Wasted Opportunities: War of the Gods

In the wake of Wonder Woman's success, there's been a lot of talk, and justifiably so, of George Perez's run on the character (see here and here). Perez redefined the character in the late 80s, and was responsible for one of the best and most overlooked runs on an iconic character in comics history. So it's only right that the beginning of his run is talked about, but I want to talk about how it ended, and how DC squandered such a...

Wasted Opportunity: War of the Gods 

by Duy

In 1991, towards the end of his run on Wonder Woman, which revitalized the character, George Perez pitched a five-part mini-series entitled War of the Gods. It was meant to be a celebration of Diana's 50th anniversary and was also meant to be the big crossover that year.

It was an interesting concept, in which the different pantheons of gods fought to remake the world in their own image, headlined by the Roman gods...

...fighting the Greek gods...

...for sole ownership of Olympus. Needless to say, superheroes get caught in the middle, with Diana protecting her heritage and Captain Marvel being roped in to fight for the Romans.

Here's Ares vs. Mars.

And it features gods of other pantheons, including the Aesir, so this includes DC's versions of Thor and Loki.

And of course, all the gods in the DC Universe include the New Gods.

Turns out, the one manipulating everything is Wonder Woman's arch-enemy Circe, she of Greek myth who turns men into animals.

As you can tell, this is a Wonder Woman vehicle. And unfortunately, it underperformed both commercially and critically. There are several reasons that contributed to this, but really, the main one is simply a lack of support from DC Comics. George Perez was writing and drawing layouts, and he got derailed. Things in his professional and personal lives were distracting him, and he also took on an extra project over at Marvel. It was called Infinity Gauntlet. You may have heard of it.

On the other hand, it gave us this awesome cover.

Perez couldn't put in full effort on War of the Gods, nor could he even finish Infinity Gauntlet. One of the reasons he was so demotivated was because he had worked out a detailed plan for how War of the Gods would cross over with the main DC Comics titles, only to find out too late that the plans weren't even communicated properly to the creative teams. In fact, his close friend and New Teen Titans collaborator Marv Wolfman had to find out from Perez himself — and by that point, Marv was in the middle of a storyline involving Wonder Woman's younger sister Donna Troy, and War of the Gods was the storyline equivalent of throwing a monkeywrench into the works.

The lack of editorial support was evident when DC made this their big 1991 event push instead.

Armageddon 2001 centered around a new villain named Monarch coming from the future. The only thing known about Monarch is he's a former hero, and the storyline is centered on finding out who he is, with the main suspect being Captain Atom. At the end, it's revealed to be Hank Hall, the Hawk of Hawk and Dove. That was DC's big event of 1991.

Let me just clear that up: DC Comics pushed a glorified time-travel whodunnit starring Captain Atom and Hawk over a literal WAR OF THE GODS that centered around Wonder Woman.

The reason for this lack of support is simple: Karen Berger, then-editor of Wonder Woman and yet-to-be future editor of DC Comics' legendary Vertigo line, and still a ways away from being the Third Greatest Comics Editor of All Time, went on maternity leave. And that's when it was made obvious that all the support Wonder Woman was getting from within centered around one female editor, and that the rest of the company still saw female-led comics as a hard sell.

Hopefully, with Wonder Woman being a huge box-office success, we'll have moved past that mindset and we can see more risks like this in the future. I'd be cool with seeing War of the Gods completely remade. Just have the same exact premise and tell it now, in 2017.

How badass is this image? This is the cover for the first issue. Unfortunately, this is the best it got.

5 Filipino Superheroes and Their American Counterparts

With the recent official announcement that Liza Soberano is going to be the new Darna in a movie directed by Erik Matti, I started looking up sentiment on the internet and seeing how people perceived Filipino superheroes, and  I ran across an article, which I shall not link here, but is titled similarly to the title of this post, that was just so poorly researched and it really bugged me. Yes, a lot of Filipino superheroes are based on American superheroes. But to say that Darna is based on Wonder Woman or Lastikman is based on Mr. Fantastic ignores so much comics history. I get that not everyone's as into comics history as I am, hence the article I read, but that doesn't stop me from making my own list. So...

5 Filipino Superheroes and Their American Counterparts

by Duy Tano

DARNA IS CAPTAIN MARVEL

It is incredibly easy to say that Darna is based off of Wonder Woman, as both are raven-haired women with super strength and flight. But Wonder Woman didn't fly on a regular basis until 1988 (if she could fly, why did she have an invisible plane?), and Darna is an alien from the planet Marte, who took the place of young provincial girl Narda. All it took was for Narda to swallow a magic stone and shout "Darna!"

Billy Batson is a young boy who yells "Shazam!" and turns into Captain Marvel. He was also the most popular superhero in the 1940s (over Superman, Batman, and Captain America). That's what Mars Ravelo was working off of when he was creating Darna. Darna is based, more than anyone else, on Captain Marvel. And as Budjette Tan once said, it was imperative that she be part of a family unit from the province.

Alan Moore once pointed out that creativity is taking something existing and changing parameters. Creative success is built on figuring out the right parameters, and Darna did that. (Another one that did that, Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah, which takes Darna and turns it into an LGBTQ story, and is very successful.)

THINGS I NOTICED READING DARNA

CAPTAIN BARBELL IS ALSO CAPTAIN MARVEL

Everything I said above, except more obvious. Tenteng is a skinny dude who lifts a barbell, screams "Captain Barbell!" and then turns into Captain Barbell. So he's not based on Superman; he's based on Captain Marvel. It's in the name!

LASTIKMAN IS PLASTIC MAN

Lastikman is based not on Mr. Fantastic, but on Plastic Man, one of the biggest superhero icons of the 1940s and the 1970s. Plastic Man was a former crook named Eel O'Brien, and he was going to be called India Rubber Man, but there was this new invention called "plastic" back then that was all the rage, so creator Jack Cole proved he was pretty good at marketing just with that name change. Plastic Man is also one of the best, most creative comics series to have ever existed, although I knew him first from the 1970s cartoon with his girlfriend Penny and their kid Baby Plas. Lastikman is an alien who lands on Earth with the exact same stretching powers.

So no, Lastikman is not based on Mr. Fantastic. He's pretty clearly based on Plastic Man. It's not just in the costume — it's in the name!



COMBATRON IS MEGAMAN

Combatron is a cyborg from the planet Omicron (we Filipinos like to take archetypes then turn them into aliens) who has powers called "Omega Laser," "Nuclear Eye Beam," "Space Thunder," and "Teleporter Punch." He also looks like Megaman:

Megaman, originally a video game character and known in Japan and other markets as Rockman, is a robot with powers like "Hyper Bomb," "Fire Storm," and my personal favorite (and everyone's) "Metal Blade."

ALEXANDRA TRESE IS JOHN CONSTANTINE

Alexandra Trese is an alien who... wait, no.

Technically Alexandra's origins come from Marvel's The Shroud, who Budjette Tan pitched a series for some years back. But she takes most of her inspiration from John Constantine, the Hellblazer, investigator of the paranormal in a trenchcoat.

As with Darna, Trese's tweaked parameters not only include gender (what's in the genre that hasn't been done before?), but also a strong laser focus on the Philippines. The parameters are changed enough that it's distanced from the source material, and it just works.

I have no idea who Liza Soberano was before I heard the news, except for her name. And I have only seen one Erik Matti movie, which was 90% great and 10% bad. So I really have no prior experience to have a real opinion about this. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this movie will actually be good and by the numbers, the equivalent of 2008's Iron Man in the local scene. Good product benefits everyone. Let's hope it's good.