WONDER WOMAN #25

A Star In The Heavens, Scene Two:  Personal Effects

December 2008

Written by Gail Simone

Pencils by Bernard Chang

Inks by Bernard Chang

Cover by Aaron Lopresti

Synopsis

In Hollywood, the Queen of Fables interrupts the filming of a Wonder Woman movie to wreck havoc on Wonder Woman.  The Queen re-plays various moments of Diana’s life, except that it is gross caricature of what really happened.  Diana tells the Queen she will not observe the slander against her people.  The Queen agrees and puts Diana in the movie to battle against centaurs.  Diana wins the battle.  She then challenges the Queen and defeats her, ending the charade.  Afterwards, Diana cancels the movie.  Later, she visits one of the film executives to provide encouragement and to leave a gift for her two daughters.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Much like the last issue, this one is also broken into two distinct parts.  The first is the Hollywood section with Wonder Woman dealing with the Queen of Fables and the second is the ending with Allison and her children.  Like last issue, the two parts don’t quite mesh together and perhaps would’ve been better served if they had been written as individual issues rather than part of an issue.  In fact, I think the Queen of Fables section from this issue and last issue would’ve made for a fairly intriguing single issue rather than the two-parter as it appears.  Don’t get me wrong; I actually like a lot of the Hollywood scenes (especially the horrible, clichéd script and, of course, the Gorillas and the comment about the studio’s attorneys) but the effect of splitting the story takes away from some of the charm.  The same is true for the scene at the end, which builds upon the scene from last issue.  Simone does a fairly decent job of making sure to remind us of what happened before, but I think the impact of what Simone is attempting is lost.  It would’ve look a lot better if Allison’s story was given more room to breathe.  Despite that criticism, I still like this issue and when it gets put into the inevitable trade paperback, the story will work very well. 

I don’t really know what to make of the fact that the two children were of two races.  No mention is made, at all, in the story of different fathers (or even adoption) or even the fact that girls look so different from each other.  I am not saying it should; I just found it interesting.  I am curious if the girls’ looks were an artist decision or if Simone made that request in the script. 

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