Saturday, November 3, 2012

2012 “Classic v. DCNU: Wonder Woman” by TJ Frias

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"By this time, you've probably had your fill of the DC relaunches. Maybe you love it and maybe you loathe it. But this series of sketches were inevitable. I present my "Classic Versus DCNU" series. Next we have both versions of the Amazon Princess: Classic Diana in her red, blue, and gold versus Jim Lee designed, sword-weilding Diana. Mech pencil on sketchbook."

I've made it pretty clear how a feel about Xiana Amazon Warrior Princess, which is a very particular, very minimizing and alienating interpretation of Wonder Woman with origins dating back as far as the Silver Age. However you feel about Azzarello and Chiang's run, I think we can all agree that this ain't your grandmother's Mujer Maravilla. I'm divorced enough that I don't even consider it a legitimate run, and prefer Geoff Johns' awful but franchise building work with the character in Justice League that the latest deconstruction of mythology from the eponymous comic. Anyway, all I've seen New 52 Wonder Woman do in her own book is run around slicing stuff with her sword, where on the team book she has powers, but either way I'd stack my Wonder Woman against New Coke any day of the week. Those bracelets can deflect a sword, and Classy Wonder Woman would just hogtie this pretender. The one compromise I will make is that, aside from requiring red boots and desperately needing to ditch the subservient collar, I do think the updated costume will translate better outside comics.

TJ Frias' Post-Crisis DC versus New 52

2 comments:

karl said...

I wouldnt mind a confrontation betwixt the original WW and the version we have now, tho I suspect strongly if it ever happened we would have the same situation we had at the tail-end of Oddysey when Nu-WW faced the original - and the original was made out to have turned evil, in order to facillitate her removal from DC comics.
If our original Di faced this new version the writers would have her lose, sadly.
The new version's costume is an improvement on her last one, but im a traditionalist; for me I could live with her armlet -whatever its called - and the shape of her tiara and belt are fine but her silver accents must be GOLD; for me Donna Troy has the silver accented on her costume and Diana has her gold, and that must never change. Its almost like shes been downgraded.
That choker thing must GO. Its a Black Canary thang and serves no purpose here, unless its a minor sop to Marston's bondage legacy.
And those boots should be red, cant bear the blue. They look even worse in the recent Batwoman crossover.

Diabolu Frank said...

Good point on the "silver downgrade." I've occasionally tried to extract the gold from Wonder Woman's classic costume in my own redesign attempts, but it really never works. I prefer red to black on both characters, but Donna Troy has made silver her own precious metal, and it feels wrong to take anything else away from her.