Wonder Woman # 759
When I heard that there was a new creative team coming to Wonder Woman, I got excited. I was hopeful. Wonder Woman is such a unique character that it takes a specific type of writer to not only get her right but also spin a yarn around her that adds to her lore in a profound manner.
However, my hope and excitement were not to be realized, at least not with this issue. I could not have been more disappointed, to the point of considering dropping the title completely. Written by Mariko Tamaki, who I heard was up for an Eisner for best writer. With writing like this, I can’t imagine how that’s possible. The narration blocks seemed to be written by a high schooler.
For example: “Of course when your as powerful as she is…like an atom bomb. But made of stuff stronger than any human could manufacture…even when you fight with an army. You fight alone.” Some may think that’s great writing, but to me that sounds like gibberish. Fan-girl prose, that gives no insight to the character or to the story she is trying to tell.
Mariko spends five pages saying absolutely nothing, except that she is going to retcon one of Wonder Woman’s most iconic moments. For any of you that don’t know about Maxwell Lord, who is also a villain in the upcoming movie, he was killed in the most dramatic manner. That’s right, reader, he was killed by Diana. She killed an unarmed man (if you call mind controlling Superman being unarmed). Maxwell made Superman believe the Wonder Woman was in fact Doomsday and he relentlessly stalked Diana, breaking her wrist.
Finally, Diana had no choice, but to kill Lord before Superman killed her. So, she took Maxwell Lord’s head in her hands and twisted it completely around. This was a defining moment for her, as she turned herself in and was tried for the murder. The act drove a wedge between her and Batman that lasted for quite a while, and now, somehow, he’s alive again. I’m not sure why the writer chose to do this, but I, for one, am not happy about it.
The story begins (on page 6) with Diana moving into a new apartment (Why? I have no idea? Maybe she needed a place that was rent controlled?) She meets her neighbor who owns a rascally rabbit and she immediately goes furniture shopping with this new friend, instead of all of the women that helped her move in. (A bit ungrateful to ditch them like that.)
Then, coincidentally, a woman is mind controlled and takes off in a car driving at dangerous speeds. She enters the highway driving in the wrong direction and is about to have a head-on collision with a tractor trailer when Diana leaps in front and stops them both. This makes absolutely no sense. Let’s think about this for a moment. If two vehicles are traveling at high speeds toward each other and instead of hitting one another, they hit an object between them – then what’s the difference? The answer is, there is no difference. The drivers are dead either way. If she had pushed one out of the way, then that would have been different. Somehow the car is barely damaged, and everyone is okay. Thank goodness for the suspension of reality and physics.
From there, Diana plays and hunch and drops through the skylight of a building, swinging her sword at a dozen guys, but somehow she doesn’t kill or maim anyone. (I think I watched this episode of the A-Team.) With one word, Maxwell Lord orders them to kill each other and they do. On the last page, he reveals himself.
At this point I found myself really missing Greg Rucka. I do not have high hopes for Mariko’s run. It’s unfortunate as I just started reading this title again. I’ll give it one more issue before I make my final opinion it, but I don’t have high-hopes.
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