#paradise lost readthrough

[vulpinesaint]

thank god i have realized that i can Post On Tumblr (make insane little personal posts whenever i want) since the last time i picked up paradise lost. the girlies in the gc were not very receptive to my screaming over milton's descriptions of satan and of hell but i know in my heart that the tumblrinas will come through for me

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

Heisei/Reiwa Kamen Rider Bike Riding Time research

Hello there! Does anyone remember from a little while back when this image was going around?

For a while, at least in fan communities I frequented; this was quite infamous for showing just how sharp a decline Kamen Rider's namesake had become in the last few years, with the absolute nadir of the Heisei 20th anniversary Kamen Rider using his bike for a total of 47 seconds (and also, on the other end; just how much Kuuga would not get off his bike)

Obviously, it's been a few years since Saber now; and I've found myself wondering from time to time exactly how the Riders since then have fared, especially since both Geats and Gotchard have garnered a reputation of sorts for putting a bit more emphasis on the bikes and feeling like they have more screentime than your Zero-Ones and your Sabers.

So! I went looking and found the source. This extremely dedicated Japanese poster called Yamashita Radio who of course I will be basing the majority of this on, including his rules and his counting. And when I say 'dedicated' I mean that at one point he lost all his data so he just counted Kuuga through Saber all over again. MAD respect for this man! I highly recommend a full readthrough of this 5-part post at one point because it's very impressive and interesting stuff in my opinion

One other interesting point is that that chart there? That's main rider only; and also includes any riding they did as civilians. There is a separate chart for all motorbike riding in the show as a whole; including other riders, including monsters, including even just random civilians! For posterity, I think it's important to post that chart for comparison with the main rider one -- I've colour coded here so that red is Heisei 1 (Kuuga-Decade), green is Heisei 2 (W-Zi-O) and yellow is Reiwa (Zero-One onwards). Main rider only on the left, all biking on the right.

Up front there are some absolutely fascinating observations to make here - Zero-One had the least bike scenes of any show! Brand new era of Kamen Rider! - but I think I've talked about the past enough. With all this said and what I feel is a very important plug to make, let's get into the meat of this -- how do Revice, Geats and Gotchard compare to previous shows?

Rules

... okay, yeah, sure; let's quickly establish a baseline first. As I'm going off of Yamashita's work, I'm also going by all his rules; it's a good thing I agree with all of them because I kinda didn't want to completely redo the count of every season!

TV Show ONLY! No movies, no TTFC specials, no HBVs, no V-Cinema, none of it. The main reason given is that, uh, Paradise Lost has a 100+ bike scene near the start so that's too much of an advantage -- fair enough! Personally I also think it's more interesting, because movies generally have more budget and allowances for bike scenes so those tend to be the same. Maybe a separate count would still be interesting, but I think including movies would flatten out the times too much and make the data pretty uninteresting

No openings! Agito has too much of an advantage

Non-transformed states count the same as transformed states. Godai riding a bike is the same as Kuuga riding a bike.

All motorcycles are treated equally! Mopeds and even CG scenes and bikes are allowed

Other vehicles such as cars, trains and even bicycles and hoverbikes are excluded. Two big exceptions are made for Drive and Revice as they do not have a main motorbike otherwise, but this does exclude things like Gaim's Dandeliner, many of the Oni in Hibiki's transport vehicles, Den-O's Den-Liner, Gotchard's Steamliner and Madwheel and Decade's Agito Slider

Transformations of the bike still count as long as it's being ridden. The Boostriker turns into fox mode while you're riding it? That's fair game

Flashbacks and other repeat footage ("previously on" segments etc) don't count of course. But in cases where it's clearly stock footage but it's still a new event, like the many Ryuki Rideshooter scenes, that's still counted

Count from the moment the bike is straddled to the moment the bike is gotten off, and everything in between. Scenes where the bike isn't technically visible - such as close-ups of the rider's face, or cutting to another character's reaction - are still counted if it's all the same scene

Revice

3m21s (2m23s for Revi only)

Oh lucky me, this was actually done for me! Yamashita made a small update after Revice finished to add this. I just went over and double checked it.

At 3m21s, Revice is at this point the series with the 2nd least amount of bike riding; above Zero-One and below Zi-O. For Revi alone he's in 3rd least; above Zero-One and below Saber. Happy 50th anniversary!

An interesting note here is that Ikki never rides Vice Ptera untransformed -- concerns over the actor's safety, maybe? Daiji also pulls in 58 seconds for the show on his own motorbike, but abandons it completely after episode 13; only bringing it back for the summer movie (which is also the only place he rode it as Live). Interestingly, the 12 seconds he rides it with Sakura in episode 13 is the only time he uses it in the show after becoming a Rider. The skateboarding scene in episode 7 for Jackal Form goes on for over a minute, but unfortunately can't count for this...

I think most people expected Revice to place quite low, though. So let's move on to a show I think a lot of people expect to place higher.

Geats

4m05s (3m45s for Geats only)

I keep repeating it, but this is a show where it seemed a lot of people got the impression of the bike having more importance than before. I think there's a lot of aspects that come together into that -- the bike being tied to a specific 'special' item that's even part of the main rider's main form, the upgrade forms going off of that, and the bike being used in prominent scenes including in the first episode. Geats even arrives on it in his Revice summer movie cameo!

But ultimately if you look at riding time, Geats ends up in 3rd place for overall bike time; above Revice and below Zi-O, while for main rider only Ace ends up in 5th last; above Saber and below Decade. As such he ends up being the main Reiwa Rider to use his bike the most.

This is where I started splitting main rider and untransformed rider in my personal tracking charts, just for fun -- I actually couldn't do that for Revice because as said Ikki never rides anything untransformed except his bicycle. Until episode 11 Ace actually just slightly edged out Geats for having more bike time which was enjoyable to see.

A very interesting thing happens in regards to the Boostriker's transformed state. I decided not to include finishers involving it unless the Rider is specifically riding it -- and the one and only one to do so was Buffa in episode 6, accounting for every single second he rode the machine. He had a penchant for using the buckles' weapons in ways he wasn't supposed to, and he kept up that rule even when the 'weapon' was a bike.

Geats spends a decent amount of time in the final episode sitting on his bike while talking to Regad and the other Riders, and that really saved the show's overall times.

Gotchard

5m09s (2m32s for Gotchard alone)

According to production blogs, Gotchard had a stated aim of using the bike more. Unfortunately it seems this didn't manifest itself in a very major way... but I think we did see more interesting uses of it! Spanner has his own bike (that like Daiji, he never rides transformed!), there's a version of Golddash from the future, other characters including Golddash itself ride rather than Hotaro at multiple points!

For 'others', the 3 seconds in Episode 2 is when Minato rolls up to deliver Golddash to Hotaro personally. Episode 9's 5 seconds have Renge (with Sabimaru in the back) riding it to deliver Hotaro's cards to him in Kyoto.

Spanner shockingly saved the series' overall time here in a similar way to final episode Ace, by sitting on his for an extended period of time during his conversation with Lachesis at the start of episode 47.

While it's not a very long scene nor did it change anything for the rankings, the bike scene in the final episode that just aired is notable for an extremely rare instance of a Rider Machine being ridden by a Kamen Rider's final form. To my knowledge this has previously only been done by Agito, Den-O and Revice (the latter in a movie). Fittingly for a show where part of the direction was inspired by Agito, both Agito and Gotchard do this Final Form bike scene in their final episodes.

And now, for the final count...

Gotchard ended up in 21st for overall bike time between Zi-O and Saber, but this was largely due to other characters; so Hotaro alone ended up in 22nd between Revice and Saber.

Overall we're now 5 shows in instead of 2, we can indeed see a very large dropoff in the Reiwa Era -- including Zi-O, the most recent 6 shows are all at the bottom of the list. This is especially notable when The next most recent series, Build, had 12m31s; almost double that of Saber's -- and this wasn't uncommon, with Ghost and Ex-Aid sharing similar times.

This was the main thrust of my research... but what say we go on a little addendum? Because when I mentioned Yamashita updated his post to include Revice in 2022, there was... one other series he saw fit to do a count for. One that was only halfway through, but nonetheless saw an impressive amount of bike riding time. He only got halfway, but what say I finish the job out of pure interest?

It is "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers"

The extremely normal 2022 entry into the Super Sentai series has a number of bike scenes. Some you may expect from Don Momotaro riding his CGI Enyarideon on his Palanquin for much of the first cour. Some of you might say that CGI shouldn't count, it's easy enough to animate together a scene than deal with road laws and such -- but does Kijibrother not count? Does Inubrother not count? Do none of the mech scenes count? It's a festival, people. Let's enjoy it.

Even aside from the CGI, Yamashita noted halfway through the show; that can't quite account for everything else. Sonoi has a bike he rides in multiple episodes, every time with a wheelie. Inuzuka twice within 4 episodes steals a bike and almost runs people over with it, as is perfectly fine for a hero. Don Kaito shows up with his own motorbike to promote his new book, which you should buy. For a show where it's not even in the name and for recent Sentai, there's an awful lot of riding going on.

Yamashita in his post speculates that part of this is Inoue's own habits -- as a man whose Toku experience largely consists of regularly writing for Kamen Rider in the 00s, it's natural to expect he would be inclined to write something like "Inubrother escapes the scene on a motorcycle..." as if it was second nature; as if that's nothing special for a modern show.

And I would be inclined to believe that... as such a habit is something that would likely get ironed out after a while; and sure enough, while bike scenes are frequent for the first half of the show, they disappear entirely from episode 23 to 43. It is at this point in my own count I thought we would simply never see a large bike scene from the show again, and the sheer fun of counting up Donbrothers would be lost.

And then... he appeared.

My saviour from the future.

With a full uninterrupted 1 minute 15 second bike scene

I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I remembered the future episode but I had completely forgotten this was a part of it. When I started timing this episode I was leaving the house fairly shortly and I figured like the past 20 episodes this would be easy enough to count, and I was utterly bewildered. I should never have disbelieved for a moment.

With all that said... where does Donbrothers end up in full?

7m21s (4m23s for Don Momotaro alone)

This overwhelming record easily puts both Donbrothers and Don Momotaro in 20th place of their respective charts; beating all Reiwa Riders and Zi-O -- with Don Momotaro even coming close to dethroning Kamen Rider Decade's riding time!

This is where we stand, my companions. In an era where Kamen Rider's biking time is lower than ever before and shows no sign of significant recovery, Donbrothers swoops in to steal its glory. Never lose faith. The festival never ends

[aprilfayelikes]

So I’m reading TGCF... (part 2)

Welcome to the second part of my TGCF readthrough. This is my first time reading Heaven Official’s Blessing and since I find MXTX’s storytelling very fascinating, I figured, I might as well blog my way through it. I don’t know if it’s gonna be anything interesting, and I’m not used to composing coherent thoughts in English, so please don’t be mean. If it’s uninteresting, just scroll through. *WARNING: Really spoilery and will definitely be more incoherent than the last one, ‘cause I’m writing this while reading, so these are basically just random thoughts or me trying to guess the plot:)

Stick around if you’ve already read the book from chapter 32 to chapter 42.

Chapter 32

(Xie Lian is called back to the Heavenly Court. We meet the crown prince of Yong’An and the Heavenly Emperor, Jun Wu. They start to discuss what happened at the Banyue Pass, and turns out that they know about Hua Cheng.) - I really like how the word ‘awkward’ is missing from Xie Lian’s dictionary XD - But I still find the heavenly parts quite boring. I’m guessing the info dumps will pay off in the later chapters, but for now... I can’t remember a single name, na-ah.... - ‘The spotlight, it seemed, was on him’. MXTX knows how to end chapters to make you want more, that’s for sure.

Chapter 33

(General Pei tries to blame everything on Hua Cheng then on the Guoshi of Banyue. Literally on anyone. But fortunately, Pei Junior admits his wrongdoings.   The crown prince of Yong’An sleeps through the meeting.) - And here comes even more info on General Pei, so I’m thinking he continues to be an important character. I don’t like him. - Xie Lian’s cultivation method demands purity of the body and the mind...? Hm... that’s unfortunate in a danmei. Or so to say, makes things interesting:D - Well, Pei Junior admitting everything was unexpected...

Chapter 34

(Jun Wu talks privately with Xie Lian and sends him on a mission to save a heavenly official the identity of whom they don’t know yet. The mission is to sneak into the Ghost Realm. Lord Wind Master partners up with Xie Lian) - ‘It may no longer be appropriate for you to investigate this case, so come, let me tell you everything about it... Also, it’s okay if you are friends with Hua Cheng, just be careful.’ Jun Wu acts all fatherly, but that’s just strange. Is he a good guy? Or am I just suspicious about anyone and everyone now?? (NHS and JGY ruined me)  - Whaaat?! That’s cool~ I think I like the Wind Master! He disguised himself as a woman, because he looked cute:D Well done on representation:D I want to know more about them. - Also Xie Lian cannot get himself to enter his new palace is sad :(

Chapter 35

(The two follows a group of female ghosts to sneak into the Ghost Market, which is a strange and creepy place. They soon get separated, when the Wind Master gets pulled away by the female ghosts and Xie Lian gets assaulted by a very dead prostitute.) - This chapter comments on gender norms and biases and does it so effortlessly that I have to raise my hat to MXTX. So the Wind Master can appear as a woman, because he was often depicted standing next to his brother and somewhere, somehow people started to worship him as a woman, since a woman is looking better next to a man (’handsome and beautiful make a pair’). In the same style, people started to worship Ling Wen as a man, because a lady cannot be a civil god. It is a ridiculous concept, but tells tales about the prejudices in people’s mind.  - It’s a shame, she couldn’t convince Xie Lian to cross-dress, tho :P - Ghost market! This is fun~ (That scene of a boar cutting up a wiggling human leg... chef’s kiss. This is exactly the weird and disturbing shit I’m here for. And of course I’m reading this at 10PM) - Pft... can’t get erect X”””DDD I can’t with this guy, really. Xie Lian has no shame at all:D

Chapter 36

(Xie Lian enters the Gambler’s Den, where he meets up with the Wind Master. The Ghost King, Hua Cheng also plays that night. When a father wants to pay with the life of his daughter another person pops up: the crown prince of Yong’An. The naive prince tries to stop the unjust betting, but gets defeated by Hua Cheng. The Ghost King offers him as a prize to anyone, who wins against him. So naturally Xie Lian tries his best...) - Hua Cheng is such a badass! Also that martial god he decorated the ceiling with is kinda cute, as well... but if anyone dies, that would be him. - That reveal made my heart race... We finally got to see him in his true form! - Xie Lian’s legendary bad luck enters the chatXD

Chapter 37

(Hua Cheng says Xia Lian’s dicing form is bad, and he starts tutoring him in front of the whole crowd. He also asks for a prize in case Xie Lian would lose. Our protag offers a half-eaten bun. He tutors him until Xie Lian wins.) - Okay, the flirting is INTENSE! in this one >///< I love them. Also... A half-eaten bun? Xie Lian, save the poor guy some face and at least offer your left hand (or your undying devotionXD) as a bet:D 

Chapter 38

(Since Xie Lian lost a bunch before winning, Hua Cheng still asks for the bun, and eats it. Thus the crown prince of Yong’An, Qianqiu gets saved. But as they roam the city, Xie Lian sees a familiar figure) - AND HE ACTUALLY EATS THE BUN! I can’tX”””””DDDD - I like this Qianqiu guy, he’s cute. Not very useful, but adorable. - Oh! Could this be the kid, with the human face disease?! Another one of those cruel chapter endings.

Chapter 39

(Xie Lian notices the boy with the human face disease and starts to chase him, while Qianqiu gets into a fight, so they get separated again. Xie Lian loses the boy, and gets into trouble, but the Waning Moon Officer gets there just in time. This ghost officer works for Hua Cheng. He tells Xie Lian, that the Ghost King wants to see him, then escorts him to the Paradise Manor) - Yes, it’s him! The kid, with the human face disease.   - Meet up in three days??  Not one or two hours but THREE DAYS? What are you planning to do for three days in the ghost realm? Also why exactly did we bring the other two along if we’re ditching them all the time, huh?! Well, goodbye cute heavenly officials. We’ll see each other in THREE DAYS. - Now I get it. We needed some space for Hua Cheng and Xie Lian to be able to meet. 

Chapter 40

(And they speak and its cute. Hua Cheng offers to help searching for the boy. His officer finds him immediately. They interrogate him then take him in)   - Let me note that Hua Cheng is really refreshing as ‘the love interest’ (or very good friend for now). Yes, he’s secretive and mysterious, but he’s willing to talk about himself, not restricting the protagonist, not being violent, helping out but not sheltering him, has a very distinct worldview, and is not scared to be emotional. Also he’s snarky and easily amused and makes fun of people, while being a badass all along. What’s there not to love.

Chapter 41

(Hua Cheng has to leave because his sword warns him of trouble. Meanwhile Xie Lian gets suspicious on the Waning Moon Officer, and on Hua Cheng, as well. He finds a room that only opens if you throw two sixes with dice, so he obviously can’t get into. Then Hua Cheng gets back to the Manor and shows Xie Lian his armory, and I’m in love.) - A bit of sneaking around is fun:) - That’s a very peculiar sword Hua Cheng has. Hm... I have my theories about the sword :) - Also about the Waning Moon Officer and his ‘tatoo’. - What’s with all of these masks, tho. (the officer, the white-clothed calamity, the people on the street....) - Nnnn... I don’t like Xie Lian being mistrustful. I get it, but still. - I’d be just as giddy in an armory as Xie Lian! I want to touch pretty swords, as well~~

Chapter 42

(Hua Cheng introduces his sword, E’Ming to the protag. The sword seems to be alive and is kind of cute. Hua Cheng holds a banquette for Xie Lian and during the banquette he gives him some of his luck. The Wind Master also sneaks into the Ghost Kings Manor, and as the night falls, the two starts to sneak around again.) - What the actual fuck, E’Ming is cute! >///< And we’re patting a sword and the sword likes it... Should that be symbolic, or...? - I want to borrow luck, too! I could really use some! Anyone? Do you have some extra luck which you could transfer? (Not necessary through hand holding) - Hua Cheng gets so irritated by the fact that Xie Lian’s cultuvation method forbids promiscuity. XDDDD Oh, poor you. This is gonna be though XD - And more sneaking around. I would feel bad, too. Xie Lian, that’s not nice. 

[themyskira]

Wonder Woman #50 postmortem: “You know how strident Wonder Woman fans can be”

I want to cap off my readthrough of this unmitigated shitshow with a look at a recent interview James Robinson did with Newsarama, reflecting back on his twenty-issue Wonder Woman run.

I’m doing this for two reasons: One, because having read the full run and formed my own impressions (and, dare I say, some rather strident opinions), I genuinely do think it can be interesting to see what the writer has to say about it, what they were trying to achieve with it and, looking back, how they feel about the run.

And two, because having read what Robinson has to say, HOOBOY, I HAVE A FEW THOUGHTS OF MY OWN.

Newsarama: James, the one through-line of your entire run is Wonder Woman's twin brother, Jason. I know he was the motivation for you working on this book. Did you know the whole story before you started? Or did this story evolve as you wrote it?

James Robinson: I knew to a degree. As you said, I was specifically asked to pay off the gigantic plot point that Geoff Johns had left at the end of "Darkseid War." So it was always part of my plan.

Are. You. FUCKING. KIDDING ME.

The entire premise of this run. The wholesale derailment of Wondy’s Rebirth story. The rampant shredding of her newly-established Rebirth backstory. Sidelining Diana for the better part of a year in favour of a repulsive twin brother and some shit with Darkseid.

ALL OF THAT.

Served no wider purpose.

Was not intended to build towards some Rebirth metaplot or contribute to an overarching Justice League story.

Was mandated, in fact, for no other reason than that Geoff motherfucking Johns wanted to TIE UP A DANGLING PLOT THREAD FROM TWO-YEAR-OLD CROSSOVER.

He goes on.

Originally, I was going to be on it for a shorter period of time. I had originally planned to be on it for about eight issues, I think. And then when I was getting the twice-monthly book in on time (which is tough; they really beat you up), they asked me to stay on.

There are better, more eloquent arguments against the fortnightly publishing schedule — which is incredibly punishing for creators and prioritises quantity ahead of quality — but none, perhaps, are more simple or succinct than James Robinson got to write twenty issues of Wonder Woman because he got his scripts in on time.

And that gave me more time to develop Jason and play with him more.

I was careful to make sure it wasn't only about Jason, however. I was already getting crap from social media about how this is Wonder Woman's book and she should be the center of attention at all time. You know how strident Wonder Woman fans can be.

Well, that’s an interesting and thoroughly disingenuous interpretation of the critique.

The criticism was not that Wondy must be “the centre of attention at all times”, and therefore Robinson was wrong to spend any time developing any character other than her.

It was that Robinson turned Diana into such a passive, reactive — and, frankly, incompetent — character that she became barely necessary to the story at all. You could remove her from most of the issues in the Darkseid arc without affecting the progression of the plot at all, because she never does anything.

Yes, I got irate when Diana would routinely show up in six or seven pages of an issue, if she appeared at all. Funny thing, when I pick up a book titled Wonder Woman, I expect to occasionally see some actual WONDER WOMAN.

But that was the symptom rather than the problem. Because even when Diana was on the page, she was absent from the story.

And part of this is also about the characters Robinson chose to focus on instead of Wondy: Jason, Grail and Darkseid. Three characters that a lot of fans weren’t interested in, didn’t like and frankly resented having shoehorned into Wondy’s story. True, Robinson may have been asked to include them in the story, but it was his choice to prioritise them over Diana, and it was his writing that shaped Jason into such an odious character (something he confirms in the interview: Johns came up with the idea, he says, but “Most of who the character is now is stuff that I've actually come up with.”)

Put it this way: I didn’t see anybody complaining in December 2016 when Greg Rucka devoted an entire issue to Barbara Minerva’s backstory, did you?

But oh, I’m sorry, was that too strident for you?

Nrama: During your run, you tied into several events that were going on elsewhere in the DC Universe. Even this current story arc ties into Dark Nights: Metal and involves the Justice League. Was that a goal, to make Jason part of the greater DCU?

Robinson: Yes. I always do that stuff, though. I always try to tie into bigger stories. Whether it was my stuff at DC or what I did at Marvel, like Fantastic Four and Invaders and what-not, I always enjoy that about comic book universes. I like when writers try to embrace the whole place.

Here’s the thing about this.

I like the sandbox nature of a shared universe. I’m not a fan of event tie-ins, which have a tendency to derail the stories of individual books in order to aggressively market some company-wide crossover that I couldn’t care less about, but I like that there’s this whole wider world of heroes and villains and settings and mythologies that writers can draw on and play with. And you can tell some really cool stories out of the collision of those different mythologies and characters — think Phil Jimenez’s ‘Gods of Gotham’, for instance, where the Wonderfam and the Batfam are forced to team up when some of Batman’s most powerful rogues are possessed by Ares’ children.

That’s not the way Robinson loops the wider DCU into his stories, or at least it wasn’t in Wonder Woman.

Robinson goes for insider references, often obscure ones, of the sort that will only make sense to people who’ve been reading the same comics as him over the past three decades.

In WW #33, he introduced and then immediately killed off a rebooted version of the Atomic Knights in a four-page sequence that added nothing to the plot.

In WW #42, he featured a flashback to Jason fighting the Deep Six, a group of Jack Kirby villains. Ostensibly this is framed as a set-up by Grail to orchestrate her first meeting with Jason, but Robinson milks it to crack jokes about Kirby’s 1970s dialogue — and if you’re not familiar with the characters (as I wasn’t), their inclusion makes little sense.

In the same issue, Robinson also works in the Wild Huntsman… apparently for no other reason than to amuse himself… and again, if you don’t know who he is, you’ll have no idea why Grail is trying so hard to kill him or why you should care.

And then there’s the Metal tie-in.

Like I said, I don’t like event tie-ins, but it is possible to make them work. G. Willow Wilson’s Ms Marvel has been looped into a number of crossover events over the course of its life, and while I’d prefer that clusterfucks like Civil War II stayed the hell away from Kamala and her pals, Wilson has done an effective job of using these events as a springboard for some really interesting personal conflicts and character work. There’s no extra required reading for these stories; she gives you everything you need to know, so those who aren’t following the event aren’t at a disadvantage.

Robinson gives you nothing.

This is how he links the Dark Gods’ story into Metal:

Diana [narration]: Could I really have summoned this? When we wielded the Tenth Metal against Barbatos, it had the ability to wish thoughts into reality.* Ed. note: * See Dark Nights: Metal #6! — Chris

And a couple of pages later —

Karnell [narration]: ...our beautiful world — which you regard as the ‘Dark Multiverse’ — we see as a paradise… where we were more than even gods to our worshippers… we were everything!

I didn’t read Metal and I’m not planning to. That’s not a value judgement, it’s just not something that sparks my interest.

But it means I don’t know who the bloody hell Barbatos is, and I’ve never heard of the Tenth Metal. I don’t know what the Dark Multiverse is, or how it works, or how it differs from the regular multiverse. When Robinson says Diana made an inadvertent wish while she was wielding this Tenth Metal, I don’t know if he’s picking up on a story point in Metal that I need to read up on.

So right off the bat, Robinson has alienated anybody who isn’t familiar with the event comic he’s drawing from.

And what infuriates me is that at the same time as he was doing all this, Robinson was getting muddled by Wonder Woman’s continuity, conflating superseded New 52 canon with (contradictory) Rebirth canon, inadvertently retconning things and failing even to keep his own narrative consistent. I’d argue he needed to spend less time making references to other comics and more time making sure he understood the one he was writing.

Robinson: [...] what I've always loved about Wonder Woman is her strength. Even when she was in that phase in the white costume, where she didn't have her powers, she had great strength.

Oh, you mean this era?

The era where Diana lost not only her powers, but all of her training and skills? Where she became a weepy, insecure romantic heroine, reliant on men to guide and save her from her own inexperience and her uncontrollable female emotionality? The era where she was constantly crying over her latest rugged love interests? That awesome era?

(Also misogynistic, racist and homophobic as fuuuuuck, but that’s another discussion.)

One of the reasons that era ended was because Gloria Steinham [sic] said, "Hey, she's Wonder Woman! She's a superhero and you've taken away her powers!"

But I actually thought her lacking powers was like saying, I don't need them to be a strong woman. And I think that was almost a more powerful message. I was surprised Ms. Steinem didn't get that, to be quite honest with you.

This is a characterisation of Steinem’s role in that period of Wondy’s history that I’ve seen before (always from men in the comics field), and it’s never sit well with me. It carries an unpleasant shade of gatekeeping.

The implication is that Steinem’s feelings about Wonder Woman (a character had loved since childhood) were less valid or even flat-out incorrect because she hadn’t read the right comics, that she was an ignorant outsider who ruined a good thing by coming in with a political agenda and trying to make Wonder Woman about feminism, that she didn’t have a right to complain about the comic because she wasn’t a ‘real’ fan.

And what Robinson doesn’t mention, as critics of Steinem and Ms. Magazine’s lobbying for a return to the classic Wondy rarely do, is that this campaign was set against a backdrop of unimpressive sales numbers and a struggle over the new direction that eventually gave rise to an ambitious and quite likely divisive ‘women’s lib’ arc written by African-American sci-fi writer Samuel R. Delany, which was intended to culminate in Diana triumphing over a group of male thugs attempting to shut down an abortion clinic run by women surgeons.

I have no doubt that Steinem played an important role in the way events panned out, but I’m also not surprised the ‘women’s lib’ arc never made it past its first issue.

(It was a truly dreadful first issue, btw, though the whole story behind it and what Delany was trying to do with it is fascinating.)

But that didn’t stop DC from kicking off Wondy’s superpowered return with the murder of a composite character representing Steinem and female DC editor Dorothy Woolfolk (whose name had previously been floated as editor for the book).

Then as now, Steinem got blamed by the gatekeepers for daring to interfere with Wonder Woman.

Nrama: Do you think Jason picked up some of her strength over the course of his story arc during your run?

Robinson: I think so, at least at the beginning as he was starting to develop. Now, technically, I suppose he's more powerful than her in that he has the power of their father Zeus and the power of storms and air control and things like that.

I like the fact that when he's given this armor, he realizes that his sister should have gotten it.

And he knows that the powers he has do not make him the better hero.

He knows his sister is the better hero.

So by the end of it, he just wants to be worthy of her, which I think was a nice character arc for him.

I can see how Robinson tried to achieve this character arc, but I wouldn’t call it anything close to a success.

Jason started as a deeply, deeply unlikeable character. He’s deeply selfish and emotionally immature. He doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions, mostly because he’s only ever concerned about how things affect him. When he learns about the mother he never met, when his adoptive father vanishes, every time Hercules leaves on one of his journeys, as he follows his twin sister’s heroics through the media — his thoughts are never about them and what they’re doing, or how they’re feeling, or if they’re okay. It’s always about how they’ve failed him, wronged him, abandoned him.

When we first meet him, he is helping goddamn Darkseid to systematically murder his own siblings. And it’s not because he’s being mind-controlled, or elaborately manipulated into believing that Darkseid is the good guy. It’s because he hates the guts out of Diana, the sister he’s never met, because he believes he’s entitled to the life that she has, and he wants to kill her for it.

If you want to get your readers past all that, you need one hell of a redemptive arc, and that’s one thing Jason never gets.

Because what happens next, after Jason gets an attack of conscience and switches sides, is that he freeloads off Diana, trashes her house, guilt trips her when she tries to set boundaries, and then when, heroism and glory don’t immediately come easily to him, runs away from home in the middle of the night.

The next time we see him is when he returns with the armour and a personality change. He’s still inexperienced, brash, impulsive and annoying, but that’s more or less the extent of it — he’s no longer the thoroughly objectionable character we saw in his first seven issues, and there’s no real explanation for the change.

Really, the vast majority of Jason’s character development takes place in the space between his disappearing at the end of WW #40 and reappearing at the end of WW #41.

Nrama: Wonder Woman #50 definitely feels like it's an ending to your time on Jason's character, and even his time in the book.

Robinson: It definitely has an element of finality to it, but Jason can be there for other writers, or indeed me, if I ever got to write him again.

Excuse me? If you ever got to what now?

Nrama: Is that a hint?

Robinson: I do enjoy writing him. I have this vague fantasy of one day doing a story and calling the comic Jason's Quest, which is an old DC title.

But no one's asked me so far and probably won't. So it's just something in my mind right now.

please, dear god in heaven, please let it stay there.

[vulpinesaint]

god the way that satan frames their fall from heaven drives me so crazy. yes, we fell, but that does not mean we're defeated: we still have our spite, and hatred, and the will to pursue revenge, and so we have not been overcome. we may have fallen, but we threatened god's throne enough to shake it, and it is a far worse shame for the all-powerful ruler to be shaken than for lesser beings to be defeated. and still we can get up again. we did not know god's strength because how could we have known, no one has stood against him, but now we do know. we have been struck down and so now we know how to approach our plans in the future. we fell, and hell is the farthest thing there is from the paradise of heaven, but it's better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. we've fallen but changing the setting cannot change my heart. even in devastation we will rise again. our hate makes us stronger. it brings us together. it brings us hope. we will prevail.

[vulpinesaint]

yeah no i was so right. every time i pick up paradise lost again my brain goes completely haywire. how do i deal with this

[vulpinesaint]

milton's description of hell drives me crazy it's SO good. the classics, sure: fire in the desolate pits of hell, far as the eye can see. but then "from those flames/no light, but rather darkness visible/serv'd only to discover sights of woe..." the fire does not give off light: instead, it only reveals more darkness, more despair, so that even something that could be light and good is made into something that deepens the despair of everything...

[vulpinesaint]

sorry but i literally have to post line by line during a paradise lost night. every new concept needs its own post. i can't express everything fully enough otherwise

[vulpinesaint]

his eyes "sparkling blaz'd"... and he's tall... and he has wings... [ dreamy sigh ]

[vulpinesaint]

it's the excatholic disease that makes me so specifically wild about this obviously but fuuuuck. the way that god is framed in paradise lost by the fallen angels. god alone enforces the "Tyranny of Heav'n," and he is titled Conqueror by those fallen... as a repeated theme, too. conqueror feels like a new epithet for god in the speech of the fallen angels. god as the all-powerful creator and ruler of everything does not create a benevolent father, but a tyrant; god in the eyes of revolutionaries, god in the eyes of those who lived in heaven. better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. god not as a figure of love but as a figure of the enemy; will you adore the conqueror???

[vulpinesaint]

ALL IS NOT LOST!!!!!! the unconquerable will; and study of revenge; immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield.... and what else is else not to be overcome???????

[vulpinesaint]

sorry for saying that satan speaks well and has Points. he's right though. to say "all is not lost; the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield: and what is else not to be overcome?" genuinely, what else does it mean, to not be overcome? you cannot be defeated if you still have your will. you cannot be defeated if you still hate; you cannot be defeated if you never submit. there is always hatred. there is always revenge. anyway the girlies have been and always will be haters who live for spite and guess what bitch it keeps you alive

[vulpinesaint]

was so right about those two pages btw. made Six posts actually instead of the five i anticipated and seven if you count a reblog adding to one of those six posts. this is why i've never gotten past page forty reading it before i have to think So much about nearly every line 😭 in the grand scheme of things i don't think i've even made it out of the gates of hell

[vulpinesaint]

the angels fight against god; the angels fall. "and till then who knew/the force of those dire arms?" satan asks... who knew? who could have known? to be the first to stand against god, the first to receive his wrath rather than his grace... who could have known the strength of god, the force of his anger, the lack of his mercy? was it possible to know? to be truly the first... till then, who knew...

[vulpinesaint]

O HOW UNLIKE THE PLACE FROM WHENCE THEY FELL! TO SEE HELL AND ONLY BE ABLE TO THINK "HOW FAR I AM FROM HEAVEN..." TO HAVE ONLY KNOWN HEAVEN YOUR WHOLE LIFE AND TO SUDDENLY HAVE BEEN TORN FROM IT... TO HAVE ONLY KNOWN HEAVEN YOUR WHOLE LIFE AND TO SUDDENLY BE IN HELL...

[vulpinesaint]

image of lucifer laying, fallen, in hell, in the agonized moments after the fiery crash before he looks up to take in his surroundings in hell... to me it is the same genre as saint sebastian tied to the tree + shot through with arrows.