Yes, it’s Sunday, but here’s Weekly Wonder Woman anyway. After all, Bank Holiday Monday stopped the last WWW and I’m going to be away on Monday, so I’m thinking I need to do something. So much for resting on the seventh day.
It’s been a busy old fortnight for Diana, as you also might have noticed. For the first time in 75 years, she’s appeared in a movie – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – as well as a number of comics, including DC Comics: Bombshells #36-37, Justice League of America #8, Teen Titans #18, The Legend of Wonder Woman #20-21, Wonder Woman ’77 #20 and Wonder Woman #50. All those will be reviewed to varying degrees after the jump.
However, the big comics news has come from the recent DC Comics ‘Rebirth’ press conference, ‘Rebirth’ being the new reboot/tinkering with the current DCYou/nu52 universe that’s going to come into effect once everything’s got to issue #52 (June). As well as the nu52 Superman being replaced in some way by the pre-Flashpoint Superman who’s currently married to Lois Lane and has a super kid, Wonder Woman is going bi-weekly.
Originally, Marguerite Bennett was going to be writing this title, but rumour has it that:
I am told that after a few issues were written and approved, that the editor of Wonder Woman was suddenly changed and Marguerite Bennett was gone as well. And that she would be replaced on the book by a higher profile writer.
Indeed, the big surprise is that said higher profile writer is none other than Greg Rucka, who once foreswore off working with DC Comics ever again after some behind the scenes ructions. Rucka, of course, is responsible for one of Wondy’s most notable runs – the final few issues of Volume 2, during which he revamped the gods, brought in a whole roster of much-loved characters and did all kinds of top things… that were then completely erased in the transition to Volume 3. He also wrote one of the most iconic single stories in Wonder Woman’s history, The Hiketeia.
However, given Dan DiDio’s current plan to increase DC Comics’ revenues is basically to print twice as many comics, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Rucka is actually going to be doing two stories with the now bi-weekly Wonder Woman: the odd numbered issues will be a contemporary story called Wonder Woman: The Lies, drawn by Liam Sharp, in which Wonder Woman “discovers that some of the facts she’s taken as truth are… brittle under closer examination. She sets off to separate the lies from the truth.” In part, that’s going to stem from her Lasso of Truth no longer working for her (apparently).
Meanwhile, even-numbered issues are going to be set ‘ten years ago’ (whatever that means in the DCYou), presumably when Wonder Woman was still back on Paradise Island. That’ll be illustrated by Nicola Scott.
At some point, the two storylines will intersect.
What it all means, we’ll have to see for sure, but as with Khaniger’s #105, in which the ‘true’ origin of Wonder Woman was revealed, I imagine that a fair old bit of retconning will go on. Whether it’ll all be about making the Amazons lovely and wise again, rather than man-raping, xenophobic murderers, I can’t say, but it seems likely. I think, given where the movie universe is going, it is unlikely that Wondy’s being daughter of Zeus will be dropped in favour of her being made of clay again, but you never know.
If you want to find out more, Rucka has given an interview to Word Balloon where he discusses everything (within the limits of his NDA).
Lastly, before we jump, we’ve also had our first glimpse of the Amazons in Wonder Woman, with Diana’s mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen), and her two aunts General Antiope (Robin Wright) and Antiope’s lieutenant, Menalippe (Lisa Loven Kongsli).
“Themyscira is influenced by the Greek but it’s clearly more then that,” producer Charles Roven tells the outlet. “It’s a place that has the ‘you’ve never been to’ kind of feel. But once you’re there you’re not so sure you really want to leave so fast.”
Continue reading “Weekly Wonder Woman: Batman v Superman, Teen Titans #18, Justice League of America #8 and more”
