Wonder Woman 1 Thoughts

Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Cliff Chiang

* Author's Note: I think she looked cooler with pants.


Anyway. First thing's first: Cliff Chiang's art is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. I thought it was slightly cartoony when I was reading Green Arrow/Black Canary, but that was clearly done on purpose as hear it manages to do a number of tones--including very creepy--with no problems. Everything's pretty much pitch-perfect from start to finish.

Next. I've been seeing a few people claim this book is too difficult to follow. Uhm. For serious? The ONLY thing that was kind of difficult to understand was the identity of the guy with the helmet. Everything else...I'm not a mythology guy, unless you count superheroes. And I've read Wonder Woman from the last relaunch of this book until Gail left the book. That's it. I'm not terribly familiar with Greek Mythology, but Azzarello basically telegraphs the identities of these characters.

Lastly, before I finally delve into this book. Is it really a big deal that Diana sleeps in the nude? How else is she supposed to sleep? With pajamas? Just curious. I'm more insulted that she's doing her superhero-ing in heels again. GTFO. Stop trolling and give Diana a pair of boots. Or find me some women who do gardening and rock climbing and other physical activites in heels. You won't, because it's not practical.

Anyways. The review itself: I can see what Azzarello meant when he said he wanted this to be a horror book. It certainly opens like one, with mysterious characters doing evil things and killing people with impunity. But on the bright side, Diana seems to have her normal power levels, and horror stories are really just superhero books minus the superheroes anyway.

Overall, this was a decent opening story for Wonder Woman. Stripped of the island full of amazons, and with no Donna Troy or Cassie Sandsmark or Steve Trevor to complicate things, this opening arc is all about Diana and this latest adventure. As long as someone new to Wonder Woman acknowledges this, it should be fairly easy for them to get into.

For my money though, I can only hope that Azzarello intends to write this series for a while, because I don't think Diana's relationship with the Greek gods can go back to normal when this story's done. Already I have solid evidence for that, and I can only imagine it'll get worse as the story goes on. Without a dedicated vision for the character and her cast, things will just go back to the Greek gods just chilling out on Mount Olympus doling out tasks for Diana, and that's going to look rather silly by comparison to this arc.

Anyways, for the first issue of Wonder Woman: Warrior Princess, I'm pretty impressed. Excited for issue 2.