Wonder Woman #22 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Cliff Chiang (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: Figures that Diana would sleep through her time in Paradise.

The Review: I’m not versed enough in comics and their history to make broad statements about certain works and creators, but I don’t think I’m out of line in saying that Jack Kirby’s Fourth World was and remains one of the most important concepts in DC lore.  Wildly unappreciated in its time, it is now one of the bedrocks of the DCU, inspiring comic book writers to aspire beyond the superhero to the neo-mythic.

Azzarello is the lucky man who gets to decide what the New Gods mean and stand for in the current DCU.  Yet despite putting Orion in an ongoing role on this title, Azzarello has otherwise kept mostly mum about the Fourth World’s purpose.  To be frank, even though this issue takes place almost entirely on New Genesis, we only learn about the blessed realm and its denizens in the most general, if wonderfully hyperbolic terms:

“[A] world caught up in the joyful strains of life!  There are no structures on its green surface—except those which serve the cause of wellbeing…  Destiny’s road is charted in the city, massive, yet graceful—gleaming on its platform—a skyborne satellite drawn in endless silence by its hidden mechanisms!  The true place of peace.“

Wonder Woman #21 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Cliff Chiang (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: What say we cut the talk short and Boom Tube our way out of here?

The Review: I’ve made my remarks about the difficulty of writing Superman before, so I need not repeat them now.  I will say, however, that hard as it is to get a handle on a man who seems to embody superhuman virtue, it’s even harder to get inside a character who represents womanly perfection.  For a while, Azzarello has built up such an interesting story around his heroine that you could ignore her defects as a sympathetic, accessible protagonist—until now.

Now, Azzarello has fallen into a kind of trap, the same one that captures most Wonder Woman writers sooner or later: she has become a cypher in her own story.  Her character development seems to have stopped somewhere after her line to Hades about loving “[e]veryone,” and since then, our attention has largely been fixed on the characters and events around her.  You can see here that she rarely asserts her presence except when called to spar or defend her own dignity (“…I thought I told you to respect me, Orion…”).  You simply can’t generate an engaging personality from that.

Wonder Woman #20 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Cliff Chiang & Goran Sudzuka (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: Diana versus Diana—round two.

The Review: I don’t believe I’m the first to compare the kind of intrigue that goes on in this title to that shared by any good mafia story, where family affections and attachments are ultimately subordinated to ruthless power plays, suspicion, and constant backstabbing.  This free-for-all is made even more interesting by the building of alliances, their eventual dissolutions, and the new ones that take their place.

In Wonder Woman, we’ve got a few set camps and their dear leaders: Apollo with Artemis and Dionysus representing the current Olympian regime; Hermes partnered with Demeter in a mission from some undisclosed higher power; Poseidon in cahoots with the First Born, who plans to retake Olympus for himself; and then Diana with her merry little crew.  Although all of these folks are related in some manner, only Diana’s group functions like a family—a “weird, wonderful family,” as Zola says.

Wonder Woman #18 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Goran Sudzuka & Cliff Chiang (art), Tony Akins (pencils), Dan Green (inks), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: Who’s fastest—old god, new god, or demi-goddess?

The Review: I’ve officially reviewed Azzarello’s Wonder Woman for over a year and a half now, and I still feel like I haven’t quite grasped the nature of his craft just yet.  He doesn’t quite fall into any easy category.  He’s not really a character writer in the vein of Pete Tomasi or Paul Cornell; an ideas-man like Grant Morrison or Jonathan Hickman; or a weaver of universes like Brian Michael Bendis or Geoff Johns.  Of all writers, he truly stands alone.

In fact, Azzarello has something of all three elements in his writing, with such equal weight that it’s easy to take his work for granted.  While there aren’t any striking personalities in this title, over time the voices of the characters have grown distinct and recognizable, even unattached to a face.  Azzarello’s ideas are no less profound for being based in myth rather than science.  And by bringing old and new gods together, he’s done some of the most intriguing world-building of all.

Wonder Woman #15 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Cliff Chiang (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: The best part about being buddies with a New God?  The joyrides.

The Review: Ever since Orion made his silhouetted, booming appearance in #12, we’ve all been waiting with to see whether that cameo was any more than a tease.  The final scene of #14 showed that the New Gods’ presence in this arc goes beyond just the Dog of War and may mean a permanent place for them in the new DCU—if, you know, time and space itself doesn’t completely unravel first.

Now it appears that not only are the New Gods firmly established in the DCU, but that they have always been a part of it.  Orion apparently makes trips to Earth with some regularity, given the familiarity he has with Milan, another of Zeus’ passel of wedlock children.  Although Orion’s kindly treatment of Milan shows you a cool, unexpected side to his character, it does make you wonder how this friendship started, and why Orion is so invested in these Earthbound demigods.

Wonder Woman #13 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Tony Akins (pencils, Dan Green (inks), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: Nothing starts off your divine reign like a pool party.

The Review: From day one, Azzarello has taken advantage of one defining feature of the Greek gods, the one that continues to capture our fascination to this day: the power struggles and family divisions within their divine community.  After reading any number of myths, you’ll notice how every time a conflict breaks out among them, sides are immediately taken.  Natural alliances arise (e.g. Apollo and Artemis), but more often than not, surprising changes of allegiances occur.

This never-ending cycle of devotion and backstabbing remains as intriguing as ever.  Apollo took his father’s throne for one reason only, and that was to protect himself.  Inviting his half-brothers and sisters to the renovated Olympus isn’t a signal of trust, but one of mutual benefit.  Aside from his sister, none of the others express much in the way of loyalty (Hephaestus claims he came only for the sake of family), and others reject Apollo’s overtures outright.  As with all fiction, the absences mean more than what’s present.

Wonder Woman #10 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Kano & Tony Akins (art), Dan Green (inks), Matthew Wilson (colorist)

The Story: Woman hath no fury like hell scorned.  No, wait…

The Review: One of the great evolutions of Wonder Woman’s character over the years is how she has become the paragon of warriors in the DCU, regardless of gender.  Yet this focus on her fighting spirit and ability leaves little room to appreciate her sensitivity and compassion, a common conflict for many women in positions of power.  Yes, she can kick nearly anyone’s butt six ways to Sunday, but she’s also capable of incredible depths of tenderness.

At first glance, this series has shown many different sides to its star—her cleverness, her never-say-die persistence, and that all-consuming desire for truth—but love doesn’t quite shine through.  In retrospect, it’s because the kind of love Diana indulges in is very, very tough.  She can be warm and affectionate, but never expect her to be sweet or lavish.  She’s actually quite maternal, but she’s not the mom who bakes you cookies after you come home from school; she’s more like the mom who gives you a hand after you fall off your bike, then shushes you as she puts iodine on your skinned knee.  She wants the best for you, but she won’t brook any nonsense.

Wonder Woman #7 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Cliff Chiang (artist), Matthew Wilson (colorist)

The Story: Getting rid of the sibling is one way to cure sibling rivalry, I suppose

The Review: Soldierhawk and I had this convo about Wonder Woman before, but I still think that the biggest reason why she has such iconographic status and yet doesn’t really connect with anyone is because she’s imbued with such power and virtue that it tends to overwhelm her reserved personality.  We come away respecting her, admiring her, but not really understanding her.  She is akin to Greek statuary—beautiful, proud, dignified, but remote and lofty.

Azzarello has striven to bring her closer to us by removing some of the qualities of her character that made her seem so much higher than us.  He gave her flesh, complicated parental issues, and most importantly, vulnerability.  These are all steps in the right direction, but I’m not so sure we yet have a Wonder Woman who resonates on the same level as her peers.

Part of the problem is that even in her own ongoing, it frequently feels she spends much more time reacting to the events around her rather than being an active protagonist on her own right.  Possibly the most deliberate thing she’s done this entire run was pit Hades and Poseidon against Hera so she could blind the queen goddess for a while, only it turns out the whole idea came from Lennox, her half-brother of hardly a three issue’s acquaintance.  And consider how much time she spends in this issue absorbing exposition in comparison to the time she spends doing something about what she learns.  For sure, there’s something to be said for a hero who does more listening than acting in haste, but it also makes her seem rather passive.

It doesn’t help that nearly every time she does raise arms and summon the warrior spirit we expect from her, Azzarello throws in a twist which turns all her effort for naught.  If it’s not striking a blow against one god only to be backstabbed by another, it’s attempting to rally a downtrodden people to regain their pride, only to discover they’re not downtrodden at all and their pride is very much intact.