WONDER WOMAN #220

Affirmative Defense

October 2005

Written by Greg Rucka

Pencils by Dave Lopez

Inks by Bit

Cover by J. G. Jones

Synopsis

Talking to someone unknown, Diana attempts to explain her actions when she killed Max Lord.  She stands by her decision; it was the proper one. But she also knows she killed a friendship.  Superman is in disbelief over what she had done.  He called it murder.  Before they could talk further, Black Canary called from the JLA Watchtower; things were going wrong.  Wonder Woman flew to Seattle to stop a Tsunami, but there was nothing.  She then flew to Arizona to avert a nuclear accident.  Afterwards she returned to the embassy to find Jonah McCarthy, a member of Checkmate.  Diana wanted to know why Jonah was spying on her.  He told her it is because she is a threat, because like Superman, she has powers than can crush a normal person.  Diana tried to get him to go to the authorities, but Jonah would never admit his involvement with Checkmate and regardless what Diana coaxed out of him with the lasso, it would never hold up in court.  And she tells all of this to Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) hoping that he would understand, hoping she had not killed her friendship with him as well.  Bruce tells her to get out and she leaves.

Review

At no point during the final conversation with Bruce is his face shown.  He is back lit so that his face is in shadows.  And the final page is all the more powerful for it.  For one panel he is quiet, than another panel he says get out, and then another panel we see Diana reflect on his words, and then finally she leaves.  The pain is shown in Diana’s face in the next to last panel.  But at no time is Bruce’s feelings shown.  But we know those feelings because we know how he feels about human life.  And so we understand without having to see it.  And we hurt as Diana hurts for losing Bruce’s friendship, but we hurt as Bruce hurts because he cannot condone her actions.  And I am amazed and how powerful those two pages truly are.

There are tiny moments throughout this issue that help rein in the BIG storyline and make it seem that much more human:  the short scene with Ferdinand and Leslie and their confused affection for each other; Diana’s comment on the chess players in the park, her assessment of her anger when she finds Jonah; and her quiet reflective moment in the shower after averting the nuclear explosion.  What these moments do is to show that her actions were not done in the middle of a large-scale assault war.  It was in the middle of a clandestine war, but not one the public would know about.  And while Jonah is correct in saying she would probably be vindicated in court of law, she would not be in the public court.  Diana’s mission, hell, Themyscira’s mission was one of peace.  It is one thing to tell the reader these things, it is quite another to show the little things that remind us that this is not a full scale war like WWII or Vietnam or even Iraq.

I think at this point I would want to read whatever Greg Rucka decided to write.  He has proven to be one of the best, if not the best, writer in comic books out there, and this issue shows that, and in spades.  This is brilliant.  Not only does in make sense in the view of the OMAC Project, but also within the pages of Wonder Woman as well.  This is not a follow-up to OMAC, this is a follow-up to Diana’s decision and how it affects her in all aspects of her life.-- MRB

Comics Connection

The opening scene between Superman and Wonder Woman is replayed in Adventures of Superman, issue #643 and in the OMAC Project mini-series, issue #4.