#amazon warrior
This is what you get when you watch Superheroes and Carmen Sandiego with your daughter: Wonder Woman gets dressed like a female James Bond.
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Amazon from a werewolf tribe and. Black Magneto? MCU?
I’m so done with the modern image of blood-spattered, sword-wielding warrior Wonder Woman. I miss the days when the Amazons were considered superior warriors because they actually lived in a utopian society that was more enlightened in every way—including science and medicine, and writers did not feel that they had to prove how badass the Amazons were by making them fight bloody wars all the time.
—Sensation Comics #28 (1944) by William Moulton Marston & H.G. Peter
Absolutely.
The first couple of times they had her with sword or battle-axe, it was a moderately effective visual shorthand for “this is an extreme situation, and to show how high the stakes are, we’re going to have Diana armor up and carry deadly weapons”, and allowed them to play around with costume design (which always makes artists happy).
That was one thing, and it had dramatic impact – particularly since it was a profound divergence from her usual approach. As TV Tropes says, OOC is Serious Business.
When it became not just her routine but her default – when it became partof her character – it not only trivialized the significance of turning to potentially-lethal weapons, it cheapened the very concept of Wonder Woman.
Please note: the Amazons as depicted in the Golden and Silver Ages were always determined to find a course other than war, to either reach out to their adversaries to foster peace and understanding, or to remove themselves from the conflict and stand their ground. Just sending someone to Man’s World to aid in the war at all was “stepping OOC”, an extreme action for an extreme situation, and that origin story did not skimp on portraying it as a matter of debate among the Amazons.
I can think of no better summary of how thoroughly Wonder Woman has been co-opted by the aggressive values she was created to challenge than to note how regularly she is depicted with sword in hand. Marston would have identified the subtext immediately: to appeal to a reader base terrified of “emasculation”, they’ve given her a symbolic phallus.
Reblogging from 2014 to make sure it’s on THIS blog, because it seems to have mysteriously vanished from my archives unless I use a direct link.
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I was super excited to do this one, as I knew it would be full of dark drama. Ares; god of war, courage, and …civil order? (huh, who knew?) Here we have our raging, wrathful deity unleashing his fury in the bloodlust of battle. His sacred weapons glittering; the golden helmet, spear and shield.
Let’s dive into the symbolic imagery. I put a boar head icon on the shield to symbolize Ares turning into a boar and gorging the youth Adonis to death, after being jealous of the youth’s affair with Aphrodite. The serpents are creatures associated with Ares: the Colchian dragon (which guards the golden fleece in the sacred grove of Ares- from the Jason and the Argonauts myth) and the Ismenian dragon (which guards the sacred spring of Ares near Thebes)
Flying above Ares shoulder is his daughter, the goddess of Victory, Nike. In the upper right are vultures, animals associated with Ares, and his sister Eris; goddess of discord. (the goddess who, unable to enter the banquet of the gods, threw in the golden apple inscribed “for the farest” causing strife for the women and ultimately bringing Paris into judge, as a precursor to Helen and the Trojan war).
Galloping into battle below are three Scythian Amazon warrior women, the leader being Ares daughter; Queen Penthesilea, (who Achilles killed in battle at Troy and fell in love with her as she lay dying.)
Hope you all are enjoying this series. Please share this post, it would really help me get exposure. :) and dont forget my etsy store has all the prints available to purchase.
