Tandiandthe223 -- The Ultimate Wonder Woman Appreciation Thread
So, as I've stated in other threads, I've been impressed, overall, with KMC's "Respect" line, and that since the day I stumbled upon it.
A region where readers can see images of their favorite characters and learn of their often hidden prowess.
Also, a region largely free of the negativity plaguing other comic boards.
A great idea, truly, but I consistently find 2 problems in nearly every KMC thread, no matter how stellar:
1) Seldom, if ever, with reference information good enough for people to actually find the stories featuring these delightful showings
2) Nearly always using an outside Image Host Provider (IHP), setting up the thread for complete collapse in the case the IHP has problems or goes out of business, typically meaning the presence of unwelcome and inappropriate advertising even when the IHP remains stable.
From my own experience, I've seen the weeks of days outage of Picamatic.com about a year or so ago, which completely rendered unviewable several of the "revamped" threads that creators had put so much time into, and I've also seen a catalog's worth of my own collection nulled by ImageHoop.com and AllYouCanUpload.com, respectively, going out of business.
Using several Image Host Providers is the truest guard against this.
The more places information is housed...
Unfortunately, beyond periodically creating and e-mailing myself links, I've found no way to get the cooperation of other people in that kind of digital preservation.
Fortunately, I discovered early on that KMC has its OWN Image Hosting subprogram, and that, small though its capacity per image is, it nonetheless offers the most STABLE viewing option for the forum.
Unless I am greatly mistaken, the only way the Image Hosting of KMC goes out, is if the entirety of the KMC boards goes out.
The last issue, unmentioned above before now, and one I've discussed in only the briefest terms with P.R., is that there currently exists no forum for any character who is not Superman, Batman, Spider-man, or one of the X-men. I'd like to see that changed, if only gradually, and am not-so-secretly hoping that this thread will prove popular enough, eventually, to serve as a springboard.
I've got about 80 to 100 submissions planned, an occasionally edited for family-friendliness series featuring ...
Throughout this thread, for the first planned 80 to 100 submissions or so, at least, I plan to keep notes to a minimum. But a few comments are in order:
1) Inescapably, Superman and a few other heroes will show in this thread. In Superman's case especially, that cannot really be helped, most people do not know, though I will show a quote from her very creator himself, if requested, that Wonder Woman was DESIGNED to be the answer to Superman and other popular, incredibly strong heroes. She assumes her natural role when she does so; her early adventures, unlike a lot of today's, will confirm this.
2) OMAC, title of the opponent Diana is fighting in this first selection, is a sort of DC equivalent of the mutant-hunting Sentinels of Marvel Comics' X-Men. Just as Sentinels have the technology to contend with or neutralize mutant superpowers, so, too, do OMACs have the power to make themselves powerful enough to give DC metahumans fits.
As shown in this particular scan, they can even give, and DID give, Superman himself serious problems, and I'm told they INSTANTLY shut down a Superman-counterpart called the Eradicator when he went against them. Diana faces several OMAC units during the time of this story arc, and her particular opponent for this showing, she fought despite recent injury, after disabling 2 other units.
3) I showed some of the starting selections of this thread in another thread in a different forum. I'm posting them here, because, even though I felt they were completely appropriate there, several posters thought they were better suited to this locale.
Tan Di and the 223. Wonder Woman versus OMAC in refinery.
This particular battle actually features MORE respect-worthy feats than I am actually posting. Among them are 2 INCREDIBLE displays of heat and damage resistance. But, there ARE "Fair Use" guidelines to observe for this sort of thing, after all. So I am posting the minimum possible that yet gives a reader a feeling of satisfaction of knowing, or at least glimsing, the whole. And, of course, besides giving commentary info where needed, likewise making sure every series selection ends with reference info for where this action can be found in actual comic book stores.
Minimum info to know here:
OMACs, despite their ability to match any superhuman, are, at their root, mostly human beings. Mostly. The other part of them is some REMARKABLE nanotechnology, greater by far than Iron Man's or even Lex Luthor's, which enables them to take Kryptonian-class threats and greater. Wikipedia even mentions an instance where they use Mary Marvel's MAGIC LIGHTNING against her!
Yet they do have some vulnerabilities.
In this instance, Diana reasons liquid nitrogen, after being in so hot an environment as an iron-smelting foundry, should be enough to put the tiny machines that comprise the OMAC out of commision and free its human victim.
And she's right. As stated elsewhere, once she uses her strong fingers to gently crack the thick ice shell that forms after she forces the OMAC through this steel drum, the fight is ended, and without real injury to the now-freed human underneath.
Wonder Woman has had several ups and downs in her career.
At one time, for instance, I understand that she was featured in 2, possibly 3 magazines, those being All-Star comics, where she debuted, Sensation Comics, which, for a time, was as much hers as Action Comics is generally considered Superman's, and, of course, the title "Wonder Woman" itself, which has seen nearly continuous publication since the 1940s.
Writers and artists following 1959 or so, started, unfortunately, to shy away from giving her the kind of jaw-dropping feats observed by Captain Marvel and you-know-who, however. Displays of the kind associated with the REALLY big guys started to become more and more absent, until ...
Well, essentially until the feats seen on the Lynda Carter show started being perceived as Wonder Woman appropriate, and perhaps even max, level.
Certainly this was the case for me -- it was a shock to the system, when, back in 1995, I discovered Diana performing the kind of feats I thought reserved for "Supers" and "Hulks". But a reading of what turned out to be her Silver Age origin confirmed, that, yes, Diana really IS in that class, always had been, and, in fact, was slowly RETURNING to being depicted as a powerhouse; that it was not a new thing at all.
In the years 2001 through roughly 2011, we got a TRUE taste of what she used to be like, as more egalitarian creative staff were given the chance to handle her. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the pages of JLA and the Justice League of America, where she was allowed to shine in ways virtually undreamed of in her own title until the time of Greg Rucka. Here, for instance, continuing the "Man (woman) versus machine" motif, a surprisingly good showing against the classic team-wrecker, Amazo ...
The JLA did NOT always meet on an orbiting satellite or a tower on the Moon. During the time of this fight, certainly, they were situated on Earth in a more or less standard Metropolis-like office building.
The building was equipped with a teleporter TO their off-world version of the headquarters, however.
The snapshot here is an edited enlargement of a single panel from the comic. The dialogue and action is unchanged; just did it like this so a viewer can better appreciate how strong Diana is, more or less just flying and pressing her way through several inches thick reinforced concrete and steel flooring (which she'll confirm and add to in the scene following this one) as part of an effort to surprise her android opponent.
Tandiandthe223. Amazo. DianaAristeia. AmazoAristeia. Final character explanations.
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Source: Justice League of America #24, Volume 2
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciller: Ed Benes
Date: October 2008
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Justice_Le...merica_Vol_2_24
Note: As touched upon in discussion with P.R., the 3rd to last image and this one received work that makes them more in line with ... Rags Morales' "Diana versus OMAC" portrayal, as opposed to "Ed Benes 2008" standard. I know of at least one poster who would understand...
The only person I can think of by name who might have THAT scene scanned somewhere is Ed Benes.
I like to think Rags Morales has something similar I'll stumble upon someday, though.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Q.
On the subject of scans, though, I want you to now take note of the fact that your scan of Wonder Woman pulling the sun, which you re-posted in my pre-Crisis Wonder Woman respect thread, now only shows the message "image edited or deleted".
Or whatever it is that Photobucket says.
I had nothing to do with that.
Nor do I really have any idea what happened with that, either.
But I point this out because, though I did not say so in P.R.'s thread when you and Abhilegend recommended Photobucket,
I had NOT found Photobucket particularly good at preserving information.
Don't get me wrong -- they seem relatively stable; I don't fear them going out of business any time soon.
I also don't fear them shutting down for maintenance for weeks on end as Picamatic did, leaving people WONDERING if they forever went out of business. No, in that sense Photobucket probably IS stable.
However, I DID discover for myself that Photobucket is resistant to any individual members reorganization of a photobucket collection.
What do I mean?
Wel, it is natural thing, given our digital age and nearly everyone with computer experience, for the average person to put a set of their favorite things into a desktop folder.
Group them according to themes.
Later on, change them to fit new groupings.
You can't do that with Photobucket.
Not if you want to keep the links you previously created with your images, you can't.
If you try, every single link to that image which you posted before that point will "break" and leave you with that "image edited or deleted" or whatever message that's displaying for your sun image now.
I can't be 100% sure that this is what happened with you; I'd be surprised if it was anything but that, but, at any rate, it translates into that image, at least as I type this, now being GONE.
Just wanted to reiterate exactly why I'm following the format I am, that of using KMC as my Image Host Provider to post favorite SNAPSHOTS from comicbook stories featuring Diana, and not the flashier big volume IHP's. Bigger is NOT always better if your goal is image preservation and granting fans true long-term viewing priveleges...
Having said all the above, Q, I managed to preserve the image you tried to post in my pre-Crisis thread. A delight to look at; hopefully it will stay longer, translated here through KMC, than it did through your provider.
Say ...
HAVE you any significant stock of Golden Era Wonder Woman?
If you do, please let me know in one of my other threads.
I, unfortunately, have relatively sizeable gaps in my collection.
There's enough material to be informative there, as well as the thread I've been participating in with BienSalsa the past few weeks, but contributions from others might help make the thread a truly quality read.
At any rate, thanks for originally posting this image there!
Sadly, K.M., you represent only 12 of more than 700 such threads in this forum.
And many of YOUR threads, too, seem to have suffered Photobucket link breakage.
You've given me some ideas for organization for my other threads, though.