Wonder Woman: Epic Tale of Vengeance, Duty, and Community. Essay Sample

WONDER WOMAN: THE HIKETEIA is one example of brilliant modern Greek graphic novels of the recent times. Carefully orchestrated, it depicts the tragedy of vengeance in its themes as well as duty to the community. Published as a single book in contrast with other most common graphic comics, its superb setting leaves the audiences and readers reeling for more, making it feel too short due to its epic and mind bogling engagement with the readers. The story of the Wonder woman features among other characters and comic heroes, Batman, whose paths coincide due to unlikely circumstances, and which ultimately leads to the conflict in the story. Their devotion and dedication towards each other's individual beliefs and principles make them both uncompromising in their duties and therein ticks the tragedy. While Batman stubbornly refuses to compromise on his passion occasioned from his dark justice beliefs, Wonder Woman is bound by the vows of her own religion and oath of The Hiketeia, which is an ancient oath bounding a vulnerable individual to a protector.

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The bond that results from taking the Hiketeia as explained in the comic is unbreakable and once one has taken it, they would be obligated to feed, shelter and protect their supplicant until the latter decides to leave on their own will. Breaking the bonmd as we are told is punishable through vengeance from the Furies, and a terrible fate thus awaits anyone thatv violates the ancient oath. On their part, the Furies are also commited to their duty to the gods and constantly lurking, would not hesistate to pounce on a victim of oath breaking. This would therefore place a protector in a great dilemma when it comes to moralsd and justice incase their supplicant comits a crime while under protection as is the case in Wonder woman's situation. For the protection offered however, the supplicant would have to throw themselves at the mercies of their protector, trading their freedom for the services of the former. As it happens in this case, Daneille Wellys throws herself at the mercies of the Wonder woman seeking protection after being sought afterv learning about the ancient greek oath. In contrast to other similar protectors, Wonder woman immediately puts her to work, making her useful rather than trying to humbler and humiliate her. Nonetheless Danielle is happy to have a protector given the trouble she has gotten herself into. As it turns out, she has a string of murders behind her and is thus being sought after to pay for these crimes. However, the reasons for commiting these murders could be said to be justified as they elicit sympathy in the way they occurred. This further serves to complicate the situation even further in the conflict that occurs thereafter.

As we get to understand, not only are the Furies after Danielle, which is easily settled with the protection of the Wonder Woman. It is revealed that Batman is also looking for Danielle, aiming to bring her to justice in Gotham city to answer for these crimes. On his part, Batman is justified to bring Danielle to justice as he is tasked by the Gotham city to maintain and law and order in the city where Danielle has commited the criimes. It is for this sole reason that he is after Danielle, and is exactly what brings him to Wonder Woman's doorstep breathing fire. Commited and unflinching in his cause, he is by all means justified to apprehend Danielle and bring her to justice for her crimes. In that respect too , he is justified to take on Wonder woman for protecting a wanted fugitive. The stage is thus set for the conflict that follows.

In the resulting conflict, one could say that Batman is justified in a legal manner as he is bound by his commitment to fighting crime in his city. In seeking to apprehend Danielle, he is simply doing his job as crime buster in the city as she has just recently murdered her sister. No matter the circumstances in which uit occurred, she is ultimately responsible for her actions and has a duty to face justice if onlyu to explain herself and let justice take its cause. Wonder woman on the other hand has a moral duty to protect her supplicant as dictated by her oath to the gods. As such she can be said to be right in a moral way. The conflict ultimately ends up being between justice and morality in this case, and even though Wonder Woman was wrong in accepting the oath without first inquiring about Danielles crimes, she comes up on top as being more justified for her role in upholding the gods' wishes and protecting the vulnerable in the society.

In order to answer the question on who between Wonder Woman and Batman is more justified in his their actions, it is critical to look at Danielle's role in the entire confluict. She has been carrying a weight on her shoulder since her sister's murder as well as several other murders. Irrelevant as the reasons that led her to commit these murders are, she does her homework and finds out about the sacredoath, which ultimately leads her to seek out for Wonder Woman's protection. She feels like Wonder Woman would be her "ring of gyes", which basically allows people to get away with their crimes as explained in "Why are Superheroes good?". This was precisely what Danielle was trying to do, even though she had acted out of vengeance when she commited some of the nurders she did. In all aspects, Danielle was the one one the wrong from the first instance and owed a duty to act responsibly and present herself to face justice instead of running away and seeking alternative means to stay free and go unpuinished. Since justice was part of the domain of Mr. Batman, she should have handed her grievances over to him in oreder to be sorted and avoid the trouible she got herself into. All this serves to lend more and more credence and justification for Batman's actions in seeking herout to face the consequences of her actions, irregardless of the grievances she might have had. In "The Secret of Secret Identities,(pg.265)" it is stated that who we are is always a matter of how we act, which might reonate well with the situation in which Danielle found herself in when confronted my the men she had a conflict with. This depicts Danielle as a bad person for her actions, further pitting her agaist Batman's beliefs and work. However, it can be argued tht since the men Danielle had murdered were bad men, she had the justification to act in the manner shedid and it was only rational that she seeks the protection of thew Wonder Woman. Bat man should therefore have listned to her story and made his own judgement of the situation since he had the choice of abandoning his missioninstead of starting a fight with Wonder Woman over her protection of Danielle. Diana on the other hand had her hands completely tied without the option of going back on her oath. Furthermore, she acted in the manner in which the sacred oath dictated by protecting Danielle regardless of the circumstances suroundiing her situation.

Considering the situation in which the two superheroes found themselves in, it could be argued that both of them were right and just in the actions they took albeit the lack of will on Batman's part to back off considering the circumstances that had got Danielle in the precarious situation she found herself in. Also, Diana the Wonder Woman acted in an all just manner protecting the morals dictated by the teachings of the oath. Even though Danielle was wrong for her actions both in murdering the people she did and pitting the two superheroes against each other in the manner she did, she ultimately owned up to it and did justice for herself in the end. The Woonder Woman therefore could be absolved of any wronggoing in protecting Danielle. Considering all the circumstances as we have discussed above, we can therefore conclude that Diana the Wonder Woman rather than Batman was more justified in her actions.