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.
TIM HANLEY 
Its a good review to begin with, and some fairly absorbing fight going on with Diana and Hermes, but -again- Hermes talk too much and takes away from her in terms of impact, and just as it gets good we cut away to the First Born and his battle..!!!.Diana just isnt getting her due in this book anymore, unfortunately.
Much as I love Wonder Woman, I wouldn’t mind the whole book being about Hermes. He’s such a fun character. But yeah, hopefully we’ll get some more Wonder Woman in the rest of the book!
Gah! That art on the first few pages is awful. But still, its great to see Diana kicking some ass. 🙂
I suspect that this “WTF” month thing threw a monkey wrench in Azz’s plans and he had to rewrite his script, and the artists had to scramble to accommodate the changes. That’s the problem with these line-wide crossovers.
That’s a very good theory! The last issue was clearly rushed too, and the covers for both issues were switched around. It seems that a lot of changes have been made, and the imposition of the WTF month may well account for that. They seem to plan ahead on this book, so as to make sure Chiang can draw as many issues as possible, so the WTF month could have screwed up all of their scheduling. Good thinking!
With Hermes’ expression in the first panel, it’s hard for me to think he’s a bad egg. 🙂
Sea, ether, hell. I’ve always associated “ether”, not with the heavens, but with dissolution or lack of substance, so I find it quite fitting to be used with Zeus, since he “does not exist, yet.” 🙂
Cheers!