Wonder Woman #36 – Review

By Gail Simone (writer), Aaron Lopresti (penciller), Matt Ryan (inker)

The Story: After Diana’s relationship with Tom drove itself off a cliff at the end of the last issue, we start this one with Wonder Woman reacting to that, by hitting the supervillainess Giganta. Simone and Lopresti show us flashbacks of the Diana/Tom relationship meltdown while another shaky relationship (between Achilles and Alkyone) starts up with a marriage of state. After that, Wonder Woman is summoned by an oath to face Achilles and his army. The fight is pretty huge (Achilles and Diana are well-matched), and Diana’s solution is not only honorably Amazonian, but thematically charged. And of course, it makes everything worse.

What’s Good: This entire issue is about setting up webs of romantic tension. Tom dumping Diana last issue at a particularly tender moment sets up a classic “Girl Loses Boy” scenario and all Simone has to do to keep us coming back is to keep Tom in the book and have them both be unhappy about it. Brilliant. At the same time, now that Diana is a free agent so to speak, the reader is invited to speculate that maybe Achilles could be a good match (despite his boorish behavior in the Iliad). Simone can maintain that tension by having Achilles be an honorable, recurring villain. Simone has also set up another romantic tension between Alkyone, Mistress of the Armory and Captain of the Guard of Themyscira, and Achilles, the new King. They perform a marriage of state, but she tells him flat out that he’d better not be thinking of consummating anything with her, or else– which is the inciting incident of about half the romance novels out there. And, if anything sparks between Achilles and Diana, then Simone has a lovers’ triangle conflict. I love watching Simone lay the foundations for months and months of conflict and dramatic suspense. Finally, if you’ve been following my Wonder Woman reviews, you already know what a fan I am of the Lopresti and Ryan art team. I won’t belabor the point anymore.

What’s Not So Good: The dramatic convenience of Giganta walking around at dawn in her supervillain costume to meet someone on a date stretches suspension of disbelief. Also, with Diana and Giganta suddenly calling a truce to commiserate about men was also a bit rough on my read. Luckily, there was a ton of good stuff to compensate for these minor flaws in the plot.

Conclusion: Simone, Lopresti and Ryan are delivering a really great series. If you haven’t been following Diana up to now, get the trades and start following the series monthly with this issue, the first part in a 4-book arc called Warkiller.

Grade: B+

-DS Arsenault