Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Comics & Graphic Novels
Author:	Greg Rucka, J.G. Jones, Wade Grawbadger

Written by Greg Rucka
Penciled by J.G. Jones
Inked by Wade von Grawbadger
96 pages, color
Published by DC Comics (ISBN 1-56389-898-5)

I consider myself fairly well-read, though it's obvious that my wide interests meant I could not count myself remotely specialised in any particular field.

Thus, I was quite intrigued to find a Wonder Woman story with a title borrowed from a Greek word I had never heard of before.

The Hiketeia (I still cannot find how it is spelt in Greek) revisits the old Greek tragedy of vengeance and duty in a modern setting, pitting two of DC's best superheroes: the demi-goddess Diana (known as Wonder Woman) from the mythical island of Themyscira, versus the Dark Knight (known as Batman).

Could two people holding polar opposite views be both right?

I have tried to confirm that Rucka (writer) didn't invent Hiketeia, and from what I was able to find on the internet, it does have historical basis.

In Hiketeia, a supplicant invokes a "ritual" to seek the protection of a suppliant, surrendering himself, his services, his honour, and his life. The suppliant who accepts is bound to honour his part of the agreement, providing the necessities. The covenant could only be revoked by the supplicant voluntarily, not the suppliant.

The graphic novel began with eeries figures of three females loitering outside the Embassy of Themyscira, where Diana pondered over some matters in apparent deep thought.

It went on to flashback to ancient Greece to illustrate the Hiketeia in action - a man fleeing from a crowd was given sanctuary by another, who from his attire, appeared to be an aristocrat. Subsequently, the suppliant (the aristocrat) found cause to be angry with the supplicant, beat him up and dragged him out of the house. When the suppliant tried to return home, he found himself attacked by the avenging furies.

The story moved back to the present day Gotham City where a woman was involved in close-quarter fight with a man, and managed to kill him. She was confronted during her escape attempt by the Batman who said she had killed four and could not let her go. During the chase that followed, she apparently fell into the sea and died.

Moving on the New York, readers saw that the woman did not die, but approached Wonder Woman, named herself Danielle Wellys, recited an ancient pledge asking for hiketeia. Wonder Woman sensed the furies were following the woman, but chose not to ask more, and instead granted her sanctuary.

The night itself, Wonder Woman confronted the furies, telling them Danielle Wellys was under her protection. The furies scoffed at her, and in turn told her their interest was in the suppliant, not the supplicant. Before departing, they gleefully told her that someone would come for the girl, soon.

And that someone was Batman, who managed to track Danielle Wellys to New York, to the Themysciran embassy.

A confrontation between Batman and Wonder Woman left them clear where each other stood. While Batman wanted to bring her in for murder of four men, Wonder Woman stood by her promise to protect Danielle. Batman withdrew after a quick fight, promising he would not give up, Wonder Woman promising neither would she.

All these while, Danielle waited for Diana to ask her the reason, but Diana chose not to, believing it should be up to Danielle to choose to tell. Desperate for Diana to really believe her, Danielle grabbed the Golden Lasso which would compel her to tell the truth, and that she did murder the four men, in vengeance for them causing the death of her sister.

Danielle further revealed that she was driven to vengeance by the furies - the first hint of the erynnes playing more than a passive role in the whole story, and possibly the answer to how a modern American girl like Danielle could have known of the ancient hiketeia ritual.

To avoid Wonder Woman and Batman fighting further, Danielle ran away from the embassy. She was intercepted by Batman while trying to hitchhike out of New York. Alerted by the furies, Wonder Woman managed to locate her and an uneven fight between the Dark Knight and the Amazon princess ensued.

Defeated, Batman tried to seek Hiketeia from Diana, but was refused. Here, further references to Achilles and Lykaon (Lycaon) enabled me to check up further on hiketeia through the Illiad, Chapter 21.

Not wanting them to fight further, Danielle chose to end her life, leaving Wonder Woman crushed ... pondering whether it was the furies' intention all along to bring forth Danielle's blood and Diana's tears.

I could complain that while the story had tremendous promise, the writer seriously shortchanged Wonder Woman and Batman by limiting their options. In most other stories, both had been shown to be much more resourceful, flexible, and open-minded.

It should have been obvious to Wonder Woman that making Danielle a personal assistant to the Themysciran ambassador in New York, following her as she went about her duties, would not be the smartest course for someone with a police warrant of arrest.

In Danielle's case, good lawyer could have been much more effective. Unless Diana planned for Danielle to live the rest of her life in the embassy, she'd have to move Danielle, and the only viable place on the planet would be the island of Themyscira.

There were a lot of other options Batman and Wonder Woman could have talked about, but did not.

Batman too was rather abused. The Dark Knight is an implacable justicar, but it was not unknown for him to take a risk not to bring in a fugitive if there was extenuating circumstances for the crime, and there was reasonable grounds to believe the culprit would not be a further threat to society. Batman himself had done the same to some criminals, though I can't recall any murderers among them.

At the end, despite all the great graphics, I could not feel the sense of conflict between Diana protecting the girl and Batman hunting her. Diana's readiness to take her in could be attributed to gut-feel.

But it seriously shortchanged the concept of hiketeia as an honourable covenant if the suppliant was not shown to give serious consideration and questionings prior to granting it.

Some scans of the book available from http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/749821.html

A good review of this graphic novel in http://www.icomics.com/rev_062002_wonderwoman.shtml

Synopsis by google books in http://books.google.com/books?id=MaIJAAAACAAJ&dq=isbn:1563898985