Wonder Woman #29

Looks like Diana has finally had enough of someone's shit.

I just spent all the time I'd allotted to reading this comic looking for the source of the quote that Wonder Woman's origin is too complicated for a movie. I didn't find the quote. I found other people paraphrasing the quote. I found a different quote by Diane Nelson (President of DC Entertainment, I believe? I don't pay for fact checkers around here! And when I do my own fact checking, I get lost in the internet for hours at a stretch!) where she said, "We are still trying right now, but she’s tricky." That isn't the entire quote and it isn't necessarily about her origin or her story. It's probably mostly about her huge amount of fans that will burn the theater to the ground if DC fucks up a Wonder Woman movie by portraying her as Steve Trevor's arm candy. I also read a lot of commentary on negative commentary on Johnny Storm being cast as a black man in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie. I didn't actually read any negative comments because I didn't delve too deeply into comic book forums. I could have since I still have to hop in the shower but I didn't because I don't currently own a luffa to scrub myself clean after climbing out of the pestilent bog of a comic book forum. One guy did call the as yet non-existent movie a "piece of garbage" that he wouldn't pay to see but would probably still watch on blu-ray and only after borrowing it from a friend. So that guy seemed like a real life winner.

My point is that I keep reading people's comments about the "Wonder Woman's origin being too complicated" quote but have never read the quote myself and been able to put it into context. Was it just one asshole executive speaking off the cuff about a character he doesn't know anything about? Was it a press release about why the Wonder Woman pilot tanked? It's just that the "too complicated" reason has gotten so much attention and yet I've never seen the actual quote. Plus the quote seems to be generally attributed to everybody that won't make a Wonder Woman movie, so I supposed I probably said it too at some point. I could draw a Wonder Woman flip book short! But it's probably too complicated.

You know what? Would Wonder Woman give up so easily? No! So I'm going to find that fucking quote no matter how long it takes! And I'm going to document it! First up, I'll ask Lord Google about "WB Executive 'Wonder Woman' complicated.' That should get it! Unless the quote wasn't originally from a WB Executive! Hmm. No, no. I'll start here because most of the information I have so far states it was a WB Executive!

My first hit leads me to an article on reafdebrief, a wordpress blog. Skimming through the article for the appropriate quote, I find this: "One of the other big problems that keeps getting brought up by critics, WB executives, DC executives, and fans, is that Wonder Woman is ‘too complicated’ to do on film." Dammit! So close! But, once again, hearsay!

Next up is an interview with Grant Morrison by HollywoodReporter with this quote: "DC Comics writer Grant Morrison suggests that there isn't anything wrong with Wonder Woman -- but with executives who have 'just convinced themselves' that she could never work onscreen." Speculation. But it's speculation from Grant Morrison, so I could barely understand it. I think it involved time travel or multidimensional logic or something.

You know what? Maybe my problem is I've turned to Lord Google! I should probably be asking Empress Tumblr!

Empress Tumblr simply gives me this cartoon. Which is great! Thanks, Empress Tumblr, for completely doing whatever the fuck you want instead of helping. You never fail to bring joy even when I need medical help or serious research.

So back to Lord Google and another attempt at a site that I won't even mention because it's just blah blah blah and not the answer I'm looking for!

You should probably just go out and buy Wonder Woman #29 yourself at this point if you're still reading this because I'm not going anywhere until I find this quote! You know what I should do? Just post this half-finished. I'm sure somebody will respond in five minutes with a link to the fucking quote! It's not that I don't believe it exists; I absolutely do! But I want to fucking read the exact quote already! Especially when it's been repeated over and over and over again but as hearsay!

The next try is from an article from the site Crustula entitled "It Is Mostly Marvel's Fault That We Don't Have A Wonder Woman Movie." I got excited for a second over this quote because part of it was linked! Surely I'd found the Grail! "Whenever an executive from Warner Brothers is interviewed and the subject of a Wonder Woman movie is brought up, the exec always gives an answer along the lines of ‘Wonder Woman is a very complicated character” Wonder Woman’s origin is very confusing”, “Translating Wonder Woman from the page to the screen is extra tricky“, “finding the right actress to be Wonder Woman is very difficult”." But alas! The link goes to the Diane Nelson quote I already quoted a piece of above and attributed to the quoter! The other ones do not link to anybody even though these fucking executives seem to all the time be giving these shitty reasons for us not having a Wonder Woman movie! Goddamn bastards! So vociferous and yet so shady and sly! I will find them out!

Aha! Now I'm getting somewhere! A link to a Tor article called "The Problem with Wonder Woman" looks quite promising! The author, Shoshana Kessock, does not quote anyone in this article written in June of 2013. But she begins by stating that Wonder Woman has always been a problem for DC and then says, "Wonder Woman is a complicated character with a complicated creation story." That almost sounds like the quote! Was the quote said by a WB Exec prior to June 2013? Have I been reading the outrage about it for almost a year now? It's hard to tell since I exist somewhat outside of linear time. It's a slight problem that I don't want to get into, especially if I have to explain how I react to the urge to excrete bodily wastes. Anyway, could she be soft quoting these WB Execs? Or could Shoshana indirectly be the source of the quote misattributed to someone as a reason for keeping the film down? It's a possibility to keep in mind but not a conclusion to jump to until more research (and less comic book reviewing) is done!

Even if I don't find this quote, I'm not going to conclude it doesn't exist. I'll just wait for somebody with better research abilities and a knowledge of the actual quote to point me to it! But until then, let's look at some more articles that assume the existence of the quote without actually providing it!

Oh wait! I've got one that looks promising! It's on...reddit. Oh. This could be anything! Hmm. It's a forum entitled "Warner Bros. Executives 'Convinced' Wonder Woman Couldn't Work on Film" that links back to the Grant Morrison interview where Morrison speculates that that is what executives think. That article was from July 2013 so it's possible this is where the quote came from. Here's the link to that interview so you can see it's all Morrison speculation as to the way executives think. This could easily be the source of the quote. Especially if a place like reddit picked it up in a forum and retitled the article which obfuscated what was said and by whom.

After looking back over some of the other quotes, I see Diane Nelson's quote is also from July 2013 as well. I could believe that's actually the quote that everybody is referring to although it's odd to call her a WB Executive instead of "President of DC Comics"! And she doesn't say "too complicated" anywhere in the quote. She is definitely the source for people hearing that somebody said Wonder Woman doesn't have a compelling origin story though. Her quote to HollywoodReporter.com was posted on TheMarySue.com which would have really gotten it to a wide audience, so it's a good frontrunner for the quote. It seems some other "too complicated" quote does exist though since TheMarySue says "Another day, another person in the entertainment industry saying that making a Wonder Woman movie would be 'tricky'" in regards to Diane Nelson's quote. Perhaps the "too complicated" quote is Morrison's speculation? Are these two articles the main sources? I don't know. Research is not as fun as reading comic books!

At this point, I think I'll stop documenting my research. I'll read a few more articles to see if anything else comes up but out of all the articles I found claiming that WB Executives have said Wonder Woman is too complicated, I've either not been given a source or been sent back to one of those two sources I mentioned: Grant Morrison's speculation and Diane Nelson's discussion about Wonder Woman being tricky because it needs to be done right or Hollywood will justly burn. That's my quote which is a misquote of Diane Nelson! I said that one! About the arson!

Maybe the quote I'm looking for is just enmeshed in all the various explanations as to why David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman pilot failed. Or possibly from the explanations as to why Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman script wasn't greenlighted. I'm sure there were a lot of excuses being thrown around after those failures. Maybe the quote, attributable to a WB Executive, never existed. Technically Diane Nelson is a WB Executive for the Interactive Entertainment section but that has nothing to do with movies and TV shows. Anyway, the bottom line is Wonder Woman has yet to have a movie while Batman and Superman have had multiple reboots already. You don't really need any actual quotes to know a Wonder Woman movie is long overdue and just isn't getting done. Hollywood has dropped the ball, plied it with drugs and alcohol, and sodomized it on the front lawn. And so on to the only way anybody gets to read about Wonder Woman: the comic book! And since it's The New 52 version of Wonder Woman, many people would say even this isn't worthy of the character.

See? The comic book! I'm reading the comic book now!

The issue begins with Hera being struck by a flaming green fireball! Maybe she's getting her godhood back? Perhaps The First Born killed Apollo, King of Olympus, and so his power reverted to the Queen of Olympus! Which I think Hera still was even though Apollo took away her powers and banished her to Earth. Oh, that's probably why she got her power back! Because Apollo was keeping them from her and when Apollo was killed, he couldn't contain them anymore and they returned to mommy.

Lending credence to the theory that Hera's powers were returned is the supernova appearing in the sky and Artemis, Apollo's twin, realizes something is wrong. I mean, the supernova was kind of a hint but I guess I shouldn't discount her Twinnie Powers of Extra-Sensory Sensations.

Hermes teleports Artemis and himself to Olympus just as Wonder Woman safely guides the disabled ship carrying Cassandra, Zeke, Zola, Dio, and Bearotaur to a safe landing.

Good thing Hermes is the God of Mending Broken Bones!

Everybody arriving on Olympus discovers at the same moment that The First Born has taken over. Apollo is dead. And so Apollo's prophecy from Issue #1 has come true because the idiot didn't listen to it very well. And the prophecy that The First Born would kill a god to take the throne has been fulfilled too! Which means Zeke (AKA Zeus) can grow to full size, lock The First Born back inside an icy continent, and take back the throne.

The First Born almost kills Artemis by sticking his veins inside of her and sucking out the precious god-juice. But Wonder Woman saves the day with hugs from her Kaiser Blade! Since Artemis is owed a favor by Diana, she calls it in. She asks Wonder Woman to accept her title as God of War so that she stands a chance against The First Born. I think it's going to take more than the God of War to win this fight. It's going to take a baby.

Or a mommy!

Hera reveals that thing I said earlier about Apollo restoring her to active duty as Queen of Olympus. Of course, she makes it seem like he did it on purpose. I'm not buying it! That makes him kind of heroic! I think he just lost control when he died. His body loosed its bowels and part of that was releasing Hera's power back to her.

Hera teleports everyone to Paradise Island because I guess they're going to need snakes! I bet they're going to put them in a can of peanuts to give to The First Born! Or maybe Hera is going to transform them back to Amazons? Oh yeah! It's probably that one!

Has that baby pooped even once?

Wonder Woman finishes the issue by addressing her sister Amazons (not snakes!) not as a super hero but as a God of War.

Wonder Woman #29 Rating: No change. Is Azzarello's story almost over? Isn't that jerk David Finch taking over next? Or was it Tony S. Daniel? I remember it was one of those guys whose art and writing together give me gas. Although I think the wife of the artist is going to do the writing if my Gossip Elves are to be believed. Also, if that quote I was looking for exists, I'll have the link within ten minutes of posting this! Probably! So thanks if that happens!