Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Wonder Woman Annual #3 (August 1992)

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Wonder Woman Annual #3 (August 1992)
By William Messner-Loebs, John Dennis, Dave Johnson, Ande Parks, Clem Robins, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Joe Quesada and Kevin Nowlan
Edited by Frank Pittarese and Dan Thorsland

• Let's get back to bullet points, shall we? This is like The Matrix but for nerds. Hmm. There's something wrong with that statement but I just can't identify quite what it is.

• Eclipso currently sits on his bone throne in a crater in the moon. Do you think the creators of this series meant for that to be so sexual? Did I invent that his throne was made of bone just to create the image of a penis in a moon hole? It's hard to say when about 66% of every thought I have is a delusion created by my brain to make the world more entertaining for myself.

• According to my blog's tags, this is the first comic book I've reviewed by William Messner-Loebs.

• The cover of this comic book turned my pants into a bone throne. In a mere matter of seconds, it will also look like a triple wax carwash down there. I think I have a thing for feral women.

• This issue begins by firing all circuits on my male gaze just to have my horned-up levels' legs kicked out from under it by reading the caption.

Too bad I'm not into necrofellatio. Is it weird that I began that sentence with "too bad"?

• The person making that terrible assumption about Wonder Woman is, surprisingly¹, an on-the-scene local news reporter. The reporter is a woman so she's apparently never heard of the Girl Code. I also have never heard any of the Girl Code because when I ask about it, they usually just say, "Ewww!" But I think there's something there about hyping each other up and not assuming that they've died and then broadcasting their humiliating failure to the entire world².

• As she broadcasts, Cassie continues to pull down her knickers and shit all over the Girl Code.

"Being that Wonder Woman can't fly, she had to walk instead of fly, which she can't do, fly, I mean. She sucks at flying. Just the worst. Probably dead because she can't fly."

• Some guy named The White Magician shows up and, well, even in 1992, I'd maybe have thought twice about that name. He wears white and has white hair but he also has what is colloquially thought of as "white" skin so, you know, maybe that name is saying more than you actually want it to say? Because "white", especially in 1992, was the society accepted neutral position³ which meant if the person's "race"⁴ wasn't mentioned, one would assume "white". If you have to go above and beyond to express your "whiteness" or your "Defender of Western Civilization" status⁵, you're probably making a bigger statement than just the color of your costume and hair.

The White Magician's power is literally making people choke on their own shit.

• The White Magician spends a full page or more invoking all sorts of DC magics that I've never heard of before. Zatanna could have saved the day with a couple of backwards words. Madame Xanadu could have wrapped this shit up by manipulating a bunch of actual heroes in no time at all. But this guy is doing the equivalent of a Great White guitar solo in a small club.

Love bites! Love bleeds! Oh fuck! Oh shit! Why's my dick burning?!

• While White Magician fucks around with the dark arts for the benefit of the news crew, Wonder Woman climbs up a building and tries to hug the terrorist into surrender. You know how she does. She's all, "Look, you're being a toxic male. Maybe get therapy?" And he's all, "I'd rather turn on a machine that removes the friction between air molecules, murder the HR rep of the job that fired me, take a woman and her small child hostage, and blame everybody who doesn't have a metagene for my failures!" And Wonder Woman is all, "Okay, but maybe don't do that?" And his gun is all, "Bratratrat!"

• Wonder Woman takes a few shots to the wrist bracelets and everybody around her is all, "He's a lone gunman! Being a white man, he's the only one responsible for his actions! He doesn't represent his entire race in the same way society demands anybody of a minority group represents the entire group!" Except it couldn't be that explicit, right? Because this is 1992 and according to Comics Gaters, comics only went woke in this millennium. Right?

I guess white supremacists in 1992 could easily overlook a blatant allegory simply by saying, "Well, I don't have a metagene so this guy obviously doesn't represent my idiotic way of thinking!"

• The main problem with this guy is that his metagene has yet to be activated. So he's just a mediocre white dude. But he knows he's better than other people because he's white. I mean because he has a metagene!

• I had to check the cover of this issue again because I got the odd feeling that I was reading a Bloodlines annual and not an Eclipso annual. I guess this is just foreshadowing for next year's big annual crossover event. Maybe this guy becomes Gunfire or Dildosniffer. Were those Bloodlines characters? If they were, I know one of them was written by Warren Ellis.

• The White Magician's spell of bowel-cleansing fear takes place just as Wonder Woman's de-escalating the situation. It affects everybody on top of the skyscraper: the killer, Wonder Woman, and the two hostages. Wonder Woman's big fear is disappointing her mother and the Gods. I would have guessed it would have been Batman.

• The killer, Roger or Robert or whatever, dies from choking on his own shit while Wonder Woman and the hostages just get a little collateral shit swallowing. But I have to think part of the reason Wonder Woman failed was because she was calling him by the wrong name while trying to calm him down.

Whoops!

• Even though The White Magician fucked everything up and his costume isn't anywhere as spectacular as The White Rabbit's, Wonder Woman still accepts an invitation to his mansion for dinner. As a way to apologize to her for completely fucking up the rescue, of course. Not as a way to get into her biker shorts. Not that she's currently wearing biker shorts. But she does go to the dinner in her star-spangled onesie.

• The White Magician's dinner conversation makes me think that perhaps my earlier discussion around his name was way more astute than even I would have guessed.

First he starts the edgelord shit with all the "Oh, I imagine you'll be offended by just about everything, no?"


And then he, um, just gets right to the KKK point.

• The hostage from earlier was a Black woman. Diana was insistent she was the real hero because she threw off the fear spell to save Diana from falling off the building while Diana hung by her foot holding the young girl who first fell off the building. The White Magician wouldn't even acknowledge this fact and now we see why. Obviously a Black woman couldn't be the hero! The look Diana gives this guy says it all.

• Wonder Woman, while pointing out how seriously pathetic white supremacists are, pulls the old Don Draper in the elevator meme exactly two decades before Don Draper does it.

Although Don Draper is lying in that scene and I've got a feeling Wonder Woman seriously means it.

• 24 pages in and not a whiff of Eclipso.

Speaking of whiffs . . . yes please!

• It turns out the local reporter Cassie and the White Magician are fucking. It also turns out Wonder Woman likes watching them fuck.

• Okay, so maybe they don't actually fuck on panel while Wonder Woman watches. But you don't think this is the reaction of somebody who loves the cuck chair?

Messner-Loebs staying true to Wonder Woman's origins as a horny little Amazon.

• Ultimately, I have no fucking clue why Wonder Woman went to dinner at the White Magician's home. I mean, the only conclusion I can make is that she was horny after her close call with death and he was offering. Perhaps when she was blasted by his Spell of Terror and she inundated with feelings of self-loathing, she needed a good fuck to get her confidence back. And the White Magician, while racist, is good looking enough. Also he has a penis⁶.

• The reason Cassie was calling Wonder Woman politically correct is that Wonder Woman admitted that justice, in the parlance of Titus Pullo, makes her wetter than October.

• The White Magician gives Diana a circlet with a Black Diamond on it. She demures but quickly accepts because she's super fucking horny and I can't believe I don't remember this comic book! How did I not start reading Wonder Woman after this?! I should have assumed half of each issue was just Diana trying to get laid.

• Wonder Woman slips into some kind of hypnotic fantasy after donning the Black Diamond. She believes that she has taken the White Magician to Paradise Island and he's brought in developers and horny men. When she confronts him, he goes all Twitter Incel on her.

If that doesn't get her to Eclipse, I don't want to think how far he'll have to go.

• The White Magician isn't working with Eclipso. He just wants Wonder Woman possessed with Eclipso's power so that he can bind her and drain her of the power. Wonder Woman winds up bound by tentacles in the garden with resting Eclipso face.

• Oh, also? It doesn't take. Eclipsed Wonder Woman escapes to either kill the White Magician or eagerly sit in the cuck chair.

• PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE CUCK CHAIR!

Okay. Close enough!

• I don't want people to think I'm into women in hardly any clothes choking other women in even less clothes. I mean, I guess I am because that panel was hot. But I'm not so into it that I actively look for it! What kind of sicko porn search terms do you think I like?! If one of your guesses was "Penguin Costume With Butt Access", congratulations. I guess?

• Wonder Woman lets Cassie go and then fails to kill the White Magician as he slips into another dimension just as she goes for the kill shot. Eclipso, now in total control, decides he got his revenge by trashing the White Magician's house because Wonder Woman is free to fly off to the moon at the end.

• Fly? I thought she couldn't fly? I guess she's more Eclipso than Diana now.

The Ranking
Goddamn! This issue was actually kind of fun. And confusing. I think maybe it contained a lot of actual lore and characters from the 1992 regular series. Or maybe it didn't and this was just a short little story about a horny woman, a racist illusionist, and the God of Vengeance? It's weird because I hate annuals but, I mean, this one was enjoyable! I bet it was because I went back to using bullet points! Yeah, I probably enjoyed it because of the thing I did and not because of the art the artists did! Whew. I feel better now! Go me! __________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Not actually surprising.
² At least the part of the world that receives broadcasts from WTBN.
³ I'm not saying it was correct. I was just media-biased shorthand accepted by a white supremacist society
⁴ In quotes because "white" and "black" are not exactly the most scientific way to determine a person's race. Unless you're a Nazi scientist or somebody's Republican uncle.
⁵ Looking at you, high school friend Soy Rakelson, who disappeared from Social Media in 2016 after Trump won the election because you knew your "Defenses of Western Civilization" were no longer sustainable with your "morality". I mean in your eyes. Everybody else already knew they weren't sustainable and wondered why you kept insisting on debating obviously (to everybody but you, apparently) racist shit. Especially when your closing argument for every debate was, "Where's your faith?" Oh? Sorry I argued facts and logic while you were gummed up in religious dogma while concentrating on attempting to trap us with pre-approved C.S. Lewis logic traps.
⁶ I'm assuming.

Wonder Woman #22

Stalker.

• This issue begins with Wonder Woman prostituting herself out for over a quarter of a million dollars. Don't worry! It's for a good cause that is explained on the first page in the exact opposite of that totally not too preachy way I expect from my comic books. Also, even if it wasn't for a good cause, you shouldn't worry. If Diana wants to sell her body for scads of money, that's her choice. Nobody has the right to judge her! I mean, technically, we all have that right. It's a free country and all.

• Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor get into a bidding war that's less about wanting to date Wonder Woman and more about whose dick has more money in it.

• Don't worry (again! Man, you worry too much), neither of them win a chance to defile the Amazonian Princess! Veronica Cale wins the date for fifteen million dollars. Diana pees a little bit because she's pretty sure for fifteen million dollars, she going to at least have to do some digital manipulation of Veronica's anal sphincter. Bruce Wayne looks pretty upset. I bet the plan was just to have Batman win it so Diana wouldn't have to spend any actual time with some grody loser nobody.

• Veronica and Diana ditch the banquet early because they're both so excited about going out on a fifteen million dollar date. What must that be like? I bet I'd have an orgasm just knowing somebody wanted to pay fifteen million dollars to spend some time with me. I'm practically having one right now thinking about having one due to that scenario!

• By the way, who pays on a date like this? I mean, Veronica already paid fifteen million. Is she expected to pick up the check as well?

• Veronica Kale reminds me of Darcy Parker. She even has her own Parker Girls.

• The date winds up in a gunfight in the desert where Wonder Woman protects Veronica from the men Veronica sent to attack her so that she could record some kind of resonance frequency given off by Wonder Woman's lasso.

• The issue ends with Veronica realizing Themyscira lies in another dimension and with Wonder Woman letting Veronica know she'll be keeping a close eye on her and with me confused by reading two stories about the same people searching for the same thing happening years apart. At first I thought using the biweekly schedule to tell two different stories was a nice trick to use two different teams of artists. But that was before I knew the stories would be so intertwined that I'd have a difficult time remembering what parts happened in the past and which parts were happening in the present. I could reread them all but I remember being bored through most of it so that's not really an option. Anyway, both stories end in their next issues. Maybe after that, Rucka will try to be less confusing. Or maybe Frank Cho will take over writing duties. Man, could you imagine that disaster? I so want to read that comic book.

Wonder Woman #21

Has nobody complained to DC about how boring the Wonder Woman covers have been lately? I acknowledge that the artist spent a lot of time on her hair for some reason. It's the part of Wonder Woman I want to look at the least! Plus the artist probably could have thrown in a building or lake in the background if they hadn't spent so much time on hair details.

The Review!
Wonder Woman discovers that all the nonsense surrounding her life, all the lies and false stories and DC Reboots, have been Ares' way of leading her to his prison so she can free him. Also in his prison keeping him company all these years? Izzy! But not the faceless thing that Veronica thought was her daughter. No, the real Izzy (her essence or soul or personality or whatever you want to call it depending on how liberal and kooky your spirituality is) has been hanging out in Ares' prison keeping him company. She seems pretty calm about it all. Deimos and Phobos also managed to sneak in and are probably off in a corner de-doggifying themselves. Steve Trevor and Cheetah were left outside the prison to scowl at each other.

The Ranking!
No change. This story almost certainly reads better in a collected edition without being constantly interrupted by the other Wonder Woman story. I sort of like some of it but, overall, I just feel I don't get enough story each month. I don't mind slow paced stories but I have to have some kind of connection to the characters if I'm going to be interested in them barely moving the plot along. And I don't really give a shit about Steve Trevor or Wonder Woman. The only characters I've been curious about were Phobos and Deimos and they've hardly been in it at all. Do they regularly sniff each other's butts? Do they eat poo? Chase squirrels? Have they ever broken into the closet and eaten a full bag of dog biscuits? Who's connected to their favorite humping leg? They really could use a miniseries.

I was kidding, DC. Do not publish a six issue series about Deimos and Phobos as Dobermans. Maybe a short one-shot! But knowing you idiots, you'll ask a writer to stretch a ten page story into one hundred and twenty pages. And they'll do it but they won't do it in a way that makes the story better! They'll just add a lot more boring interludes that don't matter. Probably a couple of double splash pages with the dogs shitting on the neighbor's lawn. Just...just forget I said anything, if you can. I knew that time I asked for a Larfleeze ongoing that I'd regret it and boy was I right! He was much better as an eight page back-up story.

Wonder Woman #20

I wonder if Frank Cho sees Rucka allowing sexy Wonder Woman covers like this where she's casually jerking off a sword and rolls over in his perverted grave?

The Review!
If you're into feminism, you'd better be reading this comic book! Also, you should be into comic books. I'm not into this comic book which poses a problem because I'm really into feminism. At parties, I'm always all, "Hey! How about that feminism? Pretty cool, right?!" Then when nobody talks to me, I throw an incomprehensible tantrum while using phrases like "nice guy" and "total bitch" a lot. You'd think women would be all over you when you proudly proclaim you're into feminism! And I suppose some of them kind of act intrigued but then they want to discuss it and they lose interest pretty quickly when you ask them if they're drunk enough to take off some clothes.

All that being said, this issue — Issue #20, by God! — is the first issue I truly enjoyed. Why the fuck did it take this long to get to the story, Greg Rucka? I hate unnecessary prologue! I mean, some of the previous story could probably be considered necessary. But not a lot of it! A lot of it was boring garbage!

Some questions you were probably too bored to ask were answered this issue and boy were they doozies! Here's one that was answered: Will I ever get to see a panel where Circe strips naked? The answer to that one was yes! Another one was this question: Are the dogs, Deimos and Phobos, any relation to the gods, Deimos and Phobos? The answer to that one is no! I mean, they are Deimos and Phobos and not relations of them. Why would you think some gods would be related to dogs? Oh yeah, that's right! Because the Greek gods fucked anything that moved!

The Ranking!
+1! Finally! An issue of Wonder Woman worth reading. I mean, some of the other ones were worth reading too. But only if you needed to fall asleep quickly.

Wonder Woman #19

Great! Is this issue where she finally dies?

Am I reading this comic book incorrectly? I find it boring because it's too wrapped up in fixing Wonder Woman's identity and comic book history. It also feels a little pretentious simply because Greg Rucka's name is on the cover and people seem unable to criticize Greg Rucka. Does he have some kind of hypnotic mind powers? I've never met him so I'm still able to see that his story is boring. Why does a revamped origin story have to run for over twenty issues?!

The blurbs for the second volume of collected Wonder Woman comics seem to disagree with me. The Nerdist says, "It is, in all seriousness, freaking perfect. It's exactly what Wonder Woman should be." Oh! Well if you're totally being completely and literally as serious as possible, I guess it must be freaking perfect. They also used a pseudo swear in the blurb so you can tell they're really passionate about their opinion. But saying that it's what Wonder Woman should be? She should be a character confused and lost and unsure of who she actually is?! That seems like a weird conclusion to draw.

The second blurb is from the A.V. Club: "Reinforces Wonder Woman's place as one of the world's most inspiring superheroes." Have they even been reading this series? Has she done anything inspirational so far? I think she stopped a terrorist attack in a mall or something in her "coming out" story. I guess that was inspiring. Also she helped save some women from a sexist god with a name I can never remember. That totally inspired Steve Trevor's penis into getting back under her skirt. Maybe she inspires people to ask, "Who am I? Why am I here? What can I do to deny things that have happened in my past that I don't agree with?" Although that would mean the comic book is a bit condescending, right? Assuming that people don't think about their place in the world until a comic book character does it? It's like when somebody plays Devil's Advocate with me. Instead of thinking, "Oh boy! I'm going to have a ridiculous conversation with an insincere person!", I think, "Fuck you, you piece of shit. How dare you think I haven't considered the things I believe in agonizing detail across many sleepless, sweat-soaked nights of pure terror at having to live an actual life?"

It's also possible this comic book is far better than I think it is. Possible but not probable! I am, after all, a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader! You can see the evidence in my comic book rankings. Never mind that I think the best comic book is Justice League of America simply because Lobo is in it! That's a completely logical decision that my seventeen year old penis made and the rest of me has continued to agree with for the last thirty years.

At this point, some of you might be thinking you can't trust my opinions. I hate Wonder Woman but love Lobo?! What kind of patriarchal douchebag must I be?! I know, right? It surprised me too! I guess my sexual attraction to women is sexist and not just part of my mental, biological, and chemical makeup!

Now that we've established that I'm a monster and that this comic book is boring to monsters, I should probably get to the review part. Spoiler Alert: I'll probably say it's boring.

I'm so sick of Minotaurs being nothing more than Labyrinth monkeys! They're more than where they were raised! Although I did use Minotaurs as a player race in an RPG I wrote which described their entire life philosophy through the eyes of wandering the Labyrinth. So I guess I'm a hypocrite.

The Review!
Wonder Woman wanders around looking for her friend Cheetah until she's shot through the heart. If you're of a certain age, you now have a song stuck in your head. But before she was completely and utterly killed for good by the sniper, she declared she would finally find her way home (for the first time since leaving since all of the other stories that you may have read where she went home were all delusions). She's also decided to find the person who told her all of the lies about her past. It was probably Doctor Manhattan disguised as George Pérez and Gail Simone and Phil Jimenez and Brian Azzarello and Meredith Finch and William Moulton Marston and all the other writers who I can't remember who wrote the series at some point before Greg Rucka spread open his anus and sucked them up inside him and into non-existence. That's his super power. He got it when he was at a con one time and somebody asked him for the five millionth time what super power he'd like and he said, "To be able to stick shit up my ass and erase it from existence. I'm looking at you, Frank Cho!" And he was looking at Frank Cho who was a few tables over jerking off over some tits he had just drawn in some fifteen year old's sketch book.

The Ranking!
-1. It was boring.

Wonder Woman #18

That skirt's a little short, Rucka. I'm beginning to think maybe you just had a problem, specifically, with Frank Cho.

I know! I can't believe it either. I'm still reading this book! It's like reading Styrofoam peanuts while eating rice cakes and getting a blow job from some guy in a back alley who really isn't into it.

What happened to Nicola Scott?! Where's my Nicola Scott issue?! All I ask if I'm to keep reading this bland story is that I get to look at Nicola Scott artwork! She hasn't been seen since Issue #14! I'm jonesing over here!

Well fine. No Nicola Scott. But at least we've got Bilquis Evely's artwork to look at this issue. Not that it compares. Comparing Bilquis to Nicola is like comparing something mediocre to something orgasmic. No offense, Bilquis!

Don't you love people who add "no offense" to critical statements? I only did it because I'm a goddamned troll. Also because I just really miss Nicola's artwork and I'd shit all over the work of anybody who followed her on a series (except Moritat! Fucking Mary sitting on Jesus's face, I love Moritat's art! (Not the Virgin Mary, you perv! Mary Magdalene! Sheesh!)). Also I called Bilquis's art mediocre! That's practically a compliment in the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea lexicon!

This issue begins with Veronica of Squad Ares bringing her friend Adrianna back from the dead. She's not entirely successful. She actually just creates a holographic AI using her stored neural pathways. Holographic Adrianna accepts her new identity more quickly than I'd expect from the way Greg Rucka loves to waste comic book pages with nothing but tone building and unnecessary frivolities. But she doesn't want to be called Adrianna anymore. From now on, she's Doctor Cyber. Would it have hurt her to have spent a few extra pages thinking about her new moniker? Sure, I would have bitched about it like Willie Olsen being told he can't have any more candy by his beta cuck father. But at least she could have come up with something more exciting.

Meanwhile, Barbara Ann Minerva (the one in the past! Remember the even issues take place in the past (unless sometimes it's the odd ones that do!)) has decided, since meeting Wonder Woman and discovering Ares was real, has decided to search for other gods. I hope she discovers they're all real except for the God of The Bible (which is also the God of The Koran, so don't think I mean Allah exists as well. They're the same God, dum-dums)!

Is Barbara Ann allowed to discover the Norse Gods or will Marvels' lawyers start getting antsy?

I guess this is where Barbara Ann flies off into the exciting world of fictional archaeology and comes home as a cheetah. Because the gods are jerks!

Veronica's daughter Izzy is still a faceless husk. I guess she hasn't died from starvation yet even though it's been a year since The Phobros interfered with her life. Now she's opted to fund Barbara Ann Minerva's research into finding old gods. Mainly the one named Urzakatakaraka or whatever. I don't have enough brain space left to remember the names of sexist gods! Knowing Yahweh is already one too many!

To make sure Wonder Woman is too busy to save Barbara Ann before she can become Cheetah, Doctor Cyber hacks the world, causing all kinds of problems that are too low level for Superman to deal with but right up Wonder Woman's alley!

This is why I only use the Fremont Bridge (which is my favorite bridge because it reminds me of something out of Astro City)!

Barbara Ann winds up turning into Cheetah in what is now the only canonical way ever because Greg Rucka said so. Barbara Ann, now Cheetah, decides Wonder Woman isn't her friend anymore because she believes she lied about rescuing her. That's always a good way to turn a friend into an enemy. Just have them believe their friend lied without taking the time to figure out if the lie was really just some other kind of misunderstanding. I mean, why think, "My friend would never have betrayed me like this! I should get to the bottom of this!" when it's so much easier to think "Fucking cunt! I'll kill her!"?

The Ranking!
No change. Don't you just love revisiting the origin story of a superhero every few years?! Especially when the new origin takes well over twenty issues to tell? Are you enraptured?! Well good for you! Because I'm still bored.

Wonder Woman #17

I thought Rucka cracked down on overly sexualized covers?

Seventeen issues in and Wonder Woman is still confused by DC's continuity problems. Come on, Greg Rucka! This has been the longest, most boring way to erase Azzarello's bit about the Amazons raping sailors and then tossing the male children born from rape over a cliff. It would have been easier to have Diana dining with Hessia and saying, "I've been wondering. Did you ever rape any sailors to keep the Amazon population up?" And then Hessia would have spit her red wine all over the table and said, "Where'd you hear that old story? More of that patriarchal bullshit from Hephaestus, no doubt. That asshole has been kidnapping young boys for centuries and using that stupid rape story to explain where he was getting them. The Amazons raping sailors for children? Diana, we're immortal! We don't need kids! Sure, sometimes stories showing you growing up from a tiny mound of clay into a young woman included young Amazon children teasing you. But those could be explained away in less than seventeen issues by just pointing out that sometimes Amazons get pregnant and nobody asks too many questions about it. That whole thing about Steve Trevor being the first man to step foot on Themyscira? You believed that?" Then I wouldn't have had to read seventeen issues of Wonder Woman running around yelling, "Who am I?! Where am I from? What the fuck is going on?! The New 52 was a disaster but don't worry! A super genius writer who is less a genius writer than Azzarello but certainly less problematic for the kinds of fans who care about that shit is here to fix everything!"

The current story is called "The Truth" so I guess Rucka is finally getting around to explaining things. Although wasn't the first story arc also called "Truth"? And it didn't explain anything! Here's what we know: Diana left Themyscira in a kind of getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden way. I don't know why Christian mythology was used. Maybe that's my own biased perspective intruding on the snake biting Diana before she left Paradise for good. Maybe there's a Greek story about a snake in a tree causing a person to leave paradise that my twelve year old self once knew. Since then, Diana has been trying to find her way back home because she realizes all of her memories of going back home were fake (probably implanted by Dr. Oz). She's never actually been back! But she's not the only one searching for a way to Paradise Island. Ares hunts for it as well. He thinks by using modern technology, he can access Wonder Woman's brain better than Wonder Woman can. He might be right because Wonder Woman almost made it home before the evil corporation blackmailed by Ares to help him decided to shoot Wonder Woman in the face. She managed to draw a twisted tree on the ground which grew on Paradise Island before she had to run away because of the being shot in the face thing.

Have I remembered everything correctly? I think that's all the information needed to understand what's happening in this series. Oh, also, Etta Candy is a big gay.

Luckily Rucka gets right into the story and only spends five pages on Castalia telling Hippolyta not to abandon faith and hope. That leaves a hefty fifteen pages to really get into the meat of the story!

The next four pages are put to good use too! Diana listens to the phallus that lives in her wrist. It reminds everybody that Wonder Woman has played a lot of roles over the years and now she's playing the role of patient in an asylum. It's her best role yet because she gets to have tea with a talking penis that lives in her arm.

She hasn't been ready for sixteen previous issues! What's the hold up?!

Thankfully, the story really gets going after the talking phallus in the cell drinking tea scene. Etta Candy and Steve Trevor have found The Minotaur because they need questions answered by somebody who knows how to navigate labyrinths. The Minotaur's name is Ferdinand because he's a bull. And since the scene doesn't really reveal much of anything, go back and read the first sentence of this paragraph sarcastically.

The Ares Squad attack Ferdinand, Etta, and Steve. But they only do it to get Barbara Ann to agree to be Cheetah again. For some comic book reason, they need a demigod to find Themyscira. To save her friends, Barbara Ann agrees to be that demigod. The attack is called off and Diana's friends are free to visit her in the hospital where Ferdinand gives Diana her lasso and costume. This pulls her out of her fugue state so that she's ready to lead her crew to Themyscira. Probably.

The Ranking!
-1! I'm not entirely sure why I haven't dropped this series yet. It would be nice if a series about Wonder Woman was actually about Wonder Woman and not about fixing Wonder Woman and DC Continuity so that Wonder Woman can be seen as the Wonder Woman Greg Rucka wants her to be. How is this any different than nearly every single Wonder Woman story that has come before when a writer gets a chance to reboot the Wonder Woman story at Issue #1? This is why she's had so many identities and why Rucka thinks he needs to spend twenty issues tearing it all down so he can build up his version of Wonder Woman. It's almost as if he thinks he can write a definitive version that can be proof against any writer ever stepping on board the series and using canon stories that Rucka didn't approve in this story arc because he wrote them away. Why can't he just get on with writing his version of Wonder Woman and just pretend the other versions never existed, the way every other comic book writer does? I feel like instead of expressing his opinion through the story, he's simply been busy tearing down past canon depictions of Wonder Woman while building up a defense against possible future depictions of the character. Who is she? What is the truth of her character? How do her conflicting memories fit into the story of Wonder Woman? I might have cared about that at one time but that was probably ten issues ago. I've lost the capacity to care! Although to be fair to Greg Rucka, he played no part in that happening. Losing my capacity to care was most likely caused by my relationships with my mother and father and also when my cat Bozo died when I was fourteen.

Wonder Woman #16

Imagine the chimera. At one point in the ancient world, a goat was bad-ass enough to stick on a lion to make it tougher.

• I bet the legend of the Chimera began when a drunk guy was walking home and he saw a lion off to the side and in the distance behind the lion was a goat so that it looked like the goat's head was sticking out of the back of the lion. Then he told people about the creature and they were all, "Bullshit! Didn't happen. Pics." But instead of admitting he was drunk and maybe he didn't exactly see things clearly, he doubled down on his story and was all, "And there was a snake coming out of its butt! And it breathed fire!" Then everybody was all, "Oh shit. Now that sounds plausible!"

• The Chimera on the cover is totally based on the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual Chimera. But the Chimera Wonder Woman wrestles on the first page is the more historically accurate Chimera. What I'm suggesting is that Jenny Frison plays Dungeons and Dragons.

• Veronica and Adrianna of Empire Business and Hand Soap Solutions discuss Wonder Woman and how great or not-so-great she is. Adrianna is all goofy in the pants for her but Veronica remains distant and aloof to the possibility that maybe Wonder Woman is the greatest thing to ever happen to immigration. They're busy working on a thing that will cause Wonder Woman no end of problems in the odd numbered issues. But right now in these even numbered issues, Empire Business and Hand Soap Solutions still don't know how much they despise Wonder Woman or how much the hand soap is hurting the rest of their business.

• Meanwhile in Geneva, Switzercountry, Veronica's daughter, Isadore, meets a couple of men who seem to be the same man. They begin using all the regular chat-up lines on Isadore like "This painting is called 'Kill Your Father' and 'We're twins' and 'Have you ever seen a man's stick this big and fancy?' and also, the best, 'Gaze into my magic gem of secrets!'"

• After her encounter, Isadore loses her face.

This is probably some kind of metaphor for sexism, right?

• The twins who stole Isadore's identity are Phobos and Deimos. Those are the gods of Vietnamese Soup and Gay Gods, respectively. That doesn't explain why they would need the face of a little girl. Maybe I got the translations of their names wrong.

• Phobos and Deimos are, of course, the moons of Mars. Apparently they've taken human form and this is going to wind up being a Martian Manhunter crossover. Maybe they needed the little girl's face so they could build more face art on the surface of Mars.

• The Phobros believe that Empire Business and Hand Soap Solutions can meet their needs. They would like to know the location of Themyscira but they can't seem to find it in Diana's head. So they need Veronica's not-quite-ready-to-go technology. It will probably be ready in about five or six years. Once they get the information, Isadore will be freed from some tartar sauce.

• Adrianna volunteers to hook herself up to the CyberWalker machinery. That probably explains why she's a hologram in the odd numbered issues. Unless they were, at one point, the even numbered issues. It's hard to say since there was that stupid Barbara Minerva Cheetah Origin story smack dab in the middle of everything.

• Being that the technology is in that not-quite-ready-to-go status that I so scientifically detailed earlier, it fails to provide the Phobros with the information they need. But it does manage to kill Adrianna! I mean, trap her mind inside a computer. That's the way things work when you attach brains to machines and then turn switches and run currents and all the other technological stuff that I can't be bothered to explain to dullards. Not that you, the person currently reading this right now, are a dullard! It's all those other people reading this.

The Ranking!
No change! When I was a teenager and way too naive for the age I was, I wished the local zoo had been full of creatures from Dungeons and Dragons. That's not a great chat-up line in junior high. I can only tell you the not great chat-up lines from junior high since I never figured out the successful ones. That's no great surprise though since one time, Marilyn Mendoza, the girl I had a crush on for nearly my entire junior high school life, was writing notes back and forth to me in the library. Her final note to me said, "I love you anyway," and I instantly went into a fugue state. I would explain how Marilyn reacted but, as I pointed out, I went into a fugue state! Totally botched that one!

Wonder Woman #15

I imagine if you're super strong, this happens a lot.

Mass killings aren't a product of religious fervor or mental illness. They're a product of maleness. And it isn't maleness unchecked that's the problem; it's maleness fermenting. It's the bubbling, seething, growing mixture of masculinity finding no outlet in the body of a man-child. The inability of these ever aging man-children to cross over to manhood in their own minds creates a growing resentment and anger against the society that seemingly refuses to simply accept and embrace their maleness. In Islamic countries, we're seeing this anger and resentment being used to manipulate these young men toward somebody else's extremist goals. In America, these negatively confident males seek solace in others of their kind where they learn to direct their anger at women and other men who have seemingly made the impossible transition into adulthood with little or no effort. These women and men are symbols of their self-imposed emasculation brought on by isolating from the physical realm, where they've floundered, to spend more and more time online, a space where they will never get a chance to express their masculinity and find the adulthood which they so desperately need. A lot of this fermenting is obviously sexual frustration (due to religion or culture or the amount of Dungeons and Dragons manuals they own) and a lack of some ceremony or tradition to mark an occasion of manhood (getting a Magic-User to epic levels is close but, ultimately, doesn't fucking count).

I'm not a fan of rigid social customs but when I see a growing segment of men turning to anger and blaming others for their inability to feel like an adult man, I think of something my Uncle used to say. He believed compulsory military service would be a boon to a great number of young men. And while I hate the idea of it and believe it would do harm to a different segment of the population who would do the opposite of thrive in those conditions, I can't help but think he had a theoretical point. Maybe not compulsory for everybody but some people need and desire the regimented and stable direction of a military life. It has the added benefit of fast-tracking a boy into manhood. I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish this that aren't military (which feels like a poor choice to fix the problem since the problem is violent tendencies). And while the military isn't strictly defined by violence, we all know why the military exists. But maybe that's the part — the potential violence and death — that makes a boy soldier, no matter how young, feel like they've become a man.

While I'm expressing flights of fancy, how about another consideration: arranged marriages! Although, instantly, I'm already feeling sorry for any woman in an arranged marriage with a guy who owns a Fedora, a complete set of Antiquities, and a full complement of Mox gems.

See?! Right there is part of the problem! I'm poking fun at these man-children who might be reading this and are now fuming that I've probably stuck my dick in a vagina (and a butthole! I mean, or a butthole!) even though I'm obviously a huge nerd who reads comic books and knows the powers, strength, and toughness of the Guardian Beast card.

When I first had sex, it was due to doing something manly and heroic in front of a woman I had been casually flirting with all weekend. Up until that moment, she hadn't taken me seriously at all (nor did I, really! Sex with a woman I'd just met? Ha ha! Inconceivable!). I was also never anxious or worried or angry that it was never going to happen for me. I actually had previous opportunities but bypassed them because my heart was pining desperately for a girl who long since had stopped thinking of me in that way (because I never made a move! Idiot!). But when the opportunity arose, it was because I showed myself to be independent, responsible, kind, and capable of calling myself a fucking adult. Don't be fooled! I still barely think of myself as an adult! That's a hard concept to truly wrap your mind around. I suspect that I became an actual adult not when I first had sex but when I first left my hometown for good. That isn't a general rule for everybody; I'm not offering advice here! I'm just expressing the moment, when I look back, that I knew my life was irrevocably my responsibility.

I don't have any answers to stopping mass killings but I know one of them is not "destroying Islam." Seeing that more Americans on American soil have died from young American males than foreign terrorist attacks, you would think would be enough proof in understanding this isn't a religious problem. It's a problem that certain religious extremists are certainly using to their benefit! But even so, America has an entirely different problem that has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with fermenting maleness. To ignore that problem in favor of blaming a religion is to simply accept living in a world filled with report after report of young male Americans killing their fellow Americans as we lay blame at the feet of Muslims.

All this being said, it's just thoughts off the top of my head based on things I've thought about and felt and experienced. I may have written it in a matter-of-fact style but it's all just thoughtful ruminations on a complicatedly deadly matter. The worst part is that I've completely thrown Magic the Gathering under the bus and I love that game!

The Review!
Cheetah reveals that the group searching for Diana and a way onto Themyscira is called Godwatch. The Island Steve and Diana found is apparently this world's gateway to Themyscira but it must be opened by Diana. She's gotten halfway there by drawing a picture of the gnarled tree in the sand before they left the island, a tree which has now appeared again on Themyscira. Diana is still crazy from too many continuities crowding around in her head. And Etta and Steve have gone off to find some old friends to help bring Diana back. I guess the first friend is the Minotaur who she refused to kill at Ares insistence in some Annual or flashback story in The New 52. He's been living on the streets of New York. I guess that's as good a labyrinth as any.

The Ranking!
No change!

Wonder Woman #14

I remember when my hair was this luxurious.

The Review!
Let's see. What did I just read? Wonder Woman was in it and she was all, "Hi-yah!" Is that how you spell the noise you make when you karate chop some fool in the throat? Because that's what she did to Ares. And Ares was all, "Nice guys finish last because of you dumb women!" And Wonder Woman was all, "Patriarchy this, motherfucker!" Then she kicked him in the patriarchies (which are the balls) and an owl took his Fedora and a deer headbutted him in the dice bag and a falcon tore out his eyes while mocking him by screeching, "Mi'lady!" Then after Ares disappeared (not dead but humiliated, running off to go sort his Magic cards through his tears and pretending that he wasn't hurt at all) and Steve Trevor was all, "I'm in love! SPRUBOING!" That's the sound of his penis. Then I think later Etta and Barbara fucked drunkenly. A good time was had by all! Including Ares who finally got all his lands sorted by artist!

The Ranking!
No change!

Wonder Woman #13

Apparently Wonder Woman cries out of her eyes and ears.

When a person gets annoyed at somebody saying "All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," it's almost certainly not why you think it is. The problem with the statement isn't strictly the part about the guns. The problem is that time after time we've seen that the "good guy" can't actually recognize a bad guy (or if there is even a gun (or, knowing that all the good guy has to say is they thought there was a gun, not caring that there isn't a gun at all)). It's easy to point to a mass shooting and say, "That guy could have been stopped if a good guy had a gun." In fact, gun lovers love to point out those hypothetical situations as proof that more guns are needed. But try to point out that "good guys" with guns constantly shoot anybody they perceive as being a bad guy and you'll soon find out what the real argument of the "All it takes..." quote is. Because as we've seen from people who support Donald Trump's travel ban from countries with populations which have a zero percent rate of terrorist attacks on American soil in the last thirty years, they already know who the bad guys are. You would think the operative word in their pithy argument would be "gun" but the actual identifier of the bad guy is a dog whistle and a wink: dark skinned. In Professor John Jennings' essay, "Skin Cells" (published in Bitch Planet #8 (and possibly elsewhere?)), he states how his black body is inscribed by society "with the visual language of discrimination, fear, and violence." He also uses this quote by Claudia Rankine: "Because white men can't police their imagination, black men are dying." Societal beliefs and expectations are a virus which you've lived with for so long that you come to accept it as just a part of who you are. Many people truly believe the bad guy is dark skinned. Many people now believe the only real bad guy is Muslim. Somehow they conveniently ignore all of the mass killings perpetrated by white skinned individuals. I have a theory about that!

Don't I always have a theory about everything? I am, after all, a complete and utter individual whose confident voice of reason demands to be heard. Or at least that's what I've learned, having grown up white, male, and heterosexual. Oh wait. That's my theory! White people are seen as individuals who are responsible for their own actions and thus don't represent an entire group when they shoot up school or a church or a mosque or a Planned Parenthood. But dark skinned people are seen as representative of their entire race or religion and thus any crime perpetrated by one is an example of how all the rest will act. I guess that isn't much of a "my theory" as it is the generally accepted theory of how we view race in this country. Or at least a theory held by intelligent people who perceive reality and not people like my cousin Troy who find Super Bowl ads hilarious, thinks responding to facts by saying "Bullshit" is discussion, and likes pages like CarMax on Facebook because why?

I'm considering posting that on Facebook and then replying to it with "In before Troy can say 'Bullshit'." (The period belongs outside the quotes because Troy doesn't know about punctuation.)

The Review!
This comic book is hard to follow because it's two different stories published in an alternating schedule. All that really means is that I have to wait a month to read the next part of each story which, in yet another theory, should be fine since that's how people generally experience comic books. But knowing that I have a problem remembering stories from month to month, I began a blog to help me remember what happened the previous month. But now when I get a new issue of Wonder Woman, I reread my previous blog entry on Wonder Woman which discusses the story that I'm not about to read! I suppose I could reread the penultimate entry I've written but that's too much of a hassle. And by "too much of a hassle," I just mean anything that takes just a moment's extra thought and nearly no extra time at all.

What I'm trying to say is I forget what was happening in this story. But I also haven't read a Wonder Woman comic book for two months due to falling behind. So that's probably the main source of my inability to remember.

It turns out Wonder Woman, in her search for home, has fallen into a coma. Also a woman with a name-tag that reads Maru (probably Chris Carter's daughter) is killing government agents in her search for Wonder Woman. She's the woman with the scar on her face on the cover of this issue except somebody forgot to tell the cover artist, Liam Sharp (unless this is the variant cover and then it's Jenny Frison. Except I don't think it's Jenny Frison because I usually come in my pants when I see her art and that didn't happen when I looked at this cover), that the scar is supposed to look like a caduceus. That's probably a clue!

Wonder Woman quickly gets better. I don't mean all the way better. I just mean out of a coma better.

I think Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman have wound up on the island from Lost in their search for Themyscira. That must be why there's a Dharma logo on the cover for the Sprocket Station.

Did anybody ever do an I Ching reading of the Dharma logos? I should ask Lord Google about that. Here's a reading by NewSuez on losteastereggs, a blogspot blog:

"I chose these symbols for a reading on the internet and this is what it came up with...
The time is not yet right for you to act, so be patient: the transition from chaos to order is not yet complete. You are following the right path, but avoid disputes, and success will come to you in time.
Equal partnerships benefit. Act with humility to all people; restore balance between excess and dearth in order to be successful.
This is a good time for increased activity and prosperity, and maybe travel over water. Make the most of this time because it will pass. Be generous and do not seek unfair advantage over others.
Do not follow someone else's path. Be careful of dangerous situations: deceit and hidden objectives will be harmful, although honesty and honourable actions could be beneficial. Learn from these situations for the future.
There is good fortune, but this is not a time to relax. Be sure to consolidate what you have, or have gained. Act with caution and strive to maintain balance.
Everything is as it should be! Take opportunities as they arise, and act with conviction, but make sure you do not appear over-confident or 'immodest'.
Avoid excesses, and preserve what you have. You may need to accept a loss, but do so easily: greater benefit will replace the loss. Be restrained but flexible, and act with sincerity.
There is danger which must be acknowledged, and actions taken in quiet ways with the support of others. Greater prosperity will follow if you act fairly and with honour, and are cautious in your actions."

I would do an I Ching reading of the logo on the cover except I don't think it has entries for tentacles.

The theory that they're on the island from Lost isn't just a joke! The caduceus on Maru's face was one of the Dharma stations. In fact, all of the Dharma stations have some connection to Apollo. Which probably means something if I cared to spend any more time thinking about Lost than I already have in this lifetime.

That's what the captain of the Black Rock probably said! Oh! Steve Trevor keeps thinking about how they're trapped on a "rock" in the middle of the "Black" sea! Totally on the Lost island!

This island is also an island that can't be found and shouldn't be where it is. Coincidence? The island might also be a gateway to another place. This one to Themyscira, the island of Lost to Heaven (since it was, you know, Purgatory).

Maru (who is a Marina and not a Piper) lands on the island with her team, Poison. They rock the fucking faces off the hair band kids and then get their asses beat by jock Steve Trevor. He might kick the asses of Poison but not their leader, Marina Maru. She gets the drop on Wonder Woman and ends the battle because Steve Trevor hasn't seen the comic by Kerry Callen

Why the bracelets? Click through to find out!

Steve and Diana are rescued by some of Steve's or Etta's or Jack's or Locke's or Ben's friends. They leave the Island and escape although they'll probably have to come back later to finish finding Themyscira and Diana's past.

Diana is locked in a mental ward until she can metamorphose into Rebirth Wonder Woman. Right now, she's still really confused by all of that history between Crisis on Infinite Earths and now.

The Ranking!
-1! This was just a stupid love letter from Steve Trevor to Diana! Romance is stupid! And dumb! That might not be a fair assessment of this comic book but it's a completely biased assessment, which is all you'll ever get from me! I promise!

Wonder Woman #12

My gift to everybody this Christmas is that I'm going to treat these reviews seriously today. If you don't celebrate Christmas, just Google "inappropriate dick jokes" and sprinkle them throughout as you read.

Feminism is so important, guys. It's why books like this written by Greg Rucka are so important. He makes sure to always insert a bit of social commentary that points out terrible things the Patriarchy has taught people that it's okay to do. Like in one of the last ones, Diana asked Etta Candy if people still touch her hair. Like, OMG! Fuckers always going about trying to touch POC hair! That comment was like a kick to the neckbeard of the Patriarchy! Unless that just had to do with some other kind of social justice. Sometimes it's hard to keep it all straight! I mean sorted! I probably shouldn't use the term "straight" as a characteristic of order and keeping things proper because that perpetuates homophobia! Anyway, at least Rucka told that Frank Cho a thing or two about the length of Wonder Woman's skirt! I mean, I think it's okay to draw it short and to maybe see a little bit of Diana's undergarments if a woman draws it, or if a respectable man draws it. But Frank Cho draws all those pornographic covers so he totally had a major scolding and lecture coming!

This issue continues the Year One story arc. I'm glad it mentioned that on page two because I couldn't remember if this was continuing the story that takes place in the present or the one that took place in the past. I don't know why DC Comics doesn't put a summary page in their comics the way Marvel does. So what if all the Marvel fans start taunting DC Comics for copying something that Marvel does! Not only would it allow new readers to jump on board at any time, it will help older readers who can't remember anything they read a week prior! Plus it would stop people like Scott Lobdell wasting four pages each issue reminding readers what happened in the previous issue (and, usually, getting it all wrong anyway because he can't be bothered to take his job seriously).

Oh shit! I knew who Sappho was too! Does that mean everybody I've ever met that I told I knew Sappho thinks I'm a lesbian?

While Etta and Barbara investigate the terrorists, the Sear Group, Diana experiments with her new powers. Not only can she speak English now (thanks to her lasso), she can also talk to animals. Hmm, that's one more reason why Aquaman is just a redundant member of the Justice League. Steve Trevor learns that Wonder Woman left behind a female lover and when she's feeling vulnerable, he holds her hand! It might seem compassionate and romantic but I guarantee he had a semi growing in his pants. Guys are gross.

The Sear Group have a tattoo of a tree on their bodies. It's the tree that Diana saw on Paradise Island before leaving with Steve Trevor. It's the tree of knowledge with the serpent in it that bit her and drove her from her garden. It's all sorts of Christian imagery tied up in a tale of a Greek demi-goddess.

Wonder Woman interviews the Sear prisoners with her lasso and discovers they're forced to kill and destroy by some overarching will which they can't deny. It's about that time that Barbara realizes Sear is an anagram for ears. But then she crosses that out and notices it's also an anagram for Ares! And that's when Ares shows up to choke Steve Trevor and introduce himself to Wonder Woman. So I guess Ares as Wonder Woman's major antagonist is good enough for Rebirth Wonder Woman. Probably because he's a man who represents war. Those are like two of the main things Wonder Woman is destined to crush!

Well, maybe not all men! Just some men! Like, the really bro ones! But not the ones like me who say all of the right things when there are women in earshot!

The Ranking!
No change! I think I fucked up my Christmas promise and didn't take this as seriously as I meant to! In fact, I even sounded like I was mocking feminism! That was probably a poor choice for a review of Wonder Woman. Unless you're a jerko male who took what I was saying seriously and thought, "I should read more of this person's blog!" Then, yeah, I totally meant it and wasn't being snarky at all! But if you're a woman or a guy who wants women to take him seriously, I was totally just fooling around and being a huge idiot! You can't take anything I say seriously because I'm unable to tell the truth. Mostly it's because I can't help telling the truth as well and the only way to hide my true statements that I'm ashamed or embarrassed by is to sprinkle them in with a bunch of lies so nobody knows what I think at all!

Wonder Woman #11

Diana's nervous look frightens me more than the semen all over her.

Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor have found their way to Paradise Island. Diana discovers her mother hasn't been turned into a statue at all which means...well, I don't know what it means. Maybe it means The New 52 was all a dream. Except the parts where she was fucking Superman. But she already sort of apologized to Steve Trevor about that. She was all, "What did you expect? He's Superman! You can't tell me you wouldn't want a taste of that super dick, right?! Besides, my invulnerability means that I can barely feel your penis inside my vagina. I had to see what it was like fucking a guy with a dick hard enough to batter my nerve endings. Oh, I'm getting woozy just thinking about it." And Steve was all, "I'm sure ARGUS can develop some kind of super Viagra that will make my dick so hard you'll think it was from Krypton!" Then they shook hands and decided to never again talk about how Diana and Clark dated.

Diana seems willing to believe they've found the real Paradise Island. I don't know which version of Paradise Island is real but I'm sure it's any version that doesn't have a history of Amazons raping sailors and throwing newborn male babies off of a cliff.

Meanwhile, Etta Candy has become suspicious of Director Sasha. She follows her as she drops of Urzkartaga the Plant so that the CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company can get her hands on it. Etta winds up shooting Sasha in her robot face. The CEO, a woman named Veronica Kale, unleashes her Doberman Pinschers, Terror and Panic, on Etta Candy. Whether or not she kills the dogs won't be revealed for another issue or two.

Back on Paradise Island, Wonder Woman realizes that she's never actually been back home. When she left all those years ago, the cost was that she could never return. And she's just now discovering that all of the times she thought she had gone back, all of those previous DC adventures that took place on Paradise Island, never actually happened. I mean, they happened! But they were all lies created by some still unknown adversary, or God, or spectacular drug. That's convenient! Instead of rebooting and rebirthing and crisising things again until nobody knows what the fuck is what, just pretend all of those stories were some kind of fantastic illusion. Wonder Woman experienced them but they somehow weren't real. Which is probably why she can't remember her past too clearly.

The Ranking!
No change. Only two things happened in this comic book! Etta Candy discovered a leak in ARGUS, and Wonder Woman discovered she's never been back to Themyscira. I don't know why it took twenty pages to tell those two things but it did. And it only took me about two minutes to read it all. I don't think that was a good use of my two dollars and ninety-nine cents.

Wonder Woman #10

Is this doing it?!

Trump supporters pretending to be Clinton supporters because they're the actual precious snowflakes who can't take criticism be like:

Meanwhile, Trump is over here being all:

I readily admit I have no power. But even if I did, I would never use that power to try to silence people. Debate isn't about getting the side you don't agree with to shut up. Debate is about pointing out how dumb the other side is! And to do that, you have to let them keep saying stupid things which you can then mock relentlessly. If a whole new generation is going to have to live with the specter of nuclear holocaust because a bunch of sad-eyed voters got their feelings hurt and decided to stick it to the intellectual elite (who dared to know better and to know that they knew better!), I'm at least going to feel sanctimonious in my childish taunts of a supremely unintelligent and selfish manchild that seeks to dismantle the American system at the foundation. I will also relentlessly mock the people who continue to support this blatantly moronic trainwreck of a man despite how troubling and terrible his statements and actions have been since becoming president elect (also before! I just mean I'm specifically focusing on his post-election idiocy).

I guess renewing the arms race (this time hand-in-hand with Putin as they decide which country full of Muslims to nuke first) isn't as terrible as a nobody comic book blogger with no power at all pointing out that Donald Trump might be the dumbest Republican puppet president yet. Obviously I include Reagan in that statement. He was the beginning of the Republican presidents who are just mouthpieces for corporations and the wealthy. Of course you can't get enough votes to win if that's your base so they also go whole hog on being pro-gun and anti-abortion. People don't mind voting in people who will make their lives terrible as long as those people promise all the guns forever and no more salty Jesus tears.

And now, Wonder Woman!

Last issue was all about shopping and dating. This issue is all about shopping and dating except five years ago. So it's totally different and more magical and tinged with that sweet yet sour nostalgia dipping sauce. Also Wonder Woman can't speak English yet. Why can't she be more like Starfire and learn English by engaging in oral sex? Then the entire comic book wouldn't be her and Cheetah having a conversation while Steve Trevor constantly interjects with "Did she just say she likes my boner? She did, right?"

You know who else likes her outfit? Steve's boner.

The first thing Etta Candy wants to do is get a margarita in Diana. The second thing Etta wants to do, I bet, is get a tongue in Diana! I see where this is going, Ms. Candy, and I don't approve! How about getting Diana's consent free of alcohol before you both get drunk and engage in oral sex on a diaper changing station in the mall bathroom?

Over lunch, they discover that Diana's golden lasso allows everybody to understand everybody else.

It also translates creepy stares and bulging crotches for Diana who, never being around men, had no idea what those things meant.

While they're enjoying lunch, a bunch of gunmen storm the mall and begin shooting shoppers. While helping Steve Trevor stop the assailants, Wonder Woman learns she not only has super strength but super speed as well. And she's particularly adept at blocking bullets with her bracelets. Or bracers. Or, for the particularly nerdy and pedantic, vambraces. I hope the reaction to that statement is particularly nerdy and pedantic and I'm schooled on how Wonder Woman's bracers aren't anything like vambraces!

Diana also discovers she's mostly invulnerable when she sits on a grenade. Oh, and she can fly. So that's most of her powers worked out. It'll be some time before she learns of her super compassion and her super prostate massage powers.

The new team learn that Sears, Roebuck & Company are behind the attacks. They're probably having financial difficulties and targeting people who abused the Craftsmen Tools lifetime warranty.

The Ranking!
+1 Ranking. Okay fine. I'm beginning to enjoy this comic book much more than I was during the Urzkatarga bit. Plus Nicola Scott's art is pleasing.

Wonder Woman #9

"I get all of my wall art from ads in the back of Heavy Metal Magazine."

If anybody is going to see the 3:50 showing of Rogue One at Century 16 Cedar Hills Crossing Theater in Beaverton, I'll be the person most likely loudly arguing politics with my father throughout the entire move. See you there!

This issue begins with a totally hilarious penis joke about a plant that is also a god. At least I think it was a penis joke. I'm fairly certain that any time anybody mentions how size isn't everything, they're talking about their tiny penis. Not that there's anything wrong with having a tiny penis! I mean, there totally is! Wait! I didn't mean that the way it sounds. I just mean that if you're a man and you have a tiny penis, you almost certainly lack all self-confidence and will never feel comfortable taking showers with other men which totally limits your opportunities to see other penises! What a terrible life! Although, one must suppose, if a person has a tiny penis, they overcompensate in other ways that could make them hugely successful (or so I've heard every time somebody comments on a man in a shiny red sports car or a massive truck). My penis is a perfectly reasonable size which is code for "it's not massive but I've never been too embarrassed to have somebody put it in their mouth."

Trevor has given the plant to the woman with the scar across her left eye. I don't remember her name because it has too many vowels in it and also an X that isn't pronounced (probably?). It's probably why Trevor just calls her Ma'am the entire time. Although that word has too many vowels and an extra piece of punctuation, so it's not ideal either.

Wonder Woman is out with Etta Candy and Barbara or Minerva or Priscilla or Ann or Deborah or whatever Cheetah's name is. It's not that I don't care (I mean, I don't care but that's not the reason I don't know Cheetah's real name!), it's that this entire story is about how Wonder Woman's history is a huge lie and she doesn't know which of her memories are true. So is this the first Cheetah or the second Cheetah or the third Cheetah or the...was there a fourth Cheetah? I mean, is the post-Crisis Cheetah the same Cheetah as the post-Zero Hour Cheetah? And did anything change in the Cheetah line-up after Infinite Crisis? And, of course, The New 52 means there was ever only one Cheetah anyway, right? Except that's the whole point of this Rebirth Wonder Woman shit! To get all of the past history straight! I hope they bring back Priscilla and Debbie!

Meanwhile some shady shit is going down in Washington, DC. No, different shady shit than that. This shit involves the CEO of Empire Enterprise (a name which just shouts "I am a super-villain seeking world domination!") and her two Doberman Pinschers. The company's logo is some octopus thing, probably Scylla or the other one that's impossible to spell or say. So, you know, that's another clue she's evil. Her company has a plant in Etta Candy's ARGUS world, and I'm not talking about Urzkartaga. They plan on following Wonder Woman so that they can find Paradise Island.

While Etta and Barbara work to find Paradise Island using all of the government's satellite data and maps and Barbara's knowledge of polygottism (even though Barbara points out immediately that none of that stuff will help find Paradise Island because it lies in a spiritual location and not a physical one, or something. So, um, what the fuck are they doing then?), Diana takes off to go get some penis.

The first part of the date with Steve Trevor is spent on working through the fact that Diana has come back to Steve because Superman died. Man feelings are quite tender no matter how much men like to deny they have any. Women know this far better than any man could ever know because they're all so self-involved. So when a man needs emotional support (which is, like, almost constantly, the big babies), women freely give that support. But when a woman needs emotional support (which is, like, far less often than most people tend to think), men roll their eyes and think, "Again?! CHRIST ALMIGHTY!" Wouldn't it be wonderful if people just gave each other the support they needed when they needed it instead of turning it into some kind of competition or game? I don't mean I should have to give any emotional support, of course! But I'd like it to be there for me when I need it! Which is, like, almost never. I'm Ford Tough and I don't have any issues with intimacy caused by my mother's refusal to hug me tenderly when life was crushing my soul.

The date ends with this:

Okay, maybe it doesn't exactly end here! It probably ends with Diana putting one of her legs up on the edge of the bathtub so she can use the handheld shower nozzle to flush the sand from her nether regions.

I hate when art is framed like the panel above. The space over their heads is fine but only if you don't cut the fucking characters off at the ankles!

Wonder Woman points out, before the fucking, how she believes love is limitless. This is something I've always believed even though I don't believe in love. I mean, I believe in caring and compassion and intimacy. But I always thought it was weird that we are allowed to fully hate as many people as our black hearts can manage but we're only ever allowed one true love. That's a social convention that I've always thought was just asking for a world full of hatred and...well, surprise! How about we turn this shit around? From now on, we can have only one True Enemy but we're allowed to love (and fuck, of course!) as many people as we see fit. And you can't hate everybody out of jealousy because of the one True Enemy clause! Of course, you're still allowed to make a monogamous contract with another person. That's between you and the other person! But I think we need some new Disney movies that don't concentrate on one true love and concentrate more on the princess who fucks lots and lots of guys and loves them all equally and the world is better for it.

The fucking between Diana and Steve is interrupted by a call from Candy. They've figured out a spot where Diana might be able to move through to Paradise Island. So Steve and Diana head there and it works! Just like that! Paradise Unlost! I mean, Paradise Found!

The Ranking!
+1 Ranking! I haven't really been enjoying this comic too much. I think it was the Urzkartaga story arc. But I liked this issue. Probably because I'm a fan of women shopping and women fucking soldiers on beaches.

Wonder Woman #8

Remember in junior high school how learning the different types of Greek columns seemed super important? Was junior high simply preparing everybody for the day they might appear on Jeopardy?

Here are the three most important things that happened in my 7th grade history class: I tried a date for the first time; my teacher told me a terrible story about keeping your arms inside the windows of moving vehicles lest they get sheared off at the elbow; and Midori Moody took off her sweater in front of me and her shirt went up with it. Also I guess I learned that there was some kind of superficial difference between Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian columns.

I hope this is the issue that sets down in canon that Diana is bisexual. I hope it sets it down for like seven or eight egregiously detailed pictures. I'm using the archaic definition of egregious! Also, possibly, some of the modern definition.

Cheetah is a polyglot?! Sexy!

Apparently biweekly comic books make it difficult to tell a coherent story with a cohesive look. So not only has every other issue been about Wonder Woman's past, and every other other issue has been about Wonder Woman trying to figure out her past, now it's time for an interlude so everybody telling those other stories can catch their breath! This issue is about Cheetah. But since the cover said Wonder Woman and not Cheetah, I'm still hoping that eight or nine pages of it will star Diana Prince's tongue and fist and Amazonian strap-on.

Early in Cheetah's life, her father forbade her from using her imagination. From that point on, it was all serious business! That's the only real defining moment of Cheetah's childhood, so the story move on to many years later when Cheetah is much older and has much more polyglot experience. It's also possible that Cheetah had some other formative moments from her childhood but this is only a twenty page stories and eight or nine pages of it have been reserved for the sex scene.

In these early years, Cheetah wasn't Cheetah yet but I'm going to keep calling her Cheetah because fuck you. Sorry, sorry. That was probably more aggressive than it should have been. It probably shouldn't have been aggressive at all! It sounds like I know I'm doing a disservice to the character but sticking defensively to my guns because I'd rather double down on ineptitude than admit that I'm being disrespectful to the character of Barbara Ann Whatever.

Anyway, Cheetah believes the Amazons weren't myths at all but a real civilization that threatened the patriarchies of their day. Amazons were so good with bows that suddenly men couldn't show their erect penises in public for fear of getting an arrow through their shaft. They probably went around grumbling how women were ruining everything with their vocal demands for individual respect! I bet they were all, "Women are ruining our leisure activities! All of the games down at the Greek Game Spot were always about fucking as many women as possible! But did you see what was on the shelves last week?! A game about women having successful businesses! How am I supposed to enjoy Vagina Tallies or Breast Who or Titillation Town when I know there's a game that doesn't treat women as prizes! Outrageous!" Cheetah's peers are all, "You're probably wrong for man reasons. Also, how did you get a degree in man's work?"

On this expedition where another man was telling her, yet again, to stuff her imagination, Cheetah discovers the tomb of a queen of the Amazons. But immediately after discovering the tomb that only her eyes saw, the mountain collapses on it, sealing it forever. Her peer, Dr. Martin, is all, "That's too bad! I told you the Amazons were a myth!"

Dr. Martin scolds Cheetah for trying to fake up evidence and then clears the camp and leaves the site. But Cheetah wasn't the one to break into the tomb first! Somebody else broke in before her! Unless they broke out? The rubble was lying in the wrong direction for somebody to knock the wall into the tomb!

Cheetah spends the next few months trying to learn more. She realizes part of the one picture she took showed a star map and so she spends more time looking for the place on Earth where one could see the stars in her map. Eventually she discovers Paradise Island but finds no Amazons upon it. So they disappeared after Diana left. But at least Cheetah knows where the island is, so she can help Diana get back to find out what happened to the Amazons. It also might help Wonder Woman figure out her own history. Are the Amazons missing because of Crisis on Infinite Earths? Infinity Crisis? Identity Crisis? Convergence? Zero Hour? Bloodlines?! The New 52?! Rebirth?! What's real?!

The Rankings!
1. New Super-man (*)
2. Deathstork (*)
3. Wonder Woman (*)
4. Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps (*)
5. Suicide Squad (*)
6. The Flash (*)

I don't think this book is much for me. I recognize that it isn't terrible but I'm just not quite interested in the story it's telling. I suppose at this point, I just want DC to figure itself the fuck out and stick with something. Of course, that will never happen. But they really screwed up by erasing their entire history with The New 52. Now they've got to figure out a way to sneak it all back in while continuing to tell stories in The New 52 universe.

Wonder Woman #7

Why are Wonder Woman and that guy with the knife attacking Steve Trevor?

The Commentary!
Why are people even watching the presidential debates this year? I mean aside from getting material to write hilarious jokes on Twitter? Especially in this election, you have to already know where you stand. Either you want four years of a terribly hard to cancel version of The Apprentice (with the added potential that if it is cancelled, the evil guy from Stephen King's The Dead Zone will take over), or you're going to vote for a woman more than qualified to do the job and who is no worse, ethically or personally, than any man that was ever voted into the office (probably, in many ways even, a lot better). Of course, if you're undecided at this point and watching the debates, how did you figure out how to turn your television on? I suppose there are also the people who are voting third party or not voting at all. I won't say that's not a valid choice because I once heard Rush say, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." And, I mean, how can you not totally agree with anything Rush says? Especially from their Ayn Rand phase!

But the debates? Why would anybody need to watch an intelligent person who actually has context and information about the kinds of issues that matter in government and foreign relations completely and utterly humiliate a dumbass blowhard? Donald Trump is the type of guy who will say something mean-spirited and when the other person comes back at him with an intelligent, scathing, witty burn, his next tactic is to punch them in the face. He doesn't have the ability to be clever. He isn't smart. He talks like a third grader who has been skipping his speech therapy classes. And who would want to skip early elementary speech therapy class? You got out of regular class to sit in a room with one of your friends while an old man whom you readily accept as an alternate father figure plays word games with you? Best times of my life! I mean, they'd probably have been the best times of Donald Trump's life!

I used to watch Celebrity Apprentice whenever I saw it was on. Not because of Donald Trump. He was the worst part! Just terrible! Awful! (Okay, that's my only Trump-speak moment of this entire blog. It's been done constantly everywhere and I was bound to break down and do it. It's so much fun! The best!) Which is probably why he stopped doing the regular version of the show and eventually just did the celebrity version. The meat of the show was the egos of the celebrities rubbing up against each other. Donald Trump was just the horrible asshole, obviously smelling like rotting carrots and bad cologne, who yelled at them for fifteen minutes at the end of the show while stroking his raging power boner under the table.

If this election were decided on the probable performance of the candidate in office and their intelligence, who would be voting for Trump? Wait. Let me ask that question the proper way: if people had to vote on two candidates who were hidden under sheets with two eye-holes cut out, how would they pick? I mean, what if one of the candidates under the sheet was a woman?! And what if one of those Politi-ghosts wasn't a racist, misogynist white male? It would be just like the government to give us two non-white, non-heterosexual non-males under those ghost costumes! I'm outraged just thinking about how I would choose my next president if I couldn't see that they were a heterosexual white male who is also pretending to be Christian! I'd probably have to vote for a third party ghost candidate who made even less sense than the weird blowhard narcissistic ghost candidate with the power boner.

I should probably stop with the savvy political facts (if you disagreed with anything I said, you're wrong and should probably do some soul-searching to see...oh wait. The people this is meant for left before the third paragraph) since I should probably be discussing Wonder Woman being bisexual. I mean, she's always been bisexual, right? Who didn't already know that? I mean, even Wonder Woman didn't know it since there was no dick on Paradise Island until Steve Trevor's dick showed up and Diana was all, "Oh! This is intriguing!" But I guess it's the kind of thing that needs to be stated on occasion, otherwise the people who have no reading comprehension can still proclaim that Wonder Woman isn't bisexual. I suppose there must have been trans men on Paradise Island, and Wonder Woman may have dated one of them. At least until they were kicked off the Island for being men. Still, that doesn't change my Steve Trevor's dick scenario! Because even though he probably wasn't the first man on Paradise Island, he almost certainly had the first penis.

I was trying to find a way into the comic book but the story wasn't doing it for me. And then Liam Sharp drew the soldier's face in that fifth panel. So perfect.

Wonder Woman and Cheetah rescue a bunch of the kidnapped women and send them off to safety with the soldiers. Then they begin searching for the ritual that will bring Urzkarwhatever to life at the expense of Steve Trevor's. I've always found Steve Trevor particularly boring and Urzkarsomething looks pretty cool, so I'm okay with the trade.

Unfortunately, Wonder Woman stops the ritual and destroys Urzkarblahblah. Then she has a conversation with Trevor that's even more confusing than an interaction written by Keith Giffen.

Why does Wonder Woman answer questions not yet asked? Is Steve asking if everybody has had breakfast? I guess this is good writing because Greg Rucka wrote it and god forbid somebody criticize the great Greg Rucka!

Cheetah pins Cadulo to the ground and everybody in the cavern and everybody reading realize Cadulo just got his ass handed to him by Wonder Woman and Cheetah. Cadulo is the only one who doesn't realize his statement, "Weak. You are both weak, like all women," makes no sense. Unless, of course, he's admitting that all men are weaker than all those weak women since he's a man and was just beaten by two women whose actions he projected onto all of the women so now his defeat should be projected onto all men. Right? Also, I'm realizing this was the perfect comic book to discuss the debate! What synchronicity! What timing! What a third thing that's funny!

Urzkashambles reveals he has yet to be defeated! He still has to punish Wonder Woman for having sex with the woman he eventually wanted to marry. At least that's why I assume he's so angry since Cheetah mentioned earlier that he was upset that her body had been defiled by another's touch before she became Urza's fiance. And it makes sense to express Diana's bisexuality through her having had relationships with men and women since leaving Paradise Island. It's too easy for somebody to argue that she only had sex with women on the island because that was her only choice for intimacy. It just means more if she was in a place where she had her choice and she realized Steve Trevor's dick, no matter how intriguing it might be, didn't exactly fulfill all of her needs.

Wonder Woman realizes that the girls, whom she and Steve made sure had breakfast already, were the means to defeat Urza. They were never his prisoners but his wardens. And so, with the revelation expressed, they destroy the Jungle God and turn him into an umbrella. Or a flamingo croquet mallet. Maybe an orchid?

Anyway, Cheetah turns back into a naked woman and realizes she's been lied to. Just like Wonder Woman! Just like the name of this story! Just like everybody who's been told Wonder Woman isn't heterosexual! Also, I thought that everybody was talking about her being bisexual because it was in this issue. Apparently Greg Rucka just stated it outright outside of the story and now it's officially canon because he said it. So it's no different than how it's always been! She's obviously bisexual but the story has yet to explicitly state it. Forgive me if I wait for the story to say it and not just the writer telling everybody. Big fucking difference, people.

Not that I don't expect Rucka to ignore making it explicit! I'm sure that'll happen soon. It's just I'm annoyed that, once again, people are talking about shit outside of the covers of the comic books as if it were already expressed in the comic book! Fucking spoilers! I wanted to be surprised by Diana's bisexual revelation (that really wouldn't be a revelation to anybody paying actual fucking attention).

The Ranking!
+0! This story is still pretty boring except this half didn't even have Nicola Scott's art to keep me interested.

Wonder Woman #6

I can't think of anything sexist to say about this cover so I just won't say anything at all.

The Commentary!
The only things I really want to write are angry, venomous things. I want to poke people with word sticks. I want to tell them that they aren't as wise and kind as they think they are. I want to drown them in vile, bitter, crass statements about their parentage. I want to compare them to things they really wouldn't like being compared to! But what would be the point? Everybody is terrible in their own way but the worst people are the ones who tell others how terrible they are. And why would I want to be one of them? I mean, I am one of them! Just ask Cullen Bunn! But that's a special case. I'm usually not like that! And I'm still not like that but he did post a picture of a guy flipping the bird and directed it at me, so fuck him. He gets to be my punching bag. I mean, not really. It's more of an idealized Cullen Bunn who is my punching bag! I don't really care what the real one is up to. I just like having this effigy to kick around every now and then.

Aside from having these angry feelings that I don't really know what to do with, I suppose I have a Wonder Woman comic book to read. Boy, I sure hope Greg Rucka pisses me off somehow!

This issue is about a bunch of birds spying on Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor as they get checked out by the US Government after landing an invisible plane on a crowded beach. Wonder Woman winds up in a jail cell not kicking everybody in the face because she seems to have something called patience. Steve is too busy telling his dead friend's wife that her husband is dead to get Wonder Woman out of prison. The wife, Maya, responds by talking nonsense.

Ugh. In other words, throw more corpses on the pile as you chase some elusive "meaning" to make every new death count for...whatever. How about giving him some dignity by letting his death have meaning in that he died doing what he thought was right? How is that not enough? Why ask Steve and countless others to risk their lives simply so you can have the satisfaction of meaning?

Barbara Ann Minerva comes to visit Wonder Woman because a comic book where nobody understands the main character will quickly grow tiresome. The last thing I need is for this comic book to go the Doctor Fate route where it spends twelve issues with the main character struggling with the whole concept of who he is. I can't read a Wonder Woman comic book where she and Steve just say their names to each other over and over again. So Barbara knows the language of the Amazons and she's able to converse with Wonder Woman. She discovers that Diana was visited by a the Greek Gods the night before and they gave her super powers. She only believes Diana when Diana tears the cell's bars from the floor and ceiling. I guess the next chapter will be twenty pages of Diana taking English classes.

This issue not only proved that Diana is patient and kind, it proved that I am neither of those things. I was bored and angry while reading this. This is the kind of comic book where fans will gush about a few scenes of Nicola's fantastic art which are so super adorable that you can't say a bad word about them. Like when Diana is getting her picture taken with the police officer. Or Diana's face when the god's visit her in the cell. Hell, this entire issue could have just been Nicola's art and Greg Rucka could have fucked the hell off for all I cared. This thing is beautiful. But the story? Totally boring. Unless you love bureaucracy and placing soldiers on pedestals.

Ranking!
+0. Look, I know I'm probably in the minority. I'm sure everybody is jerking themselves off all over Greg Rucka's fantastic run of Wonder Woman. But am I not allowed to be completely wrong about at least one comic book? Can I not have this one to fucking hate no matter how good it might be? It's also possible my mood these days isn't great for my judgment. I think I would have enjoyed this more if Wonder Woman had punched every fucking cop in the face and shit in their hats.