Customer Reviews

Wonder Woman: Mythos (JLA (Pocket Star))

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been a fan of Wonder Woman for a long time, and she's certainly been kicked around a lot. For some reason, DC has never even tried to maintain continuity with her story lines. So it's up to each new writer to reinvent the character and place her in some sort of context. For that reason, I can't quibble about details of WW's present or past that vary from author to author.

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, my favorite Wonder Woman writer up to now is George Perez. I love Carol Lay's version of the Amazon Princess. She's smart, funny, strong, dynamic and exciting. And so is this book.

I found the writing in The Stone King overblown and predictable. I prefer a more straightforward style, where the author gets out of the way of the story. Lay doesn't write like Alan Grant, and to me that's a good thing. She writes more like Steven King or Robert Heinlein.

Here's an example, from one of my favorite scenes, a dream sequence:

"The golden lasso tigthens around her neck when they land on Themyscira. Henry looms over her, his mask a part of him now. He puts his sword in her hand. The day is bright and sunny. The sea is turquoise, but it will soon be red.
[...]
"Polyxena, the poet who sings of love and beauty, fights as fiercely as her sisters, but is brought down by a mace that takes off half her face. The poet is still alive. Jerks and twitches animate her body as she tries to gurgle out a scream. Diana turns her head away from the horrid sight. Henry notices and commands her to look. A warrior approaches the wounded woman, kneeling to mount her. Diana internal screams of rage and despair grow louder. The sword she carries mocks her. She wants to swing it around and cut off Henry's head, but she's powerless to do so. He holds her golden lasso."

Obviously, there are parts of this book that are not appropriate for young teens. I'd say Mythos is best suited to more mature readers who can appreciate its craft and power.

There's a term that I can't remember because I don't really follow it for a subset of bad Star Trek fan-fiction where the author adds a character we've never seen before who is obviously a thinly veiled, idealized version of the author herself who ends up saving the Enterprise, the galaxy and reality and winning the hearts of Kirk and Spock.

Do I need to explain more? (If so, I'll give you a hint. The woman in this book who saves the lives of those helpless weaklings Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash is a diver who lives in LA with her husband and the author's bio says she lives in LA with her husband and dive buddy.)

As others have pointed out, the previously existing JLA members are wildly out of character and incompetent. The "villain" of the piece, a red orb that makes people fight, (speaking of Star Trek...) is a bland cliche and the dialogue, especially the "funny" lines delivered by the author's wish fulfillment analogue and her "All You Need is Love" sections are embarassing and wince-inducing.

Comic book fans are completists so they'll need to buy this but don't add insult to injury by reading this godawful tripe.

A lot of people have written Wonder Woman over the years, most of them men.
I picked up this book to see how a woman would handle the star-spangled icon
of kitschy feminism and was NOT disappointed. From page one I was drawn in
with vivid visual descriptions (Lay's scuba diving passages made me feel
like I was underwater), caped crusaders with more than the usual two
dimensions, and a plot that, while certainly comic-booky, nevertheless had
me glued to my chair, turning the pages.

Lay crosscuts between team members to weave tension and build toward a
climax that has every one of the JLA working for a solution, with WW acting
both alone and as a member of a team. The human protagonist, Ana, is
wonderfully drawn - spirited, courageous, and resourceful - a positive and
strong feminine voice who complements and reinforces WW's own powers.

Psychological horror spices the story as several JLA members are seduced and
controlled by the evil entity in Mythos. One passage in particular gave me
the willies; another charmed me completely until Lay threw in a dash of
creepiness, sending a shiver down my spine. Other bits are amusing, such as
when WW contemplates how the Greek Gods could benefit from counseling from a
good therapist, or when Hippolyta chides her daughter for using the vulgar
word "TV."

Because so many revisionists have trampled over WW, it's refreshing to see
her portrayed as a warm and human woman, not some feminized version of a

standard-issue super hero. She probably most resembles George Perez's
version of the character, a refined and strong individual who can still
react like a typical daughter when hanging around Mom.

Another gratifying aspect of the novel is Lay's treatment of Paradise
Island. Her description of Themyscira makes sense - a Greek city-state
operating communally, with a good explanation for why these women haven't
slit their immortal throats out of boredom for having been stuck there for

3000 years.

Lay pulls off this novel with a splash of fins and a pirouette in the air.
Highly recommended. MUCH better than the Batman book in the same series.

I bought this book because I'm a fan of Carol Lay's Story Minute strip. Even though I'm new to JLA, I thought, why not? C'mon, the book was [a great price] (been a long time since I paid so little for such a great read) so not much to lose.

What a surpise! I'm hooked. Let me tell you, I loved this book. Who knew Wonder Woman and the JLA would be so compelling (well, lots of people, I'm sure, and now I'm one of them).

Lay's rendition is action packed with well-drawn (written), believable characters (I especially loved Ana, the human, and the super heros' mortal characteristics, elegantly and often comically revealed. The plot is of the can't-stop-reading, what-will-happen-next variety, with beautiful scenery (the dive scenes took this non-diver deep into the sea).

I was on the edge of my seat, I loved the mythology, and now I want to read so much more JLA, and, most of all, I want more by Carol Lay. This is intelligent, intense, and sometimes laugh out loud funny story telling.

Amazing!! Read it.

This book gets off to a fine start and keeps on going. After the introductions and set-up, Lay keeps the plot moving, juggling characters with a deft hand. It is written not like a comic book, but like a novel, with plain language, a light touch, and good characterizations. The JLA works as a team, although the focus is definitely on WW. She is strong, but falls short of perfection, a hero we can relate to in that her human side shines through.

True, Lay doesn't locate JLA HQ on the moon like Grant did in the Stone King, but she doesn't resort to dumb formula, nor are there glaring plot holes, as there are in Stone King.

I got so caught up in it I stayed up far too late to finish it - this novel is a lot of fun.

Only a few times have I had the urge to rush through a book to find out what happens next. That alone is a good sign of a novel well written that keeps the readers interest. There are no art panels to accompany the story, but Carol Lays writing does not require a picture to "paint" a thousand words. Ms. Lay is a wonder woman in her own right.

I must be the world's biggest Carol Lay fan. As far as I know, I have everything she's ever done.

So naturally I had to have this.

I chiefly love Carol Lay for her wacky yet penetrating insights into human nature, but there's not a trace of that here. It's a straight fan-fiction job. It's like it's not even written in Ms. Lay's voice. If you're looking for a wry, irony, Lay-style take on Wonder Woman, you're in for a serious let-down.

What a disappointment. I guess she needed the money.

Long-time WW fan here, so I'll read just about anything about her. I had to FORCE myself to make it through this book. There's no compelling hook, no conflict that incites more than a mild anxiety in the characters, and the first 95 pages AT LEAST could be dropped without harming the novel. Not having to read through those 95 pages would probably help it.

Even if Ms. Lay was unfamiliar with WW when she started this project (as referred to in her dedication) she should have become aware of the times in WW's many eras when WW not only had character but teemed with life. She was vibrant, outrageous, optimistic, gutsy... Of course, for the past few years she's been bland as mayonnaise, but that was no reason to use the mayonnaise version for this book.

Novels about characters operating in other media are a time to get in there and dig through what makes them tick. Mayonnaise does not tick. WW's Amazons should not come off as fussy Victorian-style maiden aunts who are thrown into a tizzy at the very idea of a battle. WW's enemies should not be mindless drones who walk this way and that, and when they're done they do it again and again until you just wish they'd walk into the sea and never return.

The Amazons should be professional in their soldiering and devout in their peacemaking. WW is measured by her enemies so those should be cunning and powerful with plans to take over the world that actually make a little sense and seethe with danger.

A superhero venue would seem to indicate a hard-action story. This was a chance to show off WW and her venue to the ultimate, without even the limitations of printed illustrations to slow the writer down. What we got was boring, repetitive interior ramblings that exemplified "tell, don't show." If I'd been the editor on this, I would have sent it back at proposal stage for a complete re-think.

There are some funny lines, but not many. Some flashes of poety -- again, not many. The descriptions of the fish are interesting, but I didn't pick this up for fish.

What age group was this written for? The majority of it was written simplistically, as if for grade-schoolers (wouldn't the JL series be more appropriate for such a style?), but the concept of rape was brought up again and again, and the words "whore" and "slut" were used, which I don't consider kid material.

Why did the two women in the novel constantly go around kissing all the men on the cheek to show their approval of them? How very, very strange.

I wanted an exciting adventure starring the dynamic Wonder Woman -- the personification of empowerment. Instead I got a book I had to struggle through and certainly never enjoyed.

Once again the character of Wonder Woman is 'redone'. This time though into a 'version' of the character that is second to everyone and best at nothing. The book is clearly written at a teen level but deals with highly violent concepts like rape in childish language. The emotional writing is immature, with Wonder Woman 'crying' and sobbing more than anyone would expect of a warrior born (no matter how traumatic a fight or experience she endures... )The polarization of the sexes with man as the violent savage and woman as the noble while intriguing is to contrived and has been overdone in other Wonder Woman stories.

The characters are not well fleshed out and the protagonist, Wonder Woman is portrayed as an indecisive character unable to make a decision without it being reaffirmed by others. A dismal book.

For a true book about a powerful woman called Wonder Woman, the reader is encouraged to get John Byrne's novel "Wonder Woman, Gods and Goddesses." It does a much more extensive dissection of the character, portraying her as a competent, intelligent confident well written multi-dimensioned female.

The book opens with the JLA resting after some serious heroic action. THe heroes go their separate ways to recuperate. Wonder Woman returns to her home island of Themyscira to search for a missing diver in that area of the Bermuda Triangle. When she finds that the man is not on her home, she begins to search for him, thinking perhaps there might be an additional island hidden nearby.

Along with the wife of the missing man, Wonder Woman finds this other island, which is the opposite of her own home. This new island is populated entirely by men, with the missing man among them. During an abortive attempt to cheat fate, she manages to help a proscribed course of events along its course.

Among the results of her rescue attempt, the island begins to intrude upon our dimension, causing much in the way of tectonic upheaval. The rest of the Earthbound JLA main team journeys individually to investigate. As per the usual, all but one of the team is captured, though it is one of these that effects the release of the others. A big battle never really happens, though an ancient Greek god does make an appearance. In the end, the day is saved and nothing has been altered in terms of the JLA membership.

As in the title of this review, this book is simply average among other comic-based novels. There is also some glaring inconsistency between this book and the previous JLA book, The Stone King. In the other book Wonder Woman and Superman journey unprotected to the center of the Earth, yet in Mythos, Wonder Woman is unable to approach closely to a lava flow, which temperature is far less than the Earth's core, and alos lacking the core's extreme pressure. Someone needs to keep these things correlated correctly. Stalwart JLA fans might like it more than others, but I am hopeful the next book will improve things.