Got to say it was a nice comic, not good, just nice.

Just as they tried to show the intimate moments between Kal and Diana, and why their relationship can/could work, it's still quite clear that Tomasi is mainly giving a trip through their relationship and why it was doomed from the start, because writers chose so.

All of Kal and Diana problems and discussions could've been handled in a completely different way, but it was important to show why their relationship can't work, because the writers don't want it to work.

Diana becoming the god of war, Clark not giving her the proposal ring he bought for her, Diana having to leave to deal with her goddess of war stuff, a bunch of excuses depicted in scenes. All the wrong tactics to try and sell us why they don't want them to work as a couple.

Tomasi couldn't have made it more clear if he had written, at the end of the comic "Sorry Clark and Diana fans that support their relationship. But we don't want them to work, and here's why. Deal with it."

Here's the scans that I found to be the most important.

So we get from this...

... to this.

If the writers didn't want it to work, why'd they put Superman and Wonder Woman together in the first place? Obviously not for the right reasons or with the right intentions either, given that they purposefully put them together to create "watercooler discussion" and to appeal to the Twilight crowd.

This issue pretty much sums up why Sm/Ww doesn't work in mainstream continuity comics.

These two genuinely match but they are the leaders of two different franchises. Yes, the universe is shared but the shared universe is an extension of the stories, a bonus. To have them together you have to diminish, affect and control the books the characters are appearing separately and of course as a result affect the product. You can't evolve the relationship, you can't have them marry, you can't have them have a child. So the relationship will become stale. Why? Because their differences aren't enough to keep the relationship interesting for long, especially not with a title of their own. And you can't always have something come up to stall the progress. Heck, even the break up was weird and forced.

So, again this issue shows why this pairing can work or not only in elseworlds.

@lvenger: It was part of Johns story and I'm pretty sure Lee spearheaded the idea of it. It was always not going to work. Johns said it sometime during FE or aftermath in an interview that it would end.

@deathfalcon182: It was always Lee who was the driving force of this relationship, he's stated in interviews that he is not a fan of the Clark and Lois relationship even though some of his most famous artwork is from Superman Tomorrow where Clark and Lois were very much together in the story. There's little doubt he was the main guy for putting Superman and Wonder Woman together in continuity. Johns has probably had enough of it at this point and is clearly trying to put the toys back in their proper toyboxes. Based on that interview comment, I thought Johns would be the one to end it but it started before Johns made any mention of it in Darkseid War.

@lvenger: I think DW is set post truth, it ends in current status quo and Johns touches on it in his book. Personally it never made sense to me that Johns would really go for this idea considering how much of a fan he is of silver and bronze age status quos. Also someone pointed out that movies are coming out and Johns is very big collaborator in current DCEU so maybe that could be one of the driving force behind his decision to set up Steve and Diana.

@deathfalcon182: Who knows when it's set honestly, the DCYou's mantra has been story over continuity so there's no way of telling what place in time DW takes place. Technically DW started before Truth and some references of the story make it seem it was intended to take place before Truth. Superman's costume and Batman's Pre Endgame status quo IMO. Where did Johns touch upon the period his story takes place in?

@lvenger: well Didio said DW would lead to status quo changes in other titles next year and in newest issue Cyborg is in DCYou costume. Plus we always knew Bruce would come back and Supes would be powerful again. Lot of thing leads me to believe it's set post Truth/Jim Gordon Batman than prior.

@deathfalcon182: I do recall seeing Cyborg in his DCYou new look in the latest Justice League issue so perhaps you're right on when DW is set. Ultimately I'm not sure if it'll be confirmed any time soon though.

Well at least it gave us 5 different variations of evil/corrupted Superman vs Wonder Woman in 4 years...that has to be a record. Though that last panel makes me feel little sad for Clark,still good riddance to this rubbish.

Absolutely, remember that Xa-Du arc by Pak? it had everyone important to Superman but no WW. This relationship never made it past the ongoing series. WW is too problematic a character for anyone to be in a relationship with,they couldn't even show affectionate scenes between the 2 because "too sexy" (Judd Winick and Lobdell say hi) so you didn't even get fanboy porn. It was a dead end from day one,what surprises me are the people who refuse to see it.I mean these aren't real people,the characters are only as good as the stories and the SM/WW relationship is/was shackled by story telling constraints,there has to be more to a comic than "I love you,you love me" or constant hugging, hand holding or superficially relating to each other(we're so lonely and strong).

My god, it seems the last years all the writers did their best to not write Superman...

I agree. Personally, I don't hate the pairing but it just doesn't work in mainstream comics. This isn't a b-list character pairing that it doesn't really matter and it might even make the characters most interesting (ex.Green Arrow and Canary who even them had problems evolving said relationship) but a pairing between two AAA characters. It just couldn't go anywhere. And the storytelling had the classic romance trope that has stopped working for a while now: The protagonists are a perfect couple and the world throws problems at them. You can't focus on each others weaknesses and have them try to be a couple, instead of instantly being, because someone is gonna complain. Best mainstream Superman and WW relationship is Samaritan and Winged Victory :P

LOL.

Yeah even the GA/BC relationship was a dud in my opinion,mostly because GA material tends to crap on Canary,Arrow is proof of that. The relationships themselves are fine but the executions tend to be awful because the story reservoir tends to dry up fast in these situations. I'm more amused by SM/WW shippers now looking forward to Frank Miller now HAHA.

I agree, that the Canary/GA relationship was problematic. It returned to the same tropes quite often.I think no relationship can evolve if the editors aren't willing to allow for actual progress. Ex. Superman and Lois pre-52, they became stale, they should had a kid a while ago, and even when they got the perfect opportunity with Chris Kent they threw it away.

@squalleon: That was a huge waste,Batman got Damian around the same time and look where that kid is today.

@lvenger: I think it was just to be provocative, but delayed when for a time, issues sold. Probably was a surprise for some.

I was personally disappointed that Clark wasn't single for say, one extra year after the reboot. Why did DC rush things about relationships so quick? Not just Clark but others as well. I thought it was supposed to be "New", and I guess that was my disappointment with how the story wasn't really starting at the beginning, in a sense.

Then yeah, I wasn't totally on the bandwagon, but the breakup execution was lame, from what I saw.

@Squalleon: Elseworlds stories have an ending, and continuity doesn't. Elseworlds also go where continuity doesn't go too, partially because they have an ending.

I know. That's why relationships like these can work there and not here. That was one of my points.

The entire book is horrible and a waste of time. Superman needs to go back to Lois and Wonder Woman needs to go back to Steve. Problem solved.

@suemorphplus209: That's exactly the biggest reason why Superman and Wonder Woman were put together, to be a provocative news story ultimately for traffic and awareness of said status quo change.

I want Clark to stay solo for at least a year, preferably two years before writers even think of putting him in a romance. There's so much to sort out and fix with Superman that a relationship, even setting one up with Lois, should be put on the backfoot before all else. I would never be a fan of Superman and Wonder Woman together myself but the way DC did it really hurt the chances of ever making the romance last permanently into something more as it progressed far too quickly without enough depth or development to it anyway. With that sort of handling for a romantic relationship, both the get together and the break up were inevitably going to be poorly depicted.

@lvenger:

I just think it's not so bad to have Superman be single sometimes. It feels like they didn't really do enough of that for a long time, now, hopefully they really do make him single for a while, work with that, and so on. It just seems that fans and writers don't have that kind of patience for that. But I could be wrong. It doesn't seem to make him look all that great with the crossovers and relationship status he has had since post crisis. DC should move on past that. Him being solo can make him look good in some ways, I mean I really would like to see him vs Zod without outside intervention, and show that he's tougher to take him on himself.

How about Conduit? Other villains? Let him take some on solo, and it makes him look like a tougher hero.

I like the Superman-Wonder Woman romantic pairing. If they decide to move on, though, I'm not going to be devastated. Realistically, in life, especially in 2015, most people have several strong intense romantic relationships with people before they settle down. In the DC Comics universe, Clark and Lana has always been an example of this.

I wouldn't have had a problem with this Superman settling down with Diana. I also don't have a problem with a breakup. However, I think it is important that the whole thing mean something- and I don't mean that it means something in the sense that the characters constantly look back on it or whatever. Rather, I think what it means is, in the future, it makes no sense for Clark to kind of be yearning about Lois but not say something- he's just dated freaking Wonder Woman. This Clark is going to be more confident about romance than the prior ones were, or should be, from here on in- which isn't to say he might not still hesitate to date Lois because he didn't want to put her in danger or because he's pissed at her for revealing his identity or whatever, just that if he wants her, he should take her at whatever point that may happen. This Clark would not be nervous about hitting on a pretty woman anymore.

By the way, if the relationship ends, does the Superman-Wonder Woman comic book title end? Or will they try to keep it going as sort of a team up/rivalry type thing like the Batman-Superman book? I vote if the relationship ends, end the book- these two already cross over in both Justice League titles. But I probably don't get a vote. ;)

Oh, and I think Darkseid War has to be set before this or in some kind of alternate or erased timeline (or maybe this is the alternate or erased timeline). There are too many story points where the events of Truth or the events of the Robocop Batman saga should have been mentioned. If it's the future of the Truth/Robocop Batman timeline, it means they've thrown the whole thing down the memory hole in advance. If it's the past, it mostly works, and some of the outcome could even hook into the beginnings of the Truth/Robocop Batman storylines and shed light on exactly what happened.

That doesn't mean they won't eventually say this is the future, but they shouldn't, in my opinion.

Great issue but dang it man that plot to always keep them apart. I mean the Clois fan have their own series with a kid of lois and clarke why can't the new 52 supes and wondy get married.

Ok, First of all. I agree with you that they put them together just so people could talk about it. It's just a gimmick, there was no true heart in that desicion.

But really?

Twilight crowd?

Do you know what Twilight did with it's characters? The girl found him alluring right from the get-go, the guy was one-half "mysterious" and one-half "coy", and both were having the whole Romeo and Juliet "star struck without any true reason" baloney. It's all shallow and manipulative with the female as a blank slate and the guy being as one-dimensional as you can get.

Superman and Wonder Woman from the get-go have an entirely different premise (problem), in that they only first get together because both "felt like aliens". Adding insult to injury, Wonder Woman just got dumped by Steve. Superman and Wonder Woman's development as a couple was basically nada. It's just a cheap tactic by DC to temporarily shake-up the status quo, disguised as a sappy soap opera. If DC REALLY wanted this paring to triumph, they would have added the couple in the DC Cinematic Universe instead of sticking Supes and Lois Lane.

The actual portrayal of the couple in the comics has only really been inconsistent. There is no actual similarity with with Twilight's romance.

Twilight was shallow, SM/WW was just uninspired and rushed.

You could say the Twilight crowd here was insecure Superman fanboys who claim to be fans but find more to dislike about the character. For the last few years DC has been trying to win over that crowd as well as the Superman haters and the results are ...well they're in front of us and that's the TRUTH.

All very true and valid criticisms of the vapid and poorly portrayed Twilight romance that you wouldn't hear any dissent from me about. However, that is exactly what Superman and Wonder Woman was meant to appeal to, the Twilight crowd. Daniels himself stated as much at the Toronto Fan Expo of 2013 in this extract the Mary Sue took of what Daniels said. Perhaps you'll point out it was a poor choice of words and it probably is but I guarantee several of the DC higher ups intended Superman and Wonder Woman to be the comic book Twilight crowd mixed up in all the other stuff you say about it.

@lvenger: The creative team also mentioned Han and Leia in their relationship, and they even referenced the Han thing in the comic.

DC isn't trying to pander to a specific crowd of romance, Lvenger. They are just trying to pander to the crowd that loves ROMANCE.

The problem is that there isn't any real heart into it.

@jogga: And we both know how poorly that made the romance appear to be since Superman and Wonder Woman aren't the same as Han and Leia's relationship obviously. Moreover, in a cultural environment where people 'ship' certain fictional characters together, whether they're actual romantic items or not, I'd say they were trying to pander to certain crowds of romance, those who have wanted a canon Superman/Wonder Woman romance but never had it till the New 52 gave it to them. Obviously the lack of heart and chemistry is what doomed this poor match up, I'm sure we have no disagreements there and I agree that is the bigger flaw. DC's target audience for this decision is also a factor though IMO.

@heavenlydarkdragon: i keep trying to buy this comic online and its being a pain. But awesome comic if I do say so myself and great potential to be even better. In story and on the small screen as well as the big screen.

Just hope they can do it justice its all about the writer and what they can pull off.

@lvenger: I wouldn't say it lacked chemestry. The relationship did have it, the thing about it is that the chemestry is inconsistent. Nobody knows how to handle them both, because nobody seems to want to dig their hands through the dirt, and grab on to something that works. DC has a habit of throwing everything and anything on the wall to see what sticks.

There has to be a development of their romance. You need to see where it comes from, and see into their similarities and diffrences.

Superman is confident and perfectly comfterable in his own skin.

Wonder Woman is motherly and tactful in general.

How would one generally make this paring develop, as well as mesh their world's together in the process?

@jogga: I see where you're coming from but for me it definitely lacked chemistry in the sense that I didn't believe these two came off like an interesting couple. But what about Elseworlds such as TDKR that go into Superman and Wonder Woman being an actual couple, those still come off as basic and simplistic interpretation of a romance. In only focusing on one particular aspect of a relationship.

That's a good general blueprint for building a romance in a story, the thing is though that even if Superman/Wonder Woman could work, they lack the writers to make it so. With the previous continuity, we have many scenes where Superman and Wonder Woman play well off each other and do have good chemistry but only in a platonic good friendship manner, not as romantic interests (even if it's hinted Diana might have feelings for Clark in a few stories) I'm willing to believe the friendship of Superman and Wonder Woman but I can't do the same for the romance under any circumstances, even Waid's Kingdom Come.

I know I am late, but this is inconsistent. We seen in previous issues where these arguments never happen.