It was a relatively quiet week for regular Wonder Woman last week, but in various universes (and times) she had lots to do. Most notably, over on Earth 2 – where she’s dead, of course – we got a flashback to a time when the coming apocalypse was predicted and the immortal Wonder Woman had to venture out into Man’s World to save two children – one Clark Kent and one Bruce Wayne, in fact.
Meanwhile, over in Smallviile: Continuity, there was another child of a different variety for Diana to visit and in Sensation Comics #14, everyone was on acid.
At least it seemed like it, because Gilbert Hernandez of Love and Rockets fame has just started a two-issue story.
More after the jump.
World’s Finest #28
Plot
Over on Earth 2, a few decades ago, thanks to an Oracle from the gods, the Amazons became aware that ’sh*t was about to happen’: they and the gods were going to die, thanks in part to Diana having shagged someone. It’s going to be up to men to save things, and they’re still boys.
Diana asks Minerva if she can protect the children, and with the aid of Mercury, she travels the world to protect them.
First, she saves Clark Kent from a New Goddess.
And then she has to save Bruce Wayne, who’s busy at the bat house.
Is it any good?
Surprisingly so. It makes you wish that Earth #2 hadn’t killed off the Trinity in its first issue, in fact.
It’s basically a nice little issue that gives us a one-off Earth 2 Wonder Woman story that illustrates both the difference and the similarities between her and the regular Wonder Woman. This is, for starters, a Wonder Woman who worships the Roman gods not the Greek ones – although it’s Aphrodite, not Venus, who still rules the Amazons and their powers, and who imposes the Golden Age rule of fraternisation with men = bad. Inconsistency or simply an illustration of the oddness of the Earth 2 universe?
But by the same token, this is also a woman who is something of a draw for Superman, as in the nu52 universe, even though Superman ends up with Lois Lane in this world – except Lois, who narrates the piece, reckons that things could have been very different between Supes and Diana had she not been an older woman.
As in the Golden Age, this is a Wonder Woman who’s already centuries old by the time of her first story.
As well as being a Wonder Woman story, it’s also a well handled, three-way semi-origins story, that shows not only what this Wonder Woman and the Amazons were like, but also what both Batman and Superman were like as children. It’s fun and illustrative in a relatively brief amount of time. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Rating: 4.5/5
Smallville: Continuity #12
Not a lot of Wonder Woman in this issue, which is basically the end of both Smallville and Smallville as prequels, thanks to a final naming:
But Chloe Sullivan-Queen finally gives birth and guess who’s on hand to meet the new arrival.
Sensation Comics #14
I’ve left this one to last because I’m honestly not sure what to make of it. It’s basically an almost parody of Golden Age and Silver Age Wonder Woman. Or is it being serious? I don’t know. But have a look at the art.
And the dialogue.
I mean, they’re both terrible, aren’t they? And yet they’re both from Gilberto Hernández, who produced the Palomari/Heartbreak Soup stories in Love and Rockets. So surely they’re satire, potentially deliberately bad even?
And most of the issue is like this, with Wonder Woman facing off against “Jeffan’ of the planet Llarrr” (which sounds like a little Spanish-language joke. Except I don’t speak Spanish) and eventually his boss Kanjar Ro (who bears something of a similarity to Emil Gargunza in Miracleman) by delivering dreadful dialogue against this Silver Age bobbins.
Eventually, she’s hypnotised and forced to fight a 1950s-style Supergirl.
With more….
…and more irony.
But then, someone else turns up. A girl from another dimension.
Who is it? We’ll have to wait until Thursday to find out… and that goes for the storyline itself, which could be just a bit of fun, could be saying something meaningful while cloaked in detached irony, could be a detachedly ironic satire on old comics or could be something by a writer who simply has lost track of whether he’s being serious or not, or doesn’t care.
I don’t think we’ll know for sure until next issue.
Rating: ?/5
Disclaimer: Owing to the small fortune it would take to buy every single DC comic each week, this is not a guaranteed rundown of all the comics that feature Wonder Woman. If you know of any I’ve missed, email me or leave a comment below and I’ll cover them the following week
