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“Sensation Comics” Has A Lot of Potential, Could Use A Bit More Wonder Woman [Review]

By | August 22nd, 2014
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Freed from the shackles of continuity and a superhero romance, Wonder Woman takes center stage in a new digital series and immediately sets out to prove Batman’s irrelevancy.

As a note, some spoilers are discussed in this review.

Written by Gail Simone
Illustrated by Ethan Van Sciver and Marcelo Di Chiara

Diana Prince: Amazon warrior, ambassador to Man’s world, or champion of women in need? All of the above!

This digital-first anthology series will bring some of comics’ greatest talents to Themyscira, and give them leave to explore Diana, her world – and ours!

Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver kick things off when Oracle calls for help after the entire Bat-Family gets sidelined. But when Wonder Woman steps into the breach, Gotham City’s criminals get the surprise of their lives! Then, Amanda Deibert and Cat Staggs take Diana to school, where she meets her biggest fan!

If there is one piece of intellectual property that DC has to get in order, it’s Wonder Woman. The self-titled series has been a critical favorite under the three year run of Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, but this is possibly due to the fact that it is often so at odds with the depiction of the character elsewhere in the New 52. As Azzarello and Chiang get ready to leave “Wonder Woman” and everyone’s favorite Amazonian prepares for her movie debut in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (sigh), the direction of her characterization seems almost completely up in the air. Turning that negative into a positive, “Sensation Comics” steps into the messy void with an anthology format that will allow creators to tell any kind of Wonder Woman story, with any kind of Wonder Woman they want.

“Sensation Comics” #1 opens in a familiar and surprising place: Gotham City. A collection of the biggest Bat-villains have teamed together for another devious plan. The Dark Knight suits up and hops into the Batmobile to open a can of guilt-powered whoopass on Arkham’s repeat visitors, when he gets blown to smithereens. Makes you wonder why they didn’t think of the years ago. Barbara Gordon, once again in her Oracle persona, knows that Gotham needs a protector before everything becomes pure anarchy. She puts in a call to Themyscira and Wonder Woman quickly arrives to show the Joker and crew what someone with a few superpower can do.

“Sensation Comics” marks the return of fan favorite writer Gail Simone to the character after a thirty issue run on “Wonder Woman” several years ago. Simone has made a name for herself in the DCU writing “Birds of Prey,” “Secret Six” and, more recently, “Batgirl” for several, along with shorter runs on other titles. Her Gotham and Amazonian credentials are firmly established, and the lack of strict continuity allows Simone to throw the two worlds together with abandon where the results are surprisingly cohesive. The Joker is crazy, Two-Face is tragic, and Wonder Woman is just a wicked badass. The issue does not doesn’t overpower with dialog, and the exposition comes from Barbara Gordon, a character that Simone knows inside and out, so it flows quite well.

The problems with the issue appears in the second part, collected in the first hard copy issue after being published digitally. It kicks off with a classic Joker-blowing-up-a-random-building scene and Diana is immediately every bit the noble hero one expects her to be, organizing a rescue and pulling people from the rubble. Next, however, Diana flips into her full God Of War mode and dispatches Batman’s entire rogues gallery with enough efficient brutality to make Frank Miller proud. It seems like Gail Simone is embracing the chance to show how Wonder Woman is different from other hero, because while Batman and Superman are guardians and protectors, she is a warrior. And what starts as a rather gripping examination of differing superhero ethics unencumbered by continuity is immediately washed away when it turns out Wonder Woman was just daydreaming about wiping out an entire wing at Arkham.

It’s not a bad story, and Simone is certainly a good enough storyteller to make it entertaining and enjoyable, it’s just as a story that’s been done before. Simone presents Wonder Woman as a hero perfectly capable of standing up for the lofty ideals of the Justice League, but it just feels like there should have been a way to do it while fully exploiting the lack of continuity

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The art of Ethan Van Sciver follows a very similar pattern to the story: starting off very strong and then becoming more than a bit muddy towards the end. Sciver is a very talented artists; his work on “Green Lantern” and “The Flash” with Geoff Johns helped set the tone for years of DC comics, and he is certainly more than capable of penciling great superhero fight scenes. His work is detailed, and doesn’t give in to the easy temptation of letting Gotham’s natural gloom and shadow result in bland monochrome backgrounds. It’s interesting to note that while Sciver doesn’t have much experience in the Bat or Amazon world, he handles the diverse set of character very well. Wonder Woman looks strong and powerful, and never even comes close to gross over-sexualisation. Sciver’s Joker in particular looks great, fitting nicely into the Neal Adams / Brian Bolland mold. While his more realistic style is a tad pose-y at times, the story never gets confusing or hard to follow.

Again, the second part is where things get a bit hairy. The city explodes in a beautiful splash page, which is immediately followed by a page drawn by Marcelo Di Chiara for some unknown reason, and it has a noticeably different look to Sciver’s art. It’s odd and disorienting, and throws off the pace of the issue almost immediately. Sciver recovers for the remainder of that scene, but the rest of the issue definitely feels more rushed than the first half. At first it makes sense when Wonder Woman’s revenge daydream becomes more stylized and less realistic, but once the story resumes that look remains for the rest of the book.

At DC, Wonder Woman has often been victim of editorial trying to fix something that’s not broken. With a mishmash of characterizations being presented in the New 52, it seems like the perfect time to introduce a new continuity-free series that lets all-star creators tell short stories that can speak to the core of Diana Prince’s character without having to tie into the larger DCU. Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver are a very talented creative team, and while the story starts strong it loses steam by the conclusion. The art becomes more rushed, and the story doesn’t take full advantage of the continuity free opportunity. And it would be nice to see Wonder Woman stand in her own unique world, and not rely on the famous Batman villains to draw in an audience.

Final Verdict: 7.0 – It’s not a bad story and Wonder Woman certainly deserves a second starring series, it just feels like there’s far more potential to be utilized.


Matt Dodge

Matt Dodge is originally from Ottawa (go Sens!), where he attended University and somehow ended up with a degree in history and political science. He currently resides in Toronto where he is a full-time procrastinator who occasionally takes a break to scribble some pretentious nonsense on a piece of paper. He knows way too much about hockey, Saved By The Bell, and Star Wars. Find him on Twitter @Matt_Dodge.

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