I Don’t Have To Listen To You; You’re Not My Real Dad!

"Diana, please, I just want to get to know you." "Screw you, man! You're not my real dad!" "But, I have *alimony*..."

Look, frankly I was going to go to bed but, as I take after my own dad, I have an affinity for Scotch and rolling into work egregiously hungover. My liver knows its place and will do as its damn told. Now, what was I talking about…? Oh, yeah, Wonder Woman.

See, here’s the thing, today Josh Kushins posted this on the DCU Blog:

In DC COMICS-THE NEW 52, Wonder Woman will have a new origin, in which she is the daughter of Hippolyta … and Zeus! In recent interviews, writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang have teased that readers should expect the unexpected in this edgier, horror take on the superhero genre and the king of the gods will ensure that nothing goes as planned for his defiant daughter.

Originally created by the goddess Aphrodite and raised to perfection on the Amazon island of Themiscyra, the newest incarnation of Wonder Woman has a new costume and now a new origin but she remains Wonder Woman. Strong. Proud. Fearless. WONDER WOMAN is the 12th title in DC COMICS-THE NEW 52 to sell more than a 100K copies.

Whether Diana is a product of a consensual union between Hippolyta and Zeus or one that makes her more the Olivia Benson of the DCnU is not revealed in the DCU Blog or the New York Post article, in which both Azzarello and Jim Lee were interviewed. Azzarello had this to say:

“Everybody’s got a father…even if he’s not the nicest guy in the world.”

followed by this from Lee:

“We’re approaching all the classic characters in a way that feels true to their origins but thoroughly modern.”

Because, you know, “whoops” is very 2011.

Oh, and, Gail Simone had this to say about it on her Twitter feed:

Wonder Woman doesn’t need a dad, she has a thousand moms already.

It’s good that everyone at DC seems to be on the same page about this.

Shaking my damn head, yo.

As far as I’m concerned, the first issue broke one hundred thousand issues sold on the basis of solid fucking storytelling. It doesn’t need a gimmick like “Luke Diana, I am your father!” to sell another hundred thousand – if Azzarello just keeps up the good writing. But, I suppose I’ll have to see how it’s handled in the actual issue, which will be in Wonder Woman #3, due out in November. Of course it doesn’t help my concerns that, on the off chance stunt parentage reveals doesn’t keep the book sales up, issue five decided to go with a tentacle porn cover: