In Defense of Pokevision: Why Niantic should allow outside tracking apps

If you're like most people in the geek community, you've probably played PokemonGo at some point in the last month. Maybe you're a diehard Pokefan who's been with the franchise since the first games. Maybe you're like me and never had much interest in the games until this one. Maybe you're somewhere in between. Regardless of your prior experience, it seems like everybody has at least dipped their toe into the pool Niantic created. In fact, it seems that if you haven't you're the odd person out.

If you jumped on board with the game in its first week, you likely got used to a radar system featuring the nearest pokemon to you with small footprints giving you an idea of how close the individual critters were to you. If you joined a couple of weeks later, you never had the advantage of this radar system, because a major system error allowed the radar to only display three footprints, making every pokemon seem as far away as the radar would detect.

With the official system down, several apps and websites rose up to try to fix the user experience. However, they did more than that. The improved the system.

Among the earliest of the apps was Pokeradar, which allowed players to report where and roughly when (night or day) they caught a specific pokemon so that other players might use that information later to try to catch the rarer finds (because no one cares about Rattatas and Pidgey's when you get a hundred of them walking around the block). This app swiftly gave way to Pokevision and Pokewhere, which actually pulled information from the PokemonGo servers, and informed players where pokemon had popped up and how long they'd been there.

Niantic, the developed of PokemonGo, went on record as saying that these apps defeated their intentions with the game. This statement seemed odd when in the same interview the developed commended players who'd been using things like ceiling fans to cheat the walking system in order to hatch eggs in the game. A few scant days after those quotes went public, Pokevision and Pokewhere were down, and PokemonGo did away with the notion of tracking altogether by removing the step indicators.

Technically Niantic was in their rights to shut the sites down as they obtained their data by breaking the Terms of Service for PokemonGo, but a major question has been raised- Were they right to do so?

 

In  the original Pokemon games, players would wonder around until they found a pokemon. If they hadn't seen the critter before, there was no way to track it. Once you'd seen a pokemon, things changed. Additionally, pokemon would occasionally disturb grass, sending up a location where the player should go to find a pokemon. 

PokemonGo eschewed these things. If you see a Vaporeon, you won't automatically track others. Grass moves ad nauseum around the map, but moving to those locations more often than not yields no results. 

Even the initial radar system would show pokemon that were up to a hundred yards away, without any instruction as to how to deduce in what location or direction the pokemon were. You had to watch the footprints and logic your way in the right direction. 

With the step system broken, you could wonder around and never find the pokemon you were seeking. I personally wondered around several blocks in midtown trying to track an Aerodactyl that never materialized, despite covering the area it claimed to be in until eventually it despawned. It was frustrating, especially in 90 degree heat. 

Contrarily, systems like Pokevision would tell you roughly where a pokemon was. He could be 8 blocks from me, and it was my choice to try to hike up there before the critter despawned. Despite claims of accuracy, none of these systems ever displayed every pokemon in an area as frequently pokemon would appear on my radar that never appeared on Pokevision. 

As mentioned above, Niantic claims that these apps defeated the intention of the game. Maybe that's true, but they opened the game up, and, I would argue, inspired people to play the game more and explore locations that they never would have with the game alone. 

Let me give an example from this past week:

My wife and I went out for dinner. We ate and a pokemon we both wanted popped up on the radar. It wasn't anything super rare, but it would be helpful for leveling up pokemon we both already had. We walked the couple of blocks to where that pokemon was. After we both got it, we saw another pokemon on the radar, and walked toward their locations. We drifted down a couple of streets to hit a couple of pokestops, and kept going because another pokemon popped up on the radar a couple of blocks down. We followed this system for a couple of hours and trekked through adjacent neighborhoods we'd never explored before. We never would have gone down half the streets we did without knowing there was something down them. 

That wasn't even the first time we'd done that. The previous Saturday a straight line journey to the subway turned into a 3 hour trek around the Bronx as new pokemon kept popping up and we kept following them. It then turned into another few hours in Manhattan running around Central Park because new pokemon kept popping on Pokevision in little corners we wouldn't have explored otherwise. 

We put in over 10 miles of walking on Saturday and Sunday hiking down side streets in pursuit of Eevees, Squirtles, Charmanders and a pair of Drowzees. 

We would never have gone so long or explored so much if we merely had a radar that gives no direction, or no peek at what's over the horizon. 

Tonight, we pulled out our apps and walked back across the Bronx, a similar distance as we'd intended the prior Saturday. However, with Pokevision down, we had no reason to creep into the side streets. We walked in a pretty straight line, and saw very little that wasn't a Pidgey or Rattata. Who knows what else may have lurked a few blocks away off the beaten path. If a Snorlax had popped onto the bottom of the radar, I never would have seen it, and I wouldn't have known where to look for it. This is the Bronx, there are tons of side streets, and by all accounts a pokemon could be hiding within a hundred yards of you in any direction. That's a lot of ground to cover with a lot of streets to cross. 

Niantic wanted people to get outside and explore. We're more inclined to explore when we have a direction. When we have faith something good is beyond the horizon. A radar full of Pidgeys doesn't make me cut down streets I haven't explored before, it makes me think nothings out there today and I should go home and see what's on Netflix. 

Conversely, since the shut down of Pokevision, I've seen numerous accounts of player who live in rural areas (which I used to before I moved to NYC), who depended on those apps to tell them where anything was. Rural players tell tales of walking more than a mile and, due to PokemonGos algorithm which spawns pokemon based on population, encountering a single Pidgey. If those players wanted a Squirtle or a Snorlax it would take a lot of aimless wandering with little to show for it otherwise. 

Niantic seems to believe that the joy of the game is aimless wandering. The throw 50 Rattata's at a player, believing that the person will "catch 'em all", but no one will. In the city most players walk by Rattata's, Pidgeys, Weedles and Spearows as if they were the actual vermin in the real world. However, when a Vaporeon spawned in Central Park, players abandoned their cars to go catch it. 

 

Players want a goal. Something to chase with some direction. Pokevision and Pokewhere gave that to players. It showed them the thing they could get by logging in another half mile of walking. It made them play for another 10 minutes because that pokemon they wanted just spawned on the map, and if they hurried they could get it. It made them add another 10 because after the first critter, something new popped up. And then again and again. 

My wife coined the term "pokewalking" on Friday. It's when someone is walking to something, but it takes them double or triple the time it normally would because they're going out of their way the whole time to grab this pokemon or that.

Without direction, fewer people are going to do that. 

I understand that Niantic had a vision. But as anyone who has ever run a game of D&D will tell you, more often than not the vision of the game designer falls to the wayside in the interest of providing the gaming experience that the players want. A carefully plotted dungeon crawl gives way to impromptu exploration of a swamp because players took interest in a throw away story point. 

I also understand that Niantic has had constant server issues since the launch of PokemonGo. While these issues seem almost entirely due to the unexpected rabid response to the game, it has been said that outside apps pulling data from the servers does make the servers less stable. However, if Niantic is unwilling to provide the information that the third party apps are, it would appear in the best interest of all parties for them to form deals and partnerships which allow access to the information in ways the servers can handle. 

However, at the moment Niantic has created the appearance of wanting to ignore all complaints about tracking in the game, while disabling those third party apps that allow for such tracking. It wants to keep players in the dark because that darkness matches some initial vision for the game. A vision users don't seem to want. 

Users are already demanding refunds for in game purchases on iTunes and through GooglePlay. Others are rage quitting. The number doing either or both remains to be seen, however the general consensus is that Niantic is failing to listen to player desires. Moreover, this refusal to listen and inability to address player concerns seems to arise because Niantic is more concerned with rolling out the game in new locations than it is with fixing the app in those areas that already have it. 

But, if Niantic can't keep up with the game in the regions that have it, how will is keep up with even more regions as they each report the same (and different) problems?

Niantic had an issue. Others stepped in to offer solutions. Those solutions expanded what people could do within the game, and caused people to play the game more, and play longer. Niantic gets angry that others are fixing its problems, and letting players play in a way they want, as opposed to the narrow way Niantic wanted. Niantic removed its own tracking and immediately struck down all third party tracking.

That's not fixing a problem. That's thumbing your nose at those who bring it to your attention. 

If Niantic wants PokemonGo to have legs, it needs to address the most common player problems, tracking being first and foremost among them. If Niantic isn't willing to address the problems, and allow others to expand on its game in a way players seem to overwhelmingly support, it risks PokemonGo being merely a flash in the pan game that players recall as "that thing we did back in July".

The solution is pretty clear Niantic. Please swallow your pride and get it done.

When improvement isn't or how DC hurt Batgirl by trying to save her

It's been nearly a year since DC's Batgirl last made headlines. Last March, there was a large uproar about a variant cover featuring Batgirl and the Joker, which referenced The Killing Joke.

 

On social media, the outrage machine flared up almost as soon as the cover was released. Some claimed that the image invoked sexual violence against women (saying that it can be inferred that the Joker raped Barbara in the Killing Joke, or at the very least the fact that he still took photos of her after she'd been shot was violation enough). Others objected to the fact that the image reduced Barbara to a cowering damsel in distress.

Still others objected to the image on the basis that, even as a variant, it was inappropriate for a book aimed at younger readers. The first two objections aside (I'm not looking to debate either of those points here), it was this third objection that stood out. Batgirl had made waves a few months prior with a major reboot, giving the character a new costume, new local, drastically altered personality, and a new style in art and writing.

Social media embraced the new outfit before the book premiered. Articles championed the changes as appealing to less traditional comic book readers, and specifically appealing to younger female readers. Writer Cameron Stewart proclaimed on social media that he hadn't heard a single valid criticism about his new take on the character. Outside the comic book readership, the world seemed to welcome this new Batgirl with open arms.

But among comic book readers, it wasn't quite the same reception.

There is zero chance Luke has fallen to the Dark Side, so stop clingingto the idea

We're less than a month away from Star Wars: Episode 7: The Force Awakens. We've had 3 trailers (4 if you count the international trailer) and 4 TV spots. We've seen a substantial amount of official pictures and about a dozen behind the scenes articles, and yet, through it all, there's been one thing that's been missing: Luke Skywalker.

This lack of the main character of the original trilogy has lead to some very vocal speculation that Luke Skywalker has fallen to the Dark Side. Some people have, very foolishly, claimed that Luke is Kylo Ren (despite the fact that we know unequivocally that Adam Driver is playing Kylo Ren, a fact confirmed by pictures). Others claim that Luke is perhaps the leader of the Knights of Ren, or perhaps some other leader of The First Order.

All of these theories are absolutely wrong. Not only do these theories contradict what was presented in the original Star Wars trilogy, but it goes against the information we've been given in the Force Friday books, and the Shattered Empire comics.

Let me digress for a moment.

 

One of the primary footholds that the "Luke is Dark" supporters constantly point to is a pitched ending for Return of the Jedi. According to io9 "In the transcript of the story session with Lucas and [Lawrence] Kasdan, Lucas says: 'Luke takes his mask off. The mask is the very last thing — and then Luke puts it on and says, "Now I am Vader." Surprise! The ultimate twist. "Now I will go and kill the [Rebel] fleet and I will rule the universe."' Kasdan immediately responded, 'That's what I think should happen'".

It's easy to see why this proposed ending provides such a sticking point for Dark Side supporters, but it seems fairly clear that this was never a seriously considered ending. This quote very much sounds like George Lucas throwing out the most absurd ending he could think of, which is why he dubs it "the ultimate twist". Kasdan affirms this with a sort of "well of course!" response, that again doesn't seem like legitimate support.

Now, obviously we're dealing strictly with words on a page, with no inflection, the absolute lack of foreshadowing of a fall for Luke speaks to the fact that this was not a legitimately considered ending. Every twist, whether isn't Norman Bates being Mother, or Bruce Willis being a ghost, must be foreshadowed in order for it to make sense within the context of the story. There is simply no foreshadowing to Luke falling to the Sith. At every juncture, Luke takes the path of the Light Side, even of it's not the path that Yoda or Obi-Wan would have liked.

The Untastic Four or What went wrong with Fant4stic (Part Three)

Okay, I'm hoping that this is the last installment. I've already put more effort into deconstructing why this movie doesn't work than Josh Trank or Fox put into making it. I also did it for a fraction of the price (0/120,000,000).

Well, it's not wrong...

Now, that we've discussed the issues the film has with story structure and character, in addition to it's determined attempts to avoid any sort of Superhero elements, lets discuss the last real point...

Why the plot of the film didn't work, and doesn't hold together.

"BECAUSE REASONS" IS NOT A PLOT

As I mentioned before, the movie starts with Reed talking about building a transporter in 5th grade, and his teacher mocks him. He then shows Ben the half working teleporter. We then jump to Reed and Ben at 17, when they've built the teleporter and attempts to present it at a science fair, only to have the same 5th grade teacher say that they're disqualified because the fair is for "science not magic". Immediately thereafter he's approached by Dr. Franklin Storm who recruits Reed, and only Reed, to the Baxter Foundation.

There are several major problems right here, and they fall on both character and plot.

Reed in a genius. Sure, a teacher may have laughed at him in 5th grade, but since then for him to build a teleporter, he should be testing off the charts on every science exam and be a member of MENSA. He's not some D- student who would lack not only a grasp of the science necessary to make teleportation possible, but also the inherent skill to make such a device possible.


So, why do the teachers just assume that the teleporter is a magic trick? The only explanation is "because reasons". The plot requires that no one but Dr. Storm see Reeds genius, so no one else does, and it makes absolutely no sense.

The Untastic Four or What went wrong with Fant4stic (Part Two)

Okay, so I've discussed the structural problems with Fant4stic, and they're pretty big. In fact, they're probably responsible for 60% of what's making this movie so reviled. However, structure's not the only problem.

CHARTERS IN THE LOOSEST SENSE OF THE WORD

As I said before, Act One of Fant4stic takes up about an hour (plus or minute depending on where you think it ends). During that hour, we are introduced to our main 4 protagonists (Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben), our eventual antagonist (Victor Von Doom), and our two main supporting players (Franklin Storm and Harvey Elder/Allen). We have a solid uninterrupted hour with these folks before super powers come into play. An hour in which to build these characters. That's an obscene amount of time for a movie that's not a character piece (I'm looking at you There Will Be Blood).

And yet, it means absolutely nothing. You can list on one hand the things you know about these characters before they get powers.

Reed: Smart. Socially awkward. Likes 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Ben: Abusive childhood. Kind of wishes he were as smart as Reed.
Sue: Good at patterns. Likes Portishead. Adopted.
Johnny: Doesn't like authority. Likes street racing. Supposedly good at building things.
Victor: Has a crush on Sue. Said to be lonely.

And, that's about it. We spend an hour with these people, and we end up knowing less about the than I might learn about someone by chatting with them in line at Chipotle.

Or at the counter of a Denny's in the Negative Zone

So where did all that time go?

The Untastic Four or What went wrong with Fant4stic (Part One)

Unless you live under a rock, you know that Fant4stic, the latest attempt for Fox to keep the rights to the Fantastic 4, is a giant bomb.

There's a lot of fairly universal complaints, and a lot of finger pointing in terms of who messed up what. Director Josh Trank is pointing at Fox, with some anonymous inside sources supporting this argument in part. The studio appears to be pointing at Josh Trank, since it's well publicized that they mandated a large amount of reshooting and the involvement of Mathew Vaughn (who made such amazing comic book films as X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, and Kingsman).

I think there's enough evidence on the table to lay some blame, and it creates a pretty clear image of why the movie is bad. So, lets get into it.

Brian Azzarello, David Finch and DC's Wonder Woman Problem

It was announced yesterday, June 30 for those in the mysterious future, that that the current run of DC Comics Wonder Woman, written by famed comic book scribe Brian Azzarello, would be ending with the October issue. Beginning in November, the book would be written by Meredith Finch, and drawn by her more well known artist husband, David Finch.

Now, on the surface this is the sort of thing that happens all the time, one creative team leaves, another takes over. Normally a book changes direction slightly under the new team, growing more divergent the longer the new team in in charge of the book. Occasionally, normally due to lagging sales, a book will immediately distance itself from the prior creative team and stories will immediately go off in a very different direction.

 

For those of you who haven't been reading the current run of Wonder Woman (boy have you been missing out), the current run has focused heavily on Diana's (Wonder Woman's real name) mythic roots. In his 3 years on the title Brian Azzarello has made large swaths of the Greek pantheon (or their proxies) major supporting characters, but he's also retconned Diana's origin to make her the bastard daughter of Zeus himself and (this one counts as a spoiler) made her the God of War after killing off the old God of War during a confrontation with Zeus's first bastard son. The run has consistently found ways to keep Diana out of the standard superhero game, and focused on keeping Zeus's final illegitimate child (Zeus has vanished and is presumed dead) from falling into the hands of Zeus's First Born or the other Greek gods who would wish him ill. 

This take on Wonder Woman has drawn both acclaim and scorn from various groups of readers. While some fans have praised Azzarello's take for getting Diana back to her mythic roots, and its consistently engaging plot twists, others have been up in arms over the retcons to Diana's origins as well as the implication that the Amazons could be called rapists and murderers for how they continue to propagate their ranks. Some have championed the fact that the book has kept Diana out of the way of contradictions with her appearances in Justice League and Superman/Wonder Woman, while others cry for Diana to get back to being a superhero. 

For the former, the announcement of Azzarello's exit and Meredith Finch's take was met with sadness and anger. For the latter, it was met with excitement. 

 

In the initial announcement, in USA Today, for the Finches run of Wonder Woman we're told that "The Finches want to branch off and focus on who she is — her interpersonal relationships and her responsibilities to the Amazons and her fellow heroes in the Justice League." While this doesn't come out and say it, the implication is very strong that Wonder Woman is going right back to her status quo before Azarello's New 52 reboot of the character. Gone will be Hera, Hephaestus and Hermes, and instead we'll get a regular old round of Wonder Woman battling people like The Cheetah with the help of people like The Flash or Green Lantern. 

Fans of Pre-New 52 Wonder Woman appear to be happy about this new direction, to the dismay of fans of the current run, but there appears to be some fairly substantial potential problems with directing Diana right back to the old status quo. 

SALES WOES

Before the sales of Wonder Woman from March of 2010 (this is before the book began it's high profile but fan loathed Odyssey storyline, which gave it a noticeable sales bump) the book sold 25,239 units. In March of 2014, the current run sold 32,035 units. While this is down from 51,402 books the title was selling 6 months after DC's New 52 sales bump (which bolstered sales on almost every title from the publisher) it's still nearly a 25% sales increase over 2010 sales. (For comparison, Superman sold 33,337 in March 2010, 35,266 in March 2014 and 66,588 in March 2012).

It would appear that the current run of Wonder Woman is clearly attracting readers who were not reading/interested in reading Wonder Woman prior to her more mythic reboot. While its undeniable that there are readers who abandoned the current run who may have read it prior to the New 52 reboot, the fact that the current run has maintained a higher number of readers (and unlike Superman hasn't nearly fallen back its pre-New 52 sales numbers) indicates that the current run is attracting a significant number of new readers. 

Now, it is impossible to say how many of those readers will abandon the title after the focus shifts versus the number that return to the title, however it seems likely that the title will take a hit in readership when it returns to it's old status quo. In order to theorize that the book won't lose a significant number of readers, the question must be answered "Why weren't they reading Wonder Woman the last time this was her status quo?" Now there are a theoretically infinite number of answers to that question, but one of the chief answers is likely to be that the character wasn't that interesting.

This brings me to the next problem

WONDER WOMAN IS WHO, EXACTLY?

Wonder Woman is clearly one of DC's most iconic characters. Everyone knows her on sight, though she's still less recognizable than Superman or Batman (but more recognizable than, say Green Lantern). Despite this, Wonder Woman having much less of a developed world around her, and suffering through numerous attempted reinventions that never worked to attract readers. 

Lets try something...

Think about Batman. What do we know about him, his persona and his rogues gallery? A heck of a lot. We know he's dark and brooding. We know that he's a creation of vengeance, but that he doesn't kill (and hates guns). We can rattle off villains like Joker, Riddler, Two-Face, Penguin, Bane, Poison Ivy, etc. 

Think about Superman. What so you know about him and his rogues gallery? He's an alien, who was raised to be a wholesome farm boy. He's honest and upstanding. He's a "big blue boyscout", who must protect his secret identity from Lois Lane, who's in love with Superman but doesn't think a whole lot of his bumbling secret identity Clark Kent. You think of Lex Luthor, Bizarro, Doomsday, Brainiac, etc. 

Now, not all of those things may be 100% accurate. But, you had a fairly good idea of the character and his world. That's probably informed by the various movies and cartoons of the last 60 years, but even those were at least partly informed by the actual comic books. 

Now, think about Wonder Woman. What can you remember about her? She's an Amazon. She has (or had) a relationship with a pilot named Steve Trevor. She has a lasso of truth. Maybe that she was made out of clay, and brought to life by her mothers wish (though that's stretching it for someone who hasn't been reading the books). Her villains include Cheetah, Giganta and....

Notice there's not a whole lot there that's actually about her character. Now, you may be tempted to say that she's a feminist, and you'd be half right. Wonder Woman has never backed down, nor bowed to a man in any sort of modern version of the character (though she started out as secretary of the Justice League), but it's hard not to really apply that to most modern female characters. Yes, the feminist movement really latched onto Wonder Woman, but that doesn't necessarily make her more or less feminist than, say, Batwoman or Captain Marvel. 

The fact is that most people remember Wonder Woman as either Lynda Carter, or as a cartoon character with an invisible jet. Neither was a faithful depiction of the character. 

As far as the comics go, there's not a whole lot about Wonder Woman that's instantly iconic other than her appearance. So, what is the status quo really going back to?

Worse, in current New 52 canon, Wonder Woman has already been cast as Superman's girlfriend (something that's barely even been mentioned in Azzarello's run). That implication is bound to taint any run of the character that is more focused on her interactions with the core DCU, especially how heavy the focus has been in the other books she appears in (Justice League and Superman/Wonder Woman). So, the status quo Wonder Woman is devolving back into a role carved out for her in Justice League rather than her own solo title. 

The fact that Azzarello took Diana back to her mythic roots in order to define her plays into a similar, and very successful, strategy that Marvel implemented for Thor. In the modern stories about the character, his alter ego Dr. Donald Blake is gone, leaving only the god who tackles godly problems. This sort of take on the character fits the general tone of DCU characters, who are gods among men (as opposed to Marvel where most heroes, save Thor, are average people with powers). It seems almost backward to revert Diana into a character dealing with potential "real world" issues rather than the god among men she literally is. 

MOVIE MANIA

There's been a lot of implication among fans the reverting Wonder Woman back to her general superhero status is a result of DC's anticipation of Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice, and that may be partly to blame. It's not at all unusual for comic book publishers to put a character back in a position that mirrors the movie being released featuring them. Spider-man 3 comes out with the black costume, Spidey is suddenly wearing it in the comics. Captain America gets a movie, Steve Rogers returns from the dead and picks up the shield. Bane is in Dark Knight Rises, suddenly Bane is fighting Batman in the comics. 

It's a fact of life. 

The problems with a hard refocusing of the character to suit the upcoming film are two fold. 

First, the film isn't coming out until May of 2016, that's a year and a half from the change in creative teams, which is more than enough time to ease the focus back toward super heroics, without making it seem forced. Moreover, most comics tend to link into their films with a storyline or two, not by completely refocusing the character. It seems overkill to ignore the currently improved sales in anticipation of increased sales 18 months later, which leads me to...

Secondly, comic books rarely take much of a bump from comic book movies. It's a sad fact. Given the difficulty of the average person getting their hands on a comic book, sales simply don't increase dramatically when a comic book movie is released. Most people don't know where their local comic shop is, so they don't go there after saying "Man that Thor movie was awesome!" If any sales do increase, it tends to be trades, which are widely available in bookstores and on Amazon. By the time the movie hits, fans are likely going to be buying trades of the Azzarello run, as they were buying Winter Soldier trades when the new Captain America was released. 

In Conclusion

If nothing else, numbers do not lie. While comic book sales have declined since 2010, with bumps for events such as the New 52, the current sales of Wonder Woman are above what they were prior to the relaunch. Combine that with the fact that the current run has taken great pains to define the character and her surroundings in a memorable way that is able to stand independent of the various cross-overs (or ill conceived events such as Forever Evil) and provide potential story material for years to come, and the notion of redirecting Wonder Woman back into her pre-New 52 groove simply seems like an ill advised decision. 

I don't say any of this to insult the Finches, who I'm sure are fine people and have a lot of ideas for the character that excite them, or DC comics. I'm simply saying it as a geek who looks at the numbers and the information available to him and sees the current move as a bad one. 

While the public has clamored for a Wonder Woman film for years, they do so without a firm grasp on the character. While it's not impossible to reestablish a character in a very different direction after a strong creative run, it isn't an easy task and more well known and well regarded writers than Meredith Finch have failed at it. 

I'm sure Ms. Finch will give the book 110%, but that doesn't necessarily mean that her creative course for the character is the right one. It entirely possible, probable in fact, that the decision to redirect Diana back to normal superherodom is an editorial mandate (similar to the one that made Spider-man sell his marriage to the devil), and that Ms. Finch was chosen because her take simply fit what the editors were looking for. 

Still, I can't help but be wary of such a decision, and I think other readers should be took. Given that there are numerous, more well established and lauded female writers who, I'm sure, have their own takes on Wonder Woman, it seems odd that a relative unknown such as Meredith Finch would be handed the book as opposed to, say, Gail Simone or Kelly Sue Deconnick.

This isn't helped by the fact that, while generally acclaimed by readers, David Finch tends to draw female characters in a fairly waify and sexualized way, which runs counter to what most Wonder Woman fans desire out of the character. The released artwork, posted above, seems to confirm that Diana will not be drawn as athletic, but as thin and youthful looking. 

I'm not completely writing the series off, because I do want Wonder Woman to succeed and grow in readership. However, I'm not going to continue to buy a book I'm not enjoying. I'll give the Finches till the end of the year, perhaps even January, to convince me the new direction is one worth going in. If they can't do that, I'll have to part ways with Diana until I see a change in the book that draws me back.

In the mean time, can we rally DC to get the artist who did this picture of Diana onto the book? Unlike in Finch's style, this WW looks like a realistically proportioned Amazon. I would believe she could take Superman in a fight.