Wonder Women

One of the first comic books I owned was Secret Origins #3 (1973), featuring the origin of Wonder Woman. The art puzzled me: While the cover's Wonder Woman was lithe like a Seventies model with long, flowing hair, the interior art, a reprint of the 1941 original, gave the Amazon a boxy figure and tight curls like Betty Grable. At the time, I could barely comprehend how art could show one character in such different ways. Now, it's easy to understand: Each era portrayed Wonder Woman as the ideal of the times.

But those were not the only two visions of Wonder Woman available at the time. In the very same year, the contemporary Wonder Woman was the white-suited non-powered version who followed her mentor, I Ching. Also debuting in 1973 was the Super Friends, which showed a Wonder Woman looking like the Sixties version and superpowered, but nowhere near the levels of Superman. By 1976, Wonder Woman in the comics had regained her powers, while the TV version played by Lynda Carter was set in the Forties – prompting DC's Wonder Woman solo title to tell wartime adventures set on Earth Two (but with Seventies-style art) – until the TV show skipped ahead, without explanation, to the Seventies – and the comic version made the same jump, to contemporary stories set on Earth One. In four years, fans were given seven or eight distinct versions of Wonder Woman; trying to juggle all the various versions was probably more complicated than understanding any of the individual stories. And in that era before the Internet, there was no guide to any of this; it was simply up to the fan to make sense of it.

Four decades later, the world once again abounds in alternate versions of Wonder Woman. In 2011, the post-Crisis version of Wonder Woman gave way to the post-Flashpoint New 52 Wonder Woman. Five years later, a tremendous multiplicity of Wonder Women burst upon the scene. The DC Rebirth gave us a new "main" Wonder Woman who is still trying to unravel the secrets of her past, which involves some medley of the New 52 and other elements. Then, within just a few months, DC published two distinctly different Wonder Woman origin graphic novels – the long-awaited "Earth One" from Grant Morrison, and Jill Thompson's Wonder Woman: The True Amazon. Between the publication dates of those two works, the monthly title began running Greg Rucka's "Year One" origin story; an astounding three origin stories were published/begun in under six months! As if that weren't enough, DC's cinematic universe introduced yet another version of Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot in Batman v Superman, as yet mysterious with her story to be explained in a 2017 solo film. All of this came on the heels of superb work done in 2011-2014 by Brian Azzarello, a refreshing take on Wonder Woman and her world that deserved to serve as a foundation for a decade or more to come – like Byrne's Superman and Miller's Batman – rather than be made obsolete after only a year.

As the character turns 75, a high degree of attention is fitting; it is harder, however, to explain why multiple, conflicting origin stories make for the right kind of attention. Certainly, part of the answer is that this bouquet of origin stories was unplanned; the movies and comics are not in sync, and Morrison's story was in the works and long delayed. Rebirth, like the New 52, is obviously a creative direction driven by business considerations. And there we have it: Multiple, uncoordinated creative voices led to multiple, uncoordinated versions of one of the best-known superheroes within a very short span of time.

The rapidfire shuffle of new versions serves as a poll of how the modern comics creator perceives Wonder Woman, and in this, we see one interesting consensus: Azzarello, Morrison, Thompson, and Rucka all speak to the sexuality of the Amazons in general or Diana specifically in a way that had not – probably could not have – been seen before. Both Azzarello and Thompson describe Amazons routinely using men from the world at large as a source of fertilization, with hints and a choice image or two of a domination fantasy. Meanwhile, Morrison and Rucka both give Diana female lovers in her past but leave her open to opposite-sex attraction once Steve Trevor enters her world. These new origins variously assert that Hercules and his men raped the Amazons, a violent horror unimaginable in 1941 comics, a modern extrapolation of Moulton's 1941 panels showing Hercules and Hippolyta lying together as he betrays her.

Morrison and Azzarello also agree to make Diana not a creature made of clay, but rather the direct offspring of Zeus, though Azzarello makes her the principal god's daughter of Zeus; Morrison, his granddaughter. Azzarello modernizes his gods by showing them in Las Vegas, posing as truckers. Morrison modernizes Diana's world by making Steve Trevor the descendent of African slaves, a real people with real history spent in chains like the imaginary Amazons.

Morrison and Rucka also agree by maintaining the Steve Trevor element in Diana's origin, while Thompson diverges sharply by making the young Diana a spoiled brat whose journey to man's world is penance for the sin of hubris and the tragedy it caused; it should not be lost on the reader that in departing from Moulton's original story, Thompson's is classically Greek – character flaws determine the future. A tragedy doesn't happen to a person; a tragedy is who they are. This is the great contribution of Thompson's version, and makes it welcome despite the certain overcrowding of recent origin stories. Thompson abandons the 1941 source material to emphasize in tone the vastly earlier source material of Greek mythology.

None of these stories disagree on one thing: Wonder Woman is wonderful. Nolan's cinematic Wonder Woman immediately wows Superman and Batman by battling Doomsday energetically and somewhat enthusiastically. Rucka and Morrison show the modern world pointing its cellphone cameras at Diana and snapping away, hashtagging her into social media immortality. She glows, indifferent to the attention, like a Forties movie star sipping a milkshake while the world adores her. She's beautiful, strong, brave, and brilliant; there is no depiction of Wonder Woman that doesn't agree on this.

For all these many versions, and creators, it is Rucka and the filmmakers who get to hold serve. Rucka has suggested a multiplicity of Wonder Women in his single version, with a composite past or composite memories of various pasts, with a Multiverse backstory that may involve the overarching Rebirth plot with Dr. Manhattan at the center. Perhaps he will make these alternate memories not "lies" surrounding one true backstory but disparate elements all partly true; this is akin to what Geoff Johns did with Superman in Secret Origin and Morrison in his Batman epic that asserted that all past eras actually happened to the one and only Batman. Wonder Woman is not the first superhero to get multiple, contradictory origin stories; hopefully one of them – and it would be Rucka's – has the chance to be left uncontradicted long enough to give a generation of readers a firm legend to believe in.

However many people read DC's comics, far more will see the 2017 movie, and this will become the "real" Wonder Woman for a generation. This Wonder Woman, we know from the trailer, rescues a crashing Steve Trevor and comes to man's world to stop World War One (not Two). Until the movie debuts, we can guess the details of the content, and one clue is a canny reply to the old stories. In 1942's All Star Comics #12, as the men on the team head off to battle the Axis, Wonder Woman, one of the mightiest heroes in the story, stays home, bidding the male heroes, "Good luck, boys – and I wish I could be going with you," after having agreed off-panel to be their secretary. In 2017, Steve Trevor introduces Diana as his secretary, and after we see her perform some wonderful heroics, he adds, "She's a very good secretary." After 75 years, we can poke fun at 1942's prejudices. Maybe after another 75 years, audiences won't be expected to find that funny.

Superman or Supermen? Where Do We Go?

This time in 2009, DC was promoting an upcoming series called Superman: Secret Origin. That was the third in-continuity origin of Superman in 23 years, with Geoff Johns blending all of the different stories, including the Richard Donner movies and Smallville, into one, vast account. It seemed like overkill to redefine Superman once again, but it was all worth it if one, beautiful, all-encompassing origin could be established for once and for… a while.

That while wasn't long. In less than two years, Superman was rebooted with a loving, year-and-a-half redefinition by Grant Morrison.

Three years later, that Superman is dead, and we have been told by the mysterious Mr. Oz that the last Superman was maybe never Superman at all.

But we have the previous Superman back, which may mean that Secret Origin is once again the origin of the main Superman. Even if so, his reality is now (pending future events) very messy, with his life from birth through adulthood having been spent in his home dimension and the rest of his life on a new dimension without "his" Batman, Wonder Woman, Justice League… even his Krypton or Supergirl. Only his Lois Lane and his son made the trip with him, so the new world has two Lois Lanes. It also has a Clark Kent who is not super-powered, is not Superman, and has memories of meetings with Superman that Superman doesn't have. Everyone in this world knows that Superman is… or was… Clark Kent.

It's messy. And far messier with the addition of two other supermen, with Lex Luthor wearing battle armor bearing the S-symbol and, in Shanghai, Kenan Kong starring in a title called New Super-Man. So there are four living men, plus one dead, sharing some aspect or another of the identity of Superman. In addition, August will bring Superwoman #1, with Lois Lane getting the powers she always wished for.

All of this hearkens back to the past in many ways. When Superman died in a 1993 story, he was succeeded by four alternate versions of Superman – including the Eradicator, who is the focus of the current plot in Superman – none of whom was the literal incarnation of the dead man. The event in which the dead Superman returned to life was called "Reign of the Supermen," a titular reference to Jerry Siegel's 1933 story about a Bill Dunn, a regular man who had been given super powers artificially by a mad scientist. This title was referenced in 52 in an issue dubbed "Rain of the Supermen," in which ordinary people given powers by Lex Luthor fell to their deaths when he suddenly switched off their powers. All very ominous for China's new Super-Man, who, in getting his powers from mysterious scientists, is perhaps following in the footsteps of the oldest Super-Man. Lois Lane getting superpowers to become Superwoman was originally depicted in 1943. Is DC revisiting every past year that ends in a '3'?

If 1993 is the playbook for what is happening now, the non-Superman supermen will serve as good supporting characters for DC to work with and the real Superman will step up. Certainly, the Superman who's married to Lois is the individual who seems ordained to fill the role, but we also know that he's going to be reclassified in some essential way, with Mr. Oz telling us in DC Rebirth #1, "You… are not what you believe you are. And neither was the fallen Superman." With Mr. Oz alluding to that Superman's death as a "tragedy" (the air quotes are his, corresponding to a snarky tone of voice that we can't hear), we can take it that Superman's falling was not dying in the conventional sense, and so, the New 52 Superman must be alive or in some sort of limbo. If he's anyone whom we've seen living, then he's likely the powerless Clark Kent who is running around being enigmatic, seemingly on purpose.

When Grant Morrison told the tale of the New 52 Superman in Action Comics, he posited that the New 52 Superman was the individual who fought Doomsday and died – who was the same Superman as pre-Flashpoint, but altered. This wasn't clear until Action #16 when Jimmy and Lois stood beneath the golden memorial statue with an eagle perched on Superman's arm. Lois said, "Superman died right here." Jimmy responded, "Yeah, and then Superman saved everybody, remember? He beat the bad guy. He came back from the dead." Yes, Jimmy, we do remember. Are we supposed to? Is DC being true to what the stories have told us before? They're preparing some intriguing reveal that will tell us that the identities of the dead New 52 Superman and the revived pre-Flashpoint Superman aren't what everyone thought, and that will give us the Rebirth take on Superman, someone whom we're seeing in action (and in Action), but whose true nature is still unknown to us and to him.

There's a new story in progress, though, one that surely wasn't in line with Morrison's plans. Now we have a Clark Kent who is just as suspicious about Superman as Superman is about Clark Kent. And, in a fragmentary conversation during the battle in Action #959, Clark indicates that he seems to know more than Superman:

Clark: You'll "save me," is that it? Like you did before?

Superman: No idea what you're talking about.

Clark: Months ago. When you sent me into hiding.

Superman: I want to help you, but I don't kn-

Obviously, the timeline is fractured. Clark was plucked from it at a different moment than Superman. This Clark experienced a meeting between the two that this Superman either doesn't remember or didn't experience. Clark is resentful of how that all transpired, but here he is, alive. And we know that the fallen Superman's fate is not a "tragedy."

How, at the end of this, are the creators going to put all of the crayons back into the box and give us a Superman whose origins are not torturously complicated? If married-to-Lois Superman isn't who he believes he is, and they want to make the origin blend into the post-Flashpoint, post-Rebirth world, then they may be planning to tell us that he is the post-Flashpoint Superman, but older. If the falling of the fallen Superman was not a tragedy (with a snarky tone, in air quotes), then something else happened to him. For the messy situation with four living Supermen, a dead Superman, and a Superwoman to resolve itself, we're going to have to start learning that some of the multiple Supermen are evidently not different men but the same man tumbling through some timeline or inter-dimensional voodoo. Perhaps dead-Superman, living-Superman, and Clark Kent are all (or, at least two of them) the same individual at different moments in his life. Perhaps the New 52 Superman didn't die but grew a little older to become the Superman who's now married to Lois. Wally West has kicked off Rebirth by telling us that years of the heroes' lives went missing, and they lost, among other things, love. The simplest solution to the mystery of the multiple Supermen is that they aren't multiple, after all.

Given these clues, my take is that is the Superman who is now fighting Doomsday is the Superman who was born on this universe's Krypton. What appeared to be the death of New 52 Superman, wasn't. He somehow lost his powers and was sent into hiding as a powerless Clark Kent by Superman, who – due to some sort of timeline fracturing – doesn't remember the past few years correctly. I think the resolution to the mess is that DC will tell us that it's not a mess, just a good story, and that there was only one Superman all along.

DC Rebirth #1

Wally West is doing things a Flash has done before.

Like Barry Allen in Crisis on Infinite Earths, he appears to Batman to deliver a warning that is also a cry for help that Batman is unable to satisfy.

Like Barry Allen in Flashpoint, he comes to Batman to deliver a message about reality having changed. The status as a messenger is, in turn, a reference to the Roman god Mercury, who also inspired the first Flash, Jay Garrick.

Like Barry Allen in 2008's Final Crisis one-shot lead-in DC Universe #0, he is the narrator, initially unidentified, with yellow-and-red narration boxes as a clue to his identity before it is revealed.

Like Barry Allen in Flash Rebirth, he is lost in the Speed Force, seeking an anchor to pull him back to reality.

Like Barry Allen in Final Crisis, he gets back to reality, and then participates in an emotional reunion with his former partner.

Like himself – Wally West – in a JLA-JSA crossover called "The Lightning Saga" he returns to continuity after a prolonged duration in which his absence was a creative decision by DC that was eventually reversed.

But he is also playing the roles of two non-Flashes: Like Doctor Manhattan (on two occasions) in Watchmen, he is nearly blown apart by cosmic forces, but survives to return to reality. As with several of the correspondences mentioned above, the artwork is intentionally composed to remind us of the connection, but in the case of Watchmen, it is a clue (of several) pointing to a further reveal that Watchmen's universe is connected to the DC Universe.

Like Johnny Thunder, he is a bearer of lightning. Johnny's appearance as an old man is used early in Rebirth to let us know that the Justice Society was always part of the post-Flashpoint history, but it was hidden and forgotten.

And, like Geoff Johns, the writer of Rebirth, Wally West is telling us how he feels about the DC Universe: "I look down at it and know without question: I love this world."  Johns certainly does love the DC Universe, and Rebirth is a love letter to many things that it has been, and, as Rebirth tells us, manifesto-style, will soon be again. This applies to all of the scenes I've so far mentioned and many more, including the conversation between Superman and Destiny and the mysterious appearance of a Legionnaire, probably Saturn Girl (Legionnaires fulfilling a mysterious mission in the present was also part of the aforementioned "Lightning Saga").

Geoff Johns, presenting DC, is bringing things back, and he's excited about them. There's a lot to love. I'm excited about some of it, and other readers will be excited by a lot of it, too.

Where my enthusiasm grows dim, and where many of the aforementioned references to previous changes in continuity fail, is that what DC's creators brought back now are things that they themselves discarded in the very recent past. This is not a twenty-year rebirth, reversing the decisions of departed former bosses. Jenette Kahn, the longtime DC publisher whose tenure killed off Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and the Multiverse, left DC in 2002; Johns and his new bosses began reversing those creative changes almost at once. But this time around isn't a revolution (or counter-revolution) under new bosses. This time, the Powers-That-Be are the same Powers-That-Were when all of the changes that are being reversed were made in the first place. Johns, et al made the creative decision to pare down DC Continuity in 2011 believing that those changes were good. Now, they undo those decisions, believing that it is good to undo them.

I was greatly enthusiastic about many of the changes made in 2011, and greatly disappointed in the lack of inspiration shown by many of the writers who wrote 2011's new titles. Some of 2016's changes, I regret. Others, I look forward to. But the key, as now, is not those changes, but whether or not DC has a stable of writers ready to write great stories. Revisiting the past can be a wonderful thing, and it can be done wonderfully. But if DC will be revisiting not only the facts and style points of the past, but also the same general plots and same general kinds of stories that we've already seen, my enthusiasm – and that of other readers – will dim in 2017 just as it did in 2012. I believe that any writer who can't make the New 52 exciting can't make the Rebirth era exciting, either. The creative direction changes nothing in that regard, and so the burden is on DC to show that change is good change, and not simply recycling.

"Nothing ever ends," quoted from Watchmen, is the last line of Rebirth. How DC approaches the new beginning will determine if we should interpret that line as a promise or a threat.