Odyssey of the Amazons #5

Is this the Player's Handbook for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons?

• Yesterday I received an email that Bloodybastid left this comment on my The Wild Storm #4 commentary: "Your reviews are highly entertaining, has a sarcastic and cynical tone to them. I'm shocked no one has discovered this blog yet. Better than most other comic book blogs I skim through!" When I went to respond, I saw the comment had been deleted by the author. So I went from feeling warm fuzzies to cold pricklies in the matter of seconds. Did Bloodybastid change their mind, realizing my reviews weren't entertaining at all but just childish and full of ignorant commentary? Did they read a second commentary which happened to attack something they loved (like maybe their mother?) so they stormed back to delete the comment and shit all over my brief and unsustainable joy that somebody appreciated something I had done? Maybe — and this makes the most sense — they realized the said my blog was "better than most" and thought, "I misspoke! It's better than all of the other comic book blogs! I'd better delete this before somebody reads my comment and goes off to search for a comic book blog better than this one. That's a rabbit hole without a bottom, for sure!"

• I finally entered the 21st Century! No, I still don't own a smart phone. But I did use a friend's cable account information so I can watch Twin Peaks on Showtime! Apparently I can use the same information to watch Ash vs Evil Dead on Starz and Game of Thrones on HBO Go! It's like I've finally become a real boy!

• I would discuss my thoughts on Twin Peaks but I was only able to watch three of the four episodes that dropped before I had to go to work. And now the Non-Certified Spouse is out of town for a few days, so I won't be able to finish the opening story until then. Watching this has made me realize something. People who describe non-David Lynch vehicles as "Lynchian" probably need to be punched in the genitals and kicked in the head after they've fallen to the ground because their genitals hurt so much. Let's see any other director have the balls to spend a full episode on a dazed protagonist wandering around a casino hitting jackpots on every machine with a tiny Red Room floating over it. Nobody would be saying, "It was so Lynchian!" They would be saying, "What the fuck? That director was given a paycheck for that?!"

• That wasn't a criticism of the episode even if it sounded like it was! It was an example how nobody would ever praise a director for being Lynchian if they actually were being Lynchian. Maybe I've been hearing people wrong all this time! Maybe when a work of art is Lynchian and not by David Lynch, they've actually been saying, "That was lynchian." As in "somebody should be lynched for that."

• Let's see. What else can I discuss that isn't this comic book? The main issue in my life right now is organizing my time so I can start reading more books. I still have a ton of books that I want to read but I always feel that time spent reading is time lost writing. And when I read something that's fantastically written, I quickly stop paying attention to what I'm reading as my mind begins working on the stuff I could be writing. And yet I still want to read a fuckton of shit! It wouldn't be a problem if I could live to be several hundred. Then I could read some books and really wander, really wonder.

• The writing in this book is atrocious. It is of that bent in which the writer attempts to be more eloquent than their ability allows for. Like that sentence I just wrote! It was an example of the thing that was being said. I think there's a word for that but I'm too old to remember what it is, even if I look it up right now. Besides, if I learn a new fact, I might forget a pertinent bit of Batman trivia that could be the deciding question in a bar trivia night.

• Oh, here's an example of the writing, especially in the Narration Boxes, being terrible: "The sweet chirps of singing birds could be heard — the melodic sounds of nature that would herald both the coming dawn." And what? Both the coming dawn and what?! I suppose that example wasn't a good example of the thing I said terribly in the previous bullet point. It was just an annoying mistake that should have been caught in a rewrite or a quick edit. But since nobody caught it, I'm guessing nobody cared enough about this book to rewrite it or edit it. Somebody just sharted it out on paper and said, "Good enough!" I suppose, after the stuff I've put out there on this blog, I should probably respect that.

• Apparently the Amazons have a fight song. It's all "Let us fight and also hug! We are enigmas and shit! Peace through violence is cool but violence through peace is even better, I think! Go team go! Themyscira High School Football Rules!"

• The Amazons escape from the Jotuns. Good thing they did that before they were raped! Oh wait. I forgot. Nobody was raping anybody because that would incur the wrath of readers all over the Internet, or at least the part of the Internet that Tumblr runs on. They weren't raped; they were ensorcelled. Which might sound a bit rapey but I assure you none of their bodies were touched in creepy, pervy, violent ways! Some witch just cast a spell which mixed their DNA with the DNA of the giants and rape babies were formed through magic! And not rape! Stop typing rape, you idiot! That was me typing directly to me because sometimes I don't listen to myself. Also, it'll be a good pull quote for next month!

They didn't violate them in the way you're thinking! I already explained that! And also that image isn't a metaphor for the way they weren't violated earlier! Stop bringing it up already! You're going to put me on Tumblr's List of Most Problematic Gross People!

• I wonder if Tisiphone has gotten a cease and desist letter from Apple's lawyers on the use of her name?

• The Amazons that are still alive escape their Jotun prison and head off to kill the Jotuns. The Jotuns have all gone to Muspell which is some place I would know more about if I'd been more into Norse Mythology than Greek Mythology as a twelve year old. Apparently it's where Surtr lives. I bet Loki stole one of the vowels from his name.

• The dead Amazons also attack the Jotuns. Somehow. I guess they weren't actually wanted in Valhalla because of their, you know, boobies and vaginas.

• During the events of whatever the plot is, there is a lot of dialogue where the women are propping each other up with compliments. They're proving that sisterhood is strong! Also while they're talking, I keep getting glimpses of their underwear! The male gaze is also strong! It has the ability to see past feminist discussions into the heart of what truly matters: how much butt cheek has escaped the speaker's underwear!

• The battle ends with the Amatuns arriving to kill Surtr with his Black Sword. That wasn't a typo. They non-rape spawns of the Jotuns and Amazons (remember! It was sorcery and not penetration that created them!) call themselves Amatuns. Seriously? When Jomazons was sitting right there!

• I have no idea who this book is for. I have asked literally nobody else and they all say the same thing: "This book is not entertaining me at all."

Odyssey of the Amazons #4

This reminds me: I need to play the next game in my Norse Bloodbowl league!

My Norse Team are called the Fjordic Bee-Orcs. They currently have a 2-0 record. Mostly because they've been lucky enough to make all of their armor roles to remain uninjured. I somehow have a full team after two games. That's insane since pretty much all of them have a 7 armor. And the ones that don't have a 7 armor mostly have a 6 armor due to all of the skull fractures the team has suffered.

The Review!
The Amazons all died last issue so they wake up in Valhalla this issue. Odin decides to see how well they fight so they enter the arena to battle a bunch of viking warriors. While they battle gloriously, the spectators say things like "I wonder how tight their vaginas are?" and "Do you think I can fuck them all?" and "I would like to sheath my sword in her scabbard and that is not a euphemism at all. She just has a really nice scabbard!" In other words, they're a bunch of pigs who don't take the Amazons seriously because they're women, even if they can kick every male ass in Valhalla. That's the problem with the male gaze. It just doesn't have any respect at all! Even when it's getting its ass beat!

Meanwhile, the Jotun-Amazon hybrids are coming along nicely. Remember that they're being created by sorcery and not rape! You wouldn't want to make the mistake of thinking that there was rape in this story! It's not even metaphorical rape! It's just plain sorcery so get your head out of the gutter!

The issue ends with Hessia learning that all women all over the world are related because they all drank from a magic tea cup. But they're all still stuck in Valhalla awaiting Ragnarok. Which I guess is coming soon thanks to the Jotun-Amazon hybrids and their magic afterbirth?

The Ranking!
No change. Four issues down and I'm not sure I've been entertained by this comic book once. Although my male gaze has gotten its rocks off about a dozen times!

Odyssey of the Amazons #3

I have no idea what's going on with the lower half of Hessia's body.

I'm not proud that I can't resist saying I'm proud that I resisted mentioning the Valkyrie's crotch.

The Review!
The Amazons' true foes in this book are the Jotuns. Which is why they must battle the Valkyries this issue. It's standard operating procedure in comic books. The main fight against the real antagonist would be over too quickly if the protagonists fought them straight away. First they need to battle allies who purposefully misunderstand something they wrote on the Internet so they can feel powerful and righteous. So the Valkyries and the Amazons battle for a few pages. Some Valkyries that were just introduced die and some Amazons who were introduced in an earlier issue but whose names I couldn't be bothered to remember also die. Eventually the Amazons would all die without the Valkyries ever trusting them if nothing interrupted the battle. Which is why, this being a comic book, the Jotuns decide to interrupt the battle. While they try to kill all the Valkyries and Amazons at once, Hessia manages to save the lead Valkyrie from being killed. That's the only way in a comic book to gain the trust of an ally who thinks you're the enemy. You have to save their life and then they say, "You saved my life? But why?! You must be full of goodness and honor!" Then they kiss passionately.

The issue ends with the Jotuns leaving the Valkyries alive and the Amazons dead. Which sort of seemed the way the battle was going without the Jotuns ever getting involved. All they managed to do was give Hessia an opportunity to gain the Valkyries' trust! What idiots! If only they knew they were in a comic book, maybe they'd avoid making such common comic book mistakes.

At the end of the issue, the Amazons are all seemingly dead and the Valkyries are all, "Too bad! Let's go home!" I think that means I can be satisfied that this is the ending of the series. All I have to do is Photoshop the "3 of SIX" bit on the cover to "3 of THREE" and I'm good!

The Ranking!
-2! Not that whatever story this series is telling is important enough in itself to not be considered filler, this issue was filler. So it was filler filler. I'm really having a hard time understanding why this series was green-lighted. I suppose to get a history of the Amazons that doesn't just include a bunch of white European women. Oh! I should also point out that the Amazons captured by the Jotuns weren't raped. Because rape is so bad that it can't happen even when it's obviously a plot point in this comic book. Instead of raping them to produce Amazon-Jotun hybrids, the Jotuns used sorcery! Whew! I can only take a story about rape if its metaphorical!

Odyssey of the Amazons #2

Ostensibly, this is a book about building Amazon diversity but my male gaze suspects a different agenda.

• The above caption was my reining it in caption! My initial caption was all about double penetration and penis envy.

• The Narrator of this comic book is fucking mentally unhinged. Not in a "I'm going to scoop out my neighbor's insides and make them into a delicious pudding" unhinged. More like "I'm going to use as many words as I can think of and mash them together into sentences that make enough sense that an editor will just wave impatiently at me and mutter 'Good enough!'" The Narrator makes the kinds of statements that most people reading comic books won't think twice about. Why question words when there are big breasted women in scanty clothes who bend over a lot while fighting? But for a picky asshole like me who loves to point out the flaws in other people so that I feel better about myself, the Narrator is driving me up the fucking wall.

So a troll will eat anything that screams when devoured alive. How does it know the meal will scream when devoured alive until it tries devouring it alive? If the presumed meal doesn't scream, does the troll spit it out?

• I wouldn't mind so much if the caption used the preposition "or" instead of "and". But now I imagine a troll sees something breathing and is all, "Might be food!" Then it stabs it and sees that it bleeds and its stomach rumbles and it thinks, "Oh yeah! Belly here it comes!" Then it begins eating the still alive thing which doesn't scream so the troll spits it out in disappointment, holds its belly in both hands as it glances down at it, and says, "Sorry, tummy. Maybe the next thing will breathe, bleed, and scream!"

Well yeah! They can't eat without the screams. And if they don't eat, they don't live!

• The trolls are illiterate heathens. You can tell because they end their questions with two question marks. Only one acceptable sentence ending double punctuation mark exists and that's the question mark/exclamation point combo. Some idiot invented the interrobang which is a single punctuation mark that combines the two but it looks even more idiotic than using two pieces of punctuation at the end of a sentence (which almost always looks fairly idiotic (because it is (unless there are closing parentheses before the period (or quotes (and probably a whole bunch of other special cases))))).

Wait. You roast your food? What about the eating things alive while they scream thing?!

• The troll proceeds to smash Hessia in the face and say, "On your knees like the female dog you are." Stupid troll. Dogs never sit on their knees! It's pretty much impossible! Also, Mr. Troll, you're being really sexually aggressive with your violence. Maybe tone down the allusions to forced oral sex while beating up women.

• During the big fight scene, the Narrator says, "They will not go gently into the night." Being that that's a riff on Dylan Thomas's poem, it made me think of the poem which made me angry. If I were dying and somebody was all, "Fight! Fight against the dying of the light!" I'd be all, "Fuck you! I'm dying here! Don't make this all about you, you narcissist!" Then I'd probably die and those would be my last words and anybody who heard them would think, "Gor, he were a grouchy one, weren't he?"

• The Amazons begin getting their numbers punched, and in their own comic book even! Luckily, there are male warriors nearby to save their lives. Unluckily, the Narrator won't shut up about it.

What do Vikings know about summer pools?! Does summer even exist in the Fjordic countries?

• I recently made a Norse Blood Bowl team called the Fjordic Bee-Orcs. They're going to rule the Norse League.

• This bit where some other warriors rush in to save the weary warriors being killed by trolls doesn't make this story any less reminiscent of Elfquest. At least the vikings didn't ride in on elk.

• The Amazons and Vikings defeat the trolls and head back to Viking Village, a community for people who like community and flying into random, blood-soaked rages.

• The next day, Hessia gets to know one of the vikings. She makes a passing mention of Morpheus and he's all, "Who?" Then he mentions Thor and describes him as "the storm god himself" and Hessia is all, "Who?" And the viking is all, "Bitch, weren't you listening?!"

• The Vikings and Amazons join up to defeat the Jotuns because the Amazons need to save their sisters and the Vikings need an exciting way to enter Valhalla.

• Meanwhile in Jotunheim, the young Amazons who were taken find out that they will be the mothers to a new race of half-Amazon, half-Giant babies. Why would they consent to tha...oh. I think the number of copies of next issue being sold next month just fell substantially.

• The Amazons and Vikings begin their journey to Jotunheim over discussions of gender as seen through the prism of differing cultures. The Amazons are all, "You Vikings don't respect women!" And the Vikings are all, "We do too! At least we don't rape the fuck out of them like the giants!" And the Amazons are all, "Oh shit! Can we get this raiding party moving any faster?"

How nice of him! I hope it's a magic sword!

• On the way to Jotunheim, Hessia is bitten by a werewolf and they meet a bunch of Odin's Valkyries on flying boars and horses. That should shut these Vikings up about whether or not women were meant for battle. Fucking dicks.

The Ranking!
No change! I haven't changed my position on not being interested in tales of DC's Amazons.

Odyssey of the Amazons #1

I don't know why I'm reading this. I don't care about the Amazons.

I picked this book up because I figure why not try all of the mini-series DC puts out. But it's not like I've long been a fan of Wonder Woman or the Amazons. To clarify, I've never been a big fan of the major DC heroes. I often tried to get into Batman because I wanted to be cool but it never really stuck. And not being into Superman or Wonder Woman, I was really never interested in stories about where they came from. If you really wanted to bore the fuck out of me, you could probably just open your mouth. I mean, you could give me a story about the world of Krypton! I also always thought that reading a story about Amazons would be super boring and uninteresting. But after opening this book to the first page, I might have changed my mind!

Male gaze ahoy!

The scrolls in the panel above seem to imply that all of the Amazons were beautiful. Where is the representation for ugly girls? Not cool, Amazons. Or DC. It's almost as if the Amazons of the DC Universe weren't meant for an audience of young girls at all but for an audience of teenage males who have just landed on the shores of masturbation.

For some reason, the Amazons are engaged in a world tour. The scrolls explain that even when they approached another nation in peace, they "left a devastating wake of honor, respect and blood." These Amazons sound like huge assholes.

The Amazons are currently performing for the O'Kunga people who are less than thrilled that the Amazons chose their country as a premier venue. I guess I'm supposed to be on the side of the invading Amazons so these O'Kungans must be right evil bastards. Why else would the Amazons be going around the world performing surprise slaughterings? I'd better read the first page again!

Let's see...okay, right! They are challenging the "stronghold of the Patriarch's world." No wait! Later it says they're on a mission of peace. Although that really seems at odds with the description of their leaving a "devastating wake of honor, respect and blood." "Devastating" seems like the wrong adjective to use for a mission of peace. Another reason they're out and about is to find like-minded women who aren't Amazons. I guess this is about establishing a more multicultural group of Amazons. I'm not sure I'm any clearer as to their reasons for hitting the road for the last five years.

The slaughter of the O'Kunga people is just a way to introduce all of these Amazons to the reader. So while they kill, they make sure to always use the name of the person standing next to them. So Hessia is the leader (probably because, you know, it's Hessia! Even I recognize Hessia!) and the samurai is Wakumi and Thekla is the blonde and Demetria is the chaotic fun-lover and Rayja is the brunette and Chriselda is the berserker and Imani is the responsible one and Aminata is the Zhu'kharan. And what about the O'Kunga people? Why are they being invaded? I guess because they're men! The dumb bastards!

Aha! So their mission is to help downtrodden and subjugated people around the world! Totally on the right page now!

These Amazons are going around the world doing what Superman would love to do but refrains from doing because Batman keeps telling him he doesn't have the right. But these Amazons make their own right because they have the might! Basically they're on a world tour to stop Bullying. "Bullying" with a capital B because I probably really should have said Despots and Genociders and Evil Empires and Men! They're out there risking their lives to make the world a better place. Take that, Superman! You coward! Why don't you stand up to Batman sometime and just go end some genocide somewhere?!

One of the Amazons, Ophelia, is a sculptor. Whenever the Amazons help out a nation in need, she creates a statue of the Amazons and forces the nation to put it in a prominent courtyard so they'll always remember who helped them and who will come back and crush them into powder if they start acting like dicks. That's way better than some stupid Statue of Liberty.

The women, like Aminata the Zhu'kharan, whom the Amazons are recruiting are actually descendants of Amazons who have gone out into the world. They are being offered the chance to return to Themyscira and become immortal once again.

Oh no! Grumblings about too much violence! Time for a coup!

It's always more exciting when the true enemy comes from the inside! Like When A Stranger Calls! Or most of the Disney cartoons!

Hessia also has doubts about her mission. Like is she wearing enough scanty uniforms or fucking enough well-muscled men. Oh, plus she'd like to be the Amazonian diplomat to the world proving that they are about peace and not just slaughtering evil bastards.

Meanwhile the young, newly acquired Amazons are attacked on a beach by Giant Were-hawks. They're defeated and taken captive. Even Demetria, the Amazon with fire for blood and freckles to die for! The giants turn out to be Jotuns and they've stolen the Amazons away to Odin's realm. And even though the Fates warn that Amazon interference in Odin's land could bring Ragnarök down upon all of their heads, Hessia cannot turn her back on her sisters. Also, Narkissa points out that even the Amazons aren't sure about why they've been sent on this five year mission. So I was right to be confused! That's good because I hated sounding so much like the assholes "innocently" asking the point of the Women's March!

This Narrator is the insane one!

The Amazon ships crash against some glaciers and they all sink. A bunch of Amazons sink beneath the waves and die. I hope none of the ones whose names I learned died. What a waste of time that would have been. Not that I remember even half them at this point. So maybe I should hope that those Amazons drowned.

As the Amazons try to recover in the snow and stormy weather, they're attacked by new enemies!

"They've changed, those trolls from the Frozen Mountains."

The Ranking!
I hate ranking books I'm not particularly interested in that do the job they set out to do competently. I used an Elfquest quote for that final picture because it reminded me of that moment near the end of the quest when they arrive in the Frozen Mountains. It was on my mind because this journey felt like being dropped into the middle of the Elfquest quest with no idea why they were questing and then ended with the confrontation with the trolls. While Elfquest took fifteen or so issues to get to that point, making you care about every fucking character in the group, this story tries to jam all of that into one issue. So while I've been introduced to a bunch of characters, I haven't been given time to become emotionally invested in any of them. Except maybe Demetria. I suppose she was meant to appeal to young impatient upstarts. The way fandom works nowadays, you don't have time to get to know a character and fall in love with them over time. You have to love them and identify with them immediately and draw a ton of fan-art and begin writing fan-fiction to prove your worth as the greatest fan of a character nobody knows shit about. This might be the problem with people getting so upset at writers who seemingly ruin people's favorite characters since the "favorite character" is really just a cipher full of the reader's projections thrust onto him or her.

That being said, Demetria is now my favorite character and I love her and Kevin Grevioux had better not kill her off.