Ten Reasons Why I Loved Wonder Woman #1

I’d say they’re in no particular order, but they are actually in the order of the story pages themselves, so spoilers aplenty! Here they come:

1. Donna Troy’s new outfit looks, well, wonderful, like an amazonian battle armor instead of an old-fashioned go-go-America bathing suit. When she went “My name is Donna Troy...”, I added “...the most wondrous woman alive” à la Flash :)

2. Donna’s internal monologue sounds realistic and fulfills a proper function within the story, both as exposition and as motivation. Okay, sometimes it’s still as clumsy as ever, but that’s par for the course in comics not written by Alan Moore, I think ;)

3. Steve Trevor is being held hostage (and I guessed he’s be in this issue), boo-yah!

4. The Cheetah is fully human again and looking incredible in the Dodsons’ full-page splash. Simply fantastic, menace-filled eye candy.

5. A giant foot in a Wonder Woman comic can mean only one thing: GIGANTA! Double boo-yah!! (and her saying “Wonder Woman is BOUND to show herself” cracked me up, I’m betting it was meant to, as well, considering the bondage themes of old WW stories :p)

6. Enjoyable banter between Donna and Steve while Giganta is trying to stomp them. Fun!

7. Another scrumptious splash page when the “real” Wonder Woman shows up to stop the Cheetah from killing Donna. More for how delicious Barbara Minerva looks than for that bathing suit WW is sporting though ;) Go Dodsons!

8. Whoa, clash of the Wonder Women! With bloody results! Leading to yet another splash page which looks absolutely stunning, featuring three of Diana’s most classic foes. All we need now is an appearance of Egg Fu!

9. Allan Heinberg going all “gotcha!”, revealing that Steve Trevor is not at all what or who he seemed.

10. Which brings us to the final, brilliant splash page, featuring another old staple of Wonder Woman comics, back when they completely retooled her in the seventies: secret agent Diana Prince in a hot white jump-suit, triple boo-yah!!! Now all we need is I Ching and I’ll squeal like a girl, really I will!

I’m frankly amazed that I liked this issue so much, because it is a rather stock, rote plot, yet the art and writing are both bubbly fun, like a nice action movie, so I didn’t even mind that seven whole pages were splashes (5 full-page and 1 double-page at the beginning), because the Dodsons sell it with ease. Compliments must go to colorist Alex Sinclair as well, who did a lovely job on the entire issue, with the final page being literally outstanding. The only minor negatives are the relatively generic cover, and the very first page which has the camera focusing on different parts of Donna’s body before revealing her fully, that didn’t work for me. I’m also still left scratching my head why it’s bad for a warrior princess to kill her enemies though. Especially when said enemies are obviously murderers (and Diana’s done it from the very start of her previous series when she killed Phobos, or was it Deimos, in v2 #6, ages ago). I blame it on liberalism, heh.

And a final downside is that between Allan Heinberg and the Dodsons, I can’t possibly see this being a monthly. A bimonthly if we’re lucky. On the upside, I hope that it’ll mean a complete run of Dodson art instead of fill-ins by #3, like they’re doing with Checkmate and Blue Beetle. Terry and Rachel are a perfect match for Wonder Woman with their cheesecake art, but they’re a delight in all other areas as well, so I have absolutely no complaints there, while Heinberg seems to rather know what he’s doing, so I’ve got faith in future issues being just as enjoyable, if not timely. All in all though, I'm happy as pie. Mmmm, pie ;)