Will Pfeifer on his blog innocently enough requested feedback on "Amazons Attack" -- and boy he got it:
"Congratulations! You have managed to do what no Nazi, God or Super-Villain could do!!
You killed Wonder Woman."
"Amazons Attack" is the most damaging, worst Wonder Woman story ever.
I wouldn't mind so much if it was just a bad story, we are used to that, but I don't think you are even aware about how much damage you did to the character."
"So it was all very disappointing.
For the disregard of the rich history and stories of the WW characters.
And for how empty the whole story turned out."
"Your other comic book work has been excellent, but I'm baffled by the decisions you made with this story. Can you explain how this ending came about?"
"So, mister Pfiefer, the editorial guys gave you this to write but do you REALLY like WW and her family? For 6 issues, WW didn't do ONE single heroic thing! Who was the hero then: Batman?"
"That said, I really do think you owe Gail Simone an apology for writing this story. I can understand that you'd be inclined to take pride in your work, and be defensive when it is attacked. But I hope that, rather than be soured on the experience of getting feedback from your fans, you instead take those fans seriously when they say this was something truly dreadful, beneath your talent."
"She's no longer an ambassador from a wise people; she no longer has anything to teach, because her society is vastly more loathsome than the one she's visiting. She's just another superstrong chick in a bikini."
"Honestly, this series was a toxic piece of crap and not what I would have expected to see your name associated with."
"But with specific regard to the ending.....oh man. That was the most mind bogglingly awful ending I have ever had the misfortune to witness in ANY series, ever, in the entire time I've been reading comics."
"Overall I thought it was a pretty woeful series."
"I am done with this company and this new, unpleasant and laughably ineffectual "hero" running around calling herself "Wonder Woman". I haven't seen Wonder Woman in the DCU since the close of Volume 2's 226th issue. And it looks like she is forever lost, which is a real shame."
And there's plenty more.
But one commenter might have pointed his finger at the real culprit:
"Word on the Internet is that you were basically handed this story pre-plotted by DC editorial, and that you basically scripted the plot points. I don't know how true that is, but since I am a huge fan of your H-E-R-O, CATWOMAN and AQUAMAN, I'm hoping it is indeed true. You couldn’t have possibly conceived AMAZONS ATTACK."
I haven't read "AA," and I probably wouldn't unless I got the books for free.
But I DO know that Will Pfeifer has established himself as a great writer in the past.
And it takes a lot of stones to put yourself out on your own blog and face this sort of criticism, rather than hide out in an ivory tower and pretend nothing is wrong.
Time for damage control.
Wow just wow, I'm glad I never purchased any of it, I just read it on the stands ocasionally. I just chaulked it up to yet another event in an event overloaded year.
ReplyDeleteI do feel sorry for Pfeifer, because I suspect that editorial powers-that-be are dictating a lot more of DC's current direction than they probably should...
ReplyDelete...but really, it was pretty bad. I stopped reading it with issue two...along with Countdown. And everything else DC puts out. And also Marvel.
What should worry the Big Two is that I'm their target audience.
Of course it's editorially mandated. The whole thing has the rank stench of DiDio on it.
ReplyDeleteI remember walking out of the DC Nation panels at Comic-Con when it became apparent no real information would be forthcoming, and that DiDio was cracking the ringmaster's whip. On hindsight, it seems less of the creators not wanting to give stuff away than it was not wanting to take responsibility for the crap that was going to happen.
It all made a lot more sense when you got to the last page though. A LOT more sense, which, in a way, is sort of badass. i didn't see it coming, you know?
ReplyDeleteThere isn't any question that this was anything other than Pfeiffer being handed a pre-plotted story and being told to break it into a script for an artist is there?
ReplyDeleteThis series/story was announced years ago, along wth Villains United, Rann-Thanagar War and the other three minis that served as preludes to Infinite Crisis, but then editorial decided they couldn't make it work after all, and then scrapped plans for it.
Now that it's over, and it's ending involved moving the Amazons off the board, it's even clearer that this was meant to be a story two years ago.
It was about the U.S./Amazon tension that Rucka built into his Wonder Woman (and other series at the time), and it was about shunting the Amazons into limbo, which is what IC ended up doing.
The real test of Pfeiffer as a writer the series offered was whether he would turn down the work DC offerred him because it was silly or not. And he didn't.