WONDER WOMAN #6

Love And Murder, Part 1

late May 2007

Written by Jodi Picoult

Pencils by Drew Johnson

Inks by Ray Snyder

Cover by Terry and Rachel Dodson

Synopsis

Special Agents Diana Prince and Tom Tresser (aka Nemesis) of the Department of Metahuman Affairs are at Heroworld protecting the winner of reality show contest.  When a roller coaster breaks, Diana becomes Wonder Woman and saves the customers.  When they return to DMA headquarters, Sarge Steel, they are ordered to capture Wonder Woman, whom the government wants to question in the death of Maxwell Lord.  Later, Tresser is walking home when he is approached by “Wonder Woman” who abducts him and leaves behind her bracelets.  At the DMA, Diana recognizes the bracelets:  they belonged to the Wonder Woman museum.  Diana turns into Wonder Woman and heads for the museum, where Nemesis is being held by Circe.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Overall, this was an intriguing first issue that is unfortunately mired by a lot of uncertainty in the basic plot and the characterization of Wonder Woman.  After the debacle of Heinberg's aborted storyline, this is not the type of effort that will help to restore Wonder Woman's luster unless Picoult can expand on some of the intriguing parts of the issue with an interesting payoff.   While I can overlook the lack of explanation to what happened to the roller coaster (it was never stated what happened, even if it was just poor maintenance) or the whininess of Nemesis that just does not fit who he is, some of the complaints detailed below drag the issue down. 

The first (and I have stated this before) is the decision to make Wonder Woman a supposed fugitive from the law.  There was a brief attempt to tie this into the killing of Max Lord, but it still doesn’t make much sense.  Nemesis (I think) even mentions the not guilty decision of the World Court.  So why make her a criminal.  To make it worse, Diana is working for the very agents that are trying to catch (although I did like Diana’s internal monologue about the irony of the situation).  Don’t you think they would notice that Wonder Woman shows up wherever Diana happens to be?  Yeah, yeah, it is the old Superman conundrum.  The difference is that Diana has been seen out of costume before in her role as ambassador and she has certainly been seen with her hair up.

My second complaint is that Diana is presented far more naive of “human” ways that she really should be.  Some of the small bits like the turnstile in the subway are cute.  Her lack of knowledge regarding gas prices actually makes a little sense since she really does fly everywhere.  But, before she became Diana Prince she was an ambassador living in New York City.  She was politically savvy woman, which also means she had a good handle on people as well since that was part of her job as an ambassador.  Granted, living in New York City as an ambassador to the Untied States puts her in a privilege class rather than the blue collar world she now occupies, but you would think that some things she would’ve picked up on.  Diana is supposed to be a smart woman; this issue makes her dumb in some ways.  Frankly, I get the feeling DC wants to make Diana naive, but that just flies in the face of the past 20 years of her publication history. 

My third complaint is the use of Circe.  I am not sure this is a wise choice to re-use the main villain from the first storyline, especially one that has not yet concluded. 

Picoult does make an interesting observation:  maybe Diana is not supposed to fit in.  She is after all born form the Gods and given the power of the Gods.  Perhaps her role is to remain aloof, a protector and someone who is supposed to inspire by her actions.  Yes, this is the position she had attempted before, the same position that forced her to abandon her roles as Wonder Woman when she could not understand why the human race turned on her. 

Finally, I do like the meta-textual comments regarding Wonder Woman in the way items at Heroworld were either discounted by a large margin or in some cases discontinued altogether.  I really hope Picoult and DC can rectify that situation both in real life and in the comic pages.

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