The Couch

Recently DC announced that Wonder Woman was getting a new costume and origin.  It didn’t take long before the internet flipped out.  Some people herald it as a fantastic new direction, while others blasted it with hate filled rants.  Things like this are not new to comics, changes happen all the time to our favorite characters.

Over the 70+ years some characters have been around there have been things just as wacky as what has happened to Wonder Woman.  Here are a few examples:

Electric Superman

In 1997 it was decided to shake things up in Superman.  His DNA had apparently changed making him a being of pure energy, with all sorts of new crazy powers.  It was also one of the few times that Superman could be killed when he was Clark Kent, since in this new form when he made the switch back he became human.  Anyways this went on for roughly a couple years with even crazier stuff happening like Superman being split into two entities Red and Blue:

Both Superman Red and Blue had different personalities.  It was a reference to a golden age storyline and didn’t last long.  The whole story lasted roughly a year, but the split of Red and Blue lasted only a few months.  When Superman was reverted back to his classic look and powers there wasn’t even a great explanation.  One explanation was Superman is rewarded after a battle, the other was that all of his electromagnetic energy had been dispersed.

Ben Reilly - Spider-Man

After a long drawn out story called The Clone Saga, we found out that the Peter Parker we had been reading for years was really a Clone and that newcomer Ben Reilly was the original.  Peter Parker decided to part ways and move to Portland, while Ben donned a variation of the red and blue costume.  This story happened shortly after The Death of Superman, which was insanely successful.  I recently heard from my Mom that a local good will had 20 still sealed copies of Supes Death.  People bought tons of them in hopes they would pay for their kid’s college or mortgage.  One of the main differences between that story and this was that there was a feeling during Superman’s story that he would be eventually back.  When all was said and done Superman was back within a year, The Clone Saga easily lasted twice as long.  After a while people started to wonder if we’d ever get Peter Parker back.

Then Spider-Man #75 happened.  In one issue the original Green Goblin was brought back and he was responsible for everything that had happened in Peter’s life over the last couple years.  The issue also confirmed that Ben Reilly was a clone and killed him off.  In a single issue Marvel managed to right all of the wrongs with Spider-Man in the last couple years.

Feral Wolverine

In X-Men #25 Magneto pulled the Adamantium from Wolverine’s body.  This is where we finally learned that he had Bone Claws.  Soon after this happened Cable’s son comes along and mutates Wolverine even more after a failed attempt to rebond Adamantium to Wolverine’s skeleton.  This lead to Feral Wolverine.  Although some of the ideas that came out of the story were cool, such as the increased healing factor and speed Logan received, it made it harder to read his books.  I remember a team up he did with Elektra in his own monthly.  Essentially he acted like an animal and had no dialogue.  It got old real quick.

Thankfully Apocalypse came along and refused the Adamantium with Logan’s skeleton the proper way.  Unfortunately he had to become on of the 4 Horsemen of Apocalypse when it happened.  No worries though, Logan got better.

Hal Jordan - Parallax

Green Lantern’s books weren’t selling as well anymore, so to spice things up DC decided to bring on a new guy, Kyle Rayner, and make the old guy, Hal Jordan, a villain.  This decision has always seemed like a double edge sword.  Kyle Rayner is a fantastic character and has many great stories that have been told over the years.  Hal eventually went evil when his home town was blown up during the Reign of Supermen storyline.

Oddly the same storyline that is apparently tied to Superman becoming Electric, Final Night, is the same one responsible to Hal Jordan becoming a good guy again.  Hal would give his life to reignite our sun and eventually becoming The Spectre to pay for the crimes he committed as Parallax.

We could sit here all day and list examples, because these things happen regularly in comics.  A creative team comes along and shakes things up.  The new shake up may not be something you like, but ultimately things go back to normal.  It’s nice for those of us who don’t like change.

The new Wonder Woman is a great example.  If you read the preview in issue 600 of Wonder Woman it felt like JMS was starting somewhere different so we could get back to the Wonder Woman we know and love.

This is the Blessing and Curse of comic readers.  The Blessing is that we know, even if things change, they’ll eventually change back to what we love.  Even in the last 10 years we’ve seen characters come back from the dead who have been gone for decades, returning everything to what it used to be.  This is also the Curse as nothing ever really seems to happen in comics.  Or if you were a new reader that jumped on at the change and don’t like everything going back to what it was, you’ll rarely ever get to go back.

What do you think of the new Wonder Woman direction?  Or is there another example you can think of that has made you stop reading a title you love?