Some of my favorite Wonder Woman sites.

hello people

If you didn't realize this already, I am not the only Wonder Woman fan in the world and this isn't the only Wonder Woman website in the world.

The first one:

The DC Message Boards

http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/f...209064&start=0

This is a forum on the DC website. You can discuss all things related to Wonder Woman, but remember to be careful in language. All websites can be viewed by children, and I'm sure the Boards on the official DC Website wouldn't give adults that many second thoughts. 

Comic Book Resources Forums

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69

Comic Book Resources is a site that has blog, reviews and all sorts of other things, The most famous part of their website is probably the forums that they run though. Speaking as a member of the board myself, it's very obvious that Wonder Woman has a large following and if you're looking for serious discussions, this is the number one spot I'd suggest.

Amazon Archives

http://www.amazonarchives.com/

This is one of the number one websites, if not the number one, that I'd suggest people look at if they want to discover the deep and rich history of the character. Almost all issues that Wonder Woman or her supporting cast have appeared in catalogued on the site. 

Carol Strickland's site.

http://www.carolastrickland.com/comics/index.html

This is a huge fansite for the character and her mythos created, obviously, by Carol Strickland. She is a huge fan of the character and besides maybe the Wonder Woman Encyclopedia has many of the most in depth biographies of Wonder Woman characters.

Wonder Woman Museum

http://www.wonderwomanmuseum.com/

This is a site governed by Andy Maggles, who is also the man who created the official Wonder Woman day. He posts many opinions of his, art from Wonder Woman day, any news he has on the character.

Opinion-Amazons Attack! had a perfect premise-Spoilers

hello people-this isn't a review, go to atopthefourthwall for that.

Amazons Attack was a comic book miniseries about the Amazons from the peaceful Paradise Island called Themyscira where they would practice activities such as training for war that they oh so hated more than anything in the world, which is why they sent a representative to show that they were a peaceful people who hate people who were well trained in the ways of war.

Wait, what?

You see, the Amazons had a history of contradictions and things that just simply didn't make sense. In some versions of their story they were a highly advanced society with technology such as a purple healing way and Invisible Airplanes. In other versions, that seem to be more prominently known to people who don't truly know the history of the character, they choose to be behind  in technology and don't need things such as cars and airplanes. I mean, it's one island and a small one at that. Why would they need technology for traveling around the world? This is a fictional civilization that had an undetermined reason for living, an undetermined living and an undetermined history.

When I first heard about Amazons Attack! I actually got very excited about it. It seemed that DC would finally use this to it's advantage instead of just ignoring the fact that the Amazons are a weird civilization different from ours. It could have been a unique opportunity to fix this and make it a DC Company wide event at the same time.

The characters and even how they were portrayed could have been brilliant. The returning queen Hyppolytaa is given her throne back by the Amazon leaders, Phillipus and Artemis who are also returning to the DC Universe. They expect her to lead the Amazons back to greatness. Back to power, and back to their loving princess Diana. Then tragically it appears Hyppolyta had gone insane on her return from Hades lair, and wished for war to come, not realizing she is following her enemy, Ares's protocol on how things work.

This is what happened, but I simply made it sound better than it really was. This is what actually happened:

Hyppolyta comes back from the dead and is queen again for no reason whatsoever. Her daughter is coincidentally in jail at the time so she decides to wage war on Man's World. Oh, also Phillipus and Artemis forget that they have any leadership in the Amazononian community, only wondering if they should maybe tell their queen that maybe raging an all out war with no clear motivation isn't such a good idea.

That's not the only good premise waisted sadly.

The Amazons weren't all on Paradise Island. No I'm not talking about Diana, I'm talking about the tribe of hundreds (or possibly thousands given how much of a dense population the current writer will decide they should have). The Amazons of Bana-Mighdall, a splinter group of the regular Amazons who left for reasons to do with the Invasion of Heracles. They ended up being bad guys in this storyline and it could have been done in a mature way with the writer showing yet another different culture at war and depending on how it went, either allying themselves with the Amazons or having it become a three-way war. (Yes I know that they joined with the Amazons of Paradise Island, but the writer of Amazons Attack! didn't) Instead it's just more females attacking because they are females who are from a war -like society.


In the end, it becomes evident that the writers and editors of this storyline didn't grasp what could have come out of Amazons Attack and only used it as a means to make money or give Wonder Woman one time of being  a lead in an event which hurt the book.

Cassie Sandsmark

hello people

Wonder Woman has had many supporting cast members over the years. One of the most prominent within the last decade has been Cassie Sandsmark, the current Wonder Girl. Cassie wasn't always the way she currently is, and as with all Wonder Woman characters have, she has a little bit of a jumbled history.

Diana had decided to move towards the West Coast, settling in Gateway City (basically San Fransico). While there she rescued the  owner of the Gateway City museum from a giant stone creature that was accidentally set off by the owner's daughter Cassandra Sandsmark. So started one of Wonder Woman's most interesting relationships throughout her post crisis career. She and Diana hung out a lot but weren't close in the beginning. Cassie decided for herself that she was ready to become Wonder Woman and stole certain artifacts from Wonder Woman and decided she was ready to become Wonder Woman. The two didn't agree about the fact at first but Wonder Woman came to except it.

Fans didn't like Cassie that much. She seemed to be a rip off of Vanessa. Not just similar, but a rip off. She lived with her single mother in something that was similar to a library and ended up being with Wonder Woman when ever she was near trouble. Why the writer/artist John Byrne didn't use Vanessa Kapatelis and her mother? Many fans have assumed he did this because John Byrne wanted to leave his "big mark" on Wonder Woman. I personally believe he did this out of respect for the concept of Vanessa Kapatelis and her mother. Really, why didn't Vanessa become Wonder Woman? She had enough spunk, and enough energy to become Wonder Girl, didn't she? Well John Byrne stated that he felt the John Byrne run was 90% perfect, and he wanted to add the extra ten percent to make Wonder Woman a 100% perfect comic book. Well Vanessa had recently been terrorized by Dr Psycho and probably wouldn't be mentally stable enough to become Wonder Girl anymore so John Byrne decided to use new characters to reintroduce the concept of a Wonder Girl named sidekick to help Wonder Woman.

Wonder Girl then went through some pretty big changes. She decided to join Young Justice, the "Teen Titans" of the mid to late 1990s. She began to make friendly relationships with Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake), and Impulse (Bart Allen). This wasn't the biggest change however. Vanessa came back to the Wonder Woman world and wasn't very happy. She was changed by other Wonder Woman villains into a cyborg version of the Silver Swan, and began directing her anger towards Wonder Woman and her sidekick, Wonder Girl. She attacked Wonder Girl's current school and revealed Cassies's secret identity towards the world. It was a big change for Cassie and also made her mature very fast. She wasn't in the happy, fun superhero world anymore. It was a harsh world. 

She also had to deal with her friend Donna Troy being killed by a robot from the future called Indigo. It was a very hard time for Cassie Sandsmark, because she became depressed about how she was in a harsh world, more and more. Young Justice disbanded, never to be seen again. The members were depressed and their elders realized that they needed to get back together again. They decided to form the Teen Titans, in order to have their pupils hang out and also learn more about how to use their powers to help people.


Cassie began to take her relationship with Superboy (Conner Kent) to the next level, with the two of them kissing. Wonder Woman wasn't happy however. She and Cassies mother, Helena were still deciding wether or not they wanted Cassie to join the team because of the school problems that Cassie had recently been having and the recent loss of Donna Troy. Wonder Woman brought the rest of her superhero team in order to see if the Teen Titans were practicing in safe activities. The Amazing Amazon left with the realization that everything was safe and well at Titans Tower.


On missions Cassie started to become angrier and angrier. The god of war, Ares decided to take advantage of this and Cassie's frustration with Diana and her mother in their disapproval in her joining the Teen Titans. On a mission where she fought the Teen Titans nemesis Deathstroke she was given a golden lasso by the god. She began to realize that this lasso had different properties then Diana's did, such as the ability to channel Cassie's anger into lightning. This was the start of a downward spiral for Cassie...

How big is your Wonder Woman collection?

hello people

just out of curiosity how big is your Wonder Woman collection? I have the entirety of the Perez run, Loebs, one half of the Jimenez run, the entire Rucka run and all of volume 3. I also have the run right before Wonder Woman got revamped, though the name of the author is slipping my tongue for some reason, along with all the Wonder Woman archives.

In case any of you wish to get into Wonder Woman and are using this blog as an attempt to do so, my suggestions are these comics:

Hiketia
Down to Earth
Circle
Gods and Mortals
Challenge of the Gods

George Perez is the definitive Wonder Woman artist

hello people

This may seem like a strange post, but I just wanted to talk about George Perez for a moment.

      George Perez first drew Wonder Woman in Justice League of America and then New Teen Titans. He wasn't special then, just another comic book artist. Pretty, but just another comic book artist. Then came along the mega event that changed the DC Universe forever, Crisis on Infinite Earths

   Paired up with Marv Wolfman once again, the two were assigned the duties of the event because they were the most popular writing and artist team at the time. The reason why DC wanted the event in the first place is that the powers that be thought the multi verse had become too confusing for new readers and was a turn off for new readers. Many characters were changed along with their supporting cast members. It was a milestone in the history of comics in that it was the first time, excuse my language, the powers that be grew balls and made tough decisions since the late 1960s early 1970s when the country was going through a metamorphosis.

        Wonder Woman in  could be argued had the most changed after this with her supporting cast completely being changed. If you've been reading this blog before, you would know that the original supporting cast who had grown old and outdated over the years had been made old and outdated people in the comics. George Perez is the man who decided on this, and this has led to some controversy over the years. Why did he make the decision? I honestly don't know, I just know he made it. He also made the decision to add the supporting cast members of the Kapatelis's, Myndi Mayer and others. He made sure they all were nice and realistic, something to look for much of the time in comic books, especially DC comic books.

Myndi:



The Kapatelis's



They were close friends with Diana (well at least the Kapatelis's).

Anyways, I made this post thinking I was just going to show you cool photos not give you a lesson for another time....





Tell me he isn't the best Wonder Woman artist.

He's also the best Avengers artist by the way, I recommend his Avengers work with Kurt Busiek

Etta Candy-Woo Woo!

hello people

One of the most foremost characters in the history of Wonder Woman, and one of the characters with the most confusing histories. As we will come to learn, anything Wonder Woman related ends up being confused at one point or another.


Originally Etta was just a random character who was the leader of her college sorority. She helped Wonder Woman on a random case. Random character. Random Case. Random random random. She began showing up more and more however, and we saw that she was a little bit of a bigger girl then most at the time, especially for comic books. She also really liked chocalate and eating the food substance. In fact nearly every single page we saw of her in the Golden Age of Comics had her either eating or thinking about the delicious food once. She also liked saying Woo! Woo! a lot whenever she marched into battle or whenever really. Silly silly Etta was one of the most different characters within the Golden Age of Comics because she was different. Most of the time supporting characters were the person with a different gender and different hair color. Etta had spunk, had originality she was one of the funnest characters back then and is always remembered well by people if not comically at least.

Etta was generally the same character for years until George Perez came along. Sure she had some slimming down, and wasn't always saying Woo! Woo! all the time anymore, but she was still fun loving and spunky. In the George Perez reboot she was still a bit spunky and bad ass, but was now in love with Steve Trevor and her weight was actually an issue she took seriously. In fact she almost had a little bit of a grudge against Diana, but it wasn't much of one.

The two then took a little bit of a different relationship in the recent 2006 reboot, (well not to recent anymore I guess) and became magically younger, very younger. Probably 10 to 20 years younger. She also became secret agent-lite. Her and Diana got along very well. Well mostly. She became jealous of her husband, who was recently promoted towards head of the DMA (Department of Metahuman Activities) along with her friend Wonder Woman. When she was given an offer by members of the secret agent organization Checkmate she accepted. She spied on Diana for a while. When Diana found out she wasn't mad of course, forgiving her friend.

Can't find a good image, but she was secret agent-lite, trust me!

In the recent JMS reboot and redesign of Wonder Woman Etta has yet to be seen, but we can hope she will come back at the end of the storyline!

Kanga's

hello people

The kangas was a species on Paradise Island during the Golden Age of Comics when Marston was writing the comic book and they were a truly interesting part of Wonder Woman's continuity. They were different that what you would expect a wild animal on an island of Greek myth. Giant kangaroos used for Olympic-lite games. Makes perfect sense right? Seriously though, they were fun and check them out if you ever come across Golden Age Wonder Woman stories.

History of the Amazons part 1.

The Amazon's
     Ever since Wonder Woman's creation she has been the princess of the Amazons. She has always been blessed with the fact that she comes from royalty. In most movies or books the prince or princess is the one who's spoiled and needs to be taught a lesson. Not Diana. Raised with Amazon Ethics of honor and respectability, she knows not to over step her boundaries and how to be a nice person. She was taught compassion by her amazon sisters and loves them all.


Most of the time.


You see, the Amazons, while nice and compassionate, are born warriors. They were killed by evil people during the era of the caveman. Each and everyone of them was a good person who got taken from their existance far to soon. The gods of Olympus realized this, and when Artemis, Athena, Mercury and Aphrodite brought up the subject of the Amazons, a group of women who would teach the rest of the world how to behave in times of darkness, they decided to use the lost spirits of the women to create the Amazons, giving these people new bodies and memories.

Things didn't go well for the Amazons however. The strong, bold, arrogant Herakles (know as Hercules in modern day culture), invaded the Amazons as part of his twelve trials. The Amazons defeated him however, and he realized that he needed to use trickery in order to beat the Amazons in battle. He decided to throw a party for the ones who defeated him, and made love to the fair lady who lead the Amazons to victory, Hyppolyta. What Hyppolyta (Polly) didn't realize however was that Herakles had put drugs into the wine that made her weakened and stole her magic girdle which gave the amazons the power to win the battle. He then had his troops invade the Amazons once again. The Amazons were imprisoned and powerless.

For weeks or maybe even months, the Amazons were imprisoned. At first the gods decided to not help the Amazons escape because they had failed to help teach the outside world, but then Athena lightened up, and gave the Amazons the power to escape imprisonment from Herakles army. They managed to run off, but the Amazons had to decide wether to become immortals and live on an island that was seperated from the rest of the world or stay the warriors they were born to be and fend for themselves in the outside world....

Introduction to the Amazing Amazon

For those of you who don't know, the Amazing Amazon is the princess of Paradise Island, the Wonder Woman of the DC Universe. She has many parts of her mythos that define the character.

(Your Probably thinking I'm exaggerating, well look at this)

THIS is what defines Wonder Woman-and it's not entirely full!

As we go one in our journey throughout the Amazing Amazon's world we will study all of these and analyze how important they are.