The observant will notice that last week, Wonder Woman did a bunk and didn’t bother turning up on this ‘ere blog for her weekly round-up of comic book appearances. I don’t know why. Was it something I said?
Well, obviously I do know the real reason, as Wonder Woman is a fictional character – it was my usual end-of-month workload meaning that I didn’t have time. So I figured, what the hell, I can just roll them over to next week, forgetting, of course, that the end of the month is also now when DC Comics unleashes a deluge of Wondy titles upon us. Oops. That’s my morning gone, then.
So after the jump, in perhaps sketchier detail than I would like, you’ll find looks at: Aquaman #48, DC Comics: Bombshells #28, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year 5 #5-6, Justice League of America #7, Sinestro #19, Superman #48, Superman-Wonder Woman #25, The Legend of Wonder Woman #11-12, Titans Hunt #4 and Wonder Woman #48. As a little bit of a game, guess which old school Wonder Woman villain and villainess make their return, as well as which old school Wonder Woman favourite made no fewer than two returns in those titles.
It’s also been a busy fortnight for Wondy in other media. We’ve had the unveiling of a new trailer for Batman v Superman, in which it’s revealed that rather than flying herself or using an invisible jet, movie-Diana uses Turkish Airlines to get about.
Whether that’s an indication that the Amazons still live in the Themyscira of Asia Minor, rather than Paradise Island, or whether it’s simply because Turkish Airlines is the movie’s official airline partner (that’s a thing, apparently), I can’t say, but we’ll find out in March.
We also have the news that Cartoon Network is working on a new series of 11-minute episodes of Justice League Action that will feature not only Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman again, but also the rest of the Trinity – no word on who’s doing Diana’s voice, though. Surely, Susan Eisenberg’s a shoo-in?
And on top of all that excitement, we’ve got a trailer for the next animated DC movie, Justice League vs Teen Titans. Guess what happens in that.
Aquaman #48
What happens: Aquaman polishes off the invasion of the Earth by Thule and rescues Mera (the good Mera, anyway. There were two of them). He then loses the powers of Poseidon, which are apparently things he had for a bit.
What’s interesting: Wondy offers to put in a good word with Poseidon to help Aquaman get those powers back. Apparently, she’s now on good terms with Poseidon, which is new.
DC Comics: Bombshells #28
What happens: Faced with an army of the Tenebrae, Wondy takes both allies and Nazi prisoners of war underground to escape the evil. There she convinces the Nazis to join with the allies to fight the greater evil and together they defeat the army.
What’s interesting: Diana’s Amazon ‘loving submission’ wins the day; she also get to use ‘bullets and bracelets’; Baroness von Gunther has a pair of Amazon gauntlets; she leaves to seek other treasures of Paradise Island; Wondy ends up taking the Baroness’ flying death horse.
Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year 5 #5-6
What happens: Bane and co have kidnapped Catwoman and are torturing her to get information for Superman. Bane challenges Batman via YouTube video to a duel to get her back. There’s a fight.
What’s interesting: Wonder Woman is not okay with torture (did you hear that, David E Kelley?) and puts her foot down, forcing Superman to go with her to stop Bane and co committing excesses.
Justice League of America #7
What happens: Rao turns out to have watched the last few seasons of Stargate SG-1 and has been sucking up people’s beliefs and lifeforces to give himself more power. He’s now going to use Superman’s DNA to turn humans into Kryptonians, so he can get more energy.
What’s interesting: Despite Rao’s believers having blown up Olympus, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are still alive since Wonder Woman now is Olympus, being the only god or goddess around. Diana reforms Olympus and gives Aquaman a tour, which takes in Ares’ weapon room, complete with tanks, biological weapons and a big book of harsh insults. She also takes him to the weapon room of the gods, which includes Achilles’ spear and Apollo’s bow, but she equips herself with Zeus’ lightning bolt and Hades’ helmet of invisibility. Aquaman she gives… the Trident of Poseidon. Given the nebulous contiunuity location of JLA, is that when he gets the trident for the first time, Aquafans?
Best issue of the week, with great art, some interesting philosophical musings on whether it’s better to be a happy slave or an unhappy freeman, and all the members of the Justice League written to the best of their abilities (kudos to Hitch and Henriques).
Sinestro #19
What happens: Sinestro continues his fight against the space vicars. Meanwhile, on Earth, various heroes including Wonder Woman and Superman, have been yellow-ringed.
What’s interesting: Wonder Woman’s yellow ring outfit and what she choose to create to instil fear. And why she was chosen.
Superman-Wonder Woman #25
What happens: With Superman nearly dead having fallen to Earth in a kryptonite-powered supersuit, Diana takes him to Olympus and the gods to plead that they heal him. With the help of the newly recovered Hades, each god and goddess creates a reality to test Superman in his or her own particular way, to see if he’s worth healing: Artemis takes him on a hunt… for Clark Kent; Strife submits him to the strife of the public and his friends; Hephaestus offers him the chance to fly away to another world in a spaceship; while Eros dissects Superman’s love life with Diana. Eventually, they heal him – but make him completely mortal. (Continued in Superman #48)
What’s interesting: The best issue of Superman-Wonder Woman since Peter Tomasi took over writing duties. A fun exploration of both Diana’s family (or the most iconic parts of it at least, since Hera, Dionysus, Aphrodite et al are noticeably absent, despite Hera being on the cover) and Superman’s psyche, it also revives the Superman-Wonder Woman relationship, with Eros revealing to Supes what we all knew – he’s a complete idiot and he still has feelings for Diana.
Superman #48
What happens: Following Superman-Wonder Woman #25, Superman may now be healed, but he’s also completely mortal so no use to anyone. However, he has a theory – that he has a set of mutated cells that can’t absorb solar radiation. All he needs his some kryptonite to burn them off and he’ll become Superman again. So he goes looking for the man with the biggest stockpile of kryptonite on the planet to administer some ‘kryptonite chemotherapy’ – Steve Trevor.
What’s interesting: Kryptonite chemotherapy? Oh dear. Otherwise, the issue is a sort of bonding exercise between Diana’s two exes, with Trevor explaining that he’s absolutely not okay with Superman and Diana splitting up because then the universe makes no sense. (We’re with you, pal). It also turns out that ARGUS have created their own lasso for interrogations, except this one causes pain (a bit like the pre-Flashpoint Wonder Girl’s did). On top of that, we have the return of the nu52 Etta Candy, and Superman’s potentially last words are for Diana. However, Steve Trevor’s memory is cheating him a bit, as he didn’t know Diana was a goddess when he was dating her (she didn’t know she was one, either) – he might be speaking metaphorically, of course.
The Legend of Wonder Woman #11-12
What happens: Diana makes friends with Etta Candy and decides she’s going to help fight the war in Europe against the evil Nazis, who have something that belongs to her mother.
What’s interesting: We have an Etta Candy that’s a lot more like the original Etta than the current one, even heading Beeta (sic) Lambda sorority, being of fuller figure and hailing from Texas like the original Etta. However, here she’s running away from her rich family to lead a life as a singer. To explain Diana’s presence at the sorority, Etta claims Diana is from ‘Garganthania’ (a nod to Gargantua?) and the villain helping the Nazis with some supernatural powers (quite a theme this week – cf DC Comics: Bombshells) is none other than the Duke of Deception.
Titans Hunt #4
What happens: The former Teen Titans are waking up to what they once were. So are Hawk and Dove.
What’s interesting: We get to see the pre-Flashpoint Teen Titans again. And Nightwing.
Wonder Woman #48
What happens: Wonder Woman foils an assassination attempt in London by none other than Doctor Poison, who’s now the daughter of imprisoned Russian scientists and who wants to get her revenge on the US. Baby Zeke falls ill.
What’s interesting: Despite the return of Brian Finch on pencils, Wonder Woman continues to wear her nu52 costume, rather than her DC You one, which makes me think either DC has decided the new one is rubbish or that she’s on the pull, now she’s single again. She also gets to go undercover in London by wearing a raincoat. Get your maps and pencils out because can you work out where in Western Europe is mountainous, has people driving on the right, yet would not only have a sign in English indicating how far away London is but that is only 198km away from London? Any guesses*? Bodyguards are also expected to ‘just find something’ that could potentially stop an air-borne biological weapon from working when the drone carrying it crashes.
* The DC Universe has its own unique geography and languages, of course.
