Wonder Woman #19 Review OR Orion’s Much Deserved Comeuppance

My fellow Wonder Woman readers, our long national nightmare is over.  The ass slap heard around the world has been avenged, and Orion has been thoroughly shut down.  Wonder Woman #19 wasn’t a particularly eventful issue, and I had some definite issues with it, but at least Orion got a well deserved and long overdue response from Wonder Woman.  We’ll get to it all momentarily, but first:

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Everything that happened in this issue will soon be revealed!!

If you haven’t read it yet, run away!!

Okay, so Orion got a beat down after digging himself into an even deeper hole with Wonder Woman.  After making what was essentially an incestuous dig about Wonder Woman and Lennox, Orion suggested that he’d much rather be alone with Wonder Woman.  Under the guise of a kiss, Wonder Woman got close to Orion and threatened to tear his balls off:

When RIGHT AFTER Orion said “You really are cute when you get mad” and this happened:

Then Orion’s face turned all weird and he got angry and boom tubed out of there.

So it’s fun that Wonder Woman finally did something about Orion’s actions.  The guy’s been a sexist jerk since he arrived, calling Wonder Woman “Legs”, slapping her ass, and just generally harassing her.  Many readers were disappointed when his slap went unanswered two issues ago, so a menacing threat and a mighty punch are good to see now.

However, the kiss was lame and generally unnecessary.  I suppose we can blame editorial and their mandated “WTF” theme for that, but a) it took up two pages of kissing and whatnot to set up the threat when she could’ve just reached over and grabbed his man parts from the get-go, and b) Azzarello could have taken this “WTF” theme is any number of directions.  This prolonged, tacky kiss prelude was a poorly executed and poorly thought out choice.  She didn’t need to kiss that jackass, as much as I enjoyed the comeuppance that followed.

So I’m a little lukewarm on the Orion stuff.  It finished well, but started off in a silly, unnecessary way.  All in all, though, I’m more glad he got decked than annoyed he got kissed.  However, the rest of the Wonder Woman section of the book bothered me.  First, it accounted for only 9 of the book’s 20 pages.  It’s called Wonder Woman, so you’d think she’d be in at least half of the pages, but no.  Second, Wonder Woman is again shown to be bad at what she does.

It all starts off well enough, with Ares complimenting Wonder Woman for a change, which was very nice to see after his shoddy treatment of her in past issues:

Ares commends Wonder Woman for being a strong leader by keeping this bizarre, combative group all together and peaceful.  It’s the first compliment he’s paid her since he showed up a few issues ago, and really the first time someone’s said something good about Wonder Woman in a while.

Guess what happens next?  Later in that same page, Lennox announces he’s leaving.  Then Wonder Woman and Orion get into a fight and Orion announces he’s leaving too.  Essentially, the team falls apart and loses its two biggest heavy hitters outside of Wonder Woman.  Everything Ares just praised Wonder Woman for is undone, which thus undermines the compliment and makes Wonder Woman look bad yet again.  I don’t know why Azzarello feels the need to do this in almost every issue.  Wonder Woman’s rarely allowed any kind of victory or positive accomplishment.  Everything is constantly unraveling, often making Wonder Woman look foolish or ineffective in the process.

The rest, ie. the majority, of Wonder Woman #19 involved the gods.  The First Born was trapped inside Poseidon in a very Jonah and the whale situation.  And, much like Jonah, the First Born must be contrite and listen to a deity in order to escape his aquatic dungeon.  In this case, it meant the First Born agreeing to not attack the seas or hell, the realms of Poseidon and Hades.  In return, Poseidon gave the First Born his sword and Hades promised to give the First Born’s army back to him.  He can only attack the heavens now.

The crafty Poseidon and Hades also steer the First Born into some big fights in hopes of others ridding them of this menace.  The First Born was gunning for Apollo already, but they send him after Zola’s baby as well, ensuring that he’ll fight Wonder Woman as well.  Poseidon and Hades are hoping that one of them defeats the First Born before he inevitably betrays his new allies and comes after them.

Speaking of Apollo, he’s hanging out on Mount Olympus with Artemis and Dionysus, blathering on about nothing and taking up 5 pages of the book for no good reason in particular.  Ultimately, the book ends with Artemis going to steal Zola’s baby, but the conversation leading up to that isn’t particularly illuminating or visually interesting.  It felt like a considerable waste of space to me.

On the plus side, it looks like Zola is naming her baby Zeke, which is a really fun name.  I certainly like it better than Nigel or Steve.  Plus, it starts with a Z just like Zeus, which feeds my rather unsubstantiated theory that Zola’s baby is actually Zeus himself through some sort of weird god magic.  I mean, the dude’s got to be somewhere, right?  He can’t have just disappeared entirely.  And this seems like a rather coincidentally timed pregnancy.  It’s probably totally wrong and Zeus is on New Genesis or something, but you never know.

Overall, Wonder Woman got to actually act like Wonder Woman for a few panels in this issue, which was a nice change.  But still, her leadership skills couldn’t save her team AND she again appeared in less than half of her own book.  We’ve got to take what we can get with this version of Wonder Woman, I suppose, and Orion getting socked in the jaw was a pretty good time.  Plus, Zeke!  It’s just fun to say.

Wonder Woman #19 Preview OR Someone Needs To Buy A Book Of Baby Names

Wonder Woman #19 is out this week and we’ve got a five-page preview of the issue with art from regular fill-in artist Tony Akins and former Y: The Last Man fill-in artist Goran Sudzuka.  Let’s take a look:

Starting a book with a three page conversation where absolutely nothing happens seems like an odd choice to me, but so it goes.  Other than a very vague recap, that seemed to serve little to no purpose.

The baby naming was sort of amusing though.  I like Lennox’s super British name choices, Ares’ very in character suggestion, and Hera warming up to the baby is cute.  Not surprisingly, Wonder Woman gets to look like a complete doofus with her suggestion of “What about Steve?”  Zola’s “Come on, girl… you’re better than that” glare in response is perfect though.  I so don’t understand what Azzarello is doing with Wonder Woman, and I’m not entirely sure he does either.  Everyone else is such an interesting, cool character, but Wonder Woman’s just sort of there, being lame and getting duped.  Anyway, the banter from everyone else is enjoyable at least.

Look for Wonder Woman #19 at fine comic shops everywhere this Wednesday!  It’s got a SHOCKING fold out cover and a MAD variant too, so keep an eye out for that.

Wonder Woman #18 Review OR Wonder Woman Plays A Minor Role In Some Big Story Resolution

Something finally happened in Wonder Woman #18, which is a very nice change of pace.  Wonder Woman’s been looking for Zola’s baby since August, and now she’s finally got him back with his mother after months of what felt to me like a rather slow moving story.  So that’s good.  However, I’m of two minds on the execution.  We’ll get into it all momentarily, but first:

SPOILERS!!

Every twist and turn in this issue will be SPOILED if you read any further!!

ALL OF THEM!!

Okay, back to the book.  Let’s start with the callback to Orion slapping Wonder Woman on the rear last month, as it’s a good example of my general two-mindedness on this book.  Orion reveals that the slap was in fact a ruse to he could get some of Wonder Woman’s DNA and thus track her to Demeter’s lair in case Ares pulled something:

In an interview with Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers, Azzarello said that the slap was intentionally offensive and unresolved (ie. Wonder Woman didn’t retaliate) so as readers would remember it when the next issue came out.

It’s an interesting tactic, to be sure, and we can read it two ways.  First, Azzarello came up with a clever way for readers to remember an important plot point.  He was screwing with us, knowing everyone would get up in arms about it.  Second, it was kind of a cheap way to make us remember it.  Orion touching Wonder Woman so as to have her DNA could have been emphasized in any number of memorable ways, but Azzarello went with the ass slap.  Even as an elaborate ruse, Wonder Woman was still offensively touched in an unwanted way.  So which reading do we focus on?

Before we get to that, let’s look at a dual reading of this issue more broadly.  On the one hand, Wonder Woman and her team defeat Hermes and Demeter and rescue Zola’s baby, the task they’ve been working towards for months now.  Zola and her baby are reunited, and the issue ends with a very nice, heartwarming shot of the whole family sitting together.  Chiang does a great job with the page, and it’s lovely all around:

On the other hand, Wonder Woman is the least effective part of this rescue.  She and Hermes are going toe to toe, and they’re very evenly matched.  But Hermes has the advantage of speed, and it’s not until Orion swoops in to save her that she has the means to slow down Hermes with a well placed sword stroke (Hermes is having the worst luck with leg injuries in this series).  While Wonder Woman distracts Hermes, Ares is the one who actually rescues Zola’s baby.  Wonder Woman is a diversion at best.  Orion’s speed and Ares’ sneakiness are what really save the baby.

Furthermore, Wonder Woman is entirely in the dark about what’s going on.  Unbeknownst to her, Orion tracked her to come save her bacon.  Then, when she learns that Ares has left with the baby, she’s distraught because she thinks Ares has stolen the baby for his own nefarious purposes.  She’s completely surprised to see that Ares has brought the baby back to Zola on his own.  Here’s Wonder Woman freaking out after she learns that Ares has taken the baby from Demeter:

So are we glad that something finally happened and that Zola got her baby back, or are we annoyed that Wonder Woman was outshone by the men and completely unaware of what was actually happening?  It’s a little bit of both for me… things are rarely all that cut and dry.  I’m glad this story finally got resolved, and the last couple pages were great.  That being said, though, we’ve got yet ANOTHER issue where Wonder Woman is in the dark about some important things AND basically plays a background role in the actual goings on.  It’s getting really old.

While Wonder Woman is in the book more than usual, it’s in the context of another confrontation where her opponent talks shit about her.  This has been a common occurrence.  Wonder Woman doesn’t just fight people, she fights while getting harangued by her opponent the entire time.  I know she’s Wonder Woman and she can take it, but she’s WONDER WOMAN.  She doesn’t need to be perpetually behind the eight ball and talked down to every issue.  Do you know what people say when they fight Batman?  They say “Oh shit, it’s Batman!!” and try to run.  Even when he’s up against a bigger villain smack talking him, there’s usually a begrudging respect for Batman’s skill.  Perhaps because he can take down bad guys by himself, while Wonder Woman always needs help.

It would just be nice for Wonder Woman to be straight up awesome for an issue.  No getting duped, no help, just kicking ass and maybe even duping someone else.  Wonder Woman is smart and impressive, so I would really enjoy reading a comic where she got to be smart and impressive.  This constantly getting the rug pulled out from under her and such is driving me batty.

So ultimately, some things got resolved in this issue, which is nice, but it was the same old when it came to Wonder Woman.  I know the gods are all tricksy and powerful opponents, but I really miss the heroine from Wonder Woman #1 who busted up the centaurs, saved Zola, and was generally bad ass and cool.  It’s been downhill for her since then.

Elsewhere in the book this month, the First Born battled with Poseidon, and it looks like the First Born and his pal Cassandra both ended up swallowed by Poseidon.  Next month could be a Jonah and the whale adventure!!  If I were a giant fish creature, I would not want the First Born in my belly.  That dude is rough stuff.  It’s going to get unpleasant in there.

On the art side, the book did seem a little bit rushed this month, with three different art teams doing various sections, but overall I think it turned out a bit better than last month.  It looks like Matthew Wilson had a little more time to smooth out the colouring, which helped the look of the book a lot, and generally things felt a lot less roughed in on this issue.  Plus we got three pages of Cliff Chiang, which is always fun.  Hopefully we’ll see more of him next month.

Overall, I’m very glad that the baby searching story has been resolved and the ending was very nice and heartwarming, but the characterization and treatment of Wonder Woman still gets on my nerves.  They’re not doing anything egregious with her, but seeing the same annoying little things over and over with nothing else to counteract them is getting old.

Wonder Woman #18 Preview

Comic Book Resources has posted a six page preview of Wonder Woman #18, which comes out this Wednesday in fine comic book shops everywhere.  Let’s take a look:

Three credited artists is rarely a good sign for the overall quality of a book.  Usually when that happens, the schedule is so tight that the main artist can’t finish all the pages and so they have to bring in other people to make sure the book comes out on time.  Everyone rushes, the colourist has barely any time to polish their work, the letterer has to fly through it, and it’s just an all around mad dash to get the issue ready to print in time.  These books never look particularly good, and last month I suggested that this may have happened with the very sloppy Wonder Woman #17.  It seems we may be getting the same type of rush job this month, if these pages are any indication.  That Goran Sudzuka, Tony Akins, and Cliff Chiang all have pages in this book is just bizarre, and things seem a bit of a mess.

Still, it’s fun to have Hermes back.  He was always my favourite before he stole Zola’s baby.  I enjoyed his banter with Wonder Woman here, and look forward to seeing the rest of their fight.  The First Born stuff is the same stuff as usual: He’s all angry and fighting whatever stands in his way.  Eventually he’ll fight through enough things to get to Wonder Woman, in June if the solicits are any indication.

And hey, there are going to be some Chiang pages!!  Wonder Woman is always orders of magnitude better when Chiang is drawing the book.  He just gets the character so perfectly in ways no one else in the New 52 does, and not just on this book.  In Justice League, Jim Lee and Ivan Reis don’t even come close to what Chiang does with Wonder Woman.

Look for Wonder Woman #18 on Wednesday!  I’m a little bit concerned that it could be a mess, but you never know.  Maybe the remaining 15 pages totally kill it.

Wonder Woman #17 Review OR Kind Of Sloppy Work From Everyone This Month

There’s nothing I want more than to enjoy Wonder Woman every month, so these last few less than enthusiastic reviews have been a real bummer for me.  I miss the fast, crazy fun of the early days of the relaunch where the plot hurtled forward, jumping from hilarity to cool fights to touching moments with ease and skill.  Wonder Woman was a well-oiled machine then, a clinic in how to pack a comic full of awesome.  In comparison to those early days, the last few months have felt sort of slow and plodding, and with Wonder Woman #17 I feel like the wheels have come off on pretty much every level.  We’ll discuss this momentarily, but first:

SPOILERS!!!

I am going to ruin every (admittedly few) plot point from this comic book!!

If you haven’t read it, it will be SPOILED just inches from now!!

Now, on with the review.  We left last issue with Zola and Hera at a bar with a slew of gods, and Wonder Woman, Lennox, and Orion fixing to team up and track down Zola’s baby.  In this issue, everyone meets up at the bar, where sparks should fly.  They do not.  Wonder Woman finally comes face to face with Ares, a confrontation that’s been building for months, and they have a subdued conversation and then set off to find Zola’s baby.  Apart from Ares insulting Wonder Woman’s intelligence occasionally, it was a rather non-confrontational confrontation.

There were some good moments in the story, like Wonder Woman rehearsing her conversation with Zola and Hera, Orion calling Lennox “Lummox”, and Strife doing anything.  Hermes showing up at the end and clawing the hell out of Ares was pretty great.  However, there were a lot of sour moments, and overall the story just dragged for me.  I’m not enjoying this frat boy version of Orion, despite the cool new design, and this panel was just dumb:

Ares picking apart Wonder Woman’s plans and decision making is yet another in a long line of examples of someone pointing out that Wonder Woman’s not so bright.  In the New 52 universe, Diana may be caring and a great warrior, but she’s got next to no tactical or thinking ahead skills, which Ares breaks down.  And then the First Born stuff feels tacked on and also slow moving.  Part one of a shark battle we know he’s going to win because he’s the Big Bad is not so enthralling.

There all these great characters in what should be a super cool story about a baby’s destiny to bring down the gods, and it’s just been SO slow and uneventful.  Last issue, the fun of the gods at the bar made up for lackluster storytelling elsewhere.  This month, there was very little fun and a lot of slowing inching the story along.  Charming scenes can go a long way to make up for a lack of story progression because some characters are just such a good time to be around.  That was not the case this month.

However, the glacial storytelling was only part of my problem with this issue.  The art was a rough situation in a lot of places.  I hate to be down on Tony Akins because following Cliff Chiang is a tough gig.  No one is going to look great when compared to what Chiang does with this book.  But there were just some bad style choices.  Panels cut off in odd spots, like this one after Zola “attacks” Ares and Ares quickly turns the tables:

The framing of this strikes me as bizarre.  Why not pull back a bit and have more of both character’s faces, or either zoom in closer on Zola’s frightened expression?  This weird half in frame scene just looks off.

To be fair, I suspect there was a bit of a rush on this book.  Amilcar Pinna filled in on a few of the First Born pages (and did a nice job), which suggests that Akins didn’t have enough time to finish the book.  If Akins was on a tight time crunch, that could explain why some of the pages don’t appear particularly well thought out.  Nonetheless, it gave the book a bit of a sloppy look.

This was exacerbated by the colouring situation.  Usually Matthew Wilson knocks it out of the park every month with Wonder Woman, and I’ve singled out his colouring prowess several times in past reviews.  Unfortunately, this issue wasn’t his best work.  Look again at the image above.  On Zola’s face, Wilson uses two flat colours for the skin and another two for the hair, creating a lot of stark contrast between the two.  Usually this would be softened up some, with some gradation or blending to smooth out the divide between light and shadows, but as it is the colouring looks harsh, and somewhat slapdash even.  Look at Zola’s eyes as an example of good blending and highlights.  They really pop and look great, which makes the rest of the panel look all the more half-hearted in comparison.

Also consider Ares in the background.  There are barely any highlights whatsoever.  It’s mostly just flat colour, with a sporadic stark highlight here and there.  Plus, the panel is very red, which was a big problem for all of the bar scenes.  The bar itself had a red colouring, which worked fine last issue and gave it a moody feel.  Here, it just made the pages feel monochromatic.  There were no real contrasts.  Blonde hair had orange shadows.  Skin had pink shadows.  Add in Wonder Woman and Orion with their red outfits and the whole scene was just slight variants of red and the whole thing became muddled.

While I don’t know the details behind this issue’s production, it looks like time could be to blame here as well.  Colourists usually do several passes on a page, laying in flat colours, putting in shadows and highlights, and then polishing and smoothing the image so it looks good and pops.  I feel like this issue got shortchanged on the last colouring pass, and a rush job might explain that.  Go back and look at Wonder Woman #16 to see how smooth the colours are, and how Wilson brought in more than just one main colour and one shadow colour.  I’m looking at it right now, and good lord these bar scenes are gorgeous.  He makes the red work so well, cutting the monochrome with these great white highlights and smoothing out the skin tones, while also bringing in a lot of other colours for contrast.  Wilson is a remarkable colourist, so my best guess is that he just didn’t have a lot of time on this issue, and I think the rushed quality of the line art supports this theory.

Basically, this issue was no one’s best work.  Azzarello kept on plodding the story along instead of giving it some oomph, while the art appeared rushed on every level.  All together, it felt like a pretty sloppy comic book, and I’ve got to assume that everyone was working on a tighter deadline than usual.  Ultimately for me, the biggest issue continues to be the story.  The art’s been fairly consistent on the book for a while, but the story’s momentum has really slowed since the #0 issue.  Supposedly big events have felt small, a lot of material feels tangential and unimportant, and Wonder Woman’s main plot has barely progressed at all.  Hopefully they find that darn baby next month so something will actually happen for a change.

Wonder Woman #17 Preview

Wonder Woman #17 is out this Wednesday, and DC’s put up a preview of the book via Wired, and specifically through their “Geek Mom” page.  That’s a fun choice!  Corrina Lawson is super great, and it’s nice to see that DC’s been reaching out to some female-friendly sites lately.  This is WAY better than when Wonder Woman had previews at Maxim.  Let’s take a look:

First off, this isn’t the solicited cover.  This was scheduled as the cover for Wonder Woman #18, but over at DC’s solicits page the covers have been switched.  The original Wonder Woman #17 cover, with Wonder Woman running through fiery woods holding a baby, should be on next month’s issue.

Greek gods at a bar has been the most entertaining thing this comic’s done in months, and I’d be glad to see more of that.  However, with the boom tube at the end of the preview, it seems like the frivolity is about to end.  I love a lot of little moments in this preview, like Wonder Woman rehearsing what to say to Zola and imagining how she and Hera would respond, or when Zola snags that big knife.  I enjoy that in a room full of gods, Zola is brave enough to try to fight her way out with a knife if she has to.

Wonder Woman and Lennox bickering isn’t my cup of tea, but the petty bickering of the gods is right up my alley.  I’m expecting quite the confrontation when Wonder Woman sees Ares, on account of their strained relationship.  I suppose it might get lost in the chaos of there being so many gods in one spot, but given the switched out covers I assume they’re going to address their odd relationship in some capacity.

Look for Wonder Woman #17 at comic stores and available digitally this Wednesday!!

Cover And Solicit For Wonder Woman #19

We got the cover for Wonder Woman #19 last Friday, and now we’ve got this rather uninformative solicit to add to it.  Let’s take a peek:

WONDER WOMAN #19

Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO

Art by TONY AKINS and DAN GREEN

Fold-out cover by CLIFF CHIANG

1:25 MAD Variant cover by The Usual Gang of Idiots

“We Can Be Heroes” blank variant cover also available

On sale APRIL 17 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

• What is the one way Wonder Woman can stop Orion?

So Wonder Woman is going to fight Orion, which we’ve already ascertained from the cover because we have eyeballs.  There are a lot of variants, though.  And Tony Akins is drawing it.

DC’s also confirmed the fold-out cover rumours, so there’s more to the cover than just this.  Apparently for every DC book in April, when you open the fold-out cover issue there’ll be more to the image that will surprise and astound you.  It seems like a silly promotion to me, but hey we get an extra page of Cliff Chiang.

Look for Wonder Woman #19 on April 17!!