Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me #4 – Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, Writers; Chad Hardin, Tom Derenick, Artists; Alex Sinclair, Jeremiah Skipper, Colorists
Ratings:
Ray – 9/10
Ray: The Walmart stories have done a clever thing with their narrative, making every “issue” its own mini-story while also weaving them together into a larger whole. That pattern continues with Palmiotti and Conner’s Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me #4, as it whiplashes Diana and Steve Trevor from one adventure – and often genre – to another.
When we last left off, Diana was powerless, injured, and cornered by mysterious alien soldiers linked to their ally Princess Sibella. When Sibella’s guardian robots jump into the fray and escalate the conflict, Diana and Steve are separated from the rest of their allies and wake up on a beach – where Diana’s healing has mysteriously been kick-started and they wind up fighting an Atlantean invasion. The visuals from Chad Hardin in this segment are spectacular, especially in the Atlantean monsters, and it starts raising questions about the true nature of the threat in this comic.
Then before they can respond, things take an abrupt left turn and Diana is separated from Steve and finds herself in a sci-fi scenario, aboard the spaceship of their captors and forced to team up with Sibella – and in a twist, Cheetah.
The time and space anomalies that have defined this series become more and more blatant, and the true purpose of their captivity becomes clear. This comic is almost a little too chaotic at times, giving us as much whiplash as it does the characters, but that’s part of the appeal. It never lets us get complacent and surprises us in every chapter. It feels a bit like an old-fashioned serial adventure where every episode ends with the hero in impossible peril and pulls us back next issue for the resolution.
Wonder Woman: Come Back to Me doesn’t grapple with the same weighty issues that the best WW runs have, but it doesn’t have to – it’s a near-perfect introduction to the character, her world, and the joyful ridiculousness of comics.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
Disclaimer: GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
