Wonder Woman #600 Review

Warning: Review May Contain Spoilers

This is officially the first Wonder Woman solo comic book I have ever read. Since the issue was an anniversary issue (#600), there were 5 different stories contained in it's pages. In my opinion, a majority of these stories were either really good or terribly awful. I'll start off by just giving you a play by play of a couple of panels that stood out to me and towards the end I'll talk about how I felt about the book as a whole.


Valedictorian
Written by: Gail Simone
Pencilled by: George Pérez

Basically half of this story involved a bunch of heroes saving the white house while singing Wonder Woman's praises. The majority of the story read terribly and up until the final scenes with Diana and Vanessa I wanted to rip my eyes out because of how flat and out-of-character all of these heroes where. Especially Batwoman, Batwoman should be way more bad-ass than how Gail choose to write her.

Here is an example of a couple heroes going crazy over Wonder Woman (is that a normal thing? I've never noticed it in any other books and it's really silly). Supergirl probably isn't terribly out of character, but there has been enough big leaps in her personality from her solo books for it to strange that she turns into a big blubbering mess when talking to Wonder Woman and, as I already mentioned, I can't stand this infatuation that Batwoman has with her in these scenes.

This dialogue is soooo cheesy. We already get it from the last few pages, they are completely head over heals for Wonder Woman, it was lame to begin with and now Gail is just dragging it out. If Gail would have shortened this up a bit and focused more on the Vanessa/Diana aspect of the story, this section of the comic book would have been a lot stronger. As it stands, it was the second worst story contained in the book.

Since I have had nothing nice to say so far, I'll do the very easy task of complementing the art. George Pérez does a fantastic job of drawing the characters, and the above picture shows my favorite picture that was drawn by him in this book. My only complaint with George Pérez is that I wasn't a big fan of the cover, Wonder Woman's face looks really awkward and it ruins the picture for me.


Fuzzy Logic
Written/Pencilled by: Amanda Conner

Now we get to move on to my least favorite story contained in the book. I promise, I will have some nice things to say about this book later on in my review, so stick around.

The whole plot of this story is very disjointed and beyond overly-cute (it felt more like a 'holiday special' story). I get it Amanda, you are a huge fan of pets, just please, stop writing them in your stories, it makes for a really boring read. With that said, let's move on to the play-by-play.

Ugh. Enough said.


I believe (correct me if I am wrong), that this is some kind of an attempt to make it appear that Wonder Woman is talking about a guy, but in reality they are having a conversation about a cat. If that truly is the case... wow. Plus the dialogue is very hard to stomach.


More about the cat. We're talking about cat poop in this panel. Yeah, I'm not sure what else to say about that.


And more lame dialogue... I would like to point out though (and this may be the reason why Amanda writes animals into her scripts), Amanda is very good at drawing animals. Look at the expression on the cats face, the emotion is caught perfectly.

Firepower

Written by: Louise Simonson

Pencilled by: Eduardo Pansica

I don't really have too much to say about this story as it was just bland overall. It felt like I was reading a comic book from 50 years ago, and maybe that was the point, but if so, it was lost on me. Superman and Wonder Woman fight an enemy, succeed and then Superman makes a snarky one-liner at the end. That just about sums it all up.

Thought bubbles. Yeah, this is a technique that isn't used very much anymore (it was overly used in the early days of comic books), but it is still rarely used in a meaningful way. This is an example of how not to use thought bubbles as it doesn't add anything to the story and just makes the reader wonder why we are seeing what Superman is thinking as if he is talking outloud.


Really Superman? Did you really just say that...?

The Sensational Wonder Woman

Written by: Geoff Johns
Pencilled by: Scott Kolins

This story is fantastic. The writing style really sets the mood and tells the story perfectly, but most of all, it does an eerily great job of setting up the following story (which introduces the new Wonder Woman). I was hooked as I read this short story and the art was very well done.

Look at that art. It's beautiful. And also, this is how you make Wonder Woman badass. That's what she should be written as, not as a playful cute character. She snapped someones neck for god-sake. Also, this is Geoff's attempt at letting the readers know that the world needs Wonder Woman, which I think he succeeded at.


This is where it get's interesting. Who's the girl? What's going to happen next? The pace and intensity of the story was done perfectly.


BAM! And then the little girl runs off into the light. "Let's go see!", she says. Wonder Woman then runs after her screaming, "STOP! Who are you? What are--?" The story is over. A perfect ending to the story that totally saved this book for me (I honestly wouldn't have gotten that far into the book if it wasn't for writing this review).

Odyssey: Prologue - Couture Shock

Written by: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencilled by: Don Kramer

I love the title, but this is again something I never would have realized without writing this review. When I first read the comic, I read the title as, "Culture Shock". Couture is a defensive plate of armor that protects the wrists, very clever. Overall, I felt like this story was very strong, it had me wanting more and I'll be picking up Wonder Woman #601 just so I can see where the story is heading. Oh, and the art is very well done, I'm still digging the new outfit.

Here it is, the new outfit. This was what all of the craziness was about on the internet yesterday. I can't say that I totally understand it, because, like I have already said, I really like it.


Ok, so I guess there is one thing I don't really like about the new outfit. I'm not a huge fan of the spandex. It seems like you would want something a little more protective. Though, I guess she used to just have her bare legs, so it's not like it's any worse.


Haha, I love it! She just totally branded that dude with her wrist armor!


Here's another example of the artistic style that I am a huge fan of, Kramer does a great job of drawing this story.


Again, check out the art. Her eyes are just mesmerizing in this snapshot.


Ok, so I guess I really liked the art (I pick out screenshot and then I write the review based on those and I had a handful just showcasing Kramer's art). The detail really makes this shot work for me.

I loved the plot too. The basic premise was about Wonder Woman trying to figure out exactly what was happening to her. It really worked for me, because as a reader I could totally relate. It was all a tease to entice the reader, but guess what, it worked, so that's just fine by me.


Now let's look at the book as a whole. The first three stories were incredibly disappointing, and, not only did they do nothing for the book, but they actually drug it down. This could have been a really solid book (and that's coming from someone who has never had an interest in Wonder Woman), but because of those three stories (which also upped the price point of the book to $4.99) I can't, in good conscious, give this book any more than three stars out of five. That being said, the last two stories are so great, that I can't fault them for anything and they really make the book worth picking up. I'll admit though, it's ok if you cringe while picking up the book, because you really are paying $4.99 for just two stories that are pretty short and sweet.

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