DCU Comic Book Reviews

BLACKEST NIGHT:  Wonder Woman #1

Part One:  The Living

February 2010

Written by Greg Rucka

Pencils by Nicola Scott

Inks by Prentis Rollins, Jonathon Glapion, Walden Wong, Drew Geraci

Covers by Greg Horn and Ryan Sook

Synopsis

Following messages written in blood, Wonder Woman is led to the Washington Monument.  There, she encounters Black Lantern Maxwell Lord.  She tries to kill it again, but the undead creature keeps coming back.  Suddenly, hundreds of black rings fly through the air, the dead in Arlington National Cemetery rising to become Black Lanterns.  She is surrounded.  Using her lasso, Wonder Woman creates a ring of fire that destroys the Black Lanterns.  She then flies away.  Nearby, despite being burnt to ash, Maxwell Lord says he will see her later.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Maybe it is my own perception, but this is not the issue I was expected.  One of the things I remember Rucka talking about is that he never had the chance to provide a sense of closure to Diana’s killing of Maxwell Lord.  After it had happened, the DC universe got caught up in Infinite Crisis and then the “One Year Later” stunt and the Wonder Woman book was canceled and re-launched.  Based on that and the fact that Lord was coming back, I expected that sense of closure or at least an in depth look at the event and their take on what happened.  That was not here.  There were brief moments where they discussed what happened, but mostly it is buried underneath Max trying to kill the living soldiers and then mass of black rings descending on the cemetery.  In fact there really isn’t much of a story or even a plot.  Diana shows up, kills Black Lanterns, leaves.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this issue and I loved the way Rucka handled Diana with a sense of purpose and strength.  It is one of the strengths of Rucka’s writing of Wonder Woman, his grasp of the character.  Rucka has always presented Diana as strong willed with the warrior mentality, but compassionate with a loving mentality and all of that comes shining through in this issue.  Unfortunately, there is not much of a story and the confrontation I expected to happened kinda fizzled out. 

It is interesting to note that, like Blackest Night:  Flash that came out on the same day, the end to this issue coincides with events in Blackest Night #5.  With the Flash book, Johns has other possible characters to write about, so he can avoid using Barry or Wally, who are so prominent in the main series. Rucka doesn’t have that luxury, so I will be curious to see how the next issue will play in terms of what is happening in the main series (especially given the events in #5). 

Even as I was typing the above, I realized that Rucka could also write a story with Hippolyta or Artemis, both of whom took on the mantle of Wonder Woman at some point.  I am not sure what type of story he could tell (is there someone from the JSA who would want to confront Hippolyta?), but there is always that possibility. 

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