Wonder Woman #601

So we finally get to JMS's first full issue all to himself. Despite my misgivings on the Jim Lee costume design, this looks interesting.

What JMS has done is to toss Diana, who is and is not the character we have been reading about since 1986 or 1942, take your pick, and give her a plateful of bog-standard stock superhero tropes that she has not been exposed to before. We get:

• Survivor of a lost paradise. Diana is not the only survivor, but she is the most powerful of the survivors.
• A standard issue dystopia where the heroes are hunted by an authoritarian government.
• A violated heroine whose basic motive is revenge.

All of these elements are pretty much cliché. Putting Wonder Woman in the middle of them is fairly original. This may be an interesting ride.

Despite my misgivings about the costume --- get rid of that jacket! --- this looks to be a fairly interesting ride. I am willing to go this far with JMS. But what I hope to see is that Diana remembers enough of who she "really" is to put all of this talk of vengeful murder behind herself. That part seems out of character, deliberately so: and if the result of this story is to re-establish Wonder Woman's full complexity as a peaceful warrior character when this arc is done and she rejoins the DC universe, I will be pleased. If not, I will be quite unhappy.

Don Kramer's art is close to perfect; he reminds me of Eaglesham or Haley, and he handles complicated scenes with many characters almost as easily as Perez. The fall of Themiscyra was well played through his pencils.

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<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

Agreed. There are certainly enough bits from the Oracle and even Diana mentioning that things aren't the way they're "supposed to be" to make me think JMS will be bringing it all back to something that at least more closely resembles the Wonder Woman we all know by the end, though perhaps subtly changed by the experience. (Likely coming to a head when she finally reclaims the Lasso of Truth.)

I'm also curious as to what Aphrodite's role was in the sacking of Themyscira. Hmm...

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There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. --The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. --The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy