Wonder Woman #30 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Goran Sudžuka (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: Diana makes a call to motherhood.

The Review: Here’s a little experiment you should try. First, go back and grab your copy of #29 and read it to the very end. Done? Okay, now go pick up this issue and start reading. The challenge is to see how far you get before you ask yourself, “What the frick just happened?” For whatever reason, Azzarello has found it best to completely skip past what should have been the climactic resolution of his last arc so as to start the next.

It’s true that substantially, things haven’t changed much on Wonder Woman between this issue and the last. The First Born remains a threat—an even bigger one than before, in fact—and all of our principal characters are still alive and relatively well. But come on. How can Azzarello leave us on Hera confronting her long-lost son in all her restored, divine glory and then excise the actual confrontation altogether? How can he write Hermes, Dionysus, Artemis, and Diana in dire straits one moment and then another moment write them lounging around Paradise Island, talking shop?

Wonder Woman #27 – Review

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

The Story: Diana’s not the first person to leave a home visit in tears.

The Review: About a month ago, I had a friendly debate with some buddies about the relative merits of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  At first, I couldn’t help being a little stunned that they preferred the comically adventurous Hobbit over the epic saga of LOTR.  As we talked on, however, I realized it’s those very same qualities that makes Hobbit easier to take in and enjoy, while LOTR turns people off with its obsession of building its mythology.

I was reminded of all this reading the latest chapter of Wonder Woman because Azzarello has gotten the title into the same kind of trouble as LOTR.  There’s no doubt he’s succeeded in making the series different from any Wonder Woman series before it, especially in his vision for the Olympians and how their mythological traditions intersect with her superhero roots.  This is not unlike how J.R.R. Tolkien took Arthurian legend and updated it within the contemporary fantasy genre.  The big difference is Tolkien laid out clear paths for his characters to tread, and to date, our starring heroine has mostly stumbled from plot to plot like signposts in the dark.

Wonder Woman #26 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story) Goran Sudžuka (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)

The Story: A sibling rivalry to end all sibling rivalries.

The Review: I take back everything I ever said about Geoff Johns and his decompressed style of writing.  I think it’s safe to say that Azzarello has taken decompression to a whole new level on Wonder Woman, with entire issues going by that have only so much to say for themselves.  Not that every issue (or even every comic, come to that) has to be packed with action or direct confrontation, but the pace of advancement on this series has gotten quite ridiculous.

Azzarello’s problem is in his choice of intrigue, which is almost purely speculative.  No other writer indulges so much in the stimulation of euphemism, vagaries, double-meanings, and almost nothing else as Azzarello does.  And for a long while, he got away with it.  His reconstruction of what a Wonder Woman comic could look like kept us entranced at first, but there has to be a point when he stops building and starts living in the house he has built.

Wonder Woman #23 – Review

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

The Story: Now’s our chance to see which era had the most badass warriors.

The Review: Troubled as some people were by the slow pace Wonder Woman had been running at for some time, it’s been even more troubling to see the title suddenly speed up in the last few issues.  Last issue in particular was something of a disappointment for how much it truncated Diana and Co.’s time on New Genesis when we had all been so longing to see the Fourth World’s standing in the new DCU.  It was the very definition of a missed opportunity.

In the same fashion, we’ve all hankered to see the ultimate throwdown between Diana and the First Born, yet now doesn’t seem like the right time for it.  To make the First Born a truly worthy adversary in Wonder Woman’s gallery, there has to be time for the two to develop a relationship, even an antagonistic one.  Given that in context, she’s only known him for about a few hours (setting aside the time she spent comatose), having a final confrontation now seems premature.

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 #19 – Review

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

The Story: A god can do with worse names than Zeke.

The Review: As we begin the title’s fourth arc, it seems only fair that longtime investors in this series get a chance to consider what we want from the story.  While I do appreciate that Azzarello has a very specific direction for his heroine, I feel it’s well past time for him to up the pace a bit.  He’s spent a lot of time establishing the principal characters, mythologies, and interacting forces for his plot; now’s the time to lose the reins and let them go wild on each other.

It seems Azzarello’s about to do just that by the end of this issue, though we have to sit through quite a bit of set-up first, not all of which seems entirely necessary or even useful.  The intro with Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus basically reiterates most of the info we already know, and does little to round out their personalities or goals.  It doesn’t get simpler than gods wanting to retain their positions of power and wanting to shut down any threat to them, right?

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 #16 – Review

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

The Story: And here Zola and Hera live the city high life while Diana ambles the sewers.

The Review: When the DC relaunch first started, Wonder Woman took nearly everyone by surprise with the particular direction Azzarello chose to run with.  You can associate a lot of different qualities with comics’ leading lady, but “horror” wasn’t really one of them.  In his first arc, Azzarello made you realize that Greek myth was full of monsters and horror, not all of it centered on actual monsters.

As Wonder Woman’s feats grew bolder and more adventurous, the visceral feeling of fear, established when we first saw a bloodied arm stretching from the fleshy torso of a decapitated horse, has slowly ebbed away.  This issue doesn’t quite restore that element of terror, but it does start building suspense once more; it distinctly feels that events are closing in on the plot, that traps are being laid around our heroes even as they still move freely.

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 #12 – Review

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

The Story: In business terms, Mount Olympus is going through a period of “reorganization.”

The Review: Over a year ago—and it makes me feel a bit odd and anxious to say that—I wrote in an op-ed with SoldierHawk the kind of things I wanted to see from Wonder Woman to make her more of the icon she should be:

“I’d simply like to know more about her makeup as a person… We already have plenty of stories that depict her as both warrior and humanitarian.   We need to see stories where she embraces the other roles that make a woman: as sister, mentor, friend, even as employee or lover… If anything, these are the things she truly lacks in contrast to her male peers, and why the public at large can respect her, but can’t sympathize with her.  And really, it’s how much we sympathize with a character that makes them popular and beloved, regardless of whatever principles they represent.”

The DC relaunch seemed the perfect opportunity to achieve some of these things, and DC certainly offered some of the best talent to do it.  So how have they done?

Wonder Woman #11 – Review

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

The Story: Wonder Woman in the Appalachian emergency room.

The Review: I think we tend to forget, in our experience of smooth political transitions and well-oiled government systems, how critical and damaging the vacuum of leadership can be.  Once it disappears, the chaos that follows rushes toward critical mass—a comment, I suppose, on our human nature as followers—with some striving to keep the status quo in place and others seeing it as an opportunity to change things up.

For the Greek pantheon, their view of Zeus’ absence depends largely on their essential natures, which Azzarello portrays with faithful attention to mythic tradition.  Clearly, the family boasts a number of go-getters, who spend the bulk of their time forging alliances and inviting favor for the inevitable battle for the throne.  It’s been fascinating, watching these Medici-style schemes play out, a series of power plays whose appeal is more cerebral than anything else.

Wonder Woman #9 – Review

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

The Story: Not even the god of death can keep crashers from his wedding.

The Review: As I read this month’s issue of Wonder Woman, I suddenly thought about All-Star Superman and what made it such a great, timeless story for the Man of Steel.  Writers tend to pay attention to superheroes for their power sets and fantastical backgrounds, but in All-Star, Grant Morrison managed to craft tales which got to the very essence of what made Superman beloved in the first place: a character who makes you believe anything is possible.

The reason why any of this is relevant to Wonder Woman is because Azzarello is attempting the same feat with comics’ leading lady.  We haven’t seen a lot of physical challenges for our heroine, which at first seems a waste of her strengths, but now I begin to think Azzarello wants us to put her bodily gifts aside.  The obstacles he’s set in her path may not require outstanding bouts of warrior prowess, but they’ve been no less demanding on her.

Wonder Woman #8 – Review

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

The Story: Don’t take this the wrong way, Diana, but death really becomes you.

The Review: My favorite creative writing professor in college loved Ernest Hemingway, and he got us to love him, too.  Even though Hemingway was a morose, chauvinist drunk who treated nearly all four of his wives unconscionably (third wife Martha was forced to take a ship full of explosives to meet him in London because he refused to help her get a press pass on a plane), his ability to craft stories of great depth from few words made him a master of the highest order.

Azzarello may be the Hemingway of comics today.  Whereas most of his contemporaries love to embellish their scripts, filling up panels with long captions of text, Azzarello goes for sparse bursts of dialogue which, like Hemingway’s famous “iceberg” analogy, contain profound levels of meaning beneath the surface.  He doesn’t impose his own interpretation of the story on you; he leaves you space to fill in with your own understanding and perspective.

While in the underworld, Diana is aghast to find the souls of the dead are indeed all around her—making the composition of hell itself.  Hermes claims that since mortal souls can thus reinvent themselves eternally, they have greater freedom than the gods, who must remain bound to their natures for their immortal lives.  Diana doubts any soul would wish to be “reinvented” into such horrors.  In response, Hermes says, “…Free will is a funny thing.”  The ambiguity of the statement leaves you free to interpret it as you wish.  Perhaps it’s noting how we’d prefer to endure pain rather than stagnancy; maybe it’s a commentary on how free will allows us to choose evil; it could also be Hermes’ way of saying we humans waste our freedoms.

At times, Azzarello’s minimalist scripting can be a double-edged sword.  It gives each word a semblance of import, but also produces ambiguity.  Hades says to Hermes, “You came here with one, but to get another.  So…which child of Zeus is your ‘we’?”  It’s a rhetorical, if confusing question, but for some reason it makes Hermes fly into an uncharacteristic rage.  Even now, after several readings, I confess I don’t know why Hades’ words provoke such a reaction.

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.

Wonder Woman #6 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Tony Akins (artist), Dan Green (inker), Matthew Wilson (colorist)

The Story: Actually, Wife Sharing With the Gods may be the one reality show I would watch.

The Review: If any of you have ever read Azzarello’s 100 Bullets (and if you haven’t, it might be a very good idea to start), you know his extraordinary talent for building conspiracies, stories rife with intrigue and tension.  In short, he’s the dream pulp writer, and indeed, his bibliography seems to speak to that; he spearheaded DC’s short-lived First Wave series, and his Batman: Knight of Vengeance mini for Flashpoint dripped suspense in every issue.

So on paper, having him write a character so grounded in myth and legendarium seems like a bit of an odd mix.  But you have to consider the mythic figures we’re dealing with here.  The Greek pantheon, with all its affairs, betrayals, and toxic relationships, can probably be considered one of the original mafia families.  Though they may stand as one against their mutual enemies, the vast majority of their conflicts comes from within, and is often more bitter.

What sets them apart from the typical cast of Sopranos is the scope of their squabbles.  In this case, the very heavens are at stake now that Zeus has vanished into the ether, and none other than his older brothers want a piece of it for themselves—although frankly, they’d prefer the whole shebang.  Before we can see them duke out the question, however, Wonder Woman and Lennox pipe up with their own suggestions for power-sharing, one that definitely puts Hera on the losing end, no matter which of the brothers gets the best deal.

Wonder Woman #5 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (writer), Tony Akins (artist), Matthew Wilson (colorist)

The Story: Let this be a lesson to you—never eat anything you fish up from a city river.

The Review: I don’t consider myself a particularly impatient person.  Why, back in the days of dial-up, I used to bring a book to the computer with me every time I needed to do a Google search (remember when that was such a new thing, people considered it “clever”?), and I didn’t complain.  When it comes to comics, I don’t mind a slow burn plot, where things percolate for a while before boiling up.  But at a certain point, I do expect events to get a little livelier.

That sentiment goes double when the story involves a character of action like Wonder Woman.  She’s one of the biggest brawlers in the DCU and it’s been a long while (since her scuffle with Aleka in #2) since we’ve actually seen her fight anybody.  When she gets into her heroic getup in this issue and leaps off a bridge to confront a herd of oversized seahorses in the Thames, you start getting your hopes up, thinking she’s finally going to pummel some heads, but alas—not a single punch is thrown, and it turns out to be a rather subdued scene.

In fact, the whole issue is rather talky, whether it’s Diana and Zola having a girl talk in the rain, or Hermes getting acquainted with yet another new member of his divine family.  It’s not as if all this conversation is for nothing; we do get a better idea of how Diana as a woman (rather than as Amazon) sounds (“…going to war…with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.  Good against evil…winner take all.  …It’s kinda [sic] cool.”), which is always valuable.  But we’ve already had so many issues in a row with characters just chatting, so by now it feels a bit much.

Wonder Woman #4 – Review

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

The Story: Someone pop on some AC/DC and turn it up—Wonder Woman’s mourning.

The Review: As a young buff of Greek mythology, I always found the gods and goddesses baffling in their arbitrariness.  Even the most reasoned and benevolent ones would have their petty streaks from time to time, and few of them had any moral compunction about using their power with impunity and without regard for the consequences to mortals.  For that reason, I’ve never felt inclined to feel sympathetic to any of them.  They are gods, after all.

For the most part, Azzarello stays true to the conniving, scheming world of the Greek pantheon.  Ever since Apollo’s oracles revealed Zeus “doesn’t exist,” a truly astonishing pronouncement if you ever heard one, you’d think there’d be some kind of uproar among the divinities, or at least some kind of inquiry as to how this could possibly happen.  But we’re talking about the ultimate mafia family here, so when the head of the household disappears, power plays abound.

To that end, Apollo goes to Ares to secure an alliance of sorts, or at least support for when he makes his bid for leadership.  To your surprise, Ares agrees to stay out of the bidding with little resistance.  In fact, he seems quite lethargic, even melancholy in this portrayal.  While Apollo states that Ares is “vital—now, more than ever,” Ares responds with only a weary smile, as if millennia of spinning the world’s conflict has finally gotten to him.

Hera doesn’t even seem aware, much less affected, by her husband’s disappearance; she only wants to get her revenge on the dalliances he left behind.  Now, her oft-extreme retaliations against those she feels has wronged her may sway you into thinking her mean-spirited or horribly spiteful, but here, she reminds us she has every reason to be: “I am the queen of the gods…the goddess of women…ultimately yet, a woman.”  And any woman would be enraged by such constant infidelity from her husband.

Wonder Woman #3 – Review

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

The Story: Diana joins the ranks of women (and men) who have major daddy issues.

The Review: Even back in ancient days the concept of the Amazons captured people’s fancies.  Granted, society at that point was such that a race of women who lived and acted on the same footing as men had the same novelty as, say, hydras and sheep with golden wool.  Anyway, DC’s fictional Amazons for a while followed their traditional forbears in a strict ban on interaction with men, but Wonder Woman’s relationship to Man’s world weakened that prejudice over time.

In this new DCU, the Amazons are back to man-hating with passion; even male gods aren’t spared from their wrath and scorn, judging by their threats to the injured Hermes last issue.  Actually, the Amazons don’t tiptoe around any god at all, not even the literally shadowing presence of Strife.  Even as they bury the casualties of the demi-goddess’ power, that doesn’t prevent them from back-talking her with seeming impunity: “…you trick us into murdering our own…and now you mock us.”  “A god’s appetite truly has no shame.”

This brings up a question I bring from the original myths: if the gods are so inclined  and capable of interfering in mortals’ lives, why don’t they go all out in exercising that power?  The most likely answer, of course, is the gods simply enjoy themselves more going the hard way about it.  They indisputably have the upper hand in raw power, so the only amusement they can get out of us is to bring themselves down to our level and see if we can match them that way.  Little wonder why Hippolyta and Zeus hooked up; she saw a man who could actually match her skill in battle, and he saw a mortal woman who could give the king of gods a challenge.

Ultimately, the truth about Diana’s parentage indeed creates discord on the island (one woman darkly speculates on Hippolyta’s death), but it also brings to light tensions that have afflicted Diana since childhood.  Paradise, it seems, offers little protection from the usual mean-spirited taunts most people receive as kids (“…not since I was a little girl have I been called [Clay].”).

Wonder Woman #2 – Review

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

The Story: Can’t you gods work out your issues on Maury or something?

The Review: Actually, it may have been in Wonder Woman that I read this, but I distinctly remember a character musing on the idea that gods, as idealizations of humans, represent not only the brightest, greatest, finest parts of humanity, but also humanity at its very worst.  Only the gods are ever so much better at it.  They not only scheme, nurse grudges, and arbitrarily act with the best of them, they have the power to carry out even their least thought-out agendas.

If you didn’t realize that before, this issue will ring the idea home, big time.  You have Wonder Woman carrying a wounded god in her arms.  She brings with her a young, pregnant woman to a secret island populated by outrageously tall, semi-barbarian women.  Her mother, a figure even more impressive than Diana, who carries a large double-headed axe in one hand, expresses fear of the future.  All this because of one goddess’ jealousy.  These immortals don’t mess around.