Number 1558: “What in ding-dong goes on here?” Wonder Woman’s costume ruse

I love the crazy, kinky and cool Wonder Woman tales by the original crazy-kinky-cool crew who created her. They would be William Moulton Marston, writing as Charles Moulton, and Harry G. Peter, signing his artwork as H. G. Peter.

Here is a story of switched identities, an exotic spy, and tying up girls. It would hardly be a Wonder Woman story worth reading if it didn’t include the latter.


From Sensation Comics #40 (1945).

***********

Here are two more Wonder Woman stories, including the last issue H. G. Peter drew, and a Wonder Woman story unpublished until it appeared in The Amazing World of DC Comics #2 in 1974. Just click on the thumbnails.

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Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 4: War hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

A preponderance of Cliff Chiang's artwork buoys this fourth volume of Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman, especially as the story moves to some more exotic DC Universe locales. But despite some nice character interaction, the plot that binds Wonder Woman Vol. 4: War is rather thin. The conclusion of this book would seem to be the point to which Azzarello was traveling all along, and while it portends an interesting story to come, I'm not convinced it required four volumes to get there.

[Review contains spoilers]

The fourth Wonder Woman volume mainly involves the Olympian gods trying (once again) to steal the baby under Diana's protection, before Diana's band encounters and fights the big bad First Born, retreats, then returns to fight the First Born again. There is not much to it, and everywhere there are echoes of elements already seen in these books -- the First Born fights Poseidon again at the beginning of this volume, when he already fought Poseidon at the end of the last volume, which was itself reminiscent of Diana's battle with Poseidon in the first book. Diana fights Artemis again, just like she did before; the climax of the book is a fight between the same characters split into two parts. The danger in a story as long as Azzarello's is repeating oneself, and that's a present danger here.

The high point of this book -- what differentiates it, if not redeems it -- is the fourth chapter (issue #22) side trip to the New Gods' New Genesis, the first that such has appeared in DC Comics's New 52. Drawn rounded by Chiang and brightly colored, with a mix of futuristic technology, nature, and a heavy helping of Kirby dots, the New 52 New Genesis is everything a fan would want it to be (Chiang gets my nomination for artist on a New 52 New Gods series, even).

Whereas New God Orion came off somewhat plain in Vol. 3: Iron, here the reader not only sees Orion fight, but we also glimpse Orion's "secret" face, a reminder of the berserker that pre-Flashpoint fans know the character to be. Yet, inasmuch as I enjoy seeing the New Gods get a big role in the New 52 (here, and in Earth 2 and Worlds' Finest), there's an element of repetition here, too. The "revelations" that Azzarello teases about Orion are not different than the same revelations in Jack Kirby's original Fourth World comics in the 1970s. The characters nod and wink, but there's no actual mystery nor suspense inherent here; the "revelations" are being treated like revelations even most readers already know them.

When the New 52 started, one of my chief concerns was that I didn't want to read a new writer's modernization of New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, for instance; a new story where Terra joins and then betrays the Titans isn't interesting to me, because it's a story I've already read before and liked the first time. I was excited to see Orion join Azzarello's Wonder Woman because I was eager to see what Azzarello would do with him; so far, however, what Azzarello has done with Orion is essentially to follow in Kirby's footsteps. I wouldn't change the basic facts of Orion's origins; however, a story that treats Orion's secrets as suspenseful treads on old ground without forging anything new.

Taking Azzarello's story on its own merits, the climactic scene of zombie warriors attacking the First Born's troops is exciting, and I especially look forward to how Azzarello will negotiate Wonder Woman, symbol of peace, as the god of war in the next book (this takes the dichotomies built into the Wonder Woman character and brings them to the forefront of the story, which is intriguing if only it hadn't taken so long to get there). But, given how fearsome the First Born was reported to be (and the violence we know Azzarello is capable of on the comics page), I found Wonder Woman's fight with the First Born a tad tame; I never felt the stakes were as high as, for instance, Wonder Woman's fight with Genocide in Gail Simone's Rise of the Olympian.

One reason I quite liked Azzarello's Wonder Woman series at the beginning of the New 52 was that Azzarello jettisoned what had been a spate of angst-ridden navel-gazing over who Wonder Woman was and what her purpose should be; Azzarello's Diana was a woman with a sword ready to protect the innocent, and later we understood she was also the demigod daughter of Zeus. Four books in, though, I do begin to get frustrated in that we know very little about Azzarello's Diana, up to and including what else she might be doing were she not chasing a baby around the universe.

At one point Diana remarks to Orion that "I tried to be perfect once," which seems like a reference to her pre-Flashpoint adventures -- but indeed we don't know if it is, or really anything about the character before she woke up at the beginning of the first book. Azzarello's Wonder Woman is a good book for someone to pick up whose unfamiliar with the character, as it requires very little background knowledge, and I don't even mind that the book is largely disconnected from the greater DC Universe -- but one begins to long for Diana's JLA communicator to ring, or something, to ground the character as more than a cypher.

Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's Wonder Woman Vol. 4: War is nice to look at, but as with the recent Worlds' Finest Vol. 2, I'm likely to buy the next volume more because I'm intrigued by the book's cliffhanger than by the book itself. Azzarello's Wonder Woman is not bad by any stretch, and in fact it's a good take on Wonder Woman that's not as bogged down by the weight of the character. It's just that after four volumes I think I have a pretty good handle on this magic show, and I'm waiting impatiently to be surprised again.

[Includes original covers, plot/script and pencils]

Next week, maybe some Hawkman, maybe some Green Arrow ... we'll see!

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Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Iron hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

After two exemplary collections -- a great debut and an auspicious follow-up -- it was perhaps bound to happen that a volume of Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman wouldn't thrill me as much. Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Iron continues Azzarello's successful run on Wonder Woman and there's not overmuch to complain about here, except for the fact that this volume isn't terribly different than the one that proceeded it. Azzarello adds some interesting new friends and enemies to the cast, but in all I felt like I'd read this one before.

[Review contains spoilers]

Surprisingly, the storyline I liked best in Iron was that of the newly-revived First Born, trying to recover his mystic armor and accoutrements. I felt the First Born's appearance came out of nowhere, until I read the conclusion of the previous book again and understood that it was the First Born, and not this book's major guest star, appearing in the Arctic on the last pages first two panels. The First Born himself is not a well-differentiated villain, seemingly a bruiser like so many others, nor were his trials significantly different than what Diana faced in volume one, Blood -- the sea battle with Poseidon seemed especially recycled.

But Azzarello's slow build of the First Born's march toward his inevitable confrontation with Diana puts me in mind of other such recent enemies who worked out well -- Genocide and the Olympian from Gail Simone's run; Veronica Cale and the military forces amassing against Diana in Greg Rucka's run. So far in Azzarello's run, we haven't seen Diana face off against a bad guy per se, just the gods and their various demigods; the First Born, too, counts as one of those demigods, but I expect his fight with Diana will be of a different ilk, that I'm looking forward to.

We also get a better sense in this volume what Azzarello's Wonder Woman run is meant to be all about. This book contains the title's Zero Month issue, done in the simplistic style of the Golden Age Wonder Woman stories, but with a stark purpose -- to show the young Diana's friendship with "War," the god Ares, one that eventually soured. The New 52 audience knows nearly nothing about Diana's origins, how she came to "Man's World," met Steve Trevor, etc. so to learn anything about young Diana is significant; also Azzarello gives her a relationship now with her longtime enemy, like Geoff Johns's Green Lantern and Sinestro and Superman and Zod, that gives their future conflicts an extra layer besides just good versus bad.

Collections fans will also note that War proclaims himself to be "blood ... guts ... iron ... and war," three of the names of the New 52 Wonder Woman trades, with indeed volume 4, War, due out next March. Though the First Born and Apollo would seem to be Diana's primary obstacles in protecting her friend Zola, my guess is this story will come down to Wonder Woman versus Ares, as is often the case.

Jack Kirby's New God Orion also makes the scene in this book, though his appearance was something of a let down. After his cameo in Guts and his ominous conversation with Highfather here, Azzarello mainly has Orion in the background making snide comments. There was none of the cosmic superpower here that I would have expected from Orion's first New 52 appearance, nor does Azzarello differentiate the character as the New God Orion any differently than if he were Captain Comet or another otherworldly hero. The presence of the New Gods in Azzarello's Wonder Woman story promised to transform it from "just another" tale of Diana versus the gods to something truly historic for the New 52, but I didn't find much historic here.

The other difficulty is that, in its broad strokes, this volume too closely repeats the plot of the volume that came before. Once again Diana must delve into the realm of the gods to rescue a kidnapped friend; last time it was Zola and this time it's Zola's child, but the storyline is still based on a quest, in which Diana, with one of the gods as her guide, battles her way through a foreign realm to save her ally. This type of story essentially stands still -- sure, Diana's relationships with Orion and War evolve, but all the while the child is kidnapped, nothing necessarily changes with Zola, her baby, the prophecy, etc. Diana's visit to Hades in the last volume was at least visually interesting; her fight with Hermes in this book's conclusion is less so. I like what Azzarello is doing with Wonder Woman, very much; I'm just ready to see the plot grow in new and more interesting ways.

Initial Wonder Woman artist Cliff Chiang draws the minority of this collection, with regular fill-in artist Tony Atkins drawing the majority along with various others. To the editorial team's credit, Atkins's work is close enough to Chiang's that the book offers a generally consistent tone. I find, however, that Atkins draws Diana too often reacting to something another character has said with a look on her face that's supposed to be annoyance, but seems distorted to me, like Diana's consistently sucking lemons (see the bar scene in issue #17, for example). Atkins draws perhaps the book's definitive Poseidon, but I felt overall that Chiang's absence contributed to this book feeling off the mark.

Between Orion, the First Born, and the general dark energy Brian Azzarello has been pumping into the Wonder Woman title, no question I'll be back for the fourth volume. But Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Iron was a weaker collection; Geoff Johns's Green Lantern sometimes had weak volumes, and then roared back strong, so I'm hoping the problems I found here were just an aberration.

[Includes full covers, sketch and design pages]

Next week, Saga Vol 2 and Arrow!

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Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 2: Guts hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

I like Batwoman, and I like Flash. But Wonder Woman may be the best book DC Comics is producing right now.

[Review contains spoilers]

A number of reviewers smarter than I am can tell you why the revelation in Wonder Woman: Guts's first chapter (Wonder Woman #7) is wrong in all sorts of ways -- that portraying the Amazons as savages who seduce and kill men three times a century, bear their children, and keep the girls and sell the boys into slavery violates actual legends of the Amazons, established DC Universe Amazon lore, and plain good sense -- and they're probably right. Somewhere, George Perez is weeping over this.

But Brian Azzarello's controlled burning of everything sacred to the Wonder Woman mythos remains a genius endeavor. As in Wonder Woman: Blood, Azzarello continues to strip the majesty from the Wonder Woman story, but far from leaving it lesser, these revisions make Wonder Woman more sensible, and more approachable. In the last volume we learned that Diana is not an immaculate golem, as previously believed, but rather she's born of plain old congress between her mother and the god Zeus. Here, no longer does it seem that the Amazons magically replenish their ranks from battle to battle, but rather they, too, have been doing it the old fashioned way all along.

The spires of Paradise Island are no longer marble-white, the sky no longer crystal blue. I had enjoyed that depiction of Themyscira -- from Perez to William Messner-Loebs, John Byrne, Phil Jimenez, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and even J. Michael Straczynski -- but there was always a sense of something "apart" there. To act angrily or declare war or stub their toes, the Amazons had to be mind-controlled, or misled. The characters were treated with kid gloves. To find now, under Azzarello, that the Amazons are indeed savages, and that Diana has now on both sides of her family poor options from which she has to rise above, does a lot to endear the whole lot to me, despite the Amazon's new badness.

I had previously likened Azzarello's mythological gods to those in Greg Rucka's (stellar) Wonder Woman run, in that they were more modern-looking than the Perez or Simone depictions, for instance. In this volume, with the addition of Hephaestus, Artemis, Demeter, and more from Hades, Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang's gods begin to come into their own -- humanoid but monstrous, fashionable but classic, like something out of Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz rather than staid textbooks. In a flash, Azzarello and Chiang have given Wonder Woman some of the coolest-looking opponents in the DC landscape -- and multi-textured, too, given both Hera and Hermes's shifting loyalties at the book's end.

Moreover, I respect Azzarello's Wonder Woman because it feels like a comic book for adults, without sacrificing Wonder Woman's superheroic aspects. It is funny, as when Diana and her new supporting cast have to take Zola, pregnant with Zeus's baby, back to Virginia to see her doctor; it is complex, as in the first scene where the reader must piece together what the god Eros has done, or again in how the characters cross and double-cross one another as the story continues; and it is horrific, as in Chiang and Tony Akins's torturous underworld and its blood-soaked flood. I also have to give Azzarello credit for pushing DC's limits, as with the muffled "B-Shu" in the background at the beginning of the last chapter. In comparison to something like the first volume of Green Arrow or Hawkman, Azzarello's Wonder Woman feels akin to a Vertigo title.

Wonder Woman: Guts moves along handily, buoyed by Azzarello's creativity and Chiang's depictions; this alone makes the book worth reading. To be fair, however, Guts offers more scene-setting and character development than it does actual plot. The first chapter, with Hephaestus, reveals the Amazons' dark secret but doesn't do much else; the three-part trip to the underworld is interesting but self-contained -- it factors not at all on Wonder Woman's final two-part battle with Apollo (I also found it too much of a throwback to have a Wonder Woman story in which she's threatened with forced marriage to her foe). Indeed the first two-thirds seem simply to take up space until the end comes -- they take up this space smartly and prettily, but not with any clear purpose.

Had the last page of this book not been spoiled a million times over, I'd most definitely have been raving about it first. I wouldn't have been enthused about the larger New Gods appearing in the New 52 so soon, and certainly not in so classic a depiction, were it not in Azzarello and Chiang's Wonder Woman. With Azzarello having shown that he can refresh the mythological gods, I have full faith in what he can do with Orion and the New Gods. The only difficulty here, too, is that Orion's presence, perhaps in fulfillment of Apollo's prophecy, makes both Blood and Guts seem like so much prologue until Azzarello's real story starts. These last twelve issues have been enjoyable, to be sure, but I don't want to feel that these books were "non-essential" and I could just as easily have started with volume 3.

It remains, however, that Wonder Woman: Guts is different than most of DC's other books on the stands -- smarter, bolder, and more creative -- and that makes it a book not to miss. Undoubtedly an argument can be made that some of Brian Azzarello's changes to the Wonder Woman mythos are damaging ones, though -- like Judd Winick's licenses with Catwoman -- I think that if it were not Wonder Woman, and if this were just Mythic Superhero Monthly from Vertigo, we might credit Azzarello more for the out-there ideas with less concern for the resultant damage. Wonder Woman will survive whatever crazy thing Azzarello comes up with next, and be better for it, in my opinion.

[Includes original covers, Cliff Chiang's cover and character sketches]

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Review: Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors trade paperback (DC Comics)

[Guest reviewer Greg Elias writes for Speed Force]

Collecting for the first time issues #212-222 of the first volume of the series, Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors presents the mid-1970s tale of Wonder Woman's reinstatement into the Justice League.

Having previously been de-powered (see Diana Prince: Wonder Woman Vols. 1-4), the Amazon Princess has regained her abilities. Suffering from memory loss, she struggles with reintegrating herself into what had been the super-heroic status quo. She mistakenly visits an abandoned Justice League headquarters, has an incomplete recall of her adventures leading up to the issues in this collection, and doubts her qualifications to re-join the League. In response to their insistence that she enlist, Wonder Woman recruits her former teammates as judges. Each must invisibly observe her on an adventure, report their findings back to the League, and vote for or against her re-admission.

If the structure seems familiar, Wonder Woman patterns her idea on the twelve labors of Hercules, or "dodekathlon," wherein the mythological hero performs twelve trials as an act of atonement. The familiar story format is one of a few dimensions that make this a good jumping on point for those new to Wonder Woman, considering the character was essentially being reintroduced at the time of publication. Her labors are written with small nods to the tales of Hercules, including a rampaging "Rhinotaur" cast as a beast like the Ceryneian Hind or Cretan Bull, but there are not many literary parallels to be drawn.

The Wonder Woman seen in this collection is perhaps the most recognizable to the public -- the "Super Friends" version, if you will. Magic lasso, "bullets-and-bracelets," and the invisible robot plane are in full effect, softening the impact of a sweeping reversion to the classic interpretation of the character.

As someone who has had limited exposure to Wonder Woman's solo series', especially pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, having the stories narrated and co-starring members of the Satellite-era Justice League is another hook. The most complete example of this angle is the second issue in the collection, featuring The Flash. Written by Cary Bates, with Irv Novick and Tex Blaisdell on art, readers are essentially given a bonus issue of Flash, starring Wonder Woman, in the latter's title. This was not an unusual occurrence in DC books during this era, but it is done here with a deliberate attempt at grabbing a crossover audience.

Other examples include Mike Grell's cover and Dick Dillin's pencils on the Green Arrow story. Elliot S! Maggin, Martin Pasko (both Superman scribes) and Len Wein (Justice League scripter at the time) round out the writers involved, while Superman legend Curt Swan handles pencils along with John Rosenberger, Kurt Schaffenberger, Dick Giordano and Jose Delbo. Vince Colletta inks five of the stories here, with mixed results.

The stories themselves are, by nature, done-in-one adventures featuring a Justice League member watching Wonder Woman in action, without her explicit knowledge and with a vow not to interfere. Since Wonder Woman came up with the idea of proving herself via the "labors" and the nature of the observance, the story empowers Wonder Woman in situations involving group judgment and being secretly watched. This is all done on Diana's terms, which, despite her own lack of confidence in some instances, builds up her rediscovered super-heroic identity; it also employs some of the psychological angles associated with the character's origins and early history.

There are small continuity beats along the way, mostly in the first issue featured. This happens to be the strongest chapter, with many measured emotional and revelatory moments handled deftly by Wein and Swan. Readers learn the fates of Steve Trevor and I-Ching at the same time Wonder Woman does; the brief but substantial scenes build a bridge to the Mod-Diana days. The stories are each exciting and fast-paced -- DC brought out the big guns for Wonder Woman's return to form, and the results are a high-quality piece of 1970s DC-style storytelling.

The book stock is a heavier, non-glossy printing. The reproduction is of good quality throughout, with the paper lending itself to richer blacks and an overall retro experience. The design is great, including a cover featuring the original issues in the background behind an interesting choice of panel detail. The image used is from a particularly busy panel on the second page of the first issue, but it works. The title page is one of my favorites since the slipcase Deadman Collection.

Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors is a fun collection featuring an era of DC Comics that has not been heavily mined. Despite the number of hands involved, the reading experience is fluid and consistent. The talent pool and supporting cast give this volume a place in any collection, alongside the Crisis on Multiple Earths books or tales of the Justice League, as well as filling a major gap in Wonder Woman's trade publications between the Diana Prince era and the post-Crisis run by George Perez. Hopefully, we'll see more stories from the 1970s and 1980s getting the same treatment.

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Number 1188: Celebrating the 8th of July!

This is the Pappy's fourth annual* July 8 celebration of flying saucers. Sixty-five years ago today the Roswell (New Mexico) Daily Record published its historic headline:

To commemorate the date I have a couple of flying saucer/UFO stories.

I was inspired to get out my copy of Dynamo #1 (1966) and scan the lead story by Dan Adkins and Wallace Wood based on this wonderful splash panel from Heritage Auctions. I lifted the scan from their website.

My favorite panel is Dynamo saying, "I bet I'm the first guy in history to knock down a space ship with a rock!" The story is full of action and the art is great.

The story, "Landing of the Flying Saucers!" is another zany story from Wonder Woman. Although the whole thing is wild—aliens shaped like skinny Michelin men with lollipop heads and antennae who use expressions like "Heee! Hooo!"—I give writer/editor Robert Kanigher and artist Harry G. Peter credit for originality. I even like the flying saucer, which, unlike most depictions of UFOs in those days doesn't look like it's made of sheet metal, and in fact doesn't look like anything mechanical.

It's an oddball story, something we've come to expect from this title. From Wonder Woman #68 (1954):

*Previous postings are from Pappy's #554, Pappy's #768, and Pappy's #978.

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Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Blood hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Brian Azzarello writes dystopian takes on the DC Comics universe. From his villain-hero stories Luthor and Joker or to those like Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance, Azzarello's stories show the harsher side of the DC Universe -- grotesque villains and overwhelmed heroes with bitter pasts.

In the DC New 52's Wonder Woman: Blood, artist Cliff Chiang does his best impression of Azzarello's often-gritty collaborator Eduardo Risso for a decidedly darker Wonder Woman tale. The story here is not so groundbreaking -- Wonder Woman writer Greg Rucka pitted Amazon princess Diana against human-formed gods; Gail Simone fomented strife between Diana and the Amazons themselves -- as is the way the story is told; readers have never seen Wonder Woman's world so bleak, for better or worse, than they do here.

[Review contains spoilers]

"The reader doesn't need to know that much about Wonder Woman," says the New York Times in Wonder Woman: Blood's cover credits. Indeed, Azzarello does perhaps the best job so far of the DC New 52 books in making any prior Wonder Woman knowledge optional, while still making Blood a story about Wonder Woman. The book begins simply -- she's Wonder Woman, she lives in London, move on -- but the third issue quickly recaps Diana's origins and then pivots to change them entirely, all while avoiding the continuity stickiness often inherit in other comics.

Azzarello's revelation that Diana is actually the daughter of Zeus is designed to shock, and in this way emerges as the least shocking part of the book. That Diana is born of flesh and not clay largely changes the character not a bit, given that writers have long struggled with what Diana's clay origins meant anyway -- Gail Simone, for one, was quick to affirm that Diana has a soul despite not being "human."

But what Azzarello does, which neither Greg Rucka nor Simone did to this extent, is to delve immediately and messily into the sexual politics of Wonder Woman and the Amazons. The Amazons are quick to speak their disgust when the god Hermes brings his "male parts" on to Paradise Island, and Diana's new "non-immaculate" conception is less a scandal for Diana than it is for her mother Hippolyta, causing some Amazons to even suggest revolt. Blood turns on Hippolyta giving in to her passion for Zeus, versus the human woman Zola also seduced and impregnated by Zeus, and the spurned goddess Hera taking revenge on all the women who participated in her husband's trysts.

As Azzarello imagines the Amazon society, sex is acquiescence here, and shame, the great divide between paradise and Man's World. Whereas in Simone's recent Wonder Woman run, Hippolyta was joyful at the idea of her daughter marrying and raising children and the Amazons themselves wanted babies (immaculate or otherwise), Azzarello's story hews to a more traditional and severe presentation of the Amazons, in which congress with men seems anathema.

Indeed, there's much about Azzarello's presentation of Wonder Woman's world that seems severe. Whereas J. Michael Straczynski's Wonder Woman: Odyssey just ended with hugs all around on Paradise Island and Hippolyta brushing Diana's hair, Azzarello's story has Diana bowing in fealty to her mother, and facing challenge if not outright revolt from her fellow Amazons. Azzarello reveals that Diana left Paradise Island for Man's World not on a quest for great adventure, but because she never fit in with her fellow Amazons, who called her (mistakenly, we know now) "Clay." (This mirrors the subtle dark turn Azzarello gives Bruce Wayne's origins, too, in Batman: Broken City.)

Even at their most warlike, the Amazons have never been portrayed as "mean" in the way that Azzarello does, not has Paradise Island ever been so uninviting. Azzarello strips some of the majesty from Wonder Woman's origins, and in that way perhaps makes the character more approachable -- to illustrate, Azzarello takes Diana from Paradise Island to drinking in a heavy-metal club. The net result may be successful, but it can't make long-time fans happy to see favored characters brought low even if to rejuvenate Diana herself.

Azzarello's story in Blood again doesn't largely reinvent the contents of a Wonder Woman tale. Azzarello uses gods in modern getup as Rucka did, though renames those like Eris to "Strife" and Apollo to "Sun" (thankfully Azzarello sets aside overused Wonder Woman foe Ares, at least for the moment). Azzarello's focus on Diana's stalwart protection of just one person, Zola, helps define Diana's character, though this, too, has shades of Rucka's Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia.

The stronger issues of this book are in the first half, where Cliff Chiang illustrates Diana's battle against monsters, her return to Paradise Island, and the revelation of her origins. The story moves quicker when artist Tony Akins comes on, however, with a more cartoony style and larger-paneled fight scenes that deliver less content overall. Diana takes on a kind of caper to trick Hera; as admirable as it is that Azzarello doesn't spell out every detail for the reader, it takes some starting at Atkins final pages to get the gist.

Further, a new character Lennox literally walks up to Diana off the street and immediately joins her "team." One might almost think Lennox is meant to be a certain Dark Knight in disguise, so quickly does Diana trust him (and so over-the-top is Lennox's accent and the bumbling manner in which Azzarello portrays him). Perhaps Azzarello's Wonder Woman will continue to be populated by "god children" arriving from the ether, but this first introduction felt flat alongside the additional change in artists.

The DC New 52 is meant to be different, and Brian Azzarello's take on one of DC's Big Three characters in Wonder Woman: Blood is definitely different. Azzarello's Diana is self-assured, capable, and funny, and closer to accessible than her portrayals as diplomat or super-spy previously. Unfortunately, what Azzarello's Wonder Woman loses in the process is a bit of her majesty and the general optimism of her origins; whether that's a worthy trade-off remains to be seen.

[Includes original covers and Cliff Chiang sketchbook pages]

New reviews coming up, including more from the DC New 52. Come on back!

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Review: Wonder Woman: Odyssey Vol. 2 hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

J. Michael Straczynski's Wonder Woman: Odyssey is better than his Superman: Grounded. Both were year-long stories that in their own way rebuilt their title character; Straczynski's name, however, remains on the book's credits the whole time, alongside co-writer Phil Hester, which they do not in Grounded, and indeed Odyssey feels more cohesive and polished.

As is inevitable for an "alternate universe" tale like Odyssey, it is an exercise in character study, not really a "story" in the truest sense nor something liable to make a strong mark on the Wonder Woman canon (compare one-off Odyssey with Greg Rucka's graphic novel Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia; the former is a study of Wonder Woman while the latter is a story that serves to define Wonder Woman's character).

But Odyssey is sprightly and downright inspiring at times, even; it is not the ultimate Wonder Woman story necessitated by the end of the old DC Universe and the beginning of the DC New 52, but it's a book that's complimentary of Wonder Woman, defines her elements, and at least sets forth some expectations for what the DC New 52 Wonder Woman should entail.

[Contains spoilers]

The "original" Wonder Woman doesn't fare especially well in this book, depicted as exceptionally prideful in a battle with the Morrigan that lead to her broken reality. On opposite sides, both Diana's gods and the Morrigan have lead her to live among mortals instead of being raised with the Amazons on Themyscira in order to foster a love or hate of "Man's World," respectively. Arguably, Diana has been more human than Amazon through most of her depictions -- I can think of instances in both Greg Rucka's and Gail Simone's runs where the public thinks Diana is "with" the Amazons and "against" humanity, but this is usually appearance and not fact -- however, Straczynski and Hester position this new Diana as neither god nor Amazon, as Aphrodite says, but as woman alone.

Maybe this additional time raised among humans and Straczynski and Hester's overall more youthful "alternate" Diana might benefit the character. Admittedly much of this, while interesting, is what the book tells us rather than shows us -- Diana's humanity in the book is limited to her relationship with one battered woman that she's saved. As well, the fact that the entire series ends pre-DC New 52 with this run means Odyssey is all set-up and no enactment -- Straczynski takes fourteen issues to break down and build back up a "new and improved" Wonder Woman, but is never able to show us how that Wonder Woman would actually function day to day.

In another way, Odyssey becomes a treatise on the concept of Wonder Woman overall. In a remarkably charming issue starring Dr. Psycho, Diana experiences a number of alternate origins, many involving a strong daughter raised by a strong mother. Superman and Batman have had their own iconic depictions, investigations into the universal concepts presented by the heroes, but not so much Wonder Woman. "Every era somehow finds a way to create you," Psycho tells Diana, and the writers suggest some fictional character like Diana would have come along even if DC's Wonder Woman hadn't. Amidst the incarnations of Wonder Woman, Straczynski and Hester reinforce Diana's connection to earth, air, water, and fire -- she is ubiquitous, they suggest, and therefore infinitely relatable.

This sequence, beautifully depicted as much of the book is by Don Kramer, is eminently inspiring, a Diana overcoming everything thrown at her. It is also a visual feast for long-time Wonder Woman readers, nodding for better or worse to every Wonder Woman era from the Golden Age to the "mod" look, even the Challenge of Artemis and Star Sapphire get-ups. Diana awakens in a hospital crafted from bits and pieces of the Wonder Woman television series; in many ways the book serves as a love letter to the whole of the Wonder Woman mythos, significantly similar to Kevin Smith's Green Arrow: Quiver.

The writers also take a stab at the inherent contradictions in Wonder Woman's character -- that she's a warrior, raised by Amazons, but joins "Man's world" as an arbiter of peace. Straczynski and Hester's Diana in this book so far has been considerably violent, enough so that she worries even her fellow Amazons; the book's villains, the war god trinity The Morrigan, try to goad Diana to even greater violence such to have her join their ilk. In the story's final conflict, this Diana must temper her thirst for revenge in a battle against the vengeance-god Nemesis, essentially the "old" Wonder Woman's darker side. The reader will not, again, necessarily get to see how Straczynski might have enacted this change issue-after-issue in a Wonder Woman series, but it's something the young Diana surmounts and I was pleased to see the violence of the first volume come to some conclusion.

Indeed in this way Odyssey is far more focused than Superman: Grounded. Whereas Straczynski left the latter title entirely and following writer Chris Roberson took it in his own direction, Odyssey flows cleanly from beginning to end. The beginning of Odyssey presented strange masked figures who seemed to have raised Diana, changed to plainclothes Amazons when Hester joined the story; this second volume clarifies that unevenness. Whether planned or a patch, it helps the two volumes of Odyssey function as one story (really wish this might've been one volume, even) in a way that Grounded does not.

I'm a sucker for a good ending; so many times in serial fiction endings get a short shrift to go on to the next thing. Odyssey has eight pages worth of conclusion, by both Kramer and stellar Batgirl artist Lee Garbett, and it could be one of the best pre-Flashpoint conclusions yet. Diana senses the upcoming shift in reality, and her mother Hippolyta offers a prayer, that just as in the alternate reality where Hippolyta, Diana, and the Amazons existed, so too should they exist in the DC New 52.

In the final pages of Wonder Woman: Odyssey, Straczynski and Hester define the basic elements of Wonder Woman's origin -- Superman is the strange visitor from another planet, Wonder Woman is the daughter of the Amazons -- and with that, Wonder Woman takes flight. It is bitersweet and inspiring, Diana forthrightly facing the changes to come, and it's a great conclusion to a story that, if not an epic depiction of Wonder Woman, still qualifies as a worthwhile Wonder Woman epic.

[Includes original and variant covers]

We've said good-bye to the "old" Wonder Woman -- now next week, we're jumping right back in to the DC New 52. Up first, the Collected Editions review of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's Wonder Woman: Blood and more DC New 52 goodness from there. See you next week!

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Review: Wonder Woman: Greatest Stories Ever Told trade paperback (DC Comics)

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

Now that Superman and Batman have flown off, let's give the ladies a chance and have a look at what's been collected as Wonder Woman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told.

I'll be honest: Wonder Woman is probably the first-string JLA member about whom I've read the least (a handful of Perez and Simone volumes [you've gotta read the Rucka books! -- ed.]).  With her New 52 incarnation hitting it out of the park courtesy of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, however, I realize that the problem has been creators not knowing what to do with the character. After reading the "Greatest Stories," I see that it's been a problem for years; the stories here don't all give a sense of who Wonder Woman is, nor are all of the stories particularly great.

The sum of the parts being more than the whole in this series, let's take a look at what's inside this volume.

"The Origin of Wonder Woman" (Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth, November 2001): Surprisingly this is the first "Greatest Stories" that doesn't collect the original origin story, but throw Paul Dini and Alex Ross my way and I'm game for anything. While I'm a little disappointed that the very first Wonder Woman appearance isn't collected here, I appreciate their successful distillation of Wonder Woman's origin. I fondly remember the oversized graphic novels Dini and Ross did, and the inclusion of this origin over the "first story" approach for Superman and Batman makes me wish each volume had some beautiful Alex Ross art beyond the cover.

"Wonder Woman Comes to America" (Sensation Comics #1, January 1942): This story is essentially "Part Two" of Wonder Woman's origin, her first encounters in America after rescuing Steve Trevor from Paradise Island. The Wonder Woman presented here by William Moulton Marston is fun and a bit flighty, but with a strong moral compass and a slightly hyperbolic desire to do good. I love the art by Harry G. Peter; it's slightly uglier and more blocky than what I'm used to, but his Diana is gorgeous and youthful. This story does a good job introducing a Wonder Woman who is confident but fish-out-of-water, but its last-minute inclusion of a romantic triangle between Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor, and Diana Prince is a bit hackneyed.

"Villainy Incorporated!" (Wonder Woman #28, March/April 1948): I've never thought of Wonder Woman as being defined by her rogues, but this story certainly makes the case. It's essentially the Amazonian version of Knightfall, with all of Wonder Woman's enemies (with the unsubtly-named Eviless standing in for Bane) escaping Transformation Island to wreak havoc on their captor. While this story is considerably longer than anything else in the "Greatest Stories" series (I can't help but feel this would be a year-long event by today's standards), the story is somewhat empty. It's a nice primer on the rogues gallery, but Wonder Woman doesn't do much except fight and get tied up. And oh, does she get tied up; at no point can one forget that Marston had a proclivity for bondage, because the number of times characters are bound is extremely distracting.

"Top Secret" (Wonder Woman #99, July 1958): Writer Robert Kanigher retcons the invention of Wonder Woman's dual identity as a way for the princess to avoid marrying the over-romantic Steve Trevor. Huh? And here I was thinking the "adopting the identity of a nurse who's leaving for South America" plotline was overwrought, but this story simply can't be among the greatest. An absurd wager and an obvious plot device pervade this story, and in the end we're left with Wonder Woman as menaced by the prospect of proposing. The best thing I can say about this story is that it looks like Darwyn Cooke drew it (but alas, he didn't).

"Wanted -- Wonder Woman" (Wonder Woman #108, August 1959): Wonder Woman battles alien psychic possession in this second of four Kanigher stories, and it's slightly better but still by no means "great." The idea of resisting alien possession is a compelling one and should yield a sense of who Diana really is by what she's fighting against, but the story doesn't give us that sense of internal conflict. What's more, the art by Ross Andru is much less consistent than in "Top Secret," resulting in panels like the one where an anguished Diana looks like a constipated giraffe. I'd pondered why it is that Wonder Woman never got a series of collections by decade (as Superman and Batman did), but based on what this volume gives us of the '50s, maybe it's not too difficult to fathom.

"Giganta -- The Gorilla Girl" (Wonder Woman #163, July 1966): Kanigher and Andru redeem themselves (kind of) with this story, a reintroduction of Golden Age foe Giganta as a gorilla turned woman by Dr. Psycho (more grotesque than he looked in Infinite Crisis, if one can believe it). While Wonder Woman is mostly absent from this story, we get a good sense of how Wonder Woman's villains operate and were introduced. And there's that omnipresent fascination with gorillas that comics just can't seem to shake. If there's a complaint, it's that here Kanigher again defines Wonder Woman by her devotion to Steve Trevor -- a staple of the Golden Age origin, true, but an unfortunate stereotyping.

"Wonder Woman's Rival" (Wonder Woman #178, September/October 1968): Ah, Denny O'Neil. Now this is a great story. Wonder Woman has to acquit Steve Trevor of murder, even though it's her testimony which is the most damning. Although the '70s vibe is more than a little dated (Mike Sekowsky's art, though, is not), the emotional and dramatic power of the story still lingers. I like the way O'Neil doesn't stop short with Wonder Woman's devotion to Steve Trevor, instead showing how she's devoted to justice and truth (even if the truth condemns Steve). This is one of the better stories in the volume, memorable with a good sense of who Wonder Woman is and why she's a hero. One complaint, though: the end of the story teases a new look for Wonder Woman, but it's not reprinted here; I would have liked to have seen at least a pin-up or something [what's known as the "mod" look, right? -- ed].

"Wish Upon a Star" (Wonder Woman #214, September/October 1974): Elliot S! Maggin wrote one of the best Superman stories in Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Vol. 1, but here his entry is less compelling, in part because it's almost more of a Green Lantern story than a Wonder Woman story. With Hal Jordan's ring acting wonky, he goes to New York to ask Wonder Woman if there's a crisis (typical Hal, assuming a crisis must happen when he's powerless), but he's quickly embroiled in a scenario that's equal parts Fail-Safe and Twilight Zone's "Time Enough at Last."

Of course Wonder Woman ends up the undisputed savior of this story, but Green Lantern's narration and attempts at intervention continually raise the question of whose story this is. Additionally, the story makes several points about Wonder Woman being removed from JLA membership, but I can't fathom why [left when she lost her powers with the "mod" look, I think. -- ed]; this continuity conundrum is something the introductions have handled, but Lynda Carter's opener talks more about the TV show than the stories within. With Wonder Woman as a character and not the protagonist, I can't say this is a "greatest" story.

"Be Wonder Woman... and Die!" (Wonder Woman #286, December 1981): The last Kanigher story in the book is indisputably the best. Here we see the ways in which Wonder Woman has inspired a dying woman -- inspiration and legacy being two of the chief guarantees of inclusion in a "Greatest Stories" volume. Wonder Woman's selfless nature is invoked here, but even though she isn't quite the star of the story Diana still gets in some "bullets and bracelets" time to satisfy action fans. Although the story opens with a promised tease that's more of a feint, the rest of the tale is as quintessential as they get.

"Who Killed Myndi Mayer?" (Wonder Woman #20, September 1988): George Perez's historic revival of Wonder Woman is represented by this prose-heavy murder mystery, in which Diana's would-be agent is found dead. While this story is pretty famous and the twist at the end likely familiar to comics readers, this story is remarkable for the same reason Perez's entire run is flagged as iconic: Perez's take on the character is fresh yet familiar, restoring the vivacious and earnest nature of the character as seen back in "Wonder Woman Comes to America!" Additionally, Perez doing double-duty on art is a major credit, since his Wonder Woman is one of the most beautiful (a lot of artists, I've noted, tend to err on the side of "maternal" and not "goddess"). While I'd have to go back to my Perez to see if this was the best of his run, it's certainly one of the most classic.

"She's a Wonder!" (Wonder Woman #170, July 2001): Rounding out the volume, it's Phil Jimenez writing and drawing this one-off in which Lois Lane spends a day in the life of Wonder Woman. This is a great look at what it really means to be Wonder Woman and hangs several important lanterns about the character (How can we relate to her? Is she American? What's her relationship with Superman really like?). While the story is transparent, it's also more than a bit preachy -- a flaw which could be overlooked had Wonder Woman not explicitly said she wants to avoid "a forum where I proselytize and bore you to death." Not that the story is boring; it shifts settings and incidents quickly [and that Wonder Woman/Lex Luthor scene! -- ed again.]. Its artwork is great, but the prose-heavy nature suggests that Jimenez's greater strengths are as an artist (see my Incredibles review for my admittedly excessive fawning over his skills). Nitty-gritty complaint: Diana doesn't appear in her tiara in this story, and while there's an in-continuity reason for it she looks a little without it.

As a single volume, Wonder Woman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told is hit or miss, with enough for devotees to appreciate but without much for new fans to latch onto. Only some of the stories give definitive portraits of the character, and only a handful count as memorable. I would have liked to get a better sense of who Wonder Woman's principal rogues are, and I would have liked to see her interact more with her heritage and her family; as it is, we only see her in relation to her adopted home, America.

I'm actually kind of surprised that we didn't get the story where Wonder Woman breaks Max Lord's neck, only because it was collected in almost every other trade DC printed. I think this volume certainly could have benefited from a clear thematic focus as in the first Batman volume, but what we do get a clear sense of, though, is someone who wants to do right in a world where she recognizes that much wrong already exists.

In my next review, we'll see if there's anything to fear in Green Lantern: The Greatest Stories Ever Told. Stay tuned!

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