Review: Wonder Woman: Odyssey Vol. 1 hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

How do we read J. Michael Straczynski's Wonder Woman: Odyssey? If it's meant to be the origin story of a new character, do the story beats on which Odyssey turns remain resonant, like Princess Diana's receipt of a certain golden lasso or her discovering the action figures of a familiar star-spangled heroine? Or if this is "simply" a time-bended tale involving our iconic Wonder Woman ultimately restoring the status quo, what is there for a long-time reader to gain from exploring this alternate Diana and her supporting cast? What, if anything, can we take away from Wonder Woman: Odyssey?

Odyssey, when we separate ourselves from some of the sartorial hysteria with which this story was imbued largely by the non-comics media, is not the train-wreck it's been made out to be. The story and art do not always run on all cylinders and at times each lets the other down, but in the midst of it all is something quite interesting.

If we were going to posit the story of an Amazon princess in man's world, but remove some of the continuity, trappings, and experience that, I do believe, makes the Wonder Woman character somewhat imposing for both writers and new readers, what would it look like? What would a Wonder Woman movie look like, or TV pilot, or if Straczynski tried his hand at Wonder Woman: Earth One? Chances are a little bit like Wonder Woman: Odyssey.

[Contains spoilers]

Odyssey begins in medias res with young Diana on the run from soldiers hunting Amazons; when the soldiers leave to exterminate an enclave of Amazons in Turkey, Diana -- who can't fly -- stows away on the wing of their plane to follow. The action is swift, once the story finishes with a bit of lead-up, and Don Kramer's artwork in this volume is at its best in the action sequences with Diana leaping and flipping and jumping past her enemies. It evokes the Birds of Prey television series, or maybe Alias -- lots of sneaking and spy versus spy action, and that much I liked a lot -- there's an aesthetic to the first few chapters of this book that I very much enjoyed.

Diana here is markedly rebellious, slipping her Amazon chaperones at every turn -- scenes of her childhood evince her personality better than the present action. She communes with the gods, but doesn't quite believe in them; can't fly and has no connection to her Lasso of Truth; pawns Amazon treasures for cash and slaughters her enemies without a second thought. Her fellow Amazons are a little suspect of Diana's leadership. I have certainly been a fan of Wonder Woman's "traditional" adventures (see Greg Rucka and Gail Simone) but the lack of "Great Heras" here is refreshing, This Diana is powerful, still, but wears the weight of the world on her shoulders less, and lacks the imposing distance that I believe both writer and reader feel in approaching Wonder Woman's adventures.

What would it be like, I found myself wondering, if this Princess Diana (never Wonder Woman in Odyssey, despite the twin Ws on her armbands), neither diplomat nor superhero, joined the Justice League? What would her conflicts be with Superman and Batman when she's no longer one of the League's elder statesmen? How would her dynamic change, being closer in age to Firestorm than Aquaman? That these questions have no easy answers is part of the fun -- that this Diana is more of a cypher than our current Wonder Woman suddenly seems the exact shot in the arm that "our" Wonder Woman needs.

And I recognize, entirely, that the argument I'm making here is one we're very often hearing in favor of the DC relaunch. Quite amazingly, in all the hubbub about the DC relaunch, the one title I believe we know the least about is Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's Wonder Woman (at point of this writing), up to and including how much of Wonder Woman's history stays intact and how much changes. I would not be disappointed if some elements of Straczynski's Diana do indeed carry over; if this is an example of what can be done with Wonder Woman if the character carries a little less baggage, I'm all for it.

Odyssey does have some difficulties, though, and at least one is the transition from Straczynski to second writer Phil Hester. The transition would be obvious even without credits beginning each chapter, as its at this point that the faceless Amazons who raised Diana inexplicably fall away, replaced by a cadre of modern-looking Amazons much like Diana, and Diana's talking cat (yes, talking cat). That Diana suddenly becomes no longer the rebellious daughter of mysterious clerics -- but rather one among many Amazons in our midst -- immediately made her less special to this reader. I adored the purposefully-controversial scene where Diana (dressed not-unlike Brett Booth's new Wonder Girl in Teen Titans) hocks an Amazon treasure to help a single mother start a new life, but in all the characters in the second half resembled too much the "traditional" Amazons and that didn't hold my interest as well.

The transition, five chapters into a seven-issue collection, also marks the climax of one storyline and the beginning of another, leading to a rather anti-climactic end of the book. Diana confronts and defeats her mother's killer in the fifth chapter, and what follows is mostly scene-setting by Straczynski and Hester -- snippets to convince the reader of two new bad guys's evil and such. Volume one ends with Diana imperiled, but the danger hardly seems as great as what she just faced. Odyssey has contributor credits at the beginning of each chapter -- unnecessary for a collection and I think rather sloppy on DC's part -- such to remind the reader that this is really just a collection of issues and not a graphic novel, and the lackluster conclusion does the same. There doesn't seem much planning in the break between Odyssey's two parts, and readers may rather pick up both volumes together than get an obviously incomplete story in one.

As well, even as I've liked both Don Kramer's writing and artwork on team book JSA, it's hit and miss when he's focused singularly on Diana. His Diana is attractive, and I even like Kramer's depiction of Jim Lee's jacketed look, including the ribbing on the torso; as I mentioned, I also thought Kramer made Diana's fighting and twirling look fairly believable. At the same time, there's just as many too-stylized poses, as in the over-emphasized crouch in which Diana lands after jumping off a plane. Kramer's proportions for Diana's bust are ridiculously too large throughout the book, and he continually draws Diana from the same perspective with the reader looking down at her over-emphasized cleavage; it's enough that the reader could play a drinking game spotting all the times Kramer does it. That said, Kramer's depiction remains the definitive one of this new Diana; Odyssey sees a number of fill-in artists who don't nearly achieve the levels that Kramer does in this volume.

Wonder Woman: Odyssey won't please every fan, and those perhaps already ready to dismiss it will find plenty of reasons to do so. It is not, however, terrible, nor do I find much fault with Straczynski's portrayal of Diana specifically; I will be curious to read how Hester brings it all to a close in volume two and see how volume two stacks up to volume one. What Odyssey does is give me hope that revisions and rejuvenations of the Wonder Woman character are possible and can work, and that itself makes me all the more eager to see what Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang have planned in the new iteration that follows after this.

[Contains original and variant covers.]

New reviews coming next week! Till then, be sure to catch Collected Editions all around the 'net on our Facebook page and Twitter feed.

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Review: Wonder Woman: Contagion trade paperback (DC Comics)

In a run that's seen Princes Diana separated and exiled from her homeland, at the tail end of an incarnation of the series that included Amazons on a rampage through the streets of Washington DC, Gail Simone starts Wonder Woman: Contagion with a Diana conflicted over her warring identities, and ends it with a peace long-time readers thought they might never see. Contagion is a fitting conclusion to Simone's Wonder Woman stint, with a strong and exciting final chapter.

[Contains spoilers]

Gail Simone's Wonder Woman stories have very much been about war and peace. How can Diana be an ambassador of peace and still fight enemies willing to slaughter in their hate for her, Rise of the Olympian asked. What right does a warrior have to friends and loved ones (Olympian again). Can a warrior also be a lover, and have a family (this, from Warkiller)?

Diana's enemies in these pages have reflected difficult parts of Diana herself, like Alkyone, whose crazed loyalty to Diana's mother rivaled her own; Achilles, blindly faithful to the god Zeus when Diana's own faith rightly wavered; and Genocide, the single-minded killer born of Diana's own flesh. Simone used all of these to remind Diana and the reader of the incongruity of Diana's dual missions, peacekeeper and warrior.

At the beginning of Contagion, some of the wounds between Diana and the Amazons -- and between the Amazons and the rest of the world -- have healed, but the children of Ares still reveal some simmering resentments. It is only when Diana fights her own alien doppelganger for the fate of the world -- the entire world -- that she's able to combine her two sides. Not just Diana, but all of the Amazons join Diana in her mission of peace (even if at times through violence); when Diana sees the aliens' ultra-violent interpretation of the Amazon way, it gives her perspective on the blessings in her own life.

Contagion marks the end of Wonder Woman's life as we know it, essentially, with J. Michael Straczynski's new origin to follow and then the DC Comics relaunch. Simone smartly recognizes in the finale of Contagion that what needs resolution here is not Diana's relationship with Nemesis or the final dispensation of Genocide, but rather the larger rift that's existed between Diana and her heritage since Greg Rucka's run, at least, well before Infinite Crisis. Contagion's final scene of Diana, her mother Hippolyta, ally Artemis, plus Achilles and Steve and Etta (Candy) Trevor celebrating in the middle of the street is -- let's say it -- a wonder, the very thing that would have been unheard of when this book began. I sense, still, that these stories were abbreviated by DC's new line-wide plans, but the final scenes are eminently satisfying, with clear, joyful art by Nicola Scott.

The book does deal with a "contagion" of sorts, referring to the serpent plague through which the Citizenry aliens devour a planet's resources. "Contagion" is the title of the first part of the "Wrath of the Silver Serpent" story, which would have been a much better title in my opinion given "Silver Serpent"'s auditory similarity to long-time Wonder Woman villain Silver Swan. The actual silver serpent here is a lesser threat handled by Achilles and company, but I'd just as soon have seen the alien Theana join Diana's rogues gallery as the new Silver Serpent. Simone presents Theana's origins as a dark bastardization of Diana's own and it makes the character instantly compelling; that Simone parallels Theana's story with a retelling of the day young Diana left Themyscria (with great art, again, by Scott) only adds to the depth of it all. Mores the pity that Simone kills off Theana at the end of the book; I'd have liked to see Diana face the Silver Serpent again (DC Relaunch notwithstanding).

Part of the seeming quick wrap-up in this book that I mentioned earlier is evinced by the two-part "A Murder of Crows" story that begins Contagion. A driving theme in Simone's run has been love and family and children; Alkyone resents Diana, for instance, for the way her birth changed the character of the Amazons; Diana began a tricky romance with Nemesis with the intention that her children might preserve the Amazon way; men live for the first time among the Amazons. None of these stories end quite the way they seemed they would, but ultimately five Amazons emerge pregnant of Themyscria, all through immaculate conception, and give birth to demon sons of Ares.

Given all of this build-up, the "Murder of Crows" story that sees Diana fight Ares's demon children ought be fraught with meaning. Instead, the two issues balance the demons' horrific attacks with slapstick humor between Diana and guest-star Power Girl; Diana defeats the demons ultimately by spanking them. The tone is right for a Power Girl appearance, and indeed Diana's differing interactions with Justice League/Justice Society stalwarts Power Girl and Black Canary -- reflecting Diana's own aspects of brawn and brain -- is probably worth its own separate study. However, Power Girl's comedic presence entirely overshadows Diana's otherwise really very serious conflict with Ares -- and how these demons are part Amazon, how Ares can be gifted with children but Diana can't, and what children mean to Amazons and what they mean to Diana -- and there's significant material in the end that I think ultimately ends up not being addressed.

This is even letting alone that Contagion ends with no additional mention of Nemesis, the Ichor, or Zeus, among others, but again, my sense is that the end of Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman was somewhat unexpected. That does not by any means overshadow the fact that Simone has given us five sound Wonder Woman collections that were as compelling (especially The Circle) as they were startling (Rise of the Olympian remains my top favorite). This is a different Wonder Woman than Greg Rucka brought us (less political, more superheroic), a different take but still a great one. Let's hope, when we visit Diana again post-DC Relaunch with Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, we might be able to say the same.

[Contains full covers]

But first -- for its ties to Justice League: Generation Lost and its lead-in to the new DC Universe, we'll follow Wonder Woman to its conclusion with J. Michael Straczynski's Odyssey. The Collected Editions review of volume one ... next!

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Trade Perspectives: Wonder Woman's costume: Straczynski vs. Simone

Pursuant to my review of Wonder Woman: Warkiller the other day, I thought this was an interesting exchange between Wonder Woman and Black Canary on behalf of writer Gail Simone:

Dinah makes a comment about Diana covering her "Rumpus McGoo" (so to speak) with the American flag; Diana retorts that it's typical nationalism to assume that just because it looks like the American flag, therefore it must be.

This is interesting especially in light of the Wonder Woman costume controversy that's not quite yet hit us collections readers yet. New writer J. Michael Straczynski notes to Comics Alliance that he wanted Wonder Woman in a costume less sexualized and more idealized, which is a fair enough goal except that he also said to DC's Source blog "What woman only wears one outfit for 70 years? ... How does she fight in that thing?"

The answer to Straczynski's question, as I inuit it from Simone's panel, is this: the costume is not for you. To say, "How does she fight in that thing?" is to translate Wonder Woman's costume like Batman's costume -- something the hero built themselves for the purpose of fighting crime. But, Wonder Woman isn't Batman, and her "outfit" isn't a costume at all, really, but actually an Amazonian cultural symbol of their representative to Man's World. To some extent it's like asking how the Pope has worn that outfit for all these years -- it's not an outfit, but rather the vestments of the office.

Except, of course, that it's not.

In as dear as I find the tapestry of the DC Universe, we must avoid the temptation to mistake mythology for fact. Simone's Diana scolds us for mistaking her costume's resemblance to the American flag -- but at the point of creation, Wonder Woman's costume was indeed meant to symbolize the American flag; Black Canary may be generalizing, but she's not wrong. While it may be empowering for Wonder Woman's costume to be retroactively designated as an Amazonian vestment and not a bathing suit, when it was designed a bathing suit was likely what was in mind.

There was considerable brouhaha when Straczynski put Diana in pants; I'll be curious, when Straczynski's run ends (as all things do), what kind of brouhaha we'll see should DC decide to take Wonder Woman back out of pants again.

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Review: Wonder Woman: Warkiller trade paperback (DC Comics)

Despite a slow start, when Gail Simone's Wonder Woman: Warkiller gets started, it's a fitting follow-up to Rise of the Olympian. This is a considerably more sedate story by half, but in no way lacks the emotion and intrigue of the previous volume, and it demonstrates well the sheer verve with which Simone writes the title character.

[Contains spoilers]

It was inevitable that Gail Simone team Wonder Woman and Black Canary, given Simone's notable work on Birds of Prey. For my tastes, however, the "Birds of Paradise" two-part story was too cutesy for the Wonder Woman title. I understand how Dinah's presence facilitates certain digressions about clothes and food, even as I'm bored with, every time Diana teams with another female superhero, the requisite discussion of how imposing Diana seems or the size of her bosom as compared to other heroes. The tone of "Birds: is so comic and so utterly different from what came before in Olympian that, had I been reading Wonder Woman in single issues, I might have considered putting the series aside.

Fortunately, the collection continues into the four-part "Warkiller," which deepens the conflict begun in Olympian without repeating any old ground. The threat of Olympian's Genocide still remains, but it's filtered now through the Amazon Alykone, Simone's fantastic addition to Wonder Woman's rogues gallery. Alykone is the best kind of enemy -- one who hates Diana and plots against her, but in this case one who also deeply loves Diana's mother Hippolyta; to this extent, Alykone can never been quite too evil nor quite too good, and if gives her a villainous depth that we did not even see in in Greg Rucka's mostly malevolent Veronica Cale.

Diana has not been exiled long from Themyscira before she learns her mother is in danger; much of the rest of the story takes place on the island, with various factions plotting for or against Alykone -- with a good helpfing of double-dealing -- toward the book's conclusion. It all feels modern, to be sure, but with a good helping of royal court politics (Diana refusing to escape from Alykone's jail cell) and considerable interruptions by the Greek gods. Maybe we see these Wonder Woman island adventures a tad too often, and I would have liked for this story to have some impact beyond just Themyscira -- but this is the kind of story one can't tell with Superman or Batman, only with Wonder Woman. What Simone presents, essentially, is a good, brass tacks, easy to understand Wonder Woman story, the kind I'd likely give to a new reader wanting to learn about the character.

I appreciated that Simone ties up a bunch of loose ends from Olympian, especially ones I might not have realized were loose ends. Donna Troy returns in Warkiller after flying off in a rage in Olympian; I had thought we understood well enough in Olympian that Genocide caused Donna's anger, and that the argument would be resolved off page, but Donna returns here in a satisfying conclusion to that thread. Additionally, I figured we'd seen all that we would see regarding Zeus and the other gods during Final Crisis, but there's a strong ending scene here that explains more; whereas many books have all but ignored Final Crisis, I've been impressed with how Simone's Wonder Woman is a very direct spin-off from that crossover.

Simone has thrown the reader a curve in that the initial parts of her run strongly suggested that Wonder Woman might enter a sexual relationship with Nemesis -- finally, I might add, ending the ridiculousness that Superman and Batman can have sex but Wonder Woman can't. That Simone brought men to Themyscira and teased the image of pregnant Amazons furthered the idea that "sex is coming." However, we find in Warkiller that Diana and Nemesis break up, and the virgin pregnancies are instead a scheme of the god Ares; in that Simone played fair, offering red herrings to mask the story's real direction, I have no objection, though at the same time I did think that if any writer might break the silly sexual stigma under which Wonder Woman exists, it would have been Simone. Oh, well.

[Contains full covers]

There is more most certainly to come in Contagion, Simone's final Wonder Woman volume after Warkiller. Among other things, I'm curious whether the Amazons have still lost their immortality, what will happen to the men brought to life by Zeus, and whether Diana will meet again the creature that gave off they clay that gave her life -- her proto-father. Again, Gail Simone's Wonder Woman has been a great look at the character, classic and intriguing, and I must say I'm quite a bit sorry to see it end next time.

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Review: 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen trade paperback (DC Comics)

After our Top Ten DC Trades with Female Protagonists list the other day, a Collected Editions reader wondered why, if I liked Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman and Checkmate runs so much, why I hadn't reviewed 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen, which includes elements from both of those series.

The answer is that the Four Horsemen miniseries seemed to me like the worst kind of crossover bait. I had a hard time seeing the necessity of a miniseries involving the Four Horsemen, essentially one-shot villains vanquished at the end of 52, except for the money DC Comics might make on a book with 52 Aftermath in the title. Black Adam: The Dark Ages filled in, at least, some of the gaps between Black Adam and Felix Faust's final appearances in 52 and their next appearances elsewhere; Four Horsemen reminded me of those Star Wars novels that tell a giant story about an insignificant background character, ultimately signifying nothing.

[Contains spoilers]

Having now read the book, I'm still not entirely convinced this is a book that needed to take shelf space away from something else. That said, there are a number (even a surprisingly great number) of in-roads through which a reader could find some value in grabbing a copy of this book on the cheap, not the least of them is dark, sketchy artwork by Pat Olliffe, which I had felt cast something of a pall over the final collection of the more-hopeful All-New Atom series, but that I found better-suited and enjoyed much more in this volume.

The first of Four Horsemen's hooks is that, perhaps purposefully, whereas Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were absent when 52 pit all the DC Universe's heroes against the Horsemen, this time it's DC's Big Three who fight the Apokolyptian villains. Writer Keith Giffen offers an effective "trinity" story that ends with a nice, unusually quiet moment for the heroes. Giffen's take on the three heroes' relationship reminds me of the epilogue of Mark Waid's Kingdom Come, especially in the dialogue between Superman and Batman -- they banter, they put each other down, they finish each others' sentences, very much like brothers who compete but still care about one another.

If anything, I felt Giffen's characterization of the heroes together was a bit too easy. Batman works with the other heroes, but otherwise he's unnecessarily a grump, insulting a few too many times Checkmate operative Snapper Carr; the first time Batman tells Snapper to "shut up" is humorous, but the twelfth time is a drag. Giffen has one of the Horsemen give Superman a magic-infected bite early on in the series, and this too-conveniently de-powers Superman so as to not overwhelm the other heroes. And while I very much enjoyed Wonder Woman's interactions with the character Veronica Cale from Rucka's run, Wonder Woman is separate from Superman and Batman for most of the story, making this not a true "trinity" story until almost to the end.

That said, it is a relief to read a "trinity" story that doesn't beat the reader over the head with the characters' similarities and differences, and rather is just a superhero case that happens to involve these three. To an extent, Big Three team-ups now seem to be considered "events" in the DC Universe, whereas I miss when the Super Friends working together was just natural.

The book's second hook is the aforementioned Checkmate agent Snapper Carr, a concept given some legitimacy by the character's subsequent appearance in Rucka and Eric Trautmann's Final Crisis: Resist. Snapper's history is a bit unclear in current continuity, but he's a fascinating character especially teamed with DC's Big Three -- this is a sidekick, mind you, who betrayed the Justice League. It's as if Robin were to sell out Batman to Two-Face -- that story isn't specifically referenced in Four Horsemen, but it underlies in interesting ways, especially in Batman's dealings with Snapper. Giffen also suggests that Snapper knows every secret identity of every DC superhero, which is certainly controversial for a Checkmate agent. If you enjoyed Checkmate as I did and noted Snapper's appearance in Resist, here's what started that off.

Finally, it turns out Four Horsemen is, above all else, a lead-in to Keith Giffen's new Doom Patrol series. Halfway through the book, nearly apropos of nothing, the core members of the Doom Patrol show up on Cale's Oolong Island to help Cale and her fellow mad scientists defeat the rampaging Four Horsemen. I don't imagine there's much here that can't be picked up from the first issues of Giffen's Doom Patrol, but the scenes of arguments between Doom Patrol chief Niles Caulder and Veronica Cale are also very strong, and it seems some of Horsemen's final loose threads will be tied up in that series. As such, if you're a Doom Patrol completist, you might start here; and, I liked seeing just the core members of the Doom Patrol in action again in this story without all the extra members or continuity trappings, much in the same way Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman appear here in fairly iconic form.

What lacks the most in Four Horsemen is, tellingly, the Horsemen themselves -- War, Pestilence and the rest aren't aren't any more well-defined than the sum of their names, and their mission beyond destruction is never entirely clear; at times I wasn't even sure which Horseman was which. Frankly I don't think any Four Horsemen story can ever really be about the Horsemen so much as about the heroes fighting them. To that end, this miniseries accomplishes some nice character points among DC's Big Three and the rest, and maybe I'll find some additional relevance in it once I get to Giffen's Doom Patrol; for now, fair stuff, but as I suspected not a "must read."

[Contains full covers by Ethan Van Skiver (though strangely half-covered by chapter numbers)]

Still, every book is someone's favorite, so if Four Horsemen spoke to you, please chime in and tell us why.

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Review: Trinity Vol. 3 trade paperback (DC Comics)

After a soundly bad experience with Countdown to Final Crisis, Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley's Trinity is a breath of fresh air. The story is far from perfect, especially toward the end of this third volume -- though I begin to wonder if any writer can really get a fifty-two part story 100% right, and the wisdom therein of continuing to try. Overall, however, Trinity has been a nice surprise, and a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

[Contains spoilers for the Trinity books]

Fittingly, there are three acts to the third volume of Trinity, and of them all, I liked the best the finale of the alternate reality plotline that begins this book. I hadn't expected to enjoy what's essentially an impromptu "Elseworlds" tale, but Busiek both gives the trinity of this new world -- a retired Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, and Carter Hall -- so much tough-as-nails moxy, and also peppers the new reality with so many in-jokes, that there's plenty to love. To wit, this time around, we find J'onn J'onzz disguised in our midst as the spirit of humanity (much akin to Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier). That Lois jumps off the Daily Planet to get the god-powered Superman's attention, or that Nightwing similarly gets Batman's attention by shouting about Oliver Queen's chili, might seem rather obvious, but in their obviousness is nostalgia that reminds us what we love about these characters, which I think is the crux of Trinity.

In the previous volumes, Busiek explored the ways in which DC's Big Three characters contrast and make up a trinity, and also how those three heroes shaped our conception of a "superhero" like none other. In the last volume, Busiek properly lessens the hero worship a bit, and instead posits DC's main heroes not as the epitome of the heroic trinity in the DC Universe, but rather as an exceptionally visible representation of a trinity which constantly repeats itself in their world. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are a trinity, but so are Sun-Chained-in-Ink, the Void Hound, and Tarot.

"The trinity," Tarot intones, "are not the universe," but rather "three of the many faces of those forces, those concepts, those ideas." In this way, Busiek successfully reasons out why Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are the Big Three both in their own universe and ours. Yes, they defined superheroics, and yes, they represent together certain dualities -- but moreover, in representing those dualities, they mirror ways in which our world works separate from comic books, like the sun, moon, and earth, or justice and punishment. To say that people around the world understand instinctively the Superman concept because he's this guy from Krypton, etc., is to overcomplicate the notion; to say that people "get" Superman because Superman is like the sun (especially when standing next to Batman) gets to the core of why the character resonates.

I enjoyed far more, however, both the heroes' personality-switching in the first book and the "world without the Big Three" in the second book, than I did "the Big Three-as-gods" in the third book. Obviously we all know the Big Three would be their old selves by the time this was done, and while the personality-switching carried with it some room for character reflection, having the Big Three as absolute versions of themselves (aloof Batman-god delivers only punishment, etc.) felt well-tread and unsurprising.

As well, perhaps showing the seams of trying to keep a story going for fifty-two chapters, Trinity began to repeat itself in the last volume. There's a good amount of running to one locale, having a skirmish, and then running to the next locale and having another skirmish. The heroes' loved ones try unsuccessfully to talk to the heroes-as-gods; they fail, fret a bit, try again, and repeat. I nearly lost track by the end as to which villain was meant to have betrayed which; there's numerous pages of Morgaine le Fay threatening Enigma, Despero threatening le Fay, Krona threatening all of them, and so on.

And Busiek and co-writer Fabian Nicieza get almost loopy in the back-up stories toward the end, as Krona has a conversation with his past self and with the Earth's Worldsoul, who tells Krona that essentially the point of life is just to exist. Interesting philosophical avenues, both, but at the end of the book the stories serve to slow the action when otherwise it ought be moving briskly along.

Trinity ends where we'd expect, right where it began on a pier in Keystone City, but this time in one of those large-scale superhero get-togethers that's always a lot of fun. Frankly the closing scene of the Big Three disappointed me -- so caught up is the plot in the god-power plotline that the heroes never return to how it felt to share each other's personalities and how their relationship might change; instead they reaffirm, yet again, their commitment to their loved ones. Hawkman, however, gets a great final scene that touches on his role as a leader on the alternate Earth, and ties (mostly coincidentally, I think) to events for him in both Rann/Thanagar: Holy War and Blackest Night. If nothing else coming out of Trinity, I'd be most interested to see Kurt Busiek write a Hawkman miniseries in the future.

But overall, for me, Trinity came down to one question, would Busiek find a way to keep alive the resurrected Tomorrow Woman at the end of this story, and the answer thankfully is yes. Tomorrow Woman first appeared in one issue of Grant Morrison's JLA, but the character had so much potential as to evoke a cult following and brief later appearances in a handful of DC titles, though never to return for good.

Nothing demonstrates that a writer "gets" the DC Universe (and DC fandom) like the way Busiek spotlighted Tomorrow Woman and equally-brief Leaguer Triumph, and that Busiek resurrects Tomorrow Woman for good is to cement Busiek's name as a writer we have to thank, for this one small glowing moment. Trinity is debatably good sometimes and not so good other times, but again, what's definite is that this series most certainly loves the DC Universe.

[Contains full covers, "What Came Before" pages]

Reviews of Green Lantern, Rann/Thanagar, Titans, and more coming up. Don't miss it!

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Review: Trinity Vol. 2 trade paperback (DC Comics)

There's a friendly crisis on infinite earths going on right now at DC Comics, so subtle you might have missed it. That crisis is the quiet collision of the Kurt Busiek-verse with the Geoff Johns-verse (and the Grant Morrison-verse), each encompassing their own overlapping corner of the DC Universe. I, for one, didn't used to be such a fan of the Busiek-verse, but after the second volume of Trinity, I'm beginning to change my mind.

[Contains spoilers for Trinity Volume Two]

Busiek himself has disagreed with me on this point before, but it seems firmly to me that he got short shrift during his Superman run, with Geoff Johns writing Brainiac and General Zod and Busiek writing, well, a couple of crazy Daxamite priests and a space pirate. (I suggest no animosity here between Busiek and Johns, this is just my take on their stories.) By design or by accident, Busiek's are the "other" Superman stories, the ones in service to the main story. Ditto that elements Busiek established in JLA, like John Stewart having a Qwardian robot in his ring, has been soundly in Johns' Green Lantern (compare with Johns' Blackest Night appearing just about everywhere).

This changes with Trinity, at least in part, which would seem to be Busiek's Magnum opus; by the second volume, Busiek has referenced all his recent DC Comics work to date. JLA/Avengers is here, as is the unofficial sequel, JLA: Syndicate Rules. With Trinity's second part, Busiek also introduces elements from Superman: Camelot Falls -- not enough necessarily to distract from the main story (whereas the JLA tales are required reading for this book), but enough to demonstrate a through-way between Busiek's stories. Trinity, it would seem, finally makes the Busiek-verse legitimate and makes his otherwise irrelevant (if entertaining) stories relevant. That Trinity has been soundly ignored in favor of Final Crisis and the Morrison-verse ... well, we won't go there.

Still, let me tell you, this book is a fun ride. The second volume of Trinity accomplishes what Superman/Batman still struggles with -- telling a story about DC's biggest heroes without devolving into obsequious hero worshipping. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman barely make an appearance in this volume, and yet Busiek not only makes their presence felt, but makes those who search for the heroes remarkably interesting, from alternate versions of Lois Lane and Dick Grayson to Gangbuster, Hawkman, Firestorm, and a number of other "not ready for prime-time" heroes.

Indeed, I dreaded that this second volume of Trinity takes place in an alternate reality where DC's Big Three never existed, and the Justice Society became a totalitarian force -- a concept we've seen too many times before -- Busiek has a lot of fun with it. In Busiek's alternate reality, we find a Lex Luthor still in his battle suit, forgotten heroes like Space Ranger and Black Orchid, and even a priceless scene between Justice Leaguers Triumph and Tomorrow Woman, both aware they'll be dead when the world goes back to normal but fighting to make things right anyway. In this way, Trinity is more than a study of DC's Big Three -- it's Busiek's love song to the DC Universe.

Just as the first volume of Trinity looked at the similarities and differences between DC's flagship heroes, the second volume examines the effect those heroes have on their world. Busiek notes through Firestorm (whom I'd be in favor of Busiek writing in a series!) that the Justice Society of World War II were "mystery men," but it wasn't until Superman that the world had "superheroes" -- and without the concept of superheroes, he notes, Aquaman's just "the creature from the Black Lagoon."

Moreover, Busiek posits, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman resonate with their world (and ours) because they are themselves representative of our basic concepts of justice, truth, punishment, and the like. They're pure archetypes of elemental forces (represented also by the characters of the tarot card in Trinity) from which all other heroes spring; as with Busiek's musings in the first volume, this is a remarkable cogent distillation of these heroes, and gives the Trinity books a lasting value far beyond their first reading.

[Contains full covers, "What Came Before" pages]

Trinity remains a rollicking adventure -- from deep space to Camelot to the Anti-Matter Universe to big superhero-supervillain battles to primitive mythology -- and as long as it's taken me to get through these books, I more than feel I've received my money's worth. On now to the third volume -- I'm ready to read something else, but I wish any number of creators would take a page from Trinity and present books even half as detailed as this.

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Review: Trinity Vol. 1 trade paperback (DC Comics)

I wanted to like Trinity -- swimming perhaps again what I understood to be the popular curve -- and indeed I found much to enjoy in the first volume. If we take as writer Kurt Busiek's purpose to explore the similarities and differences in DC Comics' Big Three trinity -- Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman -- he accomplishes this handily, even revealing some unexplored aspects of the three. At the same time, Trinity doesn't feel like a Big Three-centric book to an overwhelming extent, but rather seems to make good use of much of the DC Universe.

I think Busiek's Trinity project is unique in that, from the beginning, it explores the partnership of of DC's Big Three self-referentially. That is, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are presented with the idea that the three of them make up a cosmic trinity and are attacked because of this role, and therefore within the story consider the way the "trinity" idea applies to them. This makes for a fascinating conversation about a third of the way through the book, where the heroes consider themselves as representatives of the sun, the moon, and the earth; as a savior, punisher, and warrior, and as an alien, a "native," and one in-between, among others.

I found this last concept most interesting, that Superman is the ultimate alien outsider while Batman is the ultimate human insider. We know this to be the obvious case, but Busiek takes it further in pointing out Batman not just as human, but the quintessential "self-made man." While Busiek means this not just financially, indeed the Waynes are the embodiment of the American dream -- family wealth and estate -- but yet we know that Superman is closer associates with the "American Way" than Batman, and that Superman is highly more the "insider" than Batman. Busiek offers the concepts from all sides, and I appreciated it.

I also thought Busiek offered fair insights into Wonder Woman's place in the trinity. Most of what Busiek posits for Wonder Woman tends to be "in between" -- the earth in between the sun and the moon, the warrior between the savior and the punisher -- but even if this only makes Wonder Woman "half" of Superman and Batman respectively, they're also valid assesments of her character. Additionally, Busiek addresses, rather than ignores, Wonder Woman's identity as a woman alongside two potentially overshadowing men, and even looks at why she's been at times attracted to each of them and vice versa.

The first volume of Trinity offers a gigantic rolicking superhero story, a kind of popcorn movie without the weight of something like Final Crisis, but still fun to get lost in. Busiek loads on esoteric DC Universe concepts with abandon -- Krona, Morgaine le Fey, Despero, Kanjar Ro, and the Anti-Matter universe all find a unlikely place. At the end, if it doesn't all make sense, or you find yourself wondering as I did just how the heroes managed to get from point A all the way over to point B, it hardly matters; there's a joy to the deep history of this story that's well worth it.

Indeed one of my very favorite parts of Trinity so far is the inclusion of the late 1980s Superman character Gangbuster. The backup features here, which dovetail almost seamlessly with the main story, mostly focus on Gangbuster and Hawkman, and the two human, brutal characters together is a fun match. Busiek utilitzes the Justice League, the Justice Society, the Titans, and others here, giving the story a crossover-like feel, and the characters are more than just window-dressing. Busiek has Vixen, for instance, provide a remarkably cogent picture of how other heroes see the Big Three.

All of this isn't to pretend Trinity doesn't have its problems. Busiek's new characters like Tarot and Konvict fail to compete with the grandeur of DC's established heroes; to me, the story felt stronger when Busiek wasn't imagining off on his own. Also, some of the supposedly-hip slang Busiek puts in Tarot and Gangbuster's mouths, his stereotypically urban characters, falls very flat. While it's a thrill to see artist Mark Bagley's great rendition of the DC Universe through most of the book, the costumes of his new heroes and villains look hopelessly trapped in the 1980s, including his ridiculous update of Gangbuster's costume. (Brass knuckles with "Gangbuster" on them? Please.)

Overall, however, I enjoyed the first volume of Trinity much, much more than I expected. Unlike 52 and Countdown, Trinity doesn't try to bend itself to the weekly format; rather it's a just a winding multi-part tale, not much different that what you might find in JLA, but painted on a canvas that encompasses the entire DC Universe. What I've read so far makes me eager to pick up the next book.

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Review: Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Don't even stop to read this review; just go out and get Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian. Go on, go; we'll wait. This book gets my highest recommendation. Yes, indeed -- Gail Simone's latest volume of Wonder Woman is that good.

[Contains spoilers for Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian]

Bottom line, the best thing about Rise of the Olympian is that the stakes are emotional, not physical. Wonder Woman's epic battle with new-villain Genocide evokes Superman's original battle with Doomsday, except that here, Diana grapples with the moral implications of her battle. It's one thing for Diana to want to kill Genocide in order to stop the villain's rampage while struggling to discern where heroism ends and vengeance begins; it's another thing when Wonder Woman learns that Genocide is her own future self (more Bizarro than Doomsday), and that the evil she finds in Genocide is actually the same urges for revenge within her own self.

Diana gets beat terribly far down in Olympian, but the story rises to a level beyond the latest personality-clash-fueled dissolution of the Justice League because here, Diana's torment stems from her own true character. Genocide threatens to kill Wonder Woman's paramour Nemesis unless she admits that she doesn't actually love him -- the villain is Genocide, but Diana's the one who causes the pain. Similarly, Diana's choice to kill Genocide, which she tries to take back a moment later, ultimately allows Genocide to escape, such that when the villain rises again, Diana will know that the destruction results from her own bad choices. The stakes that Simone introduces here are greater than what you find in your typical comic book, and it makes for entirely gripping reading.

Not to mention, I'm a sucker for a good mystery, and Olympian has plenty of layers to peel back. Genocide is a great villain on her own, but it's ever better when the reader learns she's made from Wonder Woman's future corpse (shocking!) and that she's being controlled by classic Wonder Woman villain Cheetah -- and even better than that is the revelation that the god Ares not only controls them both, but also has a henchman within Zeus's new Olympians, too. As with Superman: New Krypton, there's a great conflicts in this story on many fronts, more than just hero-fights-villain, that kept me turning pages to the end.

I also appreciated how Olympian evokes classic Wonder Woman stories -- though maybe evokes them too strongly. The presence of Ares as the main villain, the meddling by Zeus, even Wonder Woman's renunciation of the Amazon way have all been elements of Wonder Woman stories before, and indeed it is a little repetitive. (No one believes Wonder Woman will permanently stop being an Amazon any more than they believe Superman has really abandoned Earth, of course.) But even the Greg Rucka run on Wonder Woman -- and I say this as someone who loved the Greg Rucka run on Wonder Woman -- didn't quite feel like a "traditional" Wonder Woman story, in that Wonder Woman is a superhero who fights super-villains both human and mythological, splitting her time between Man's World and Themyscira. Olympian "feels" like a Wonder Woman story (moreso, certainly, than New Krypton feels like a Superman story), and as such I'm willing to forgive re-treading some well-worn ground.

To be sure, I'm looking forward to the next volume, which doesn't unfortunately arrive until March. There's plenty still to be discovered -- Wonder Woman's renunciation of the Amazon way doesn't interest me nearly as much as, for instance, the tie between the alien Ichor race that destroyed the Khunds in Wonder Woman: The Circle and the ship that delivered the gods back to Earth at the beginning of Olympian. It seemed to me that the gods didn't even know who they were in the beginning, and despite Athena's interaction with Diana, I'm not entirely convinced the gods are even who they say they are. Certainly Zeus's murder of the god Kane Milohai has yet to be explained, and I'm eager for the answers.

(For an interesting take on Gail Simone's Wonder Woman stories so far, with comments from Gail herself, see the Hooded Utilitarian blog.)

[Contains full covers, Origins & Omens pages]

This is a great, great Wonder Woman volume. Did you enjoy it as much as I did? The Superman and Batman titles get lots of attention right now, but with the recent announcement of Wonder Woman being re-numbered to #600, maybe it'll coincide with some publicity for this storyline. Thanks for reading!

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Review: Wonder Woman: The Ends of the Earth hardcover/trade paperback (DC Comics)

Writer Gail Simone positions Wonder Woman as a joint warrior/diplomat perhaps better than any previous writer on the book. Diana has often been dismissed as confusing or contradictory, but here Simone makes the character's philosophies astoundingly clear, perhaps even moreso against a bevy of warrior guest-stars who appear in Wonder Woman: Ends of the Earth. But even as Simone writes a Wonder Woman to be proud of, Ends of the Earth struck me as a little dull; the major subplots move slowly here while the main action seemed like entertaining filler.

Ends of the Earth pairs Wonder Woman with two standbys from DC Comics's sword-and-sorcery stable, Beowulf, the Stalker, and Claw the Unconquered, continuing Simone's exploration of Wonder Woman the warrior. The story is an example of the exception that proves the rule; the Stalker's Black Horizon drains away Wonder Woman's mercy and compassion, such that we're reminded of Diana's warrior's code by what she's lost, while in large part Beowulfplays the role of Diana's conscience, pulling her back from killing defeated enemies and brokering peace with their reluctant allies.

In both the main story and "A Star in the Heavens," Simone appears to be playing with, or perhaps deciding between, the various versions of Wonder Woman over the years. Ends of the Earth has Wonder Woman mostly in warrior's garb instead of her super-hero costume; in "Star in the Heavens," Wonder Woman fights what are essentially prior eras' incarnations of herself. Of her twelve Wonder Woman issues (by the end of this collection), both Ends of the Earth and The Circle are supernatural fantasy-type stories rather than traditional superheroics, and I'm curious to see if Simone continues in this direction with the book. Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman approached shades of The West Wing, and while I'm not sure that was the most natural direction for Wonder Woman either, it was certainly fun to read.

My wish for Ends of the Earth, however, was that it had more overt relevance as a story. What I liked about The Circle, in addition to being an exciting tale of Wonder Woman challenging both rogue Nazis and errant Amazons who invaded Themiscyria, was that it suggested a change to Wonder Woman's origin; not every story has to be an origin story, of course, but one undoubtedly had the sense that Circle mattered. While there's evidence that threads of Ends of the Earth will be addressed again, Wonder Woman essentially goes, sees, and conquers, and the same for "Star in the Heavens." The next Wonder Woman collection, Rise of the Olympian, begins a major storyline that DC's advertised on par with Superman: New Krypton and Batman: RIP; to that end, Ends of the Earth felt a bit like the filler in between.

Of course, I continue to be fascinated by the burgeoning relationship Simone writes between Wonder Woman and Tom "Nemesis" Tresser. While the story of Tom misunderstanding the gorillas in Diana's apartment felt silly (more filler, really), Nemesis's conversations with Donna Troy and Hippolyta leave no doubt that Simone's planning to "go there" -- that is, have Wonder Woman and Nemesis become intimate. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- it's a ridiculous double-standard that Batman can sleep with anyone he meets and Superman can marry Lois Lane, but Wonder Woman must remain celibate -- but I'm amazed that in the world of up-to-the-minute comics journalism, I've not seen one article or editorial addressing what's coming. It ought not be such a big deal, but I bet it will be -- what do you think of the Wonder Woman/Nemesis storyline?

Rise of the Olympian, it seems, doesn't come out until November, and I'm disappointed we have to wait that long for the next chapter. I like Simone's Wonder Woman, even if the stories themselves haven't yet crystalized for me, and I'm hoping Olympian is the book where it all comes together.

[Contains full covers]

Up next ... Batman and the Outsiders: The Snare. Don't miss it!

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Review: Wonder Woman: The Circle collected hardcover (DC Comics)

Mercedes Lackey very nearly gushes in her introduction to Gail Simone's Wonder Woman debut in Wonder Woman: The Circle, calling it "the essence of everything I always wanted Wonder Woman to be." Indeed, while I don't think Simone's Princess Diana, as presented here at least, is quite the ultimate depiction of the character, there are certainly more than a few brilliant flashes that suggest it could be.

Simone, I believe, offers a take on Wonder Woman that many writers have attempted, but never quite achieved. In every battle Diana fights--whether with super-gorillas, enhanced Nazis, or a crazed Green Lantern--Simone takes the reader almost step-by-step through Diana's strategies, both her attempts to overcome her enemies and to make peace with them. This is clearly Wonder Woman the warrior, Wonder Woman the diplomat, Wonder Woman the Amazon, presented clearer than ever before.

In addition, Simone surely breaks new ground with her depiction of Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. Simone, expertly, uses the lasso sequence only once, so as not to lessen the power of it, as Wonder Woman and a penitant Captain Nazi are transported to a vague "truth-scape" inside Nazi's mind. The panels that follow are heartbreaking, and the reader can't help but share Diana's compassion for this otherwise repugnant villain. This is one of those flashes of brilliance that suggests that Simone may deliver not just a better Wonder Woman than we've seen before, but may even break new ground with the character.

Unfortunately, I found The Circle's story itself somewhat flat. The initial chapters are greatly compelling, as Diana fends off a Nazi attack against Themyscira and we get hints of an Amazon plot to kill the baby Diana in the past--but at the end of the story we really don't learn anything new about Diana's origins, and I couldn't help but be disappointed. The second story, "Expatriate," offers more of Simone's masterful take on Diana--and even better, spotlights Simone's fantastic revamp of long-time Wonder Woman supporting character Etta Candy--but ultimately the story doesn't rise far above standard superhero fare. Simone's got a great take on Wonder Woman, but it seems she's still trying to find the right story with which to showcase it.

I was also vaguely annoyed by the suggestion that there might be more than we know to Wonder Woman's origins. Just as Superman is the last survivor of Krypton and Batman watched his parents die, Wonder Woman (at least recently) was formed from clay on Themyscira by her mother Hippolyta. The heroes' origins have withstood changes and shifts before, but for Simone to make it her first act to change Wonder Woman's beginnings in some way speaks to the perceived difficulties that many writers have had with the character. To posit that Wonder Woman needs reimagining is to say that the character isn't full and right as she is--that the preeminent female DC Comics hero has been "broken" for at least the past twenty years. Personally I'd rather see Simone build an adventure for Diana based on her current origins, than immediately turn to changing them.

We can't, in addition, ignore the giant elephant in this trade--it very much looks like Simone's leading toward Diana having sex with her partner, Tom "Nemesis" Tresser. Not that there's anything wrong with that--if anyone's going to finally cross that boundary, it seems well and right that it be Wonder Woman's first regular female writer, Simone. At the same time, when Diana's been condemned by male writers to always having to have a boyfriend, it's almost a shame that Simone gives her a boyfriend as well--though, of course, the same double-standard doesn't apply to romantic interests for male heroes. I do applaud both Simone and DC Comics for taking this risk, and I hope that after it does happen, it ushers in an era where Wonder Woman's romantic life becomes perhaps not as important as other aspects of her adventures.

Wonder Woman: The Circle is, in my estimation, imperfect, but not far off the mark. I loved, as constant readers know, Greg Rucka's run on Wonder Woman--but whereas Rucka's run may have had too much Ambassador Diana and not enough Wonder Woman, Simone's Wonder Woman so far is very bubblegum superheroic (moreso, perhaps, because of Terry Dodson's pleasing but bubbly art) with not as much seriousness that gives, say, Batman it's weight. Rest assured, however, that Simone shows that Princess Diana is in capable hands; if each volume grows better than the last, Lackey might get her ultimate Wonder Woman yet.

[Contains full covers.]

We're going to dart out to the Wildstorm Universe next with Mr. Majestic, and on from there. Join us!

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