I have recently completed my first read through of Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals. I would like to discuss what everyone thinks of this rendition of her origin.

I personally enjoyed the story of the Amazons themselves, however, I thought Heracles was a tad too one-note. This did lead to an enjoyable read about the Amazon's escape and division over whether to follow the path of vengeance or not. Paradise Island was a great place that was full of character. It had its beauties and its secrets which made it mysterious to a certain extent and I quite enjoyed how Perez and Potter handled that. My largest qualm with the story as a whole though came with the characterization of the gods. They all seemed terribly one note, however, I'm unsure if this is because I'm just spoiled with there brilliantly penned gods of Azzarello's run. I like what they did with the origin of her costume, having it not derive from Steve Trevor's crash landing. In fact I enjoyed the fact that Steve Trevor wasn't that necessary to her origin at all because while I believe he's quite an important character to Diana's mythos, it seems folly to make the origin of the greatest female superhero determinate on a man. I like that the star-spangled bathing suit wasn't all that there was to the costume even if the rest was left behind quite quickly. I also really liked the symbolism of the bands and how they help them remember their past sins. I do wonder why Diana has them though because she wasn't there for that? Did they just make an extra pair not to leave her out or something? Also if Diana is the only child ever born on this island then why are their panels with other children? I did like the characterization of the other amazons though, Phillipus actually became one of my favorite characters.

I enjoyed the intricacy of Ares plot but after Azzarello's take on the character I can't help but see it as a little one note. This did give way to a great conclusion though. I think the conclusion embodied the ideal of Wonder Woman well. She stood up to the tyranny and violence of man's world and beat it, not with violence, but the power of the truth. I also enjoyed the little team she formed going into that battle. I thought it was a great, well-rounded supporting cast that all had great characterization. I particularly liked Dr. Kapatelis. I personally think Diana just needs this great of a supporting cast on a regular basis.

Azzarello definitely had better gods but to be fair his story involved the gods a lot more intimately than Perez's but I think perezs Ares was a lot better and I'd prefer if azzarello found a way to give Diana that back story with Ares AND have kept him as an actual villain that she had to face off against.

Her supporting characters were much better with Perez though .....they were all fun and interesting and I hate to see they didn't make the n52 though if philipus became some raping neatherdal I wouldve been angrier about the amazons in n52

You should read ruckas entire run next his rendition of the gods were interesting

Nice summary, however I think Perrez made a couple of horrible mistakes.

1. I hate how the Amazons were tricked by Hercules, but were unable to escape themselves,they needed the Gods to save them. 2. Although I like how Diana beat Ares, I still think it was stupid for Perrez to completely make Ares give up on his mission of an eternal war. I think Ares was a great villain for diana and Perrez should have kept that antagonism going between them.

3. I agree Ares was too much of a one-dimensional villain. I would have liked to see more depth to the character, which future iterations of him did show.

All in all I think Gods and Mortals is a great blueprint for a modern Wonder Woman origin, but I still think the definitive wonder woman origin is yet to be written. Even the animated film fell short for me.

@awesomehobos: Well it's not like the depictions of Zeus, Ares and Heracles was inaccurate to the myths. They have behaved like that, actually worst before.

The gods pretty much are just one-note characters until Rucka gets his hands on them, but Gods and Mortals should be considered an important story for fleshing out Ares as a character. I love the story, but in a sense I think Perez shot himself in the foot with Ares. He is a natural antagonist for Wonder Woman, and a clear threat, but after just one story, he pretty much stops being a villain. I think that is a bit of a missed opportunity.

I consider this the definitive origin because Diana goes to Man's World with her mission to bring peace, love and equality which I think should be the status quo of the title. The X-Men fight to make the world a better place for mutants, Batman fights to clean up the streets of Gotham and Wonder Woman fights to bring peace and equality to the world. The lack of such an origin has damaged her in the n52 imo.

exactly my point. ares shouldn´t have realized this so quickly. This could have been a profound revelation at some future point after she had thwarted him several times.

My problem with the Ares and Wonder Woman dichotomy in the story is that while Peace and War seem to me natural opposites, I would more say that Peace and Chaos are the opposites. I think what Azzarello set up with the metaphor that War fathers Peace, and then when Diana becomes War and the conflict Strife is set up, you have this wonderful metaphorical question of is War a tool of peace or a game of strife. The Perez Ares never really showed that kind of pathos, he just wanted to destroy the world yet I can't think of many wars where the goal was to destroy the world. I think a more interesting conflict would have been for Athena, Demeter, Hermes, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Artemis to create the Amazon's in almost a jealous fear of Ares who wasn't trying to really gain power, but war was running rampant and he was, but then Ares becomes malicious towards them because he feels spired when denied the worship of the greatest warrior in history.

And in regards to the comment that Herc and Ares and Zeus have all shown these qualities in mythology, this is true, all the gods were shown with good and bad qualities and you could adapt any of those qualities into good or bad characters with whichever pathos you deem to they should have

He didn´t want to destroy the world. he wanted to create eternal chaos or an everlasting war.

I think Ares has always represented chaos after Perrez. Read Rucka and Simone.

Azzerello did a lot of great things, but it´s mixed in with so much I hate that its hard to notice. Whereas Perrez did so much great stuff, that I forgive him for most of his glaring mistakes in characterization and unforgivable narrative choices in Gods And Mortals. I wish we could somehow meld Rucka, Azz, Simone and Perrez together and have the action take place in Gateway City. I think we´d have a perfect run.

@agent41: @jphulk26: I think the thing with Azzarello's run is, at least for me personally, is that you look at Perez and Rucka and Simone and Jiminnez as like the ongoing adventures of Wonder Woman whereas I see Azzarello's as like a one off story. Even though it's 35 issues long, it's still a one off story to the side of the main tail, something similar to what Superman Unchained was supposed to be where the main continuity can claim what it wants and not what it doesn't. At least that's how I look at it.

I totally agree about Gateway city too, and I think we really just need a writer to come on that loves and wants to continue everything that came before, and I think we're almost there. We just have to let DC know the Finch's are awful then hopefully someone like Scott Snyder or Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison would pick it up, cause they've all expressed interest.

@agent41: I thought he did rather a lot. He characterized an entire pantheon of gods, developed a brand new villain, built a structure of interactions between Wonder Woman and the gods that was extremely interesting, put Wonder Woman in a tantalizing new role, developed a great new purpose for the gauntlets (that don't make much sense for Wonder Woman since she was the only Amazon that didn't have past sins to be reminded of and never was actually imprisoned to receive the bracelets), set up what could arguably be a great nemesis in Strife (though many may disagree with me), and gave us many memorable moments. I think the idea though was less to have a story that developed her character, but more of one that studied her character. Half the characters in the book are meant to contrast with her to point out what she's not. Even the world play contrasts in certain places with Diana being the God of War and Orion being the Dog of War. Diana was also shown throughout the series as compassionate, strong, capable, maternal, loving, submissive, determined, intelligent, and a strong leader. I'm in no way saying the series was perfect and that there aren't glaring flaws but it does bother me how a lot of the older fans try to write it off. It made a wonderful attempt at getting the character write and did many things well, but we all know he messed up his fair share too. That's okay, but can we focus on the things he did so well. Then we can put that in with all of Perez and Rucka's brilliance and have ourselves a nice little Wonder Woman melting pot.