Wonder Woman: Evolution #8 – Stephanie Phillips, Writer; Mike Hawthorne, Penciller; Adriano Di Benedetto, Inker; Jordie Bellaire, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: It’s been a long, strange trip for Wonder Woman as she encountered an old-friend turned enemy, barely escaped with her life, and then found herself drafted into a bizarre trial by cosmic Gods who wanted her to represent humanity and determine if it was worthy to continue—or so it seemed. As Diana was sent through time and space and encountered multiple friends who seemed to turn on her, it became clear that something else was going on, and last issue saw her awaken in the lair of a mad scientists who had been putting her through these illusions in an attempt to keep her off balance, test her abilities, and harvest her DNA for a new breed of super-soldiers—with the very first test subject being Vanessa Kapetalis, the Silver Swan who began this whole story. And Vanessa hasn’t just been upgraded by the new DNA infusion—she’s been transformed into a twisted clone of Diana herself.
This story hasn’t always maintained its momentum, which is the risk of a story that keeps its audience off-balance throughout. We’re just as in the dark as Diana for most of the story, and that made it hard to keep up. But now that everything is on the table, it’s very easy to get invested as Diana finds herself tested physically and mentally. Vanessa is one of her deadliest enemies in the best of times, and these aren’t the best of times. Despite this, though, Diana refuses to ever see Vanessa as an irredeemable enemy and never loses sight of the fact that she’s a victim too. The ending here is ambiguous, and I’m not sure it’ll ever be followed up on, but it nicely reflects how far Diana will go to save someone—and serves as a nice antidote to those writers who portray Diana as the most kill-happy or ruthless among the core DC heroes. Now that it’s complete, I imagine this story will read even better as a whole.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
