Wonder Woman #33

I get it! Batman's been around a long time. Now give me my regular covers back! Stupid comic book store making me miss out on a Cliff Chiang cover!

Wonder Woman has been captured by The First Born and taken to Mount Olympus where he can spend some time killing her. But Diana shouldn't be worried because Wesley Willis is on the way to save her! And he kicked Batman's ass, so you know he can take The First Born!

"I was just minding my own business,
Looking at the pigeons eating their pigeon food,
When this guy bumped into me on the street.
He said, 'Watch it, fatty,' which really made me mad.

I said, 'Hey man, that is not cool.'
He said, 'You are a crazy fat homeless fucker.'
I said, 'I will not be spoken to in that tone.'
He said, 'I am The First Born, bitch.'

So I punched The First Born in the balls!
I punched The First Born in the balls!
I punched The First Born in the balls!
I punched The First Born in the balls!

He fell to the ground moaning in pain.
People began gathering around and talking loudly.
I did not want to be arrested. I did not want to go to jail.
I booked it away as fast as my fat ass could take me.

Love. It's what makes Subaru, a Subaru."

Once again, Orion pisses off the ladies. Hey Orion! You catch more poontang flies with pretending you think women are goddesses honey! Unless the woman actually is a goddess and then you're likely to get your ass kicked for being a lecherous, insincere asshole! Actually, that's likely to happen even if the woman isn't a goddess.

I'm not one of those guys who pretend women are equal just to become ingratiated with them. I know they're exactly like men. I often go up to them in coffee houses and say, "Hey ladies. I like how you have penises just like men. You do, right? Isn't that what's going on down there? I'm not sure it is though because when I wear panties, they fit strangely so I'm beginning to suspect something different about men and women in the pants area. Although women's underwear might fit strangely because putting on a pair makes me sexually excited and it's really hard to stuff an erect penis into a pair of panties." I mean, I used to say that until I became a man and had loads and loads of sexual relationships with women and their penises.

Ahem. Anyway, back on Paradise Island, The First Born's army of gnolls begins its invasion. The gnolls have driven tanks onto the island so it's exactly like every game of Dungeons and Dragons you've ever played in fifth grade with that one kid with the crazy eyes and five older siblings so she knew tons of dirty jokes that you didn't understand at all but laughed at anyway because you didn't want her to think you didn't know anything at all about sex even though it shouldn't have been weird that a ten or eleven year old kid didn't know anything about sex. So during that one game where you had just blown four of Tiamat's heads off with shoulder mounted nuclear missiles while your talking dog cheered you on and she told you that joke about the cop that would let you and your friend and the school bully go if the cumulative length of your three penises measured a certain length and, with only the bully's penis left, you only needed half an inch more for the cop to let you go and the bully showed his penis and it was half an inch and the cop let you all go and then the bully said, "Good thing I was popping a boner," you just pretended that you knew what a boner was and howled with laughter. Although why was a cop looking at kids' junk in the first place? Can you actually get out of tickets if your penis is big enough?

This is the same reaction I always got at the coffee house!

The First Born sends Cassandra and the S&Minotaur down to Paradise Island to fight with his gnolls. But before the S&Minotaur leaves, he glances toward Wonder Woman because he remembers her and her mercy and her compassion. But The First Born doesn't take kindly to the glance.

I know it's probably unprofessional for a writer to change voices in the middle of a written piece, but I want to actually discuss this moment in a more serious tone. So this caption is preparing you for the shift in voice.

The most obvious aspect of this moment is the difference in leadership shown between The First Born and Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman rules with love and compassion and The First Born rules with threats and violence. The other aspect is what I see wrong with the conclusions which some existentialists come to when they realize the universe is a random, uncaring place. Just because nothing we do actually matters to the world or the universe or has any effect on the grand scheme of things, simply because there is "no sentimentality in life," one cannot conclude that what we do as individuals doesn't matter greatly. As soon as we gained the ability to philosophize and rationalize and empathize and view our place within the world, we lost the excuse that we should act as unforgivingly and uncaringly as the rest of the unthinking universe. There may be no sentimentality in nature but there is absolutely sentimentality in human nature. What we do to each other, how we treat each other, matters. With no reward in the afterlife, no grand purpose, no everliving ego, all there is is what we do during our lifetime. If you ruin another person's life, you are ruining their one, single chance at it. You are ruining everything. For some reason, people believe that an afterlife with a promise of a reward or a threat of punishment is the best way to get people to act civilly. But can we not see that isn't the case at all? Life has far less meaning if it's seen as merely a way station to a greater existence. This is where religious folk get the wrong end of the stick when it comes to atheists. We cherish life because we understand it is fleeting. Atheists should be humanists because we understand the criminality of destroying even one life in any way at all. We should be feminists because we believe everybody deserves the same chances at living their lives how they want to live them. We should be good-humored and facetious and easy to laughter and less likely to take offense at things although I'm not sure any of what I just said is truly the case as often as it should be. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt more often than I should because I see in others what is in me. I might offend with my humor or my writings or something I might say but that's all inconsequential to actual life. Disagreeing with another person isn't a bad thing. But forcing a person to change because they disagree with you? That's where I disagree. Or something. Any ladies want to show me their penises now?

God I suck at writing seriously. I'm glad that's over. I'm sweating profusely at that aborted attempt! This is why I like comic books! Because colorful pictures take the edge off serious topics!

See? Colorful images! They must be talking about cotton candy and gummi bearschen!

Diana refuses The First Born's mindbogglingly bad romantic advances (even worse than mine!) so he stabs her in the kidney and heads to Paradise Island to finish the battle. As Wonder Woman begins to bleed out into The First Born's pool of blood, Baby Zeke uses his Zeussy powers to reanimate Hippolyta. Now she's an unbeatable stone statue warrior goddess! Oh, also Orion took an S&Minotaur horn to the abdomen, so he's kind of out of it. And Wesley Willis hasn't saved the day. Heck, he hasn't done anything except appear in a single panel! I thought he was going to be the savior of everyone. I am disappoint.

Wonder Woman #33 Rating: +1 Ranking. Things are getting serious! I think. There were so many pretty Cliff Chiang images that things might have also just been a rollicking good fun time party.

Wonder Woman #16

This is pretty disgusting. Although not quite as disgusting as when Superman was defeated by rotting teeth in Justice League Dark.

Last issue, Wesley Willis became an important member of Wonder Woman's cast. The character Milan, Wonder Woman's half-brother, is based on the too soon gone schizophrenic singer. Milan has the power of sight which he doesn't like to use because the power of sight is actually schizophrenia. But Orion and Wonder Woman both need him to use this power. Wonder Woman needs to find another half-sibling and Orion probably needs to find Darkseid's daughter (or somebody else that threatens to end the universe in some way that had to do with Mother Box or the Anti-life equation or some other piece of New Gods Mythos that I forgot).

But that's just the current shit going on. Also currently happening: Zeus has disappeared; Zola's child by Zeus (which may or may not be Zeus himself!) has been kidnapped by Hermes and Demeter; The First Born has dug his way out of his prison in Antarctica to kill Zeus and take the throne of Olympus; Apollo has just taken the throne so he's fucked; Hades has learned to love himself thanks to Eros's bullets and a mirror; and Hera has become Mortal and is sharing an apartment in New York with Zola and Wonder Woman. I think that about does it for the recap.

The action continues in the subway tunnels of New York as Lennox, Orion, Milan, and Wonder Woman try to straighten out some family business. Things were beginning to look like a gigantic brawl until Milan vomited flies onto everybody. That stopped them in their tracks on the tracks. Meanwhile above ground, Hera and Zola were getting to know each other over drinks.

They're joined by Ares. Who let him in the bar with bloody bare feet? Fucking Gods think they own the place.

I was never a fan of gin simply because it tasted strange. While a lot of hard liquor simply tastes like liquor (or gasoline), Gin actually tastes medicinal to me. Perhaps it's the Juniper Berry flavor. Or simply that it reminds me how I can never breathe in hot weather if I'm anywhere near a Juniper. Or maybe it stems from a long-forgotten past life where I was an apothecary concocting panaceas for the nobles and accidentally ended a notable family line by giving them alcohol poisoning with one of my triple gin and hard grain alcohol recipes. That last one seems the most probable.

Down in the subway, Milan sucks back down his flies once everyone promises to stop fighting. Now maybe Orion will explain why he's causing trouble.

Orion fighting a baby might be the only thing that could top Midnighter battling Dex-Starr.

That was easy enough! Tied those two plot lines together nice and painlessly, he did! I don't think Wonder Woman knows anything about Orion. But Milan obviously knows him. What would Wonder Woman think if she knew this was the son of Darkseid? I don't believe she'd think anything. I bet she'd just start swinging her swords again.

Once things calm down, Wonder Woman is able to use her greatest power on Milan: her compassion. She convinces him that his power is needed to keep Zola's baby from being taught to be bad. She's kind to him and understanding. So he uses his power to see everything to help her out. That's a nice description of shizophrenia. The ability to see everything all at once.

Milan sees the baby with the Bird Man and the Tree Lady. Wonder Woman realizes Hermes has taken the baby to Demeter but she doesn't know where to find Demeter. But Lennox reminds her they have Hera who can help with that. Milan mentions one more thing.

Who cares? Who's he going to tell?

Back at the bar while Ares and Hera discuss which of Hera's children she unloves the most, Zola wanders off to the bathroom to meet yet another God or Demi-God. He's got red hair and red eyes and sharp teeth and I don't know if he's appeared before or not because my memory isn't photogenic. Or photographic either. She then enters the bathroom to vomit after this new God explains the atrocities that Ares is capable of. It's in the bathroom that Strife reappears to cause more trouble. Because there isn't enough shit going down already.

Wonder Woman #16 Rating: No change. For people that don't care for reading comic books in monthly installments, I highly recommend picking up Wonder Woman in trade paperback form. Everything about it is fun but the dialogue makes the book. And it probably reads really well in one extended sitting. At least you'll have no problem recognizing all of the different characters when they reappear. This is one of those comic books that if you aren't reading, you shouldn't be reading my spoilery commentary. You should actually be reading the comic book! Besides, I end up doing a lot more reading and gazing at Cliff Chiang's fantastic art than I do writing jokes about the book. It's just too interesting to keep interrupting myself.

Wonder Woman #15

The distortion of Wonder Woman's face in Orion's helmet makes her look like Shannen Doherty.

The beginning of Wonder Woman makes me a little happy and a little sad all at the same time.

Wesley? Did Azzarello actually write Wesley Willis into Wonder Woman?

This was the first page and the look is absolutely Wesley Wills. And then the rock on. And the eat fresh. It has to be, right?

And then I saw the headbutt when I turned the page and grinned like an idiot.

I had a chance to headbutt Wesley Willis in 1999 or 2000. I forget the year exactly. I saw him perform in a small bar in Portland but was too shy to go over and headbutt him. Also intimidated by the big brown bump on his head from years and years of headbutting people. When I read Grifter #1, I wrote a song about it. That was my tribute to the big guy. I also created a card game about schizophrenia that I lovingly refer to as "The Voices In My Head Made Me Say Suck My Dick In Front Of A Lot Of People." What I loved about Wesley Willis was his joy. Perhaps the pure joy that exuded from him when he sang and played could only come from the pure terror and hell he suffered from his schizophrenia. Are ups like that worth the terrifying downs? I sometimes wish I knew instead of suffering from the middling malaise of emotional detachment. But then who needs all that constant drama? I'm pretty sure I'd rather just sit here in my tiny office with my funny books while people rush all around "interacting" and "living life"!

Who do I contact to get the original artwork for this page!? Never mind. Found it!

While Orion searches for whoever Orion is searching for with the help of the non-title WW, Lennox and the title WW are searching for their brother Milan in an abandoned subway in New York. Milan turns out to be Wesley Willis which is a good thing because he'll be sticking around for awhile. At least as long as this New Gods plotline goes on since he seems to be the connecting rod between the New and the Old Gods.

Lennox and Milan don't get along very well due to Lennox killing one of their sisters seventeen years previously. This sister was a particular favorite of Milan's but Lennox seems to have had to kill her to save a lot of people. Milan doesn't want to help Lennox and he has Orion to back him up.

Do all the Gods in the Universe get together once a century for some kind of convention? Some sort of meet and greet? Does Darkseid clog all of the hotel's toilets?

When Lennox mentions he's found the last of the 20th Century demi-gods, Orion completely flips the fuck out and demands to know where "the last of the line" is. Back in Justice League #6 (as a reader of mine reminded me recently), Darkseid claimed he was attacking Earth "for her" when asked his purpose for invading while Wonder Woman's lasso was wrapped around him. Later in the comic, Desaad or Kalibak or someone off panel states that Darkseid is searching for his daughter. Orion has now come to save the source of all-knowledge which may be tied in to the daughter of Darkseid deal. Perhaps Wonder Woman's parentage isn't completely written in stone yet.

The comic ends with Orion and Wonder Woman about to go to blows while Milan tries to stop it by vomiting trash and flies all over everybody. And the First Born is busy getting his things together in Antarctica.

Wonder Woman #15 Rating: No change. It looks like Azzarello is going to somehow unite the family of the Greek Gods with the family of the New Gods. I don't know much about the New Gods but I do know Orion and Kalibak are Darkseid's sons. If Darkseid has a daughter, I don't know about it. I mean, I figure he must have a daughter since he's searching for her but I don't know if he had one in the Preboot. The only way I can think to tie them together so that Wonder Woman is the central figure of both families is make Hippolyta the daughter of Darkseid. But I don't think that explains why Orion is so interested in the last of the 20th Century Demi-Gods being discovered. I guess I have to wait a month to find out.