M.O.M

To read M.O.M., the latest comic entry in the burgeoning "menstruation pride" genre,was an inevitability, but the investment was too risky for installments. This is Emilia Clarke's first (and therefore potentially only) graphic novel, which explains its weaknesses as well its strengths. The plot of M.O.M. is comprehensive and conclusive, insofar as any comic production hoping for a sequel can be. The characters receive as much backstory as can be reasonably delivered in the time allotted. The theme should not have been as off-putting to other critics as it was. The author's enthusiasm for the project is heartwarming.

Everybody starts as novices, however, so there are three weaknesses. The first is the tendency to infodump. Experience with golden age science fiction, Steve Ditko, and Alan Moore has shown that this example is neither the longest nor the most awkward; incorporating all the necessary background into dialogue or visuals can be tricky. More and more comics writers are falling victim to the compulsive chart-making of Hickmaniasis. The expository dialogue in M.O.M. is still longer than it might have been had the author not been so well known. 

The second is the humor. Much of the humor is already outdated, a risk every author takes with the humor; the only jokes which never age (because they are so puerile) are bodily function jokes. A wife has never farted while sitting on her husband's lap, as the ancients said. Political humor, however, can sour like the half-full carton of milk accidentally shoved to the back of the fridge.

The third is the underlying assumption that the themes addressed here are being addressed for the first time. This is mostly a symptom of presentism, both of the author, not a lifelong comics fan by her own admission, and of the audience, subject to the illusion that because this is the first time they have encountered an idea it is also the first time that idea has been presented. This phenomenon is unfortunately part of the human condition, but it can be an irritant to those who have encountered the idea before and would like those who presented it to receive some credit. There are Wonder Woman runs featuring Veronica Cale in a similar vein.

M.O.M is worth checking out of the library or adding to your Christmas suggestion list. A sequel is unlikely.

Two and Half Feet in an Elegiac Trenchcoat

 In preparing for the June sampler of the Greek group, I was reminded how the second part of the elegiac couplet, the dactylic pentameter, resembles its lankier predecessor not so much as a younger sibling as much as a burn victim whose skin has been removed from one area to patch another, a Frankenstein of metrical composition. The dactylic hexameter is a well-behaved meter, rarely breaking its structure for moments of deep pathos or extraordinary gravity; the iambic pentameter, however, rather than losing a foot before the final spondee, amputates the spondee in order to graft a long syllable as the second-and-a-half foot, while extending the rigidity of the final dactyl and spondee (despondent for its other half?) to the entire latter half of the line. The iambic pentameter is a pair of two-and-half dactyls (Idaean or Cretan, they are always male) masquerading as a longer line.

If we switch to a more sober frame of mind, like the Medes upon the eve of a great decision, the hemiepes (for that is its name) is a more rational construction, although one would still think that half an epes (dactylic hexameter) would have three full feet. The elimination of the dibrach (two shorts) after the long is suggestive of the principle of brevis in longo, whereby even a syllable short in prose is treated as long at the end of the line; the dissonance comes from the two hemiepes (is the plural hemiepeis?) united in one line, thereby stranding what would have been a final syllable displaying brevis in longo as an orphaned syllable before the caesura. There are two explanation I can think for this. The first, closer to epic, is that the caesura in epes often falls after the first (long) syllable of the third foot, and therefore is the appropriate place for bisecting the meter; the second, closer to lyric, is that a three-line stanza of an epes and two hemiepes would not admit sufficient flexibility in the second line. I am inclined toward the former, if only because a half line with the caesura after the first short of the third foot of a dactylic hexameter would be subject to brevis in longo and therefore result in a half line indistinguishable from the latter half of a dactylic hexameter. But the resolution (pun intended) of this question admits of diverse answers.

X-Men '92: Thoughts

 I meant to pick up X-Men '97 (forgetting that it was a different format and yet unreleased). So I ended up with X-Men '92. X-Men '92 is a continuation of the X-Men-focused fragment of Battleworld, the pastiche world created by God Emperor Doom from the remnants of the multiverse. Sadly, the only thing Vancean about this pastiche is a lot of Paos in battle. X-Men '92 was a testing ground for the continuing animation of X-Men '97 (which is the why the voices of the voice actors and the characterizations in the comic matched well). Fortunately, too characters and a complicated backstory is par for the course for the X-Men franchise; I'm old enough to remember the spinner racks where, if you missed an issue, or even worse, if the key event occurred in an annual, you just shrugged and read on. The advantage of the comics medium is that you can have far more characters, including short appearances, than you could with an auditory medium. The wordiness in this comic is almost Claremontian, a nice touch.

The story of the X-Men being temporarily tricked and who is good and who is bad being reshuffled is standard X-Men fare, well-written but not revolutionary. The writers and artists took advantage of this limited opportunity to introduce as many of the X-Men characters as possible - with the notable exception of Grant Morrison's X-Men run. There is no Wither or Wallflower here. Perhaps these characters are being held in reserve in favor of X-Force, New Mutants, and Generation X, and would have appeared in the second volume?

Island in the Sea of Time

Snake Island, the island off the Romanian coast from which the Ukrainian soldiers shouted words as vociferous, if not as grandiose as some Laconic words of defiance has a history stretching back into the Greek myths. Upon this island lay the temple of Achilles, where now the lighthouse stands; on its model the Greeks constructed Elysium; on these shores Circe (in some accounts) absolved her niece Medea of the murder of her brother Absyrtus (whose resemblance to Abzu, the watery consort of Tiamat, does not pass unnoticed). Pindar's Olympic Ode 2 mentions the Tower of Kronos in the Islands of Blest. If any island should represent the ghosts and sorrows of war, it is this island. 

Trial of the Amazons: Thoughts

Some thoughts after finishing Trial of the Amazons. 

It is nice to see that there are now three tribes of Amazons. This number tracks with the legends of historical Themyscira and hinterlands. Three, however, is sufficient. This is not just due to the sacredness of the number three in the feminine and general Indo-European tradition, but also because the enhancement of a story which careful addition to lore provides can rapidly diminish if too many divisions are added or too carelessly. The impact falls to zero. An expansion of the Amazons beyond the current three tribes would need to be meticulously planned by someone who would remain in charge for many years; this is not how Wonder Woman has historically worked. In other lines, this is shown: the seven colors of the Lantern Corps were added slowly and with a plan. Even the black and white lanterns fit into that world, even if temporarily, as the absence or presence of light; but it should have ended there. The ultraviolet corps threw off the structure of the Corps. In a similar manner the consolidation of all the DC cities of Atlantis in the animation Young Justice can make continuity a trap as much as a springboard for future stories (which do not have to be pseudo-Arthurian).

The Amazons could also use a second island on which to have adventures. Themyscira is beginning to seem a bit cramped, not unlike the old X-Mansion in the older X-Men events.

There is a need to provide extra titles for Wonder Folk. The nature of the title Wonder Woman restricts it to one woman at a time, except perhaps if both Hippolyta and Diana are alive and serving on different teams, but surely there should be only one Wonder Girl at a time, with the others holding other titles. This has not been a problem with Donna, but Cassie should get her own title. As the Robins have shown, the name does not need to include the lead character's primary adjective!

Continuity and Character Development: The Marvelous Land of Oz, Part 1

 

The plot of The Marvelous Land of Oz is an elaborate card trick played upon the stage. The Wizard of Oz show was a success, and therefore a new show was called for. The Marvelous Land of Oz was a script for that new show. Not all characters from the book had been translated to the stage, most notably the Lion (replaced by Elsie the Cow), so the archetypes that Baum used for The Marvelous Land of Oz were as follows: Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Toto, Wizard, and Wicked Witch. Baum, however, faced a challenge he had not previously encountered: continuity. All his previous fairylands had been separate countries, but now he was returning (at least in book form) to the same country. The popular characters from the previous work had to appear, but the familiar characters could not occupy the same archetype because they had completed that portion of their story.  At the same time, the new characters could not entirely repeat the vacant archetypes; that would remove any surprises. Finally, the conclusion of the second trip to Oz needed to conclude in such a way that Baum could move on to other fairylands; Baum therefore created a magic trick in the form of a play.

The first difference between The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz is the initial location. This story starts within Oz. The Land of the Gillikins, the northern land neglected in the original, becomes the starting point.  There must be a wicked witch and an oppressed child. The Wicked Witches of Oz are dead, so this witch, Mombi, is not allowed to be an official witch, but she is wicked. The Good Witch of the North is mentioned as the author of this “one witch at a time” decree, but she is not the witch (not even the Good Witch) relevant to the story. Mombi’s status as potential Witch is cemented by her connection both with a crooked magician and the Wizard. The Wizard, of course, has returned to our world, so cannot be part of this story, but Mombi’s connection with the Wizard is the first clue that there is a mystery to be solved. Trafficking with the Wizard contrasts with the attitudes of the Witches in the first book, where they prefer to keep their distance from the Wizard, as well as indicating that there is further imbalance in Oz that requires correction.

The oppressed child, although he is not particularly oppressed but modern literary standards, is Tippetarius, also known as Tip. He is, of course, effectively an orphan. The relationship between Tip, our primary Dorothy replacement, and Mombi is reminiscent of that between the Tin Woodman and his witch, as well as that between the Tin Woodman’s female love interest and the witch who employed her. While Mombi is off to the black market to defraud and possibly be defrauded, Tip, whose ethics are somewhat lacking through no fault of his own, constructs a man out of sticks with a pumpkin for a head to scare Mombi. Tip has neither magic nor narrative power, so the sticks remain sticks. When Mombi comes across the stick man and is not alarmed, she uses the magical gimmick, the Powder of Life, to give the figure life and dubs him Jack Pumpkinhead; thus we have an occupant for the Scarecrow archetype. A living stick man who does not eat is cheaper than a flesh and blood boy who does, so Mombi decides to change Tip into a (apparently alive) garden statue. This seems at first glance an act of gratuitous cruelty, but it cements Tip’s archetype as the Tin Woodman as well as Dorothy.  This transformation, however, will have to wait for tomorrow, since potion making is a lengthy process. Mombi’s assumption that Tip will not leave and will voluntarily drink the petrifaction potion illustrates how much control Mombi believes she has over Tip. This control is illusory, which is interesting because her primary magic skill is illusion. The long-term motivation for petrifaction might be a fear of Mombi that Tip will rat her out to the Good Witch of the North directly or indirectly, but Mombi’s trafficking with the Wizard, the bretwalda of Oz, suggests substantially greater problems. Tip fulfills his obligation as Dorothy by freeing Jack, but their departure together displays Tin Woodman elements, because Jack is a magical toddler and does not come possessed of the sagacity which the Scarecrow received, even though Jack is structurally more like the Tin Woodman than Tip. It is also possible to miss the Scarecrow element of Jack if the party’s numbers are the only consideration, since Tip and Jack are travelling to see the actual Scarecrow in the Emerald City.

Tip and Jack have an important conversation about their relationship. Jack maintains that Tip is his father because he constructed him. Tip points out it was Mombi who sprinkled him with the Powder of Life and therefore would be his mother. Jack insists that Tip is his real parent because if Tip had not created him, he would not have existed at all; moreover, nobody would choose Mombi as a parent, adoptive or biological. This discussion introduces parentage as a major element of the story, but also temporarily deflects the question of parentage to the sidekick rather than the protagonist.

Alis in Waunderland

 I’ve been reading Pindar’s Olympian Ode 1. Every ode has a victor which it celebrates and almost every ode has a mythological antecedent. The Olympic victor here is Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse, while the mythological antecedent is Pelops, son of Tantalus. The story which Pindar tells about Pelops is different from the usual tale; but Pelops returns to the mortal realm either way. Once Pelops is growing into a young man, he needs to find a bride, so he decides to enter the contest for the hand of Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaus of Pisa, a city near Olympia. The successful suitor receives Hippodamia as a bride; the unsuccessful suitors receive death, because myth never does anything halfway. Pisa and Olympia are in the land of Elis, or at least that is how the Attic Greek of Athens would render it. In the Ode, which is written in the Doric Greek of Thebes, the land is Alis, showing the long alpha for eta correspondence used (and sometimes abused) in certain parts of Greek poetry. In the land of Elis (or Alis) itself, the Doric Greek dialect is yet more archaic: it retains the digamma or wau lost in more rapidly developing dialects, and therefore Elis in Elean Greek is Walis or Valis (the digamma is sometimes rendered as beta in Greek which lacks it). This name, as speakers of Latin might notice, means ‘valley’ or ‘hollow’, which makes the subdistrict of Hollow Elis a Torpenhow Hill or Caermarthen Castle. The land, therefore, in which the Olympics occurred shares a name with a Swiss canton because humans are not very imaginative when it comes to naming things – the name Pisa is basically Las Vegas.

Young Justice (Rebirth): Continuous Continuity Confusion

Recently I finished the three-volume trade of Young Justice from the Rebirth Era of DC. Rebirth was an amelioration of the New 52 Era in which the continuity on which DC had based its identity was rejected, except for the series that were selling well. Most reboots of the universe after various crises have this flaw, which might even be described as a metaflaw; at least explicitly out-of-continuity stories can pick and choose their Robins and even the order in which they apprenticed.

Young Justice is a pleasurable read if you either ignore the continuity mess it is trying to fix, or you (like me) love overly complicated continuity. Since there has been "not a Crisis" since publication, and a new Crisis looms at the time of writing, the former option is probably better.

The initial lineup of Young Justice is Wonder Girl (Cassie), Robin (Tim Drake), Impulse, Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, and new kids Teen Lantern and Jinny Hex (one of them is LGBTQIA+). Thus it contains three of the original members of Young Justice, a princess whose origin lies in pre-Crisis continuity, a descendant of another  pre-Crisis character, and the mandatory new kid. The politics of Gemworld are as eternally contentious as Gotham is crime-ridden, so the six members end up as prisoners on Gemworld. Once they escape, they meet Superboy. This is the Superboy (Kon-El or Conner Kent) from before the New 52, the Superboy who is a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor and really likes leather jackets. Due to secret experiment shenanigans, Superboy had ended up in Gemworld and therefore survived the Crisis reboots; there was a clone Superboy in the New 52, but we don't talk about him. Young Justice saves Gemworld but is thrown into the Multiverse as thanks. The final Earth is Earth-3 where they meet their counterparts, who have taken over for the Crime Syndicate of America, the Justice League of Earth-3, who had died in a previous storyline in the New 52. Tim for some reason borrows the costume of his Earth-3 counterpart and commits the one sidekick sin that no previous Robin had: using his own name as his "code name." When Young Justice gets back to its Earth, it is somehow widely known despite being kidnapped almost immediately. They recruit Naomi, Bendis' Miles Morales for DC, as well as the Wonder Twins, who are interns for the current Justice League and whose series was amusing but perhaps too silly for some people's taste. 

They confront the evil secret scientist, which raises even more continuity issues. If this Superboy is the one from before Flashpoint, then this scientist is not the same scientist as the one who ejected Superboy into Gemworld; so if this scientist remembers a Superboy, it cannot be this Superboy. If this scientist ejected a Superboy into the Multiverse, that Superboy (the New 52 one? a new Rebirth one?) must have ended somewhere else.

At the time of publication, when I saw that Superboy (Conner) had been brought back, I thought that he might be a replacement for Superboy (Jon Kent). Jon Kent, the son of Clark and Lois had been unfortunately aged-up because Superwoman (Lois Lane Kent) of Earth-3 (or an Earth-3? Didn't Superwoman die earlier?) had imprisoned him for his teenage years. Jon was then recruited by the newest version of the Legion of Super-Heroes to receive some of the training he needed to become the heir to Superman and therefore inspire the Legion with which he was now. Even when Jon would return to present to engage in such inspiration, Conner would still exist to provide a Robin (rather than Drake) solution to the limited number of Kryptonians; apparently Kara doesn't count. 

And then Dark Knights Metal and Future State happened. And everything mattered, so for some nothing mattered.

 

Do They Know It's Christmas in (Fantasy) Africa?

If the sections of Baum's Land of Oz are reflective of portions of America (Munchkin land is the populous East, Winkie Country is the West, Quadling Country is the swampy and isolated South, and the Emerald City is Chicago), is the much less well-known Island of Yew a fantasy Africa? The entirety of the island is abundant with sorcerors, although not as many as the Yewsians would have potential enemies believe. The north is a land of feuding, bloody baronies, much like the Barbary states of the Mediterranean and bandits reminiscent of the Senussi slave routes from the Niger to Cyrene. The west is characterized by a flim-flam sorceror, similar to the European perception of voudoun, along with the attendant suckers, and a magical land of twins, much like the twin statues of the Gulf of Africa. The east is a land of cattle raiders, which matches the cattle-raiding culture of Bantu tribes of East Africa. The center is unknown and as mysterious to the travelers as the Mountains of the Moon, full of monsters. The south. of course, is dominated by a ruby-themed good sorceress who maintains civilization (God save the Queen!). Fairies are needed to guide places and people that are not civilized; once a place is civilized, the fairies do not need to intervene and any remnants of the pre-civilized edge will be out of place.

On the other hand, much of this directional theme could be overlaid on Europe in certain periods.

Not All Women (Are Museless)

 The Legend of Wonder Woman is a 2016 series by writer/artist Renae de Liz and artist Ray Dillon which tells its own version of Diana’s entry into the world. The style is a bit too 3D for my taste, but that is now a common style and does not detract from the story. I have the issues for about half the series; unfortunately, I misestimated where it ended and at the time I did not have it on my pull list. When I saw it in the local branch, I immediately grabbed it.

In this version of Themyscira, the Amazons believe themselves to be the survivors of an apocalyptic Titanomachy, although with one “Titan”. The rest of the world is seen as barren wasteland. The majority of the Amazons are mortal. So why are there still Amazons? Some Amazons, those whom the gods deem most suitable for the task, are designated to be mothers to the souls of girls, presumably from the pool of all women. The race of Amazons is small enough to avoid psychic recycling.  These mortal Amazons live their best lives in paradise and die happy. A few Amazons, including Queen Hippolyta, are immortal, but immortality always comes with a price. In this case, the price is childlessness. The other immortal Amazons can accept this, sometimes reluctantly, but Hippolyta cannot. Hippolyta molds a statue out of the clay of Themyscira and prays to the gods to give her a daughter. The statue comes to life as Diana, an immortal child. These details are important to Diana’s childhood. Although she is not the only child, she is the only immortal one. She has a destiny, like all Amazons; hers is to become queen after Hippolyta. This destiny, unfortunately, suffers from a breakdown in logic: if Hippolyta is immortal, then Diana will never become Queen. Although Diana is referred to as a Princess, it does not have the same connotation on Themyscira, since the two functions of an only child of the monarch, succession and marriage, are not relevant. When Etta Candy later describes Diana as a princess, she must think about it for second; this would be a strange reaction from a mortal royal. Diana, the immortal child, but fortunately not in the vampire child way, is an anomaly, and her anomalous nature enables her to detect other anomalies.

Paradise never lasts, much like childhood, and disturbances begin to gnaw at the peace of Themyscira. The rot is reminiscent of that found in Disney’s Moana. The inevitable plane crash occurs with Steve Trevor as the pilot. The Amazons in charge of the defense of the island want to kill him, but Diana nurses him back to health. This recuperation, of course, means someone must pierce the veil to return him to Man’s World. There must be a contest of volunteers to determine this. The point of contention here is that passing through the veil causes amnesia for intruders and a ban on returning.  Diana wants to enter; her mother forbids it; she enters anonymously; she wins; her mother gives her the paraphernalia. This is as inevitable as Krypton exploding (since Thomas Wayne is now a Batman).

Diana passes through the veil, but she manages to lose Steve, presumed dead. Diana is now depressed because she both failed on her first mission objective and can never return home. She is, however, pleasantly surprised at the non-wasteland of the outside world. She is welcomed, despite being a stranger in wartime, by a kindly elderly couple, who may be an oblique reference to the Kents (the wife certainly exudes Ma Kent vibes), but its coastal setting suggests Aquaman. After she has recuperated, she heads into town, which includes Holliday College. Her youthfulness and Greco-roman outfit lead the college students to assume she is one of their peers (and possibly drunk, since she falls out of a tree in the make-out corner of campus). Etta Candy, in all her Forties campus gal glory, rescues Diana by claiming she is her cousin from Gargantuania; this is both a reference to the villain Gargantua and the way that Diana replaces the member of the Golden Age Holliday Girls whose personality was being very tall (the very short one is present). A reference to Gargantua and Pantagruel seems a bit deeper than this series would go.

This story is about Etta and Diana, not Steve and Diana. If they are more than friends, there is no explicit reference – but it seems less likely in the Forties (pace fans of a certain author). Etta directs her characteristic enthusiasm towards boys, and Diana would like to hook up with Steve, but the mission takes precedence. This version of Etta is an update of the comic sidekick, stripped of some of the elements that would appear mean-spirited today. Etta’s comedic plot is her life-long rivalry with her hometown nemesis, Pamela Smuthers, now expressed through musical competition; the Holliday Girls are not just sorority sisters, but a musical group (thankfully this time without the Mexican stereotypes) who are this world’s Andrews Sisters. Smuthers naturally shows up every time Etta is about to perform.

After the domestic comedy, including Diana’s poor taste in clothes while shopping, her unfamiliarity with the concept of movies, and her anger at the misrepresentation of her mother in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is time for Etta and Diana to go to Europe. This is not easy in the middle of a war. Etta’s impetus to leave for the front is an unflattering ad from the Candy family business featuring Etta; she hopes that she can both avoid the embarrassment at home and make her name as a singer on the front. Diana’s impetus is to find the Duke of Deception, whose jewel she recognizes and whose existence is guaranteed by a news reporter named Perry. Diana signs up solely as a nurse so that she can have access to the news from the front. Steve is around and teaches Diana important Chekov’s skills, but Etta is still more important.

The treatment of race in this book is interesting. The appalling excesses of the Golden Age comics are thankfully absent, but the presence of an integrated campus and military with the absence of any comment on race is a bit odd. It is true that later war stories projected integration back on World War Two, and Etta’s libido is as outsized as any of her other appetites, but the only reasonable conclusion is that focusing on race would be a different Wonder Woman story with a different villain.

When the Duke of Deception starts raising the dead, which itself could be a reference to a real incident on the Eastern Front, Diana springs into action as Wonder Woman. This heroism leads to the troops regarding her as their hero. Although this is a Wonder Woman story, superheroes do exist – enough that there is a JSA, which includes at least Hourman; thus she is not the lone hero of this earth. Why the other heroes are not in Europe is not answered; but perhaps the sole mention of Hourman suggests no mystical or mythical heroes, and Clark Kent failed his eye exam.

Wonder Woman is on an upward track until Zeus, who has apparently finally noticed Diana using Hippolyta’s paraphernalia, summons Diana before him. Zeus offers to make her his champion against the Titan, whom Ares is attempting to raise using the Duke of Deception’s campaign of death and misery. Zeus is best known for being a lecher, but his most relevant quality here is his unbending authoritarianism. If Diana agrees to be his champion, she will receive greater power than she already possesses, but she must abide by Zeus’ rules. Since this is a duel, if the Titan wins, Diana’s friends are fair game for the Titan. Diana does not mind dying for her friends, but she is not willing to abandon them and the rest of the world to destruction. Zeus, who is petty in all the ways that a being of immense power can get away with, strips Diana of all her powers save natural Amazonian athleticism.

The Titan rises. The air corps flies off to meet their doom. Diana steals the invisible jet on which Steve trained her in one lesson, with the Holliday Girls as her crew. This chutzpah is true to the spirit of the Golden Age Holliday Girls. Diana confronts the Titan without her powers but is summoned again before a god. This time Gaia, the Earth, reveals that Diana is the last child of Gaia and bestows upon her the powers which Zeus had removed. This reveal is interesting because in Classical Greek mythology Gaia was the mother of monsters rather than the mother of the champion against monsters. Gaia was the mother of the Classical Titans, but this Titan is not the child of Gaia, but rather a being from the stars, a robotic Manhunter. These Manhunters began as just, but they became corrupted over time and more dogmatic. The Manhunter that fell to Earth tried to purge it, but Zeus’ attempt to destroy the Titan through control of his champion decimated Earth almost as much as a Titan victory would have done. The Amazons’ isolation preserved a piece of paradise, but stagnation was the price of immortality. Redemption required a mortal impulse from an immortal made immortal rather than a natural immortal; this mortal impulse produced a member of the immortal society who could not fit in, and therefore would experience both worlds in the way that Zeus could not and Hippolyta would not. The champion of both worlds needed to care about both portions to defend the entire Earth from a threat beyond the stars.

On a more personal level, the Duke of Deception turns out to be a regular human, Thomas Byde, who sent his little brother away from present danger. He dies in a bombing anyway. Thomas feels guilt over this, and Ares exploits this guilt to manipulate him. Thomas flies to Mars and lives there alone in the former habitation of his master; a cruel fate, but one that contrasts with the communal life on Themyscira.