By: Will Pfeifer Publisher: DC Comics Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: DC Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 160 Publication Date: December 05, 2007 Release Date: December 05, 2007
Graphic SF Reader Not quite as cheesy as it sounds.
An over-inflated Circe has revivified Wonder Woman's mother, who now leads an army of Amazons to attack America. We find out the Amazons have other allies working with them, who won't hesitate to destroy large areas of real estate and kill lots of people. Mother vs daughter, surrogate daughters, surrogate granddaughters and others such as Wonder Girl and Supergirl have to try and work out what to do, and some of the Amazon generals begin to question if their leader has gone nuts.
There is also someone pulling the strings behind all of this, in what is nostly a Justice League story that apparently leads into a presumably mega-storyline called Final Crisis.
The art here is reasonably attractive.
Still, pretty forgettable, and if you like the JLA less this is only ordinary.
3.5 out of 5
Horrid This story shows a true contempt for Wonder Woman and the character of the Amazons. Since Marston created the character in 1941, the Amazons have been enlightened and desiring to maintain peace and harmony. This series displays nothing but contempt for that premise. I am amazed that DC Comics accepted this story and further published it. It is nothing more than misogynistic tripe.
A Solid compelling story that had opportunity A peaceful day like any other and then... BOOM becomes a day unlike any.
This is a bloody tale, the Amazons had been attacked, pillaged and wounded in the event known as Infinite Crisis. Now we go to, Amazons Attack it is a series to read for entry level DC readers. It shows the destroyer aspect of the world's greatest warriors, the Amazons.
Leaving their technology on Paradise Island, the Amazon nation shows up in panoramic style with Hydras, Cyclops, and other mystic power ups.
The story was one about parents and children. What would a parent do to get a child back? What would a daughter do to save her mother? Can you still look a person in the eye after they kill and kill even if they are your mother?
People were shocked at some of the scenes in this ... or will be quick to point out its flaws.
Every work has flaws, but the artwork is solid and as a hardcover, you don't need to read anything other than the six issues included. The paper is high quality as is the coloring.
Pfeiffer tries to convey a sense of urgency and we see Amazons, warriors par excellance attacking in terrorist manner. It is not intended to be fun, or happy... it is intended to shock, gasp and make one think.
There are opportunities to be had but the ending and its surprise is most certainly a cliff hanger. This is a story that had to be told, the Amazons were violated by America quite severely at theend of Infinite Crisis... but what is a just war? What is revenge? Can it be justified all the time? At what point does it become better to think about how not to fight?
Those are all core themes to any Wonder Woman story and are explored here.
Where they will go, let's hope for the best.
I did sincerely wish Mr. Pfeiffer would have explored some of the amazon death traps or mystic items a bit better... or the mind set of the amazons but ultimately this is a tale about stepping up to the plate to do whats right and everyone trying and failing... everyone.
Ufortunately in a few areas so too did Pfeiffer, but he tried.
This is a story I think that would have worked better if scribed by the more sophisticated Jodi Picoult, rather than have her fill in some issues this would have sky rocketed under her pen.
And hence an example of DC not stepping up.
Unfortunate Hack Story The book Amazons Attack takes place shortly after Wonder Woman is illegally taken prisoner by the U.S. government and tortured for reasons of "national security". The reason for this is that the U.S. government previously asked Wonder Woman for blueprints on how to make a healing device the Amazons use called "The Purple Ray". Wonder Woman said no to the U.S. because in the wrong hands the healing device can be altered to become a powerful weapon of death. The U.S. response? Kidnap Wonder Woman and torture her until she spills the beans.
That plot said, a great percentage of comic book readers have very little, if any, good words for this collected story. There are many reasons for this, but the central rant against this book has been the writer's failure to stick to already established history in regards to the Wonder Woman comic book. Here's a few examples of what I mean:
1) The Amazon's main enemy is a witch called Circe. She's killed and tortured many Amazons over the years and the Amazons have a serious hate for her. Despite this, writer Will Pfeifer had not only the Amazons following her into battle, but also had the Amazon's various gods allow Circe to enter the then magically protected Paradise Island.
2) The Amazons are a technologically advanced society in the modern day DC Comics world. Despite this, writer Will Pfeifer has the Amazons regressed to barbarians, bringing bows and arrows and swords as thier only weapons against the U.S. armies.
3) The main superheroes that appear in the story fall prey to long spells of stupidity. ie. Superman can hear explosions several states away but not weapons 10 feet away from him.
4) The Amazons abolished the Monarchy on Paradise Island several years ago, at the behest of Wonder Woman's mother Queen Hippolyta. This was because the Amazon nation is formed by two seperate tribes of Amazons. The Themyscirian Amazons (Wonder Woman's tribe) and the Bana-Mighdallian Amazons, who are a middle eastern tribe of Amazons. Because the Banas refuse to see Hippolyta as thier queen and because they worship a different set of gods, Hippolyta removed herself from the throne in order for both tribes to become a united Amazon race. Again, writer Will Pfeifer threw this history aside and had Hippolyta act as queen again with no explaination given.
I can go on and on with many more points of example of how both writer Will Pfeifer and DC Editor Matt Idelson failed to do thier "homework" on this story, but I'd rather not. Honestly it just gives me a headache thinking back to my many moments of disappointment reading this book I now regret purchasing. Personally I'd like to leave this story behind and imagine DC Comics has much more respect for a comic book title that's successfully lasted over 65 years in print. I'd like to believe that, but with work like Amazons Attack being green-lit to production, I'm a little more than crest fallen.
"Avengers: The Crossing" is no longer the worst crossover in history. Wonder Woman has been a member of DC's Big Three heroes ever since she, Superman and Batman were the three icons to continue publication in the long night between the end of the Golden Age proper circa 1949 and the beginning of the Silver Age of superhero comics in the late 1950s. However, while Diana has always had iconic value, she has never been anywhere near as popular as her alleged co-equals, and much of her popularity rests on a campy 1970s TV show that is about as good as representation of the character as Adam West is of Batman. Even in comics, she has always struggled in the sales department. In 2006, however, her title was safe in the hands of Greg Rucka, arguably the best Wonder Woman writer ever. So, of course, DC bounced him, bringing in Allan Heinberg for a revamp that horribly regressed the character to her terrible Silver Age status quo, and, aided by the normally more-than-competent Geoff Johns on "Infinite Crisis", horribly misrepresented the character's post-Crisis history. And then DC unleashed "Amazons Attack", which I believe to be the worst crossover in comics history, even worse than Marvel's "The Crossing", which eventually had to be written off as a deliberate attempt by a villain to confuse the heroes.
One could spend hours cataloguing all of the problems with this crossover, but I will endeavour to be brief:
1) The structure; major events take place in "Wonder Woman", not included in this collection (which also results in Jodi Picoult's collected edition ending on a cliffhanger, necessitating that readers buy another book; my advice: save your money), and there's no clear reading order for the issues (normally, publication order would give a good indication, but that doesn't work here, and, anyway, these are collected editions, not monthly comics).
2) The wholesale rape of the Amazons; as if Hercules wasn't bad enough, Diana's people, once held up as paragons of wisdom who had found a better way to live, are now shown to be a clutch of barbarian murderers who blindly do what their resurrected former Queen tells them to do, even when a known enemy was responsible for her resurrection. Diana's mom Hippolyta gets at least a partial out in this story, but she is written as a raving lunatic (and everyone seems to have forgotten that she wasn't queen anymore when she died).
3) The portrayal of Diana and all the other heroes as a bunch of pathetic morons who refuse to fight the Amazons, basically because if they actually engaged them they would wipe the floor with them; we're told that their first priority is "rescue", rather than confronting the invaders, when logic would dictate that getting rid of them would eliminate the need for rescue. The heroes fail at every turn in this story, and, what's more, act superior about it (Black Canary, at one point, proclaims that the cavalry has arrived, having arrived too late to stop a USAF pilot from being executed by Amazons; generally, Dinah, the cavalry saves people).
4) The ending, which I won't get into here, because it hurts to think about; sufficed to say that it has already attained reputation as legendarily nonsensical among comics fans.
2007 was hands-down the worst year in Wonder Woman's 66-year-history, and this story was a huge part of it. Avoid this at all costs.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
