DCU Comic Book Reviews

Amazons Attack #6

Chapter 6:  Phyrric Victory

late October 2007

Written by Will Pfeifer

Pencils by Pete Woods

Inks by Pete Woods

Cover by Pete Woods

Synopsis

In the midst of the battle between the US Army, Amazons, the Bana, and Super Heroes, Queen Hippolyta wants Wonder Woman to face her.  However, Wonder Woman has found Circe, the cause behind the Amazon on the United States.  She knocks out Circe and is about to deal with her permanently when Hippolyta arrives.  The two fight briefly before Diana gives up, telling Hippolyta that if war is what she wants, she should just kill her.  Hippolyta drops her sword.  This angers Circe, who tells them the war ends when she says it does.  First, she will kill Hippolyta.  Just then, Athena appears.  Athena condemns Circe to Hades.  She then admits that she knew what Circe had been planning.  It was a test to see if the Amazons would rise above human emotions such as hate, fear, and cruelty.  The Amazons failed.  As punishment, she expels Themyscira from the God’s realm and then sends the warriors all over the world, erasing their memories of who they are.  Athena tells them the war is over and then she leaves.  Elsewhere, the Greek Gods have been imprisoned by the one who one had been impersonating Athena:  Granny Goodness!

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

When I got to the end and the final page, I was speechless.  Not because I liked.  More, because I really had a hard time processing exactly what had occurred.  A lot had happened in this issue, including a different type of reboot of the Amazons’ status quo.  But then to toss in Granny Goodness, changing everything I had thought about the series into disarray, well it was too much.  The ending literally springs out of nowhere, and yes it is a shock to the system, but sometimes that kind of shock can have a backlash.  Why?  Because we get no explanation.  It’s Granny Goodness!  But, why?  What did she (or Darkseid) gain by the war or by hiding amazons all over the world, or bringing back Themyscira or kidnapping the Gods or whatever else you can think?  Pfeifer and co. don’t want you to think about that, which is why the ending comes as abruptly as it did.  What Pfeifer needed to do was sprinkle hints throughout the mini-series regarding Granny’s involvement and then, when the surprise is sprung, provide several more pages to explain why she did it. 

The ending suggests a connection to Countdown and the looming Great Disaster that I would not have guessed existed.  In fact, I think this may be part of the problem.  Not so much the connection to Countdown, but because there doesn’t seem to be any hints to suggest that Darkseid is involved in the war.  Yet, the ending suddenly makes some of the Holly Robinson scenes in Countdown make a lot more sense, especially what happens in issue #35.  At the Athenian Shelter, Holly is in the middle of a gladiator-type fight.  Do you think Granny Goodness is trying to put together a new group of Female Furies? 

Ultimately, this mini-series was driven by the plot.  Someone at DC like the idea of Amazons attacking the United States and decided to devote an entire mini-series around that idea.  It was once considered part of Infinite Crisis but when they failed to happen it became centered around Countdown, which means it is then forced into the current DC universe and the characters when it doesn’t really fit.  It is like taking a square peg into the proverbial circle hole.  Nothing really is motivated by character.  Pfeifer was probably told to write a story in which the Amazons attack the United States.  He did the best that he could, I suppose, even coming up with motivation for Circe (and did Pfeifer give away some of the ending to Heinberg’s aborted first story to the Wonder Woman title?) which works to a small degree, except that she is the secondary villain to Hippolyta.  And to Granny Goodness.   

Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be any lasting effect to Wonder Woman.  Let’s face it, the Amazons, her people, just attacked Washington DC.  This should mean Americans would hate her, but that would be sending her back to the Max Lord era of her character, something DC has supposedly tried to change since the On Year Later leap.  So, a big event that rocked the entire Untied States and it becomes little more than a blip on the radar to the events in the DCU.  Much like this mini-series in terms of sales:  just a little blip.  (sorry, that was a bad way to end and just plain mean, but I couldn’t resist). 

 

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