WONDER WOMAN #219

Sacrifice Part 4

September 2005

Written by Greg Rucka

Pencils by Thomas Derenick, Georges Jeanty, Karl Kerschl, David Lopez, Rags Morales

Inks by Nelson, Bit, Bob Petrecca, Mark Propst, Dexter Vines

Cover by J. G. Jones & Jose Ladronn

Synopsis

[This issue picks up immediately after Adventures Of Superman #642

Wonder Woman is on her knees, being held around the neck by Superman who in turn is being telepathically controlled by Max Lord, the Black King of Checkmate.  Lord tells Diana that Superman sees what Lord makes him see.  At the moment Superman is watching Doomsday kill his wife, Lois.  And that Diana is Doomsday.  Superman grabs Diana and flies her to the sun, intent on killing “Doomsday” for what he did to Lois.  Diana frees herself and falls to Earth, crash landing in Wyoming.  Meanwhile, Lord watches the battle via a video feed from Brother Mk I.  Superman continues his assault on Diana, who realizes that he is not the enemy.  The real enemy is Max Lord.  She slows down Superman long enough for Diana to get to Lord.  She ties the lasso around him and demands he release control.  He refuses.  Diana demands how to free Superman from Lord’s control.  Lord tells her she’ll have to kill him.  As Superman watches helplessly, Diana grabs Lord and snaps his neck, killing him.

Review

Oh. My. God.

One of the basic tenants of the super heroes in the DCU (except for Manhunter) is the basic concept that they shall not kill.  Batman does not take a life.  Superman does not take a life.  And Wonder Woman is always portrayed as a peacemaker.  But she is also a warrior.  It is this dichotomy that makes her such an interesting character.  What she does to Max Lord is not out of character for her; it seems logical given her warrior beliefs.  And it is logical in any sense.  This issue, as well as the three Superman issues, keeps pounding away at the fact that if Superman were ever to be unleashed against the Earth, then Earth would lose.  It is Lord’s argument why super heroes such as Superman and Wonder Woman need to be killed.  What if Wonder Woman had landed in San Francisco?  The splash page of her re-entry just shows how much devastation would happen in a public area.  Even Diana herself prays she lands somewhere deserted.  It is obvious that Lord could not continue to control Superman and so the only option Diana had was to kill Lord.  But in that one moment she broke that basic tenant:  thou shall not kill.  And I can’t imagine for one second that this will not have a major impact on the DCU.  If anyone thought the upcoming Crisis was going to be lame, this single event should put that out the window.  When they say big they really mean BIG.

And I loved the battle.  For years it was always understood that Superman and Wonder Woman were the tow strongest characters in the DCU, so to see them fight and to see them fight on such a big scale was amazing.  This was no minor fisticuffs.  This was devastation on a large scale as the Earth shook and true damage was done.  This was done the right way.  It showed what they have always said.  And the debate will rage on regarding the winner since Diana left the fight to find Lord again.  But, it was great.  And the caper is Lord’s assessment of the time it took:  “1 minute, 54 seconds.”  All that in under 2 minutes?  Have mercy.

And to cap it all off, there are questions that still need to be answered going into the final three issues of the OMAC Project.  Without Lord, who is in charge?  What happens to Brother MK I? And the OMACs?-- MRB