Wonder Woman #606 – Review

By J. Michael Straczynski and Phil Hester (writers), Eduardo Pansica (pencils), Jay Leisten, Marlo Alquiza, Wayne Faucher and Eber Ferreira (inks), Alex Sinclair (colors) and Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: Diana and her friends are assaulted by mystical creatures determined to destroy them, and are forced out of their safe house after a tragedy. Things do from bad to worse, however, when their path takes them to an old, defiled temple, and an army straight out of Jason and the Argonauts.

What’s Good: First, apologies for the rather vague summary; a LOT of things happen in this book, and your reading experience will be far better served by not having them spoiled. And on that note… Holy crap! This is the first issue of Wonder Woman that I’ve purely, unabashedly enjoyed since Gail Simone left! In fact, the very dark and violent nature of this story is the most Simone-esque thing I’ve read since the last issue of Secret Six.

I’ve been waiting and waiting–not very patiently–for the creators to finally tip their hand as to what, exactly, is going on with this incarnation of Diana. While this issue doesn’t give any huge answers, it at least (FINALLY) puts some solid ground beneath the reader’s feet. We have our hero, we have her supporters, we have a main villain, and our hero gets to show off the full extent of her fighting abilities. (Somehow she seems to have forgotten the whole “I can fly!” thing, but…) That is a LOT more than we’ve gotten from this series in quite some time, and all of it is very well, if simply, handled. This script isn’t going to revolutionize the medium, but at this point I’m so happy to have a cohesive story set up for Diana that I’m more than willing to forgive a little generic plotting. Besides, the action was good–damn good. Watching Diana kick that much ass was a stand up and cheer moment for me. Damn did I miss her!