Yes, it’s Weekly Wonder Woman – keeping you up to date on pretty much anything involving DC Comics’ premier superheroine, including her BO
Wonder Woman‘s continued advance at the worldwide box office has dominated the news of the past week. Propelled largely by women and older movie-goers, it’s now overtaken to Suicide Squad to become the second-highest grossing DCEU movie worldwide and – if you discount anything featuring Batman, Iron Man or Spider-man, it’s the second highest grossing comic book movie ever. Which is nice.
Among the movies it’s now surpassed is Deadpool, something the merc with the mouth has no problems with:
The Merc may be filthier, but her B.O. is stronger. Congrats #WonderWoman. pic.twitter.com/jhP1hRAKlY
— Deadpool Movie (@deadpoolmovie) July 11, 2017
Perhaps trying to nudge the movie over the Batman v Superman finishing line in the record books, we have Gal Gadot releasing some behind-the-scenes footage on Instagram:
There’s already talk of the sequel, too, possibly set in the 80s during the Cold War, possibly even with Steve Trevor. But with Justice League coming later in the year, publicity is as much about that movie as it is about Wonder Woman, which is why the upcoming San Diego Comic Con has most of the cast, including Gal Gadot, scheduled to appear.
But this week also saw something else important: Wonder Woman #26, the first issue by Shea Fontana, who is the first person not called Greg Rucka to write the title since DC’s Rebirth. Want to find out more? Then follow me after the jump, once you’ve watched this interview with Fontana who explains what she’s aiming to do with the title:
Wonder Woman #26
Plot
After roaming the world fighting for women, children and refugees with Steve on behalf of the US government, Diana returns to Arlington and Etta’s top secret HQ.
There she gets a health check-up from an oddly behaving doctor.
Then, at the wedding of Etta’s brother, things take a surprising turn:
Meanwhile, we flash back to Themyscira and the time that young Diana decided to put her doll in a box.
Is it any good?
Despite Fontana’s claims to the contrary, it’s an obviously different title from the one Rucka was writing and that Liam Sharp and Nicola Scott were drawing, for sure. It’s also not as good and is clearly pitched at a younger audience. But it is at least better than Meredith Finch’s start on the title.
To be fair to Fontana, even Rucka’s best efforts would have looked far less effective if he’d had Mirka Andolfo on artwork. While Andolfo’s no stranger to adult (and indeed Adult) comic books – or even to Diana, having worked on DC Comics: Bombshells – everything is far more cartoony than both Sharp and Scott’s efforts, and even older characters look like teenagers playing dress up:
Andolfo’s art undermines what Fontana is trying to do in the issue – talk about how the horrors that Diana has seen might be affecting her psychologically and establish the title’s new set-up with Etta’s potentially dodgy covert government agency for which Diana now works. This would all seem a lot more adult in Scott or Sharp’s hands, but thanks to Andolfo, here it all seems like Fontana playing with these themes to add a sheen of adult sensibilities, rather than because she really knows how to tackle them herself.
That said, Fontana does herself no favours by populating the pages with both young Diana’s quest for adulthood by putting away childish things and having her befriend another child at the wedding. Having a techie fanboy-out when meeting Diana or having a top secret government agency hidden at ‘Mega Ultatech’ (is that supposed to be Ultratech?) don’t exactly match Rucka when it comes to layered themes. Her narrative short-cuts are also straight out of Drop The Dead Donkey:
Add in the moody, un-Rucka-ish Diana, the lack of Steve Trevor, the sketchy and the clichéd characterisation of the supporting cast and whether deliberately or not, Fontana is writing younger than Rucka, perhaps to pitch to a different audience, seeing as the storyline with young Diana could have come straight out of the movie, too.
All that aside, though, it is at least better than Meredith Finch’s efforts, probably as Fontana has more experience as a writer. We’re all just going to have to get used to a title that doesn’t have Rucka’s experience behind it. But we knew that anyway.
Rating: 3/7 (Artwork: 3/7)
