In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed learn why George Perez had to totally change the original ending of his iconic run on Wonder Woman.
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and thirty-second installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I’ll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
COMIC LEGEND:
George Perez had to change the ending of his Wonder Woman run, even after it was initially drawn, because editorial wanted the writer on Wonder Woman after Perez to get to tell that aspect of the story
STATUS:
True
In the second issue of his legendary reboot of Wonder Woman, George Perez (and co-plotter and scripter Greg Potter, as well as inker Bruce Patterson) re-introduced Steve Trevor into the Wonder Woman mythos, but he intentionally made Trevor older so that he was no longer a realistic love interest for Wonder Woman (it was also to tie Steve Trevor to his mother being sort of the replacement for Steve in Wonder Woman’s origins, where instead of Steve Trevor coming to Paradise Island, it was his mother)…
Similarly, Perez took the Golden Age supporting character of Etta Candy, who was mostly a joke character during the 1940s, as a Lieutenant in the Air Force…
In that same issue, we see that Etta greatly admired Steve and it was likely that her interest in Steve went beyond strictly admiration…
Perez had Steve and Etta remain regular supporting cast members throughout his run and he had some major plans for him before he left the book, but then his final year on Wonder Woman was marked by some aggravating situations for him.
Perez’s exclusive contract with DC expired in 1990, but he agreed to remain on Wonder Woman for 1991 because he wanted to be able to celebrate Wonder Woman’s 50th anniversary and eventually that became War of the Gods, as he explained to Patrick Daniel O’Neil in Comics Interview #104, “I had proposed other things that they could have done for her anniversary. I was really pushing these projects – for example, the anniversary poster, which I drew. They were supposed to be doing a WONDER WOMAN trade paperback. WONDER WOMAN: YEAR ONE, which reprints the first eight issues of my WONDER WOMAN, is nice but I don’t consider it an anniversary book – because there’s nothing from the fifty years, just from my version. When I first heard about it, they were planning to print it with regular comic paper like they did DEATH IN THE FAMILY and I said, “For fiftieth anniversary, this is what you’re going to give us?”
Now that they’re not advertising WAR OF THE GODS as a WONDER WOMAN book they don’t have anything to advertise. If I were drawing it, they would have advertised it as such, because then they would have figured that the Perez name would override any negative feedback that would follow a WONDER WOMAN anniversary since DC’s faith in Wonder Woman is pretty much nil; other characters that didn’t sell well were promoted because it was prestigious.
I was feeling a bit angry because it was like I was the only person fighting for Wonder Woman. Then I lost my editor due to an act of God and of husband because she went into labor. Karen Berger went on maternity leave and so we ended up with an editor who, try as he might, is still a novice who doesn’t have the push that Karen has in the company. Everything was starting to fall apart and at this point I was incredibly depressed.”
Perez was also upset that after War of the Gods was announced, DC then announced another 1991 crossover, Armageddon 2001…
He was particularly upset when he saw the house ads for the event, which happened to prominently feature, well, you know, Wonder Woman…
So he was steamed at DC. He had already started drawing Infinity Gauntlet for Marvel (as while he remained on Wonder Woman post 1990, his exclusive contract was over and so he could work for Marvel) and then something happened that put him off DC for a few years.
Wonder Woman #62 was to be his final issue of the series…
And it was going to involve Steve and Etta’s wedding…until it didn’t. Again, with Pat O’Neil, Perez noted, “The last straw in the case of Wonder Woman when I have Steve Trevor and Etta Candy getting married in the last issue. I had it in the synopsis months ago, the plot was handed in, I finally scripted it, off it went, and then I receive a phone call saying that Bill Loebs is now the writer and that he was going to be doing doing the wedding. This was something I was setting up and I was the one who wanted to handle it. It could even have been a misunderstanding between Bill and me – maybe he assumed that I was just getting them engaged and he was taking care of the wedding -but the fact was that the entire issue went through all of the final steps, the wedding was there, it was drawn. now they wanted it redrawn and I just refused to rewrite it. I finally was so angry that I had to ask Karen Berger to please send me a check, which they had already delayed by two weeks, and I just hung up the phone. I haven not spoken to anyone at DC Comics since then.”
So the finished issue just had Etta and Steve get engaged, and not married…
Perhaps the saddest thing about it is that Loebs’ run went in a whole other direction, as well, so he never got around to actually DOING the wedding (but that’s a story for another time). Perez, though, naturally made up with DC and was working there again a few years later.
CHECK OUT A MOVIE LEGENDS REVEALED!
In the latest Movie Legends Revealed – Was a real horse seriously killed for the iconic “horse head” scene in The Godfather?
PART THREE SOON!
Check back soon for part 3 of this installment’s legends!
Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either [email protected] or [email protected]
About The Author
For all the latest Comics News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
