CSBG Archive
Wonder Woman #1 – Fantastic Newness
One of the interesting things I was annoyed by about Infinite Crisis is the feeling of “Hey, someone find me some of the vast amount of characters we’ve introduced over the past sixty-odd years…so we can kill them.” Some issues felt like going through the DC Encyclopedia looking for characters to kill off. The annoyance of that makes the coolness of Wonder Woman #1 stand out so much more, because it is writer Allan Heinberg doing precisely the opposite. Looking for older, unused characters that he can USE – and use well. This is one of the few examples that I can think of of a writer waxing nostalgic actually paying off in a good story.
First off, if Terry Dodson (and his wife and inker Rachel) are ever going to draw a comic book, this is the one for them to draw, because Dodson draws most women to look like Wonder Woman, so it makes sense for him to actually DRAW the book.
Heinberg takes a page out of Grant Morrison’s book, and tries to condense the background of Wonder Woman and the new Wonder Woman, Donna Troy, into as concise of a description as he can – and I think he pulls it off pretty well. This is a pretty confusing situation to drop a new reader into, and the way Heinberg makes it seem so clear? Very impressive.
Alex Sinclair does an amazing job of coloring, making the surroundings seem to sparkle in just the write way to make the panels feel very cinematic.
I give Dodson grief for his buxom ladies, but I will admit, he did a decent job with the different body types in this issue. Donna Troy, Diana, Giganta and Cheetah all have distinguishable figures. That’s a good step. Also, his lush style really DOES make the book seem a bit more dramatic.
The majority of the issue is a pretty decent superhero/supervillain showdown, as Donna Troy shows up to fight some anti-Wonder Woman terrorists who have kidnapped Steve Trevor. She discovers they are really the supervillains Giganta, Cheetah and Dr. Psycho (although the last one she does not discover until he uses his powers to subdue her).
Donna comes off pretty well in the issue, and I especially enjoyed her banter with Sarge Steel (really cool, underused character #1) and Steve Trevor (underused character #2a).
The hook, though, comes at the end, when the REAL plot of this series starts up – and the stars? Nemesis (underused character #2b, as he impersonates someone else in the issue) and Agent Diana Prince.
Wow, what a neat idea.
A neat idea that is BURIED in nostalgia and continuity – and yet it is still, well, a neat idea.
Nemesis (who is an awesome character) teamed up with Diana Prince (dressed like she was during one of the coolest points in Wonder Woman history). Now THAT’s a book I think folks would be well advised to follow.
So, good debut, DC! And one cool point to the person who names the reference from the entry title (taking my cue from Mssr. Christopher Burton).
5 Comments
JR
June 14, 2006 at 2:14 am
Of the various initial One Year Later books this one really came off as being the strongest so far. Alot of my enthusiasm for the “event” (would event be the right term? project, maybe?) has dampened considerably but this one had alot going for it; action, quick recaps, multiple twists and old character references that didn’t beat you over the head with how great the comics those old characters appeared in were (I’m looking at you Doom Patrol issues of Geoff Johns’s Teen Titans).
FunkyGreenJerusalem
June 14, 2006 at 5:09 am
So Donna Troy is the new WW?
How’d that come about, and what does the old one do?
And which one was in JSA and the Golden age stuff now?
David
June 14, 2006 at 8:22 am
I’m with you about grabbing old characters to use rather than kill them – if they’re merely forgotten, there’s no investment, so killing them means nothing.
I thought that Robinson’s run on Starman was another good example of doing it right.
Cheeseburger
June 14, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Did you not find it weird that Heinberg didn’t give a caption box explaining Dr. Psycho like he did for Cheetah and Giganta? Do you think this book will ship regularly or will it be like Young Avengers?
Brian Cronin
June 14, 2006 at 4:54 pm
I DID think it was weird that he didn’t have a caption box for Dr. Psycho. As for shipping? I have no idea.
And yes, Funky, Donna is Wonder Woman now, because Diana took off after Infinite Crisis. Diana’s mother was the Golden Age Wonder Woman.
And yeah, David, Robinson WAS good at that. Although I didn’t like his sorta opposite take on the “kill off old, unused characters” which he did as “kill of recent, unused characters because the older characters are inherently better”