You ruined it.

Dear Allen Heinberg,

I should start out this letter by asking you if you're feeling well. Any fevers lately? Bouts of amnesia? Brief descents into clinical insanity? I ask because I'm trying to figure out how someone responsible for a comic book as completely awesome as Young Avengers could do something so totally fucking heinous to Wonder Woman?! (MAJOR spoilers for WW Annual #1 via that link) I really want to think it's due to some sort of malady and not because you actually thought your shit-tacular run on her (totally unnecessarily rebooted yet again) book was chock full of good ideas and decisions.

And while this letter is specifically addressed to you, Mr. Heinberg, I might as well open it up to the myriad of writers who have mishandled the Amazing Amazon (hello, Jodi Picoult and John Byrne, can you hear me?) Why do y'all feel the need to keep fucking with Diana? I mean, did we learn nothing from that horrid period in the 60s where she was a de-powered, Emma Peel knock-off? Wonder Woman is one of the most powerful characters in the DC Universe. This was never hammered home more succinctly than with George Perez's very much needed post-Crisis reboot of her title. He finally showed Diana in the truly heroic, powerful, iconic light she'd so rarely been shone in for so long. And for a really long time people actually fucking stuck to that model! I am mainly thinking of you, Phil Jimenez, who needs to be my secret comic creator boyfriend, P.S.

But lately it's just been like a free-for-all suckfest competition to see who can ruin Wonder Woman the fastest. But I have to hand it to you, Mr. Heinberg, you really went for the gusto. I mean, it's not just the sheer stupidity you displayed in missing a huge continuity point regarding Silver Swan. But it's other things like deciding to have Circe cast a spell on Diana that makes her only have powers when she's Wonder Woman?!? You do realize that Diana is Wonder Woman and isn't some mild mannered mortal who turns into Wonder Woman at the utterance of a magic word like, say, "Shazam!" There are not TWO PEOPLE, one of them Diana the other Wonder Woman. How did you miss this? Were you in a cave since like, 1986? When Perez rebooted her title he did away with her secret identity (which was still just a disguise and not her in a powerless form) and made it quite plain that she was Diana and she had these powers and the name "Wonder Woman" was bestowed on her by the press and she hung on to it. I really don't get how you could've not known this.

But the piece de resistance is where you imply that Wonder Woman cannot bleed!! Again, please feel free to show me your cave dwelling any time you want. She's bled countless times. The whole deal is that she's incredibly strong, NEARLY invulnerable and has recuperative abilities far beyond those of mere mortals. But she is NOT Superman. She can be cut, she can bleed. But odds are she will survive something like that way more than you or I ever would. But again, this was your brilliant idea to show that Diana is now "just human" until she "turns into Wonder Woman" (an identity mind you, not a completely separate being) due to a magic spell even though Diana is supposed to be highly impervious to enchantment. But again, why let a little thing like continuity stand in your way.

And finally, yes I realize this is long, I am sick of this treatment of female heroes in the mainstream comic book world in general. When you writers want to do a different storyline with Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine or one of your many other beloved, male icons, you do a spin-off mini-series in an alternate universe or a one-off, non-canon story to flex your creative muscles. And I understand that, really I do. These characters have existed for decades. I'm sure it gets boring and hard to remember everything in it's proper order, so I get the need to run willy-nilly with a story that doesn't have much to do with that character's history and origins. But why is it that almost every time you do this with a female hero, especially Wonder Woman, you feel the need to make it all canon and all in their usual book? You just fuck their stories up again and again and again and you piss off fans, confuse the fuck out new readers and generally ruin great things about these characters. I mean, my head spins just thinking of trying to keep up with the mangled continuity of Donna Troy Diana's sister. No wait, her clone. Now wait, her sister. No wait, a pecan pie. It just seems like this complete double standard where you hold your male characters up as these sacred beings while your female characters can be messed with repeatedly without so much as a bat of your collective eyelashes.

I am about ready to throw in the towel, DC, and not buy anymore of your shitty Wonder Woman comics. But there is one tiny speck of hope in this ocean of pure crap. And that speck of hope is Gail Simone who begins her run on Wonder Woman's book with the next issue. I know Gail has powers mighty, so I am hoping she can marshal all of them to save Diana from this quagmire of cruddy. And seriously, Ms. Simone, this point I am willing to settle for some horrible "it was all a dream" trope with Diana waking up after gorging herself on Greek food the night before and having an indigestion-induced nightmare. Like things are so bad I'd be willing to stomach something that cheesy. And I'm a lactard so I generally don't do well with cheese.

Suffering like Sappho,
Chriso