Is Odyssey Worth a Read?

Just curious if anyone here has read Wonder Woman: Odyssey and if you thought it was a good read or not?

I know certain Wonder Woman fans didn't like it but I actually thought it was good and liked some of the concepts they came up with.

Thing is though, for me it was a good temporary story and arc. Something along the lines of Age of Apocalypse. It was mainstream but wasn't meant to go on forever.

It's too long, it's too violent, it's too dope not to read it. It's pretty amazing.

It was pretty good. Not amazing, but IIRC there were some weird DC politics that came into play and the writer left leaving someone else to wrap it up

It was amazing.

JMS came up the premise and wrote the first few issues. They were good, but then JMS left to write more Superman and Phil Hester took over. Following JMS' basic blueprint, he added in the wonder and gave the series it's heart. Which it needed, because there was a mass amount of bloodletting in each issue.

Diana was younger, angrier and struggled to find herself in an urban version of "Ten Little Indians". Characters were introduced, you warmed to them, and they were slaughtered five pages later. There was an air that anything could happen, and it did.

Cheetah and Giganta were credible threats -that you actually feared- after years of lackluster appearances. One installment contained the best Dr. Psycho story ever written. Diana's ideals were seen through a new lens and she gained her powers along the way, going from street level hero, to the powerhouse we know and love. When she finally learned to fly, the reader was able to feel all the joy she did. It was a beautiful page.

For the first time since the mod era Diana seemed cool. She was a normal, American teenager that talked back to authority figures, listened to metal and played video games. She was approachable and relatable without sacrificing her message, her villains, or her supporting cast.

It was the reboot we should have had for the New 52.

Yes it is.

Same with Superman, JMS was just pissed that his stories would have zero importance since DC would reboot.

@scorpio_cassadine: They should of made that her post-Covergence outfit. They could just make the gold silver.

@somayareece: agreed. That my favorite look for her

Ah yes ... poor JMS :)

@kiba: Really? I think that look is an abomination, I actually prefer the one she's wearing now which I also thoroughly dislike. I'd rather just stick to the bathing suit

I read Odyssey in 3 or 4 days and I don't remember the story well so I guess I didn't love it.

@brunnhilde: well to each their own. I know the bathing suit is classic and is what we all grew up with but personally I think all these women characters dressed in lingerie or swim suits look ridiculous, though that can be said for all costumes I guess. However I think JMS look or the Lee 52 with pants look is more... respectable? I guess is the word. Otherwise she looks like she just came from the swim suit contest in the MS America pageant. Although the Fabok redesign gives her an amazon warrior feel that I like too.

Ps. What I think I liked most about this one was the fact it wasn't the American flag. She isn't American like Steve Rogers and shouldn't wear the symbol of a country that isn't her own. I know there have been reasons given for this over the years but they always came off as weak excuses to justify the costume imo

Meh, it was ok. Not very Wonder Woman-y and I thought it dragged on a bit, but it was decent enough.

I never read it by the way. Based on the responses, I probably shouldn't read it.

It was AMAZING! lol

But seriously, to each their own. There are people who like Gail Simone's and Brian Azzarello's runs and I despise both of them. To me the Odyssey is the oasis between the two and the best run since Rucka's.

It was unfairly panned due to the backlash over the new costume, JMS' "Ferrari" comment and the unceremonious way Gail was fired off the title just before it began.

This is a good way of putting my take on it, where, being too violent eclipsed everything else; Dr. Psycho's appearance was too brief; I was curious to see what happened to Bellona, or, whether, the details of how she was handled by Dr. Psycho, with Ajax.

@scorpio_cassadine: You're right about it coming in for unfair criticism. I don't even dislike the costume really, it's definitely better than the mess she wears these days. To me, it tried to do something different and delivered an ok story.

I think one of the problems is that it exists in a vacuum. Nothing before Odyssey matters to the story and nothing after Odyssey builds on the story. The characters who we once cared about have been changed, so they are not really those characters anymore, so I don't really care about them.

Best run since Rucka? Nah, that's Simone for me. But of course, you're have your opinion and that's fair enough.

@kiba: Sure but dressing scantily actually fits with the Amazon's fashion/cultural identity, I think pants don't go very well with Amazons tbh though I love Donna's look in the n52, that one's lovely. The bathing suit, in and of itself, is not an issue, it's the enormous tits, the narrow waist, the pursed pouty lips, the come-hither look on her face that I find distasteful, drawing a pair of pants on Wonder Woman doesn't fix that. I agree with you on the American motif, I'd just replace the blue with camel and the 5-pointed star with a 6-pointed star.

That's not who she is though. She was designed to be sexy and represent American patriotism. She's also a character loaded with contradictions and that's one of the main things that makes her interesting.

Someone said about the Odyssey costume, "I wouldn't have asked for pants if I had known her big, glossy, butt would always be in my face". And it was, the look with pants was actually sexier than her standard swimsuit. She ALWAYS showed cleavage in it, where with the swimsuit it's up to the artist's discretion. Aaron Lopresti and Cliff Chiang drew it with absolutely no sex appeal at all. So it's not about the costume, it's about the artist. Ed Benes somehow managed to make even her current full coverage body armor look sexy.

You can save yourself some time by just taking the money you would have spent on that arc, placing it in a pile on the ground, and lighting it on fire.

@scorpio_cassadine: but when she was created she was an American agent. Wasn't she? Being a foreigner from another country now those colors have no place. If she was an immigrant like Superman it wouldn't be a problem but she isn't. Heck she lives in Paris now. Her red, white and blues are out of place.

@scorpio_cassadine: Curious. Was their some sort of problem with Simone's writing on the title?

Honestly, the reactions seem pretty split. Some like it. Some hate it. Kind of like that, actually.

I liked it. A good 'elseworld' story.

@scouterv: Sure, if a writer sacrifices continuity to write a good story, then that's still cool, but imo the story was just ok, nothing particularly great.

Also, I think I might have liked it better if it had been released as an Elseworlds or something, but instead it took over the main title, which meant that Wonder Woman (the book) was essentially about a character who was not Wonder Woman for over a year.

Clearly I'm not a big fan of Odyssey, but people here seem to be split about even regarding how good it was. Among WW fans, that's not too bad, so give it a shot and see how you like it. It's better than Finch.

@scorpio_cassadine: There's a fine line between a fetching, beautiful woman and a page-3 glamour model, you know what I mean, the early Wonder Woman comics were feminist agitprop riddled with fetichistic overtones, not a spank bank for boys of your sensibilities, no offense. H.G Peter's design was feminine, sexy but in very good taste. Chiang's right up my alley but I'd gladly meet you halfway, something like Frank Cho works for me, his Wonder Woman might as well be naked but she looks strong, poised and full of life, that's the most important thing to me. Ed Benes is too pornsy for my palate

I just like pretty pictures, I'm not looking for porn from my comic books.

Ugh please just because New 52 Wonder Woman is in a bad place doesn't excuse how absolutely god awful Odyssey was. Horrible writing, horrible retcons and horrible narrative. Combine that with how out of sync it was with the rest of the DCU (Wonder Woman being an unknown whilst characters like Captain Atom and Magog were technically better known by the public than she was) was certainly an inadvisable premise. And I say that as a JMS fan, his TV and Marvel scripts are amazingly well written and make for superb comic book reading.

@scorpio_cassadine: Yeah so do I, it's what it all boils down to really. Sorry if I was too harsh

H.G. Peter had a background with "The Gibson Girl" illustrations that were quite ground breaking for Victorian era art. Many believe the Gibson Girl was the first contemporary standard for female beauty in the USA. She was intentionally idealized, if not actually sexualized, much like Diana during the Marston run.

Yes I'm familiar, I was watching Johnny Carson interview some celebrity in the 70's on youtube and he mentioned the Gibson Girls and I did some research. That's where I found the connection to H.G. Peter. They're beautiful pictures, sexy but always tasteful and respectable. I like Varga a lot too. This is what I mean by pretty pictures, it's more about the glamour and femininity than overt sexuality.

@scorpio_cassadine said:

@csg_cl said:

@scorpio_cassadine said:

@brunnhilde said:

@scorpio_cassadine: There's a fine line between a fetching, beautiful woman and a page-3 glamour model, you know what I mean, the early Wonder Woman comics were feminist agitprop riddled with fetichistic overtones, not a spank bank for boys of your sensibilities, no offense. H.G Peter's design was feminine, sexy but in very good taste. Chiang's right up my alley but I'd gladly meet you halfway, something like Frank Cho works for me, his Wonder Woman might as well be naked but she looks strong, poised and full of life, that's the most important thing to me. Ed Benes is too pornsy for my palate

I just like pretty pictures, I'm not looking for porn from my comic books.

H.G. Peter had a background with "The Gibson Girl" illustrations that were quite ground breaking for Victorian era art. Many believe the Gibson Girl was the first contemporary standard for female beauty in the USA. She was intentionally idealized, if not actually sexualized, much like Diana during the Marston run.

Yes I'm familiar, I was watching Johnny Carson interview some celebrity in the 70's on youtube and he mentioned the Gibson Girls and I did some research. That's where I found the connection to H.G. Peter. They're beautiful pictures, sexy but always tasteful and respectable. I like Varga a lot too. This is what I mean by pretty pictures, it's more about the glamour and femininity than overt sexuality.

These are stunning! It's art like this that makes you really understand what Marston and Peter were trying to achieve with WW in the 1940's. Beautiful, but a touch aloof, the stuff of a young boys (or girls) fantasies, but not raunchy. It's rather classy even though it's a little bit naughty (especially for the times!)

Exactly! :)

I think so. What I read, I liked.