Wonder Woman #50

I like how David Finch snuck naked female breasts onto Ares!

Rating: Meredith Finch often tries to get too philosophical for my tastes and she doesn't back off on that tact this issue. She even packs the back end with a story about fate and choices and destiny which really could have just been replaced by eight pages of somebody masturbating. Philosophically, I'm not against philosophy. But in reality? When philosophers start philosophizing? I just want to cut my own throat. Philosophy is like crossing a street by traveling around the world to get to the other side from the other direction. What I mean is when a philosophical premise is brought up, you can see exactly where they're going to wind up in the first few seconds. But then the philosopher has to pad out the argument until they've spoken for five hours about how the point they were getting to is the only conclusion to be made. Then they throw out some Latin words to close the argument before waking you up and asking if they need to repeat themselves. What I'm trying to say is Wonder Woman #50 was actually a fairly readable comic book which doesn't quite live up to its pretensions.

At the end of the last issue, Wonder Woman was carted off, unconscious, by a walking dick with arms. She got into trouble trying to help cure Zeus of Crib Seizures. Normally Diana wouldn't give a shit about helping Zeus but he's currently in the guise of a toddler. He's so cute that when Diana looks at him, her vagina aches. The last issue was also full of allegorical references to the Patriarchy but I think they were all accidental. I bet every time David Finch asked Meredith to write a scene where Diana is in the shower, Meredith subconsciously got more and more angry. This subconscious anger came out in metaphorical representations of the patriarchy and how Diana is being kept down by it. Diana's entire mission is to take care of a baby. First she has to look to the Mother of All Mothers as an example. Then she has to swim up Hera's Fallopian Tubes to steal some of her eggs. Then she's knocked unconscious by a Cyclops which we all know is the least subtle of all mythological penis references. And being that this whole comic book is in a Greek setting, the whole Cyclops dragging an unconscious Wonder Woman back to its lair has to be a critique of the Greek System in our schools.

This issue begins with the Penis fingering Wonder Woman.

Typical guy! I'm fairly certain the clit isn't on the temple.

Wonder Woman wakes up to find herself in a dungeon full of huge Penises. But she's not afraid of them! They're also not being aggressive. And who could be afraid of a flaccid Penis? Wonder Woman even accepts a drink from one of them! I bet it's Pocari Sweat.

The Penises, or Cyclopes as some less accurate people might refer to them, offer to show Wonder Woman the way out of the secret passage she fell into. At least that's what she assumes they're going to do. Mostly they just stare at her and offer stuff to drink. On the way out, Hephaestus arrives to choke and beat the Cyclopes. Wonder Woman begins to feel sorry for them. But not sorry enough to actually try to understand why they find it uncomfortable to sit without their legs spread wide.

Wonder Woman watches the way Hephaestus treats the Cyclopes and wonders, "Was I so desperate to belong, to have a family, that I've ignored who and what the Olympians really are?" When the fuck did she do that?! She hasn't trusted these bastards without reason ever! At least not that I can remember. She sort of trusted a few of her siblings but even when she trusted a god like Hermes or Cupid or Hades, they eventually betrayed her for their own ends. And it's not like she was surprised! And the only reason she trusted Hera was because Hera lost all of her powers and was mortal for awhile! No way Hera would have been able to stay in Diana's flat in London if she'd still been a god!

Precum.

Diana learns the most cliche lesson to be learned! She learns that the creatures who look like monsters aren't monsters at all! The actual monsters are the people who look just like her! In...the Twilight Zone!

You know who must really hate that "whole monsters aren't defined by their looks" crap? People who look like monsters and act monstrous! Where's their uplifting lesson?!

I think somebody forgot to tell Johnny Desjardins to draw the wrap around Wonder Woman's torso carrying Hera's eggs! That's probably because the first page of the scene that Johnny draws was drawn by Finch (the drinking Penis juice scene) and he forgot the wrap in those panels.

Anyway, Wonder Woman can't free the Cyclopes but promises to set them free of their patriarchal chains after she saves Zeke.

This dialogue made me snicker.

Do you think anybody has yet told David Finch that it was "Iapetus" and not "Lapetus"?

The totally believable and trustworthy Hecate (who looks like a monster which must mean she isn't a monster. I think?) informs Wonder Woman that the Mother of Everything, Gaia, is behind Zeke's sickness! No! It can't be! That would mean the real problem is...the Matriarchy! GASP!

Why do superheroes default to threats of punching when discussions don't go their way? Can you imagine if this was how every conversation in a place of business went down?

Looking at Wonder Woman's crotch in the previous scan caused me to remember flipping the channel to Columbo earlier this evening. I heard a familiar voice and thought, "Oh hey! Roddy McDowall!" Then I looked up and was greeted to the tightest pair of pants I've ever seen Roddy McDowall wear. Apparently Cornelius's penis rests to the left nearly parallel with the ground.

Hecate informs Wonder Woman that to save Zeke, Diana must first save the children of Gaia: the Cyclopes, the Hecatonchires, and Typhoeus. Wonder Woman is all, "I can do that! Because I know that monsters aren't really monsters! The real monsters are men!" There's probably high-fiving at that point.

While Diana is saving Typhoeus, she encounters Ares. He's less the God of Drinking Whisky Barefoot and more Ares the Old Ares That We're All Used To In Preboot Wonder Woman Ares. And he wants to be Diana's enemy again! Mostly because he wants his God of Warhood back. But I think the only way to regain that is over Diana's dead body. So it probably won't happen.

I love all the bullshit philosophy to try to make war seem important. It isn't. Here's an idea! How about getting rid of the gods of Peace and War and setting up the gods of Compromise and Having A Bit of a Row?

Ares and Diana crash through the ice and fall into the lair of Typhoeus. Typhoeus is, of course, a giant Wyrm. I'm seeing a trend in Mother's children! They're all just a bunch of penises! And you know what you need when you have a lot of penises?! A lot of hands! That's where the Hecatonchires come in!

Diana rides off on the father of monsters in a completely non-sexually allegorical way, leaving her father figure in the past. In the next issue, she'll have to save the Hecatonchires. Until then, this fiftieth issue isn't quite over yet because DC needed to charge five dollars for it. I guess even with Johnny's help, David couldn't fill an extra-big book with his art in a single month.

The backup story is about how Donna Troy has low self-esteem and can't make a decision. It's a walk on slippery rocks. It's the talk on a cereal box. It's masturbating in your own face. Edie Brickell didn't describe philosophy in that way but I think she would have if she had time for another verse.