By: Brian Azzarello (story) Goran Sudžuka (art), Matthew Wilson (colors)
The Story: Sibling rivalries take on new meaning when gods are involved.
The Review: One of the frequent criticisms of this title, and one that I often levy myself, is that Wonder Woman feels strangely out of place in a series where she’s supposedly the star. Perhaps this is evidence that Azzarello is not so much interested in his heroine herself as the possibilities of her world. There’s no denying that he’s taken her mythological background and mined it extravagantly, turning the Olympians into the best part of the series.
So he can hardly be blamed for spending so much of each issue featuring their various schemes at the cost of crowding out Diana. And I use “crowding out” very purposely; with us barely noticing it, Azzarello has given Wonder Woman one of the biggest ongoing casts of all the new 52 titles. Give any two or three Olympians a scene of their own, tack on some panels for Diana’s core crew, and naturally she’ll wind up with little page-time for herself.
It doesn’t help that the non-Diana parts of the issue are usually the best ones. How can her displays of compassion and righteousness possibly compete with Apollo and Dionysus feasting upon the flesh of the First Born,* blandly discussing matters of seasoning over his raging, prostrate body? It can’t. True to form, Azzarello doesn’t accomplish much, substance-wise, in this scene besides a typically ambiguous offer from Apollo to his brother (“Your need to relish…what if I gave you one?”), but the context is so gutting that it hardly matters.
Anyway, Wonder Woman runs on a combustion of intrigue, with all its players simultaneously planning ahead and striving against one another to accomplish at times very petty goals in the most elaborate manner. Surprisingly, it’s Hera who provides the most cogent explanation for this. She explains that for mortals,
“There is consequence…as a god, there is none. We do what we like when we like for whatever reason we like—or don’t. When you live forever, the most important moment is now. It’s blinding…”
Even when the Olympians are trying to accomplish something in the long term, this doesn’t equate to thinking ahead to the long-term consequences.** Strife, for example, is not content to take her revenge on Diana directly, even though she orders a custom-made weapon from Hephaestus for that very purpose. True to her nature, she takes a highly indirect, manipulative route, sowing seeds of discord among Diana’s adoptive family by exposing the most sensitive of their weaknesses. But two can play this game of psych-out. In a very unexpected move, Diana runs off to confront Cassandra and help her fellow demigods, but not before placing Strife in charge in her absence. “?! You trust me to…” Strife begins
“I do,” Diana says. Her Mona Lisa smile hints that maybe she sees something Strife doesn’t, and Strife’s surprise should be a sign that Diana’s doing something right, even if it seems like folly. I sincerely hope this split decision pans out for Diana. Given how reactionary most of her actions have been up to this point, she can really use a win on her own terms.
Sudžuka’s art is fine, I suppose. In terms of his taste in storytelling, he’s not all that different from Cliff Chiang, preferring a simple and straightforward approach that gets the job done with a minimum of fuss and confusion. I’d say the biggest contrast between the two artists is in the subtlety of expression. Sudžuka tends to go a bit broader than Chiang, which drives the characters a bit too close to the comical side of things, and it’s clear he lacks the refinement in his linework that Chiang always brings. But otherwise, with Wilson’s rich coloring, Sudžuka is a competent replacement.
Conclusion: As always, Azzarello leaves you with plenty to keep you interested to see how the next issue plays out, though the issue in had is not as satisfying as it can be.
Grade: B
– Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * Now I know what you Greek myth buffs are thinking: didn’t the Olympians have a thing against cannibalism? Anyone remember Lycaon? Then again, the gods don’t seem to have the same reservations when it comes to eating their own, as Cronus demonstrates.
** Perhaps this explains why Athena, goddess of wisdom and thus perhaps the only goddess capable of seeing the big picture, has chosen to vacate Olympus for the time being.