The Four Color Media Monitor

Looper interviewed King about yet another undeserved assignment he got, scripting Wonder Woman, and he continues to be quite unendurable, and the interviewers make it worse:

Fan-favorite comic book writer Tom King is ushering in the latest era of Wonder Woman with a brand new series, giving Diana Prince a much-deserved showcase in a story filled with political drama and action in a fresh take on the character.

We've heard that all before. What we're not hearing is whether King's tale will be a far-left screed. And there's every chance it will be. And what makes this writer a "favorite" after what he did to Wally West in the Heroes in Crisis miniseries 5 years back?

In "Wonder Woman" #1 by King, Daniel Sampere, Tomeu Morey, and Clayton Cowles, Diana finds herself in a world where the United States bans Amazonians from living in the country following a deadly incident. Diana will face a dangerous new normal while taking on the A.X.E. task force, which will use deadly force to enact the law against those it believes don't belong in the country. We spoke with King about the series, working with Sampere, continuing the story of Trinity, and what readers can expect in the series. Check out our interview and exclusive preview of "Wonder Woman" #1!

And this sounds reminiscent of the plot for Amazons Attack from the late 2000s, where Diana's tribe was made to look horrifically barbaric. A complete slap in the face to Bill Marston's original premise, which presented the Amazons as an intelligent society that specialized in technological research as much as magic. Another disturbing thought is that this tale could be a metaphor for the Trump administration not allowing Muslims to live in the USA, and the aforementioned task force a metaphor for right-wing extremists. More on which below. Now, here's where King describes how he got the gig, and says something interesting about the late George Perez:

How'd this chance to work on this series emerge?

I hadn't worked on an ongoing series since the end of "Batman," which is a while now — 2018, 2019. I've been in miniseries land, which I love. It's been a joy. I got to do "Human Target," "Strange Adventures," "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow" ... some big, awesome books. But it's been a while since I've been in main continuity.

DC reached out to me, and they were like, "Tom, it's time. It's time to come back, get in the waters." I was like, "No, that sounds scary and hard. I don't want to do that." Any time you have that feeling that sounds scary and hard as a writer — especially if you've been around for a while — you should lean into that so you don't get stale, so you keep taking risks. You don't want to do the same thing over and over again, ride your own coattails.

I was looking for an in-continuity book. We had basically discussed the Penguin. I'm always looking for Superman, but I'm kind of like Snape from "Harry Potter" where it's always taken by somebody else. My good friend Josh Williamson is doing a fantastic job, and he claimed that. They offered me Wonder Woman. I've been around for a decade at DC — I've seen a lot of Wonder Womans come and go. I was like, "No. Hell no. It's too hard. It's a trap of a series. It's a place that waves go to break."

Two things happened: Number one, they offered it to me with Daniel Sampere, which ... I know Daniel's coming off of being the event artist, being like a modern-day George Perez and a modern-day Jim Lee. I was like, "Oh, this isn't, 'Tom, take over Wonder Woman for a little while until we figure out what to do with it.' This is, 'We're putting on an A-list artist, and we're hoping to launch this book big and put our weight behind it and give Wonder Woman the love her fans have always given her, but on the publishing side,'" which is very appealing. And number two ... I've said this a lot, but I was at George Perez's funeral, and he had a little video because he knew he was going to pass. In the video, they interviewed him about what he was most proud of in his career, and he said it was writing Wonder Woman. I was like, "Of all the things he had done?"

He said, "Because no one had done ..." So many people had messed her up, and he was like, "I felt I did her right." I felt, in my arrogant writer way, that George was calling me out for my cowardice and being like, "Come on, buddy. Just because it's hard doesn't mean you can't get in the game." [With] those two factors, I was like, "All right, let's see if Wonder Woman is possible — if I can come up with something cool."

How interesting King admits he's arrogant. And if Perez really slammed him for his cowardice, he'd be right. No way they're going to give WW the love she deserves, and the following certainly does nothing to alleviate concerns:

How does this book reflect the real world, specifically the introduction of A.X.E. [Amazon Extradition Entity]?

One of the things I do love about [Wonder Woman] is she's a Washington, D.C.-based character. I'm one of the few Washington, D.C.-based comic book creators. I've been here for 23 years. I spent my twenties working for the government in various capacities. My wife still works very closely with the government. I live two blocks from the Capitol. I was walking my dog, watching the riots happen.

When I started "Wonder Woman" or started thinking about her, we were literally in the military zone that we had created — this was two years ago — that was created around the Capitol. I had soldiers stationed outside my house. All of that stuff ... I wanted to make this a bit of a Washington story. Not a political story, because I don't want my comic books to look like a Twitter feed. I don't want to be preaching to anyone. I want to be talking about how heroes fit into the world. But I thought it should be a political thriller, like a "Hunt for Red October" thing, like an awesome Tom Clancy thriller but more modern. I started thinking about that. I also had in my head that she would be against the government ... She's like the Hulk. I had a vision in my head of her fighting tanks. If you see that, that's in Issue 2.

She has that paranoia that everyone's coming after. I was like, "But why? Why would she fight?" Then that phrase that people use — I remember when there was that thing where we did the Muslim ban, and I thought that was so f***ing terrible because I had spent a lot of time living overseas in Muslim countries. I remember this idea that, "Well, until we figure this out, we have to be careful," and how they use that as an excuse to do terrible things. I was like, "Let's start with that."

I talked to my editor, Brittany Holzherr — we had a long conversation about this. She's a brilliant editor. She's like, "What would start that? What would provoke that?" That's where we got the idea of how the issue starts, which is inspired by Marvel's "Civil War" — the idea that there's an incident that happens where a superhero does something wrong and the government reacts to that. That's where we started. Then there's that thought of, "Well, until we can figure this out, let's do something," and then starting this evil cavalcade that eventually becomes this gathering storm that hits Wonder Woman.

So that's King's game, huh? Apologia for Islamic terrorism, with the worst part being he's using Amazons as the stand-ins for Religion of Peace adherents. Utterly shameful. No doubt, he's also a huge fan of Al Ewing's run on the Hulk from the past few years, and that's surely telling too, but what's most important to point out is that, despite seemingly being opposed to the government on the surface, in most stories from the better eras of Marvel, the Hulk could end up fighting the actual villains who were against the USA. It's also quite telling Marvel's Civil War from the late 2000s, which was a leftist metaphor as well, would serve as an "inspiration" for this new monstrosity from DC by extension.

How important was it to remind readers about Diana being a warrior, and how difficult is it to show off flaws in a character that literally is designed not to have many?

I came up as an intern for Chris Claremont. That was where I first learned story when I was a kid. Every day I'd go into the room, and Chris was telling me how his stories worked, and it was a lesson. Chris' thing was for every superhero, what makes them strong makes them weak, and that's how we make them interesting. Rogue's power is also that she can't touch somebody — that being the classic example. Or Wolverine — he's savage, and he's always having to overcome his own savagery, and that creates the tension. That's always been a thing with me. Looking at Wonder Woman, I was like, "She is that character."

Is that so? Honestly, I'm disappointed with Claremont for taking this phony under his wing. The claim WW was literally designed to have few flaws is also laughable, though that's still nothing compared to the contempt permeating this interview. King also told:

There's going to be big villains. Big people are coming. Her history and lore will play with this. I've read Wonder Woman pretty consistently throughout the years, but I hadn't read all of it. I spent a lot of time doing a lot of research, reading Greg Rucka, reading Gail Simone, reading Phil Jimenez, reading Bob Kanigher, and William Messner-Loebs. I want to get a ton of that background in there.

Oh, he got inspiration from leftists like Rucka, Jiminez and Simone? That alone is reason to avoid this take. Something tells me Kanigher and Messner-Loebs' work, by contrast, didn't impress him as much as theirs, and won't be as influential. Yet it won't be shocking if there's a big emphasis on villains, in all the wrong ways, and the right-wing metaphors are bound to be just the beginning.

What was it like to get the first pages from Daniel Sampere?

I was bowled over. It reminded me of getting pages from Clay Mann for "Batman/Catwoman." You reflect on where you were when you were 12, and when I was 12, the Jim Lee-Todd McFarlane revolution was happening. That's the school it's from, and that's the art I was raised on, that Rob Liefeld/Mann. Do you know how many copies of "X-Force"#1 I bought? That kind of energy makes you want to go out and play superheroes. You see Wonder Woman throw a punch, and you want to throw a punch in the air and pretend you're hitting something.

It's telling he loves Liefeld's awful work too, and if he was that obsessed with buying many premiere issue copies of X-Force, then he was but one of the reasons the speculator market brought down comicdom sales-wise first, before it collapsed artistically as well. It just goes to show what a farce comicdom's become.

And this demonstrates how WW's been destroyed by PC exploitation. Bill Marston and H.G Peter's classic creation deserves far better.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, islam and jihad, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism, Wonder Woman