray, Wonder Woman brought an end to hostilities when she realized there were innocent people trapped inside the OMACs. She left the island, while Themyscria (and everyone on it) disappeared for over a year, a year in which Wonder Woman herself would be little seen.




Some Amazon heroines of note include:



HIPPOLYTA: Queen of the Amazons, mother of Diana and, in a time travel paradox the likes of which could only occur in the DCU, she became both her daughter’s successor and predecessor in the role of Wonder Woman. When Diana temporarily died and ascended to Olympus to become the Goddess of Truth, a death Hippolyta sought to avoid by stripping Diana of the title of Wonder Woman, Hippolyta donned a star-spangled skirt and golden eagle bustier to become the second Wonder Woman, serving a brief stint with the Justice League. She also traveled back in time to the year 1942, retroactively becoming the first heroine to go by the name Wonder Woman, when she helped the Justice Society of America in their battles against the Axis Powers. Known as “Polly” to her friends like Wildcat, Jay Garrick and Alan Scott, she fought battles against Stalker in the ‘40s (The Justice Society Returns! by David S. Goyer, James Robinson, Geoff Johns and about 40 other writers and artists), and fifth-dimensional invaders in the present (JLA: Justice For All by Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, et al).

When the JSA reformed at Sand Hawkins’ urging, Polly became a reserve member, helping out in their first battle against the dark lord Mordru (JSA: Justice Be Done). She died while leading the Amazons into the battle during the Imperiex War. She was next spotted in Jodi Picoult’s unreadable Wonder Woman and Amazons Attack, apparently brought back to life by Circe, totally insane and once again the queen of the Amazons.



ARTEMIS: A member of the mortal, Bana-Mighdall Amazons descended from Antiope, Artemis participated in wars against Hippolyta’s Amazons before her people settled their own part of Themyscria. When Hippolyta conceived of a second contest to see if Diana was still fit to be Wonder Woman (part of her plan to avoid Diana’s death in battle, which was prophesied to her), Artemis claimed the prize, and she journeyed to America to serve as the new Wonder Woman (Yes, this was about the time Kyle Rayner became Green Lantern, Connor Hawke became Green Arrow, John-Paul Valley became Batman and four dudes became Superman, why do you ask?), while Diana changed into a weird biker shorts, bra and jacket combo to lead her faction of the then-splintered Justice League, going as just plain old “Diana.”

Artemis, who lacked Diana’s super-powers and possessed a hot head and thirst for violence that no previous Wonder Woman was saddled with, died in a battle against the White Magician (Much of this era’s important stories are collected in Wonder Woman: The Contest by William Messner-Loebs and Mike Deodato). She was later rescued from Hades and returned to life. Since then she served as her people’s representative in Amazon government and as Themyscira’s Minister of Defense. She disappeared with Themyscira during the last crisis with a capital C, and has recently been seen in Amazons Attack, exchanging glances with Phillipus behind Hippolyte’s back and presumably, holding her finger to her ear and making the coo-coo sign whenever her queen wasn’t looking).



DONNA TROY: You know what, I don’t have any idea. And I don’t think anyone else does either, which has become a plot point in Countdown. Donna Troy’s existence was originally forced because Wonder Girl was appearing in Teen Titans along with sidekicks like Robin and Aqualad (Showcase Presents: Teen Titans Vol. 1, although Wonder Girl wasn’t actually Wonder Woman’s sidekick; rather, she was like the pre-Crisis Superboy, the star of Wonder Woman stories from when she was a girl. Oops. It’s a mistake DC has been fixing and re-fixing pretty much ever since, the last attempt being the Infinite Crisis lead-in DC Presents: The Return of Donna Troy (although, again, Countdown implies that wasn’t the last we’ve heard of Donna’s origins, perhaps for reasons discussed below)

At any rate, I think she’s still a magical twin of Diana, created to be her playmate, but captured by Dark Angel (recently seen in Supergirl) and forced to live a series of alternate lives, each full of tragedy. She was rescued by the Titans of Myth, who gave her powers and training before returning her to Earth, where she founded the Teen Titans as Wonder Girl, changed her codename and costume repeatedly (From Wonder Girl to Troia to Darkstar back to Troia to Wonder Woman for about a week and then back to Troia again), married, had a child, divorced, lost her son and ex-husband in a car crash, rejoined the Titans, was murdered by a Superman Robot, came back to life in deep space thinking herself one of the Titans of myth, lead a group of heroes to fight Alexander Luthor’s giant fingers in the middle of the universe, hung out in her swanky new space-faring base New Cronus talking to the late Harbinger’s continuity ball, took the name Wonder Woman for a few weeks around the time Black Adam was killing civilians by the millions, and she was last seen in the company of Jason Todd in Washington D.C. (New Teen Titans: Who Is Donna Troy?, Teen Titans/Outsiders: The Death and Return of Donna Troy and Infinite Crisis contain most of the pertinent parts of that complicated history, or at least readable recaps).

The interesting thing about poor Donna's origin is that, aside from needing to think up an origin to explain her existence in the first place, all of her complications as a character stemmed from Crisis on Infinite Earths, which reset Wonder Woman's timeline, so that she didn't appear until several years after the new "heroic age" had begun (that is, several years after Superman and Batman started their careers, and the Justice League was about to move into it's JLI incarnation). All the magical twin, abducted by Titans business was in reaction to the fact that Wonder Girl predated Wonder Woman (to solve all that, DC could have just rebooted Donna and the Titans alongside Wonder Woman back in the aftermath of COIE. One of the many rejiggerings of Infinite Crisis was that Wonder Woman was now a founder of the Justice League again, which meant she arrived in Man's World around the time Superman and Batman were debuting now. I didn't think much of it at the time, being so confused as to why DC was bumping all of their post-Crisis Wonder Woman/JLA stories out of continuity to replace them with all their older, worse stuff (I don't care how much anyone likes the Satellite Era, you can't honestly tell me the stories were better written than those of the JLI or Watchtower Eras). But if Wonder Woman was active during the first year or so of DC's second "heroic age," then that means she does indeed predate Donna Troy's Wonder Girl again, and we don't need any of that Titans of Myth/Dark Angel stuff anymore. DC can just revert back to their original origin for her. But...they haven't, have they? Or, if they have, nobody's mentioned it or did a story for it. In fact, the last Donna Troy origin story was the miniseries preceding Infinite Crisis, the awkwardly titled DC Presents: The Return of Donna Troy, but Phil Jiminez, Jose Garcia-Lopez and George freaking Perez, released just months before the continuity within it was going to maybe be altered, knocking it out of canon. Why on earth would you hire those three titanic talents to craft an excellent series (um, by Donna Troy standars, anyway), and then knock it out of canon immediately afteward? If it is out of canon. Like I said, there's been no indication that Donna's reverted to her pre-Crisis(On Infinite Earths) origin know that Wonder Woman's arrival was shunted backwards down the DC timeline, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to have Donna become Wonder Girl and not be inspired by Diana now that Diana was around as Wonder Woman at the same time she became Wonder Girl does it?



FURY: Helena Kosmatos’s father was killed during the Italian invasion of Greece during World War II, and seeking vengeance, she became possessed of the power of the mythological furies. Taking the name Fury, she donned a suit of golden mail to fight against fascism and the Nazis as part of the Young All-Stars, the probationary, youth faction of the war-time All-Star Squadron. Helena had super strength and the ability to fly thanks to the spirit of the Fury Tisiphone. The downside? The spirit would occasionally transform her, turning Helena into a winged, hooved monster. That big gray, bat-winged monster you see in Amazon battle scenes now and then? That’s Helena. While not an Amazon by birth, she's been living on the island for quite a while now. (None of these stories are available in trade because there is no God; that’s the only explanation for why All-Star Squadron is not available in trade that I can think of).





WONDER GIRL: Cassandra Sandsmark, daughter of Gateway City-based archaeologist Helena Sandsmark, assumed the role of Wonder Girl after swiping the Sandals of Hermes and Gauntlet of Atlas to help Diana take on a clone of Doomsday (Wonder Woman: Lifelines). Upon meeting Zeus in person, she asked for powers of her own, a request the god complied with, giving her superstrength and the ability to fly. After years of wondering who her real father was, it was eventually revealed why Zeus was so generous with the powers—he’s her father.

A former leader of the now-defunct group Young Justice, Cassie is currently a member of the Teen Titans. Though technically an American citizen and a demigod (an Olympian-American?), Wonder Girl was trained by Artemis and given the blessing to use the “Wonder” name by both Diana and Donna, making her something of an honorary Amazon.

One of the half-dozen or so things that bugged me about Countdown #48

Like each of the previous three issues, there was a whole lot to dislike about this week's Countdown. This time out, a lot of it came on page nine, a brief five-panel scene between Donna Troy and Jason Todd that is breathtaking in the amount of continuity mistakes it manages to cram into such a small space.

Donna Troy is standing over the fresh grave of former Titan Duela Dent, The Joker's Daughter, and up walks former Titan and former Robin Jason Todd, who is currently a multiple-murderer and fugitive from justice, a walking threat to Donna's pal Nightwing's very existence as a costumed hero (not to mention Robin and Batman's).

Instead of smacking Jason across the cemetery or calmly asking him to surrender himself to the proper authorities, Donna just kind of chats with him.

Even if I wanted to be extremely generous with writers Adam Beechen and Paul Dini and assume that maybe Donna doesn't know about all the guys Jason has beheaded, and that she for some reason trusts him not to ever reveal Nightwing's secret identity to anyone, I still can't understand why she's not a little more pissed at the guy.

After all, as far as I know, the last time the two of them crossed paths was in this comic book



Now, it was a terrible comic book, probably the worst issue of Titans with Geoff Johns' name on it prior to "Titans East," so I can hardly blame Dini and Beechen for not wanting to read it.

In fact, I've tried very hard to block it out of my own memory because this issue, primarily because, in addition to containing Jason Todd (alive, aged, and evil), it also features an incredibly stupid scene in which he rips off his Red Hood costume



to reveal this costume


which he was apparently wearing underneath his Red Hood get-up...cape, gloves, boots and all.

But anyway, in that issue, Jason Todd broke into Titans Tower, gassed Raven in her sleep, shot Cyborg and Beast Boy with some kind of electricity-emitting darks that knock them both out, and then attacked Robin, beating him into unconsciousness and knocking down the Donna Troy memorial statue in the Titan's creepy Hall of Statues of Dead Titans.

Donna, who has arrived at the Tower in search of cannon fodder to take into her space battle against Alexander Luthor's giant space hands, is there when the team finds her nominal teammate Robin,



who tells them all that Jason Todd just did this to him.

So I gather Donna either has very bad short-term memory (this happened just before Infinite Crisis, so it was only about a year ago her time), or she really, really, really doesn't like Tim Drake.

That, or Beechen and Dini didn't read Teen Titans #29. Like I said, I don't blame them for not wanting to read it, and I'd excuse them both, if they weren't using both of those characters in this story.

Beechen is an even worse offender here though, since he took over Teen Titans from Geoff Johns. Apparently I don't understand what is involved with writing universe comics for one of the Big Two, but I always thought that part of preparing to take over as a writer for a pre-existing title included reading the previous issues.

I mean, it's not like Beechen was taking over Action Comics or Detective Comics here, where there are hundreds of issues featuring characters who have weathered thousands of appearances that no one could keep track of every single one of, but Titans was only forty-some issues old when he took over...that's an afternoon's worth of "research."