Who is Wonder Woman?

I think a politician was the one who said that, unless it gets my attention, it doesn’t get my vote. Now, our favorite Amazon Princess has always gotten my attention and my vote but I felt that it was just a vote that was naturally given. I mean, how could you not?

She is a compelling figure to look that. She is fierce, fearless, gorgeous and as per Batman, never fails to inspire and that puts her above the rest of all other superheroes. But for this compilation, the life of Wonder Woman that we all view as almost perfect as her form and figure is less than ideal. This compilation comes after the startling events in Infinite Crisis and follows the death of former Justice League member turned murderer, Maxwell Lord who saw his own demise at the hands of our Amazon as a result of mentally manipulating Superman to kill her. The world saw her then as a murderer and Diana had to retreat and go into self-imposed exile and let Donna Troy, then Wonder Girl take over for her as Wonder Woman.

In this compilation, Donna does the best that she can to fill in for Diana but finds herself up against former British archeologist, Dr. Barbara Minverva, aka, Cheetah; Dr. Doris Zeul, aka. Giganta; and the most power telepath, Dr. Psycho. Together they ganged up on Donna and almost left her for dead, although not quite while our own Diana, having been stripped of her title, goes undercover to work for the US Department of MetaHuman Affairs as Agent Diana Prince.  With this new assignment she adds the “title” of double agent to her superhero resume and had to work with Agent Tresser, aka. Nemesis, the Master of Disguises in search of the missing Wonder Woman who has not been seen since.

This search soon finds herself being allied with Hercules and facing the witch Circe who for a time being in this compilation relegated herself to being the new Wonder Woman; vengeful and unrelenting, after stripping Diana of her powers and capturing both Donna Troy and the new Wonder Girl, Cassandra Sandsmark. While being human has not dampened our Amazon’s spirit, it in a way has been the catalyst for her to move forward and be resourceful in unraveling a conspiracy between Hercules and Circe and later managed to get her powers back and once more become the Wonder Woman that we all love.

This was the Wonder Woman that I knew and this was the compilation that won me over once more. With brilliant and beautiful art drawn by Terry and Rachel Dodson and creative and paced writing by Allan Heinberg, this compilation attempted to answer the question we all asked ourselves. Who is Wonder Woman? To paraphrase the foreword by writer, Brian K. Vaughan, the iconic and elusive Amazonian was never that easy to understand, much less write about for she was full of contradictions? Diana Prince was a warrior at heart and yet loved peace. She also was a champion for women’s dignity and yet runs around wearing star-studded blue underpants while in spite of being a goddess possessing the gift of flight, still rides an invisible plane to get around. Truly a woman herself is already hard to understand and to add these contradicting elements into the mix, no wonder readers have yet to still scratch the surface about this iconic lady.

And given her icon status, layers upon layers have yet to be peeled off to understand her. And thus gives rise to the opportunity to always spin a new take on her story as it revolves around the people closest to her. From members of the Justice league, to her constituents as Ambassador of peace of Themyscara, to her fellow Amazonians, Donna and Cassie, her desire to be human and to explore this side of hers continues on promisingly after this compilation. This, for me, is human and goddess drama at its best. Next episode please.

Starting the Month Right

It's always been like this year in, year out.

Whenever the month of September comes, we all start hearing Christmas songs on the radio or in the malls; the decorations for the Yuletide season also start to come out on flea markets and in the mall stores as well.

But for this year I wanted it to be different.

I wanted to be productive. I wanted to make sure that my productivity level was upped one more notch and I would have something to show for this Holiday season. The productivity that I am referring to is the release of my my debut album; a project that has taken too long in the making; too long in the planning and in the wanting.

Ever since I discovered that I could sing, going at it professionally was always something that I wanted to do. Growing up and listening to homegrown O.P.M. artists like Martin Nievera, Gary V, Janno Gibbs, Kyla, Jay R and see their careers flourish, I so wanted a piece of the pie. But alas, my family didn't see it that way; saying that one cannot live on music alone.

And so for years the desire took a backseat with only me nurturing the desire; feeding it and willing it to grow while honing my craft; on my own.

Fast forward several years after and here I am working at radio and have just released my album online via Mp3 downloads withe the physical album release to follow within the month. I must have done something good at last to get to this point.

Everything changed for me when Dad passed away in 2007; the world stopped and became a smaller place and everything that I thought was important wasn't and all those that I kept shelving had to be on the front seat and take precedence.

I so wanted Dad to have been around to listen to the album. But since he isn't here anymore, I hope that by doing this; living my life as best as I can and living my life to the fullest, would be the gift that I could give back in payment for the life that he has given me. I owe him much and for this I will always be thankful.

I've arranged for the album to be initially available via CDBaby for downloads so that I maximize the time I have while waiting for the physical cd to be released to the market via my own record label, GreenHorn Records.

And just as I posted my album and finalized everything online 2 days ago on the first of the month, there already was a download made for my album.

It was the best surprise of the day for me.

And today a high school batchmate saw me on I-tunes and said that he will be buying the album and alerting the rest of the batch to do the same.

It's support like this that make my day and make everything worthwhile. And I hope that more awareness building like this for my album manifests and translates into more sales for me.

We artists love the support our listening public gives us. We love it when you say that you can relate to the songs that we write. We love it when you say that our songs made you stop, think, reflect and prod you to do something positive about the things in your life.

But the best reward you can give an artist is when you go out of your way to get their work. And then tell them how you love it.

And we will be eternally grateful and love ya back :)

So make this artist happy, download and get your copy here.

Before anyone else does. :)

Thanks in advance. May you in turn be always be happy and blessed!

Blessed Be!