I wrote an article last year called “The Forgotten” where I compared myself to being forgotten by DC Comics due to the exclusion of The New 52, now fortunately this wasn’t a debacle like comparing Nick Spencer to Stan Lee(It was basically my Tony Stark/Hank Pym invents Ultron moment.) but it was pretty heavy with the idea of DC just saying the new 52 was useless and although I do think it wasn’t handled in the best way possible, I have to admit that it’s been a lot better than I anticipated.
(Disclaimer, I have’t read every comic that DC Rebirth has had in the last year but I’ve kept up with a good portion of it and have read at least the first quarter of the runs I’m talking about.)
First Up : Let’s jump right into my thoughts on Wonder Woman.(#1-#25)
W: Greg Rucka. A: Liam Sharp, Nicola Scott and Different Guests Artists.
Now, Wonder Woman was one of the first ones that I was hesitant to read due to the fact that it cancels out Brian Azzarello’s run which is one of my all time favorites but I do have to give some credit to where Rucka is concerned here.
Story : The basic premise is that Wonder Woman has memories of different origins and different stories that she believes to be false and so she goes looking for answers as to why she has forgotten the truth and why she has other memories instead.
Rucka does write a very strong Wonder Woman and that’s a major thing for me. Wonder Woman always needs to be this powerhouse and needs to be sure of herself and the only major issue I have with this story as a whole is the 3 issues where she isn’t. Steve Trevor, Etta Candy and Barbara Minerva were all great updated additions to the story and I was very pleased with all of them as Characters.
My biggest issues with the story though is that Rucka bends over backwards in this storyline to make sure that he’s the only one who’s relevant as a previous writer. The irony of them referencing the arrogance of men in the story wasn’t lost on me. This wouldn’t have angered me if he just never mentioned previous storylines and made his an organic continuation from his work on the character back in the early 2000’s but the reveal of “The Lies” wasn’t organic at all in the context of the story and I had to reread the comic about 3 times to actually understand why Wonder Woman had forgotten everything.
Now Rucka might get a pass here due to the fact that he’s following the Finch run and not the Azzarello run. I didn’t read all of the Finch’s run but after hearing everything that happens, I’m glad I didn’t. They chose to kill all of the male amazons(From the Azzarello run), They Chose to kill Zeke and ruin Hera’s Characterization(From the Azzarello run) they chose to revert Ares back to the traditional blue armored God of War instead of the weary old man(Say it with me…From the Azzarello run) and worst of all : Wonder Woman lacks self confidence and is incredibly weak willed. Which goes against everything we know about her! So yeah, if Rucka saw that and was just like “Enh, Let’s just restart everything.” Then I honestly can’t blame him too much for it.
His Diana is well written but her characterization is a bit off due to her trying to make sense of all of these memories she has. It’s actually a shame that he spends so much time on fixing her that by the time we get to see her for who she really is we only have two or three other issues before a new writer takes over.
Overall, It’s well written until the reveal in issue #23 but Diana does have some really cool moments and the new versions of Dr. Poison, Dr. Cyber and Veronica Cale were welcome additions to her Rogue’s Gallery. I would Suggest this Series if you just really needed a Wonder Woman fix and if you wanted to get caught up before the next comes along after Shea Fontana short stint with the character(As of this writing, I haven’t read anything of hers but I’d be happy to cover it in the future if you’d like me to.)
