Comics Fondle

It had never occurred to me to try reading George Perez’s Wonder Woman comics, then a friend told me they were good, so I checked out the first collection, Gods and Mortals.

Besides Perez’s great art, it’s all about his plotting (Greg Potter scripted the first two issues, Len Wein the other five in the collection). He lays out the revised Wonder Woman origin like a movie–like Superman, specifically–spending the first two issues establishing the series’s revised Greek mythology and bringing Steve Trevor into the story, then spends four issues working up a situation for Wonder Woman to resolve, one both personal and global.

Reading, I found it odd no one could put together a Wonder Woman movie, because this series is perfect for it. There’s the affable supporting cast, the varied action setpieces… everything. Except a satisfactory close. Even though Wonder Woman is an ongoing series, the last issue in the collection leaves something to be desired, even from that perspective. It’s all about flushing possibility: Wonder Woman is magically healed, so there’s no time for her relationship to develop with her mortal friends; she’s introduced to the world by a publicist and it’s all done in one issue, all summary, no scenes of the experiences. It’s a fast forward button and a lame one.

But otherwise, it’s great stuff.

B+

Recommend on Mahalo