It’s a miracle. I got all my work done early and therefore Weekly Wonder Woman avoids a Bank Holiday weekend hiatus. Woot woot!
After the jump then, we’ll see the end of the three-part ‘Vendetta’ in Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman, the conclusion of Convergence: Wonder Woman and the penultimate instalment of Convergence itself. And there will be blood. Mainly because of the punching. But also the vampires.
Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #35
Plot
While the UN keeps the spartoi busy, Wonder Woman and Ares fight.
The fight is evenly matched, but eventually Ares is able to throw Wonder Woman at his army for them to keep busy while he gets on with his main job.
Fortunately, Steve Trevor’s around and he has some missiles.
This gives Wonder Woman time to stop Ares’ war talks – and win the battle.
Ares swears to leave, but both sides still want vengeance.
But in true Amazon style, Wonder Woman shows the value of submission, in this case by both sides of a conflict.
Is it any good?
I have a few quibbles (as I always do) but generally this is an excellent conclusion to an excellent story.
So quibbles first. The top one is not just some overly long fight scenes, but too much talking during them as well, with Ares getting some quite egregious dialogue at times. And after two issues of some rather good use of Greek myth, we revert to a more Christian understanding of religion with Ares complaining about Wonder Woman’s ‘blasphemy’ and talking about ‘sacraments’ – at least say ‘sacrifice’ if we’re talking about offerings to the gods.
But that’s about it, apart from my usual complaint about the gloves. There are some really sterling moments, including Steve Trevor’s intervention. The story itself has something to say, without offering easy answers. And at a more simple level, it is actually quite thrilling in places.
One of the best, if not the best Sensation Comics story so far.
Rating: 4.5/5
Convergence: Wonder Woman #2
As with the other entries in the superhero-specific Convergence series, issue #2 of the Wonder Woman line is a big punching fest. And again as usual, the only questions the issue seeks to answer are:
- Who’s going to win: Wonder Woman or the vampire Joker and his cohort of undead allies?
- Who’s going to get killed along the way?
The quick answers here are:
- Wonder Woman, obvs
- Everyone she cares about. Oh dear.
Here, we have Wondy fighting a virtually unkillable enemy, but one that doesn’t heal, so sees her going around crunching bones to ensure they can’t fight. That’s nicer, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Unfortunately, that leaves her adversaries ample opportunities to turn first Etta Candy and then Steve Trevor himself into vampires whom Wondy must deal with.
Except bravely the undead Steve sacrifices himself to take out Etta.
Wonder Woman is able to save herself (with a bit of help), leaving the Joker trapped underground and much of Gotham destroyed – and Wonder Woman alone.
On the whole, quite a miserable two-parter, bereft of any of the fun of say the Justice League International one, with Wonder Woman winning the battle but losing the war. And to be honest, the vampire aspect of the story is particularly apt, because I have to ask: why couldn’t DC have left the dead to rest in peace in this case? Poor Silver Age Wonder Woman.
Convergence #7
It’s all-out war in Convergence #7, with numerous and multiple heroes from different continuities slugging it out with each other, including Kingdom Come and Flashpoint Wonder Woman and one pre-Crisis Donna Troy (aka Wonder Girl).
Rather late in the day, the goodies realise that they’ve been duped, in that the baddie, Deimos, draws strength from all the fighting and deaths, and they’d be better off joining up to fight him instead.
Then (a) Hal Jordan comes along and wipes out the baddie. Unfortunately, that means all of reality is destabilised. Whoops!
As with previous issues, it’s a bit of a trainspotter story this one, where if you can name all the superheroes and actually work out if you want to root for any of them, you’ll win a prize or something. Perhaps the most fun moment is something that’s practically a direct authorial comment on Flashpoint.
Basically, a load of plot with no character that’ll take us to the new DC Universe, DC You (yes, you!), in the next few weeks.
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
