By Mel Dyer
After the rather tepid debut - more of a meow, than a roar - of her most enduring comic book foil, the Cheetah, in Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman 1984 (now, streaming and in theatres), ..the Amazing Amazon's arch-nemesis is presently an empty chair. That said, her perennial sorceress enemy, Circe, has slowly developed into something interesting, outside of the Wonder Woman comic - "The Witching War" arc in the hot-trending Justice League Dark.
In James Tynion IV's origin tale, the mythical princess of ancient Greek Colchis, celebrated for her radiance and healing arts, ..finds herself the young (maybe, teenaged) hostage in an arranged marriage to the cruel king of a wealthier nation. Upon killing the abusive pig - a rich friend of her father Aeetes, perhaps - and hanging him in a meat locker, her once worshipful people chase her into the Underworld, where the Greek goddess of witchcraft, Hekate, grants her great sorcerous power! With it, she returns to Man's World and revenges herself on those treacherous Colchistines, transfiguring them into animals and, in a nod to classical lit, slaughtering many, ..like pigs.
From the pages of DC Comics' Justice League Dark, ..Circe begins! With Álvaro Martínez Bueno pencils and a James Tynion IV story
Circe is justifiably pissed off, at humanity! The rest is comic super-villain history.
I like the bones of this story! Circe starting her life, as a benevolent and powerful woman, betrayed by ungrateful people, under her protection, and that betrayal inspiring a hatred of humanity, ..for-EVER. Great story! Unlike what went before it, it is a CLEAR story - one that puts her squarely in the path of Diana's life mission, fueling an enmity worthy of an inexhaustible mound of movies, lunchboxes and underwear! It even picks up the Golden Age elements that see Circe banished from the world of men, which creates a great opportunity for writers to tell the story of 'Young Circe' ..and the many struggles that justify her lust for revenge.
Imagine...young Circe's harrowing pursuit and persecution, by the agents of Zeus and Hera, even Apollo, ..after taking revenge on the ungrateful Colchistines! Her flight from the gods could take her to the far ends of the universe, learning powerful cosmic secrets, ..before her final imprisonment, upon Aea. A series of 'Young Circe' stories could also make her turn, from heroine to villainess, a little clearer and more dramatic.
What a layered, complex enemy for Wonder Woman! Still, ..something missing, I think.
To give Circe the maximum apocalyptic impact, that I think she needs, after almost eighty years of mediocrity (like War Of The Gods), ..I would just rip-off Marv Wolfman's and George Perez's Trigon the Terrible, from the 1980s uber-comic, New Teen Titans! Does Circe, haunted by the abusive marriage, she was forced into, by her own people, ..plunge the world, who betrayed her, into a thousand years of living nightmares? Does she, recalling her childhood, as a healer, ..plunge us ungrateful humans into unfathomable pain and sickness? Does she grow into a giant, with four, flaming eyes, and big, deer antlers, and stare down at us, imperiously? Trigon did all of that, and we crapped our Underoos, ..wondering what we would do, if it happened in the real world! Wonder Woman, after chasing silly cheetah-ladies and pretentious, garbage-opera villains, like Ares, for nearly a century, needs a high-stakes villain, whose threat is plainly, visually horrific and easy to understand, ..in a story, that makes the case for why Diet Xena is uniquely suited to protect us from it!
Basically, Circe deserves a piece of our traitorous, mortal butts, for messing her over in ancient Greece, and we need a picture, in our heads, ..of what she's going to do to us, if Wonder Woman can't knock her back into Hell! What exactly happens to us, if Circe wins? That's where our crystal balls (mine are crystal) typically go all foggy, and I think that is where writers are failing to make the greatest impact, with Circe, ..even in Mr. Tynion's exceptional Justice League Dark.
I think it helped that James Tynion's story is set in the shadowy, bizarre 'world of magic', instead of pigeon-holed in the cobwebs ..of fake Greek myth, typically shoveled into the hungry imaginations of WW comic fans. Tynion makes the outrage that follows Circe's misogynistic victimization, by her fellow Colchistines, all the more righteous, without making her turn to villainy, as with other female antagonists, ..a pathetic act of desperation. His Circe is a deliberate being, who deserves her revenge. Reminding us of that, I think, will be the challenge of the Wonder Woman comic writers, who use her...
And, ultimately, that is what will determine her worthiness for arch-enmity, with Wonder Woman.
Note: This entry was previously titled "Who Is Wonder Woman's Big Bad? Ask Justice League Dark!" and something worse, before that, that I can't remember. I added new, insightful content, combed its hair, a little, and put it back out, on the street to make papi, some comic book money. Anyway, ..it's a better read.
Mel Dyer, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio) and the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill.
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