Wonder Woman #52

This cover makes me sad because it reminds me when I was a little tuna-lad and Cliff Chiang was doing the art on this book.

The Review or Whatever!
Writing is hard. Not just the typing part although that's pretty tough too! The part of writing where you have to put words together and hope that an editor doesn't mark up your computer screen with her evil red pen. Why are there so many rules to remember? Like don't end sentences with prepositions such as "of" or "with". Or incomplete sentences! Those are a real hassle! And what about that other thing that people hate? The old lady thing? Oh yeah! Grammar! Ugh! But the really truly hardest part of writing is not writing Wonder Woman's story in the most sexist way possible! That part of writing is hard even when you manage not to do it because people are just frothing at the mouth to point out sexism in everything! I bet I just sounded like a sexist four or five times in this paragraph alone! Especially that part where I called my mother a bitch!

Oh wait! I only thought that part! I thought I wrote it because I think it constantly! When I'm not thinking about that, I'm thinking about how my father was a drunk bastard who never had any time for me! Occasionally I'll have a free moment where I'm not thinking about my parents and then I start thinking about my sister! What a cunt!

I told you writing is hard! I'm not even writing about Wonder Woman and I got all sexist anyway! That's why I've decided to go easy on Meredith Finch this last issue. Because I see how hard it must be to take a feminist icon like Wonder Woman and try to tell your story about how every woman's greatest yearning is to be a mother. That's a tough job to pull off! Especially when you have so many jerks on the Internet telling you how awful you are and how you married a guy who draws pretty good female breasts. Although it's creepy that he always attaches them to thirteen year old girls. And you'd think he'd spend at least a little time practicing drawing men's faces so that they didn't look like bizarre Fish People hiding in the shadows even when they're standing directly under the noonday sun.

This issue is called "In the Name of Love" because it's story about a woman and that's pretty much the only subject anybody is interested in when the main character is a woman. I don't want to see her doing science or fighting battles or making really strong Magic the Gathering decks! I want to see her find love, settle down, cook up a nice dinner, and end the night with some nice, mature doing of it. Who's with me, Internet?!

I'm glad people can't throw tomatoes through the Internet because I bet I'd currently be covered in mustard. I mean ketchup!

I don't think the kind of love the title is referring to is the sexy kind of love. I think it's the motherly love and the gal-pal love of hinted at lesbianism. So Diana has to save Zola who is under the kind of spell that looks like it needs to be broken by a long, deep girl-on-girl kiss! And she has to save Zeke because she's got a bad case of Baby Rabies. At first I typed "Baby Ravies" but that's an entirely different story that has even more pacifiers than you'd usually find in a story about babies.

Oh gross! Hecate wants to do it to a baby?! I bet even the Olympians frown on that!

The theme of this entire story has either been Wonder Woman can't wait to have a Kryptonian baby, or people who look like monsters aren't always monsters and monsters who look like people sometimes swim really well. Because now Hecate is telling Zeke all about how she was treated like a monster because she looked like a monster which is why she became a monster who wants to do it to a baby. Because that's the theme, I think Diana has to forgive Hecate at the end of this all because Hecate was so misunderstood and victimized. It's the only way to be sure that the victimizing victim doesn't get blamed for wanting to do it to a baby.

I really can't let go Hecate's desire to do it to a baby! You all know what I mean by "it", right? It's hard to tell because kids today have so many words for doing it, words like "talking" and "hooking up" and "Cleveland Steamer".

Hera appears and begins calling Hecate a disgusting monster whose vagina offered Zeus nothing but power! Man. I wish I had some power! I actually wish I had some carrot cake. Vagina scares me. I mean, penis scares me too! But the story didn't really mention penis. I mean, it mentioned Zeus was a misogynistic whore which is a pretty good nickname for a penis, as in "I've got a pretty average-sized misogynistic whore!"

Whew! I'm glad Hera has turned out to be the real monster because I'd rather believe gorgeous people are the true monsters and hideous little misshapen vomit-inducers are the good people of the world! My reasons for wanting to believe this are secret reasons that you wouldn't understand because you don't have to look into the same mirror that I do! Besides, it's always nice to have another reason to hate beautiful people!

Diana ties up Hera with her Golden Lasso and then begins fighting with Hecate. I guess she's just run out of patience with everybody. I totally get that! I'm like, "Ugh! Stop trying to stay in contact with me, family! I moved away for a reason!" And then my sister is all, "But we love you! Why do you keep us at arm's length?!" And then I'm all, "You still haven't fucking apologized for changing the channel while I was watching the video for Lionel Richie's 'Hello'!" There. That's the story! Now you see why I used such a harsh word to describe my sister. I think you'll agree it was justified!

While Hecate and Diana battle, Hera wanders up to murder Zeke. I'm so confused by the multiple symbols that make up this moment! Zeus is symbolic of the Patriarchy and about to be destroyed forever by the ultimate battered and beleaguered wife! But Zeus is currently a baby which is like carrot cake to the Matriarchy! And the misogynist whore is in the lap of Gaia, the ultimate mother! Meanwhile a monster fights to save the baby while the beautiful person wants to murder it! Up is down and down is racist!

Hecate sees her chance to run off as Hera and Diana work through all the symbols in their final New 52 conversation. Love, manipulation, mothers, fathers, Gods, beauty, ugliness, truth, Frisbee Golf. They discuss it all! This is the point in the comic book where you purchase Huey Lewis's "The Power of Love" from iTunes and begin rocking out to it. It's also the point where Zeke turns back into Zeus only five years after I first said Zeke was Zeus. Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

All that's left are the end of Stand By Me epilogues! Hera went on to remain a bitter, hateful shrew at the side of a misogynistic whore! But at least she looked beautiful doing it, the monster!

Hecate went to live in a vagina with a penis.

The Penises, or Cyclopes, are allowed to wander freely staring creepily at everybody. Zola died in the war. And Wonder Woman now spends her time smelling Zeke's nappy to remember that time when she almost had a baby of her own, fulfilling all of her dreams! Although I don't get why everybody is sad about the "death" of Zeke! He didn't die and he was never really a baby! He was just Zeus doing some weird new pervo action! "Hmm," wondered Zeus as he banged his thingy into Zola's thingy over and over (unless it only takes one over to be over!), "Coming in this vagina feels awesome! I wonder what coming out of it would feel like?!" Gross!

Wonder Woman #51

What is it with Wonder Woman posing with allegorical penises on the cover of her comic books lately?

The Review!
Zola dies at the end of this issue. That's not a spoiler because I don't know if she's really dead or not. Plus I don't think anybody needs to read the rest of this issue only to eventually get to that revelation. The story spends a lot of time reminding the reader that Wonder Woman loves too well and that parents can sometimes fuck up their children. But none of that matters because everything that gets Wonder Woman to contemplate love and children and parents was a lie. By the end, Wonder Woman can forget all of the philosophical bullshit she's been contemplating since she met Hecate because Hecate turned out to be an evil liar. Although maybe it's still pertinent to the theme since Hecate was supposedly working for Gaia and thus is an allegory for how mothers manipulate their children. Fucking mothers! What jerks! Meredith Finch sure nailed that one in a totally not sexist way at all! It's also possible I'm projecting my own childhood onto the story at this point. Anyway, Wonder Woman learns that maybe she shouldn't trust people she doesn't know and has no reason to trust instead of not trusting the people she loves and trusts. I think there was some lesson about monsters being the most human of us all as well but it was so trite that I barely noticed it. This continues to be a pretty sexist comic book about the greatest feminist icon in comic books. What the fuck is DC thinking?! Just go read The Legends of Wonder Woman instead if you care about Wonder Woman at all.

The Commentary!
Wonder Woman is currently on a quest to save Zeus. Why she wants to save the symbol of the patriarchy, I don't know. No, wait, I do know! It's because he's currently a cute little toddler which is the one form he's ever chosen in which Wonder Woman is pretty sure he can't rape. Plus he's so cute and googly and drooly! To save the Patriarchy, Wonder Woman must help the Matriarchy. So she's on a quest to rescue all of Gaia's children. Apparently Meredith Finch decided the greatest role of Wonder Woman's life would be as an au pair to the Olympians.

Wonder Woman is currently in Tartarus to free the Hecatonchires when she remembers the last time she visited when Slade freed Iapetus. Oh, sorry. She still remembers the titan being named "Lapetus." I guess Meredith has decided to stand in solidarity with her husband who completely fucked up the Titan's name in Douchéstork.

Wonder Woman doesn't mind freeing these monsters from their prison because she's learning that not all creatures who look like monsters truly are monsters! What a fucking revelation! Although she's now gone too far to the other side and seems to believe that all creatures that look like monsters aren't monsters. So I hope she's surprised when she finds out the Hecatonchires are just super grabby assholes.

Wonder Woman continues to insist on thinking of Zeke as somebody separate from Zeus. That's mostly so she can keep up the theme of children being damaged by the conflict between their mothers and fathers. But since Zeke is also Zeus, it seems a bit of a stretch to keep thinking of him as being hurt by Zeus.

Wonder Woman runs into Zombie Zola and Dead Baby Zeke in Tartarus because it likes to torture people. Tartar must mean torture because tartar sauce is disgusting.

Zombie Zola accuses Wonder Woman of killing Zeke because Wonder Woman didn't save Zeke fast enough. That's a tried and true philosophy in DC Comics! If somebody failed to save somebody else, it's always the fault of the failed savior and not the person who actually caused the problem in the first place. So good job, Tartarus! You're just like every other jerk in The New 52 stemming back to that cop in Gail Simone's Batgirl #1 who pointed her pistol at Batgirl instead of the bad guy and blamed her for the death of some other person. I don't remember all the details! And I can't go back to remind myself because I took a black Sharpie and blacked out the offending panel.

Wonder Woman remembers being teased and called Clay by the other Amazonian girls. Dang Hippolyta and her lies! Diana suffered because of her mother's actions! Ew! I'm so angry at parents right now! They ruin everything! Except for those parents holding up their toddler at an outdoor concert which everybody on Tumblr tagged as "Parenting. You're doing it right." I guess those were good parents and they weren't harming their child at all by turning it into an accessory.

Diana runs into Superman next and remembers how she's always wanted to be a mother! Of course! What woman doesn't constantly yearn for motherhood! Even Wonder Woman can't escape the call of her uterus!

I can't stand stories or articles or people who cannot believe that some people simply do not want children. There's too much projection going on in society. Just because you couldn't imagine a world without your precious shitty bundle of noise, it doesn't mean everybody else would feel the same way about having one. I've never wanted a child for any reason ever. Got a reason for wanting a child? I don't have that reason. Got a reason for not wanting a child? Just add it to the list of mine. Don't fucking care. Some people think I have some kind of obligation to be a father. I admit, I'd be a great father. Probably. I mean, I'm the best uncle and although there's a vast chasm between those two jobs, I'm fairly confident that if I had accidentally become a father at some point, I would have done the job well. But being fairly responsible in my choices, it has never happened (almost once! But, thank Jesus, he took care of that problem on his own! Who needs doctors when Jesus provides the most spontaneous abortions of anybody ever?!). But even if I were a great father, the Non-Certified Spouse, who doesn't want children as much or more than me (I only say "more" in that I don't want them at all and she doesn't want them at all even more somehow. It's weird math and I don't have a calculator with the proper buttons to explain it correctly), would be a terrible mother. Just awful. I don't think she'd be offended by my saying she would just completely suck as a mother.

Next Hera runs into the Mother of Olympus because the theme! Remember the fucking theme!

This is really Hera. Really, really!

Characters in comic books constantly mistrust the people they've grown to love and trust as soon as some Iago whispers any fucking thing in their ear. Everybody loves too well! Is this something people actually deal with on a constant basis? I'm guessing they do since Othello remains a popular story even though I read it and thought what I think every time I read the same ploy in a DC Comic book, "Why the fuck is the protagonist believing somebody they barely know over somebody they completely trust?!" I think I'm too full of esteem to understand that this is a thing. What's really going on is the bad person tugs at a string of self-doubt already inherent in the hero and carefully pulls it until everything unravels. So Wonder Woman already mistrusts the Olympians so when a stranger tells her somebody she loves is in danger from the Olympians, she decides to fuck everything up. Another option would have been asking the people she trusted if any of it was true. But, of course, she had to save Zeke in secret for plot reasons.

Anyway, now Wonder Woman knows she was set up by Hecate! Hecate is in for it now!

Is Batman as afraid of Wonder Woman as he is of Superman? Because Superman can destroy the Earth if he's possessed or magically controlled or given Joker Venom or infected by the Doomsday virus or mind-controlled. But Wonder Woman simply needs to have her emotions manipulated and WHAMMO! She's turned against everybody! That statement may be sexist but it's not my sexism. That sexism is courtesy of Meredith Finch and this story of hers!

Wonder Woman and Hera escape from Tartarus but find it was too late! While they were gone, Hecate escaped with Hera's "orbs", Zola has died, and Zeke is missing! Whoops!