Genocide
December 1st, 2008 by david brothers |Man.
So, I’ve had a hard time getting into Wonder Woman outside of basically Joe Kelly’s JLA and a few other short runs. The Heinberg run was terrible, Jodi Picoult was bad, and Simone’s run didn’t grab me at all. Esther has a few reasons why, but the core of it for me is that she is very rarely interesting in a written manner and she’s got crap for good villains. She’s got a fake Catwoman, a gross midget and I’m sure that there’s an Evil Wonder Woman Doppleganger in there somewhere. Wonder Man or something.
I read the latest issue of Gail Simone’s WW, #26, because I kept hearing about some ridiculous goings-on in there. There’s Darkseid’s minions bothering to graffiti the old home of the Greek gods, who apparently went into space at one point and dress like Star Trek extras. Those bits are dumb, but the dumbest thing has got to be Genocide, WW’s new arch-enemy.
She clearly comes from the Geoff Johns School of Naming, as her nom de villain is very similar to such stand-out names as Atrocitus, Kryb, and Rapetronicus, the Robot with the Heart of Cold.
Genocide is wall-to-wall ridiculous. She has spikes for eyes, spikes on her shoes, spikes on her gauntlets, and spikes on her belt. Just for good measure, she’s got chains on her gauntlets, too, along with a ’90s-era headgear thing. Genocide even does the old “quippin’ while she kills” thing.
Overall, WW26 was pretty dumb, but then I was informed of Genocide’s origin. I think it was in DC Universe #0 where some unseen or shadowy figures gathered up dirt from the locations of various atrocities, including Auschwitz, Croatia, and Darfur, apparently to create a new being made from clay. Setting aside how amazingly tasteless that is (hint: it is just about as tasteful as a monster made out of aborted babies, as last seen in Countdown), it’s a strangely familiar idea, and yet still somehow ridiculous.
Where have I heard this before? Bad costume, terrible origin, bad dialogue… oh.
[Serpentor] was created through a breakthrough in cloning research by Dr. Mindbender from the DNA extracted from the unearthed remains of the most ruthless and effective military leaders in history, including Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Attila the Hun, Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, and Grigori Rasputin.
The moral of the story is that this all sounds pretty ridiculous and I think I’ll give it a miss.
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I don’t think it’s a miss. Granted, I am a fan of Gail Simone, and I even got her two-part fill-in on Teen Titans with art from Rob Liefeld, so I’m probably biased.
Yeah…Simone is usually on the level, but I think this is trying too hard to be WW’s equivalent of both Bane and Doomsday. Certainly, she has the worst name since this guy: http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/09/18/thursday-whos-who-zyklon/ especially in the current global political climate.
And the costume…geez! She looks like the unwanted troubled child of Poison Ivy and Dan McNinja (THORN! EYE! ATAAAAAAAACK), hollowed out and filled with cement.
I have to say, though: good luck on the ‘It’s Tasteless’ argument. I completely agree with it, but whenever I’ve called something in comics tasteless (That demon you mentioned, the ‘Dr Arthur McRapeburgers With Assfries Light’ fiasco, and of course, that one Dini story where Poison Ivy is consistently beaten up and raped by a giant talking plant, until she develops a phobia of plants…you know, the one thing which she had any power over), the general reply has been: ‘It’s Comics, Retard. If You Accept That A Man Can Fly, You Can Take This.’
Which is why I use the internet a lot less now.
“the core of it for me is that she is very rarely interesting in a written manner and she’s got crap for good villains.”
I used to think so too, David, until one day that changed my life forever. The day I learned to love not just comics, but even life itself, no matter how many stories about anti-heroes fighting inside the internet get published. You see, that was the day I found Wikipedia’s List of Wonder Woman enemies. Besides containing Devastation, who was Genocide nine years before Genocide was, it contained the Sensational Character Find of All-Time, Ever: American Adolph.
“Inspired by the example of Adolph Hitler, the American Adolph penned a prison manifesto My War Against Society, in which he detailed his plot to organize a massive criminal network nation-within-the-nation. Master of disguise; superb athlete; cunning planner; charismatic leader.
~Sensation Comics #21 (September 1943)”
I think the problem with WW is that she really isn’t an A level character. At her best she ranks a B, and she’s usually not at her best. Basically she lives off hype.
Yeah, honestly, I feel like Catwoman is a way better third leg of the Trinity than WW. She’s got charisma, built-in conflict, and a great supporting cast.
Basically, Slam Bradley > *
You know what Wonder Woman needs? Wonder Woman needs a Year One, a Secret Origin, a Man of Steel, a Birthright, fuck even a Long Halloween. Both her and her rogues’ gallery has buffered around and been diluted by continuity changes that have never fitted within the DCU and a lack of a so-called ‘definitive’ origin story that one can point to. Doesn’t help that Infinite Crisis took away the Greek Gods, the ‘proper’ Amazons and Paradise Island.
great
now i want wonder woman vs cobra crossover
THANKS, DAVID
by the way thanks for introducing me to dr. smoov