Wonder Woman #39 – James Robinson, Writer; Carmen Carnero, Artist; Emanuela Lupacchino, Penciller; Ray McCarthy, Inker; Romulo Fajardo Jr, Colorist
Ratings:
Ray – 3/10
Corrina: MORE Jason??
WARNING SPOILERS BELOW
Ray: Last week’s issue of Trinity showed that James Robinson could write Wonder Woman. Sadly, that doesn’t impact this week’s issue of her parent title. Wonder Woman #39 is as much of a mess as the previous issue, with a jumble of storylines that barely fit together at all. Opening in a pool of blood as Silver Swan gloats over the bodies of innocents that she just slaughtered, the first half of the issue is Diana trying to make sense of the betrayal of the girl she saw as a friend. But given that the relationship was just retconned in the last issue and was never mentioned before, it falls flat. We still have no explanation for why Vanessa is acting like this – is it the nanites? Is she just this insane that she would slaughter innocent people because she didn’t think Wonder Woman was paying enough attention? Either way, this Silver Swan completely fails as a villain so far due to lack of characterization.
Then there’s the rest of the issue, as we zigzag from story to story, starting with Darkseid. He’s holed up in the ancient Amazon temple that we saw a few issues ago and is plotting with Grail. His resurrection isn’t at 100% yet, and he still needs some magical MacGuffins scattered around the world. This plot is just an excuse for Darkseid to stand around, fulminating and then summon the Female Furies. They proceed to attack Steve Trevor and his team, who only appear in one page before we cut to everyone’s favorite character – Jason, who is standing around pouting about the lecture Diana gave him. Once he’s done whining, he sees Diana fighting on TV and decides to go assist her. He jumps into the battle, takes on Silver Swan – and promptly gets his throat cut, with the issue ending with his life in danger. We wouldn’t be so lucky, and if you’re going to put a character’s life in danger to make the audience care, we should actually care about the character first! This run continues to be a disaster, as Corrina put so well.
Corrina: Can Jason be dead? Please. Okay, maybe not because that would make this all about Wonder Woman avenging a brother she never needed. But if he’s her twin brother, how did he grow up and live with the attitude that he has, especially since he had a peaceful childhood and a father figure? Plus, he ping-pongs back and forth between being the worst kind of fratdudebro and yelling at himself for doing so. Neither state is interesting.
But, getting away from Jason, to the fight with Silver Swan. I have to say, first, that the artwork depicting the fight is incredible, even Jason’s contribution of the wall of water. Lupacchino’s art is dynamic and flows well from panel to panel.
Of course, now I have to talk about the story, which basically consists of Vanessa yelling at Diana for being too busy for her, so of course, that means she must commit murder. No, Vanessa, that only makes you a murderer. The story doesn’t agree with Vanessa but the yelling gets old after the first accusation that Diana’s supposed failings as a friend led to Vanessa’s transformation. It also makes Silver Swan a one-note character.
There is another subplot, something with Darkseid standing with his hands being his back and calling in his Female Furies. So I guess he’ll come back for round two at some point.
In short, still nothing interesting happening in this book and it’s still a disaster, as I elaborated in an article last week.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
