Wonder Woman #1

Title: Wonder Woman
Issue: 1
Date: November 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Cliff Chiang
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Chris Conroy, Matt Idelson
Cover: Cliff Chiang

Wonder Woman always struck me as a character that DC couldn't quite figure out what to do with. The Batman had his comedic phase in the 1960s when the TV show was popular, but other than that he's always been the "avenging dark knight". Superman was always the "big boy scout".

With Diana it seems you never know what you're going to get. Amazon warrior or pacifist? Is she the naive visitor to "man's world" from her Paradise Island, or is she the only JLA member with the guts to break Max Lord's neck when that was what had to be done? Patriotic symbol or mythological figure? Feminist, or sex-object? Or a bad attempt at both?

Unlike a lot of the DCU, Wonder Woman could really use a reboot, along with an attempt to bring her some coherence and consistency. Now personally, my favorite versions of Wonder Woman have been the George Perez run in the 1980s (emphasis on her pacifist side and really strong on interactions with her supporting cast, which in that series was pretty much the best it has ever been), and the Lynda Carter TV version (which I love in spite of all the goofiness because the character showed wisdom, restraint, and most importantly the sense of humor that is so often lacking in her comic portrayals).

And for the record, I feel that some of the more recent Wonder Woman comic stories have been among the worst I've read in recent years (must avoid ranting about Genocide...).

So I approached this book with some trepidation, having heard that it would emphasize the warrior side of Diana and that it would be heavily based in Greek mythology. That's not necessarily the direction I was hoping they would go.

But as it turned out, the first issue a pleasant surprise that showed some good potential.

Opening scene involved a villain, a demigod (literally; he's a son of Zeus). He's hanging out atop the world's tallest building, which for some reason in the DCU is located in Singapore and not Dubai. Anyway, there's some small-talk with some women, followed by some throwing of women off of the aforementioned world's tallest building. That was how I was able to figure out the guy was a villain.

Fortunately, this does get better, although not before we have some gratuitous equine decapitation. Now THAT was a phrase that I didn't expect to be writing on this blog. It actually leads to a gruesome, but at least clever sequence where a pair of centaur assassins are conjured using the bodies of the just-slain horses.

The assassins, as it turns out are after a woman named Zola and her child (fetus, actually; DC Comics apparently favors the Mississippi definition of personhood). Hermes has just arrived to protect her, but she's not actually all that thrilled with a strange blue-skinned dude breaking into her house to warn her of her impending assassination. But just as things get out of hand, Hermes tosses her the magical key of teleportation and she ends up in Diana Prince's bedroom (Wonder Woman sleeps naked btw, just in case anyone was curious, and DC was hoping you were).

Now it's Diana's turn to be not amused by an uninvited guest.

And then it actually gets pretty good. No, really. I realize I've been mocking this issue pretty mercilessly up to now, but I loved the interaction between Zola and Diana. The action sequence that followed was excellent. A bit more gory than might be expected from a Wonder Woman book, but we are in Amazon warrior mode here so it works. And the scene that followed with Zola, Diana, and Hermes was really solid too. Ending bit brought us back to the opening scene and some generic prophesy, but the good of the second half of this book really overshadowed the bad.

And Cliff Chiang's artwork helped a lot. It's a slightly more stylized look than most of the new DC titles, but it really fits the mythological feel of the book and Chiang's action sequences are crisp and powerful.

Rating: 7.5/10