Or just that the visitors have conducted somekind of survey of Earth before they make contact with humans.

No, the reasons I've so far been presented have all been items that fit squarely into the: "Because I personally want them to be/have this." And I haven't ever said they couldn't be wonderous, I am just firmly against them being so through technology... because damn well nearly all secret/lost societies in DC/Marvel fiction are more advanced than the outside world, so to me you are making them more generic by adding the tech angle. What you could do instead was simulate techonological achievements through other means, like magic, deeper understanding of the world around them, connection with the planet, gifts from above that kind of thing. Alternatively, you could make them as smart and capable as you want, but let them carry a deeply conservative view of their world; as in, they could change things... but they like them the way they are.

Because they could move beyond both without having to re-invent the wheel. In most versions, the Amazons are superhumanly strong and durable. That alone would put them above Sparta and it's shield walls, on top of this you have to factor in that they have been alive and fighting with the same weapons and tactics for 3000 years, which should put them well above just about any other wielder of shield, sword, bow and spear. Not to mention from the get go, their weapons and armor will have been crafted to suit them, so who's to say a normal person can even lift an Amazon's shield or be able to draw with their bows? Regarding Athens, regarded as a seat of knowledge and philosophy... well the Amazons could have made the same mathematical, astrological/biological observations, and as a deeply religious people they will have had as much reason to debate the nature of the world and the words of the gods as much as anyone, they just had more time to perfect it.

And that is the point I am trying to make. You don't need to make the Amazons advanced to make them wonderous or marvelous, all you need to do is take their Broze Age world and push it to the max. Why would you need better weapons if your average sister with and axe can pretty much take a tank apart? Why better armor when what you have is nearly bulletproof? Why bother with the longwinded medical studies of Man's World when you can cure just about anything using certain roots and leaves from your back garden or the surrounding jungle? And so on. If Superman and Metropolis is the posterboy for the good future, Wonder Woman and Themyscira is the same for 'it was better in the old days'.

While that might be true, Themyscira has always been a melting-pot of modern perceptions of the Greek city-states. You had your Athens-like buildings, your Sparta-like military along with Delphi-like oracles.

Thing is that what you are thinking of was the state they existed in for nearly 80 years... and DC apparently didn't have anywhere to go with it. Which isn't to say it doesn't still exist, you just haven't gotten a writer willing to deal with it yet.

Then you lost this since you were the one who started since you stooped to calling me closed minded. Not that it was deciding factor since your debating skills is somewhere between little and non-existent, so you tend to resort to school yard tactics like these to get out thinking you retain any dignity.

@outside_85: How strong the Amazons are varies from writer to writer and none of the incarnations depict them as being on Diana's level. And no amount of skill with a spear will save you from a tank or fighter jet.

Huh? What? I'm going to need you to get it together, that republican diatribe of yours didn't make a lot of sense. Calling you closed minded wasn't an insult, it was a statement of fact. You proved as much with your "Wonder Woman and Themyscira is the same for 'it was better in the old days'"

What book have you been reading? Why would any society that sheltered themselves from the outside world for millennia think things were "better in the old days"? If that was the case, they never would have separated themselves in the first place. They were created by the gods to be a race that showed the world the capabilities of women, and they went into hiding due to being feared, hated and persecuted because of it. They wouldn't want the old fashioned ways of the past, where they were tricked, raped and warred against, that's why they hate men so much in the first place.

Such a culture would make strides to ensure that status quo wouldn't happen again, so they would seek to be the best could at war. Therefore during those despicable raids they're known for, they'd pick up on the changes the outside world have made and attempt to implement them, so they'd remain the world's premier warriors.

I have to go to work, I'll annihilate your response when I get back.

They don't need to be on Diana's level. The normal standard of Amazons is that they can lift 12 tons, a normal car weighs around 2 and then you got a big one at that. A main battle tank weighs no more than 80 tons and normally less, meaning all it takes is 6-7 Amazons to flip it over on the side. Not to mention that tanks are notoriously hard to see out of and rely a great deal on the eyes of other tanks and infantry to see an enemy thats gotten close to them.

As for jets... well, they've already proven they can shoot those down with a bow and arrow, and they nearly downed Air Force One by throwing a spear at the pilot.

The outside world has access to more than tanks. And there's still the issue of alien and supernatural invaders. How are they going to save themselves from Darkseid or Mongul?

Yeah, and that moment, among others, ahs been thoroughly criticized.

Nothing quite as durable amongst the conventional weapons. Regarding supernatural and alien threats... they are about as vulnurable as everyone else is by the looks of it... better perhaps because you can't find their island.

So let me get this straight, one one hand you complain that they are (presumably) more vulnurable than normal people, yet you throw away the instace where they prove they are not? Look, AA was a bad story, the Amazons looked terrible and Hippolyta most of all, but none of that is a reason to pretend it just didnt count or happen.

I'm complaining that the way they were portrayed as threat level relied on PIS an accusation that gets trotted out whenever Diana does well against any opponent fanboys think should slaughter her in mere seconds and the last thing I want is to give them more ammo.

I like seeing Batman being formidable but that doesn't mean I'll accept a story where he beats Diana by kicking her in the stomach.

That said, if they can't have sci-fi tech then focusing on their magical and mystical nature can work also I agree.

Or just that the visitors have conducted somekind of survey of Earth before they make contact with humans.

No, the reasons I've so far been presented have all been items that fit squarely into the: "Because I personally want them to be/have this." And I haven't ever said they couldn't be wonderous, I am just firmly against them being so through technology... because damn well nearly all secret/lost societies in DC/Marvel fiction are more advanced than the outside world, so to me you are making them more generic by adding the tech angle. What you could do instead was simulate techonological achievements through other means, like magic, deeper understanding of the world around them, connection with the planet, gifts from above that kind of thing. Alternatively, you could make them as smart and capable as you want, but let them carry a deeply conservative view of their world; as in, they could change things... but they like them the way they are.

Because they could move beyond both without having to re-invent the wheel. In most versions, the Amazons are superhumanly strong and durable. That alone would put them above Sparta and it's shield walls, on top of this you have to factor in that they have been alive and fighting with the same weapons and tactics for 3000 years, which should put them well above just about any other wielder of shield, sword, bow and spear. Not to mention from the get go, their weapons and armor will have been crafted to suit them, so who's to say a normal person can even lift an Amazon's shield or be able to draw with their bows? Regarding Athens, regarded as a seat of knowledge and philosophy... well the Amazons could have made the same mathematical, astrological/biological observations, and as a deeply religious people they will have had as much reason to debate the nature of the world and the words of the gods as much as anyone, they just had more time to perfect it.

And that is the point I am trying to make. You don't need to make the Amazons advanced to make them wonderous or marvelous, all you need to do is take their Broze Age world and push it to the max. Why would you need better weapons if your average sister with and axe can pretty much take a tank apart? Why better armor when what you have is nearly bulletproof? Why bother with the longwinded medical studies of Man's World when you can cure just about anything using certain roots and leaves from your back garden or the surrounding jungle? And so on. If Superman and Metropolis is the posterboy for the good future, Wonder Woman and Themyscira is the same for 'it was better in the old days'.

While that might be true, Themyscira has always been a melting-pot of modern perceptions of the Greek city-states. You had your Athens-like buildings, your Sparta-like military along with Delphi-like oracles.

Thing is that what you are thinking of was the state they existed in for nearly 80 years... and DC apparently didn't have anywhere to go with it. Which isn't to say it doesn't still exist, you just haven't gotten a writer willing to deal with it yet.

@outside_85: How strong the Amazons are varies from writer to writer and none of the incarnations depict them as being on Diana's level. And no amount of skill with a spear will save you from a tank or fighter jet.

Yet how many basically human, in appearance, alien races do we see? Calling someone a hairless ape when you look exactly the same is silly ... why not something like "poor-man's Kryptonian" or "wingless Thanagarian" or any of a dozen other insults? Point still remains that comparing Themyscira of today with Hellenistic Greece in a direct line is a fluff argument based 100% of a superficial similarity. Point of fact is that the Amazons were considered the mighty enemy of Greece and in historical terms were considered culturally nearly opposite.

I agree that they don't need modern gadgets and super tech based on man's world and such, I've been saying that in pretty much every post I've made so I think we are saying many of the same things and I'm going to move forward in that fashion.

Where we don't align is that I don't think WW is or should be "it was better in the old days" I have always found her and the Amazons a bastion of "how it could have been". As in if we started in the same place (Hellenistic Greece) and then went our own ways this is how things could have turned out if men hadn't kept trying to conquer each other. No Roman Empire(s) Holy or otherwise, No Ottomans, No Vatican, No European Imperialism etc ... The Amazons should represent how Ancient Greece would have evolved over 3,000 if it had not been destroyed by various issues. The key ingredients would include philosophy, poetry, combat, mysticism and medicine (probably others, but that's what comes to mind) ... would any of this look like our world today, maybe, but with Amazonian spin on it so you'd get the mental radio instead of cell phones etc...

I do think a dose of fantastical things makes them vastly more interesting and show some of the value of the society that isn't being shown currently. The Post-Crisis Amazons had many facets and is really what you are describing above. But, I disagree that the current Amazons are being portrayed as you describe. N52 Themyscira has shown us none of these things.

I'd also note that the Amazons were the first of major group of "hidden" societies in comics and they were conceived as super advanced, DC has regressed them over time to a much less advanced society that doesn't even make their own armor, weapons, medical supplies ... they trade for most of these things with Hephaestus now, which I find less and less appealing as time goes by.

We've seen very little of the greatness of the Amazons since Finch took the reigns.

Not really true ... the Golden Age Amazons were all near Diana's level thus the contest was meant to find the "best of the best", before the blessings power origin came along Diana was only a little better than her sisters ... Post-Crisis Amazon's were all fairly significantly superhuman as well. Look at Artemis and Grace Choi, they could both manage a fighter jet or a tank with ease and neither of them was pure Themysciran Amazon. Current N52 Amazons have not shown this level of power though.

You could ofc do that, but then you had to assume your target actually knew what either of them were. As for comparing Themyscira and the Greece of yesteryear... thats not silly at all considering it's supposed to be one of them, existing intact in the modern world. And Sparta was considered the antithesis of Athens, more often than not they were bitter enemies and Sparta even burnt Athens to the ground once. And culturally... well thats how they were depicted, by their enemies, which is something I am not inclined to take for granted (even if they weren't fictional). Like vikings have been for centuries considered nothing more than filthy, warmongering barbarians... which just isn't true.

Agreed.

Well, that's the question really; were the Amazons put on Earth to be the example of all that mankind could and should be in the eyes of Olympus? Or were they meant to 'keep up' with the lesser humans around them?

They haven't been depicted as such, true enough, but just because we don't see these things, doesn't mean they don't exist. I am ofc only guaranteeing they have everything to make a society work, so I am certain that there are smiths to make a fix tools, they will have masons and carpenters to make buildings, they will have scholars and scribes to (at the very least) record their own history and the queens decisions and so on.

That is true, but there was a hidden meaning with them being as advanced as they were, one which I am not certain is as relevant in this much more balanced age than the one they were created in. I am not sure how much we want to put in the trade with Hephaestus as affecting what the Amazons do and don't, they still need to maintain these items, they still need basic tools (hammers, shovels, plowshares). Heph may be providing the weapons and armor, but nothing else and I am not sure he's the sort you ask for a handful of nails or a shovel.

Well Finch couldn't write greatness unless someone else wrote it for her, so there's that.

Save for Exoristos in Demon Knights who could knock over several tons of charging dinosaur with a single blow of a large tenderizer.

Forgot about Exoristos. But since she's never appeared again that's not a huge shock.

I generally agree with the thought process that a lack of evidence does not = inability, or in other words I don't need it to appear on the page to believe something is possible. But what we've seen of the N52 Amazons is woefully inadequate IMO. Not a single mention of farms, smiths or other non-warrior roles, which is what sort of irritates me to be honest. I'd like for a writer to explore them in more depth beyond just being warriors. At this point we've got 4 years of one view of Themyscira and I'm not impressed with it. With that said, they're a blank slate for someone with some skill to explore so I hold out hope.

I still disagree that Themyscira should be a slice of history, I prefer the idea that they actually made use of their 3000 years apart to do some cool intellectual things, which would, after all, be very Greek of them.

Ture, but she is the only stock we got atm :)

Well, thats all down to the writer actually finding stuff like this interesting... and it wasn't in Azzarello's and it doesn't appear to be in Finch's either.

I think we will just have to disagree on that. Each to his/her own :)

My upper brain says yes, however my two lower brains say no, Steve's plane should crash right in the middle of the Playboy Ranch where half-nymph half-Amazon women live their little pointless lives by the lake, dipping their toes in the water, like the Elois. That's paradise, from Steve's perspective only

@csg_cl: The Eloi were happy living like free range chickens because they had the brains of a chicken however for an Amazon that way of life, dipping their toes in the water, rinse, repeat for 1 million 95 thousand days, without men to climb on top of them, the joy of raising children, without netflix, candy crush, freedom and self-fulfillment, sounds maddening to me

@csg_cl: Also spending three thousand years honing their sword skills is quite penny wise pound foolish, in the modern world the Amazons are like sitting ducks, should the Gods forsake them. Plus by definition, Amazons are free, strong, independent women who do extraordinary things, not nymphs that while the days away by the riverbank sipping on a glass of wine. During the classical period fighting on foot was incredible for a woman, however today in the dc universe, incredible is to genetically engineer laser-breathing dragons with impenetrable skin and mapping the ocean floor. Also I think visually, it would be a lot more interesting if Themyscira didn't just look like an open-source grecian city. Plus I've got 3000 years worth of Amazon history roughly laid out in my head so as far as I'm concerned the pros far outweigh the cons in favor of technologically advanced Amazons.

@csg_cl: Also spending three thousand years honing their sword skills is quite penny wise pound foolish, in the modern world the Amazons are like sitting ducks, should the Gods forsake them.

Actually with the New 52 I'd say it's completely opposite; The Amazons survive in-spite of having to put up with about 2 dozen entities that treat them like amusing insects.

Hardly a merit... more a plot hole/weakness. They survived simply because they are insects and wiping them away is not even that amusing. The moment an entity feels like ruining their life, their life is over (Strife attack and Hera's snake spell).

Every single modern nation would wipe them away with little effort (they would probably succeed against the invading infantry, but after that the amazons would be bombed to Tartarus).

@outside_85: First Born didn't seem to have any problem finding the island.

@outside_85: The Amazons fought the forces of Lapetus and the First Born and both times they were pushed to the brink of annihilation, the stymphalian birds wreaked chaos in Themyscira, the Amazons definitely haven't been successful in their military efforts in the new 52, their oldfangled military tactics have been shown to be inadequate.

Actually, weren't for the men and their heavy artillery, Wonder Woman and the Amazons would've gone under with no one left to bury their swords with them

By which you seem to imply they wouldn't have been pushed to the brink in a Deathstroke book if they had M-16's or pew-pew lazors? As for the birds, the Amazons drove them off several times before Diana found out about them.

Ok, so where did that happen, because I don't recall any story showing men bringing heavy artillery to Paradise Island?

It was when Heph and the Manazons showed up to save the from First Born.

@outside_85: No I mean the Mechanical Elephants with gatling-type guns incorporated, you can call that heavy artillery can't you?

Actually I thought Azzarello really drove the point home that the Amazons cast away the males to their own detriment, he didn't glorify the archaic Amazon way of life, that's for sure. And while Lapetus would've probably still thinned their numbers, at least that wouldn't have been because the Amazons went at it with rudimentary weapons.

@outside_85: well if the Amazons are there just to fill body bags, after a long and uneventful life where they achieved exactly nothing then that's just very sad isn't it...

@outside_85: Only flag posts that break a rule. Don't waste mods' time.

@outside_85: Right. Common sense should tell you that it is for harassment or name-calling. Don't flag a user unless they break a rule.