Monday, March 13, 2006

Warrior Wrongness

Guy Gardner: Warrior was a weird comic. Some of the plotlines included extras like the main character finding out that he's an alien-human hybrid and the last of an almost extinct species, the main character speaking the dialect of a Norse Demi-goddess that he used to date, random Lobo appearances, physical trips to Guy's subconscious, a Restaurant premier attended by every superhero in the DCU, hand-to-hand combat with Parallax, and involuntary gender-bending to say the least.

One image, however, stands out from the crowd for it's sheer WTF-?ness. Because under no circumstances should Wonder Woman ever, ever, even in a dream sequence, even doing a sarcastic joke making fun of the women in Patriarch's World or how the men think of women, ever look like this:



Should a fantasy sequence ever call for her to strike such a pose, she should stop immediately beforehand and apologize. "I'm sorry, I just can't do it. It's just not me." It will be okay, she can take the paycut. Have Donna Troy stand in.

This picture is at odds with every know character trait of the Amazon Princess. It's jarring. That pose and that character simply do not belong together in a sane universe. Actually, it's even beyond Alternate Reality strangeness. That pose and that character simply do not belong together.

My mind will not accept this picture. My eyes slide off the page and the image leaks out of the back of my head. Each time I look at it, I am traumatized anew because I was unable to log the image in my memory.

It is just not right.

14 comments:

  1. I've decided it *is* Donna. That's the only workable explanation. She's playing Diana-double because Diana couldn't stop breaking down laughing.

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  2. And here I thought you were going to rant about the fact that even with the heels on her boots Batman's like a foot taller than her there. And *he* only goes up to about Superman's chin...

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  3. Hey, if Batman can do the batusi and Superman leave Lois to die, Wonder Woman can be in that pose

    Yes I know, it's horrible, but is fair

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  4. She's about to break into Julie Andrews voice and sing "I Feel Pretty." Isn't she?

    puff

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  5. Geez. In my knowledge, Superman's about 6'3 or 6'4. This drawing puts Wonder Woman at about 5'2 or so. I don't necessarily agree with you that she should meet J'Onn eye to eye, but I'd say she should at least be 5'11.

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  6. Well, Wonder Woman is human ... sort of ... super-human? I haven't read the story, so it would have to be something flat-out fantastic for her to strike that "warm, fuzzy, scrunchy" pose. Anyway, she's prone to a moment of weakness where she expresses joy. Hey, every so often even Batman cracks a smile ... but he corrects himself right away.

    That's all I can add, not knowing the full context of the scene. Sometimes I prefer reading your comments, Ragnell, to reading the actual stories in question.

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  7. Yeah, looking at it is not unlike looking at Alan Moore's conception of Mr. Mxyzptlk as horribly non-Euclidian.

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  8. That's not Wonder Woman--it's a Stepford-wife prototype "Wonder-ful Woman" created by one of those Superman cyborgs. (A misguided money-making scheme, no doubt.)

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  9. Yeah, I think the height thing gives it away. That's not Diana. It's, um, a cheerleader who happened to be wandering past who is just so utterly thrilled to be in the same panel as Superman and Batman that she's about to give her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace prize that she memorized just in case...

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  10. http://img52.imageshack.us/my.php?image=plasticman08217vz.jpg

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  11. I've left you all in suspense long enough (and anonymous has topped me!). It's from Warrior #27 (art by Mitch Byrd/Dan Davis, Elayne). This is what Guy Gardner daydreams about.

    Even in that context, though, I jsut cna't accept the picture. Does not lodge into my brain properly.

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  12. Guy's a strange strange man. Funny though that he daydreams about that when he seems to otherwise much prefer attractive women to get mad at, and yell at, him.

    :-) And he speaks Norse Ice-deity. Which is still mindbogglingly cool. :-P

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  13. That's Natalie Portman dressed as Wonder Woman.

    (See, cause she's only 4 feet tall.)

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