Broken Frontier

The mystery of who the new Wonder Woman is deepens as Diana Prince idly watches her friends fall to a rogues gallery of super-villains.

The combination of good story and art is hard to come by nowadays in comics. In fact the medium has evolved so much over the years that when a bona fide creative team is paired together it is an event. That’s how I see it through my perspective and in this case I believe the perfect pair of creators has been forged together on Wonder Woman.

Of course I am referring to writer Allan Heinberg and artist Terry Dodson. The duo work well in tandem in their efforts to bring a thrilling and action packed story to the annals of the post-Infinite Crisis Wonder Woman. We are now two issues in and already an impact has been made here as Diana Prince continues to conceal her identity in the guise of an agent for Metahuman Affairs. The neat thing about this new twist is how the Batman involved himself in Diana’s affairs by suggesting the alter ego to her in lieu of having friends in the department. This scene is actually told through flashback and once the big reveal is interjected into the first few pages, we switch back to the present where a sticky situation continues to befuddle Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark. Diana arrives on the scene and watches her friends battle a trio of Wonder Woman’s deadliest of foes, and after witnessing enough of the melee she decides to embrace her true heritage once more. This time though someone else beats her to the punch and all I’m going to say is that another interesting new angle is added to the story.

You really have to like writer Allan Heinberg’s sincerity as a sequential storyteller. I’ve been championing his work on Marvel’s Young Avengers for the sheer quality of his craft and the intrinsic knowledge of the use of story beats. He’s the type of writer that does his homework before accepting a new assignment and it is so evident on Wonder Woman. Firstly he dipped back into the lore of the character to make continual references to the classic Denny O’Neil/Mike Sekowsky run from the early 1970’s. At that time it was a controversial storyline given the rise of the women’s liberation movement and coupling that with the de-powering of Wonder Woman into an ordinary woman. He laced the issue with references to that era by mentioning an old supporting character named I-Ching and having Diana dressed in white. I thought it was a nice touch and it demonstrated his extensive knowledge of DCU continuity.

His counterpart Terry Dodson also demonstrated a level of excellence not often seen in sequential art. Terry, who mostly works with his wife Rachel on projects, enjoys a symbiotic relationship together with her in the field. The Dodsons have been working on various Spider-Man projects for Marvel over the last few years, so it’s nice to have the couple try their hand at one of DC’s iconic characters. They handle the character splendidly throughout the issue and I haven’t seen Wonder Woman looking this good since the days of Phil Jimenez’s run from a few years ago. The story beats are all bang on and that helped to capture the important panels to come to life once the action gets underway.

So the trio of Heinberg and the Dodsons has reached a nice crescendo after just two issues. Now that could be a rarity given that all the creators have hit the mark this quickly, but you can’t ignore a good story that flows so effortlessly throughout. Both issues have given readers enough of an idea as to who Wonder Woman really is, and this new/old take on the character has me chomping at the bit for more.