Broken Frontier

The concluding part of Wonder Woman’s relaunch storyline sees print as, at long last, Allan Heinberg finally answers the question "Who is Wonder Woman?"

After her role in Maxwell Lord’s death, Diana Prince has given up her identity as Wonder Woman and instead decided to fight the good fight as an agent for the Department of Metahuman Affairs. When her enemies join forces to attack her loved ones, as a veritable army of supervillains, Diana finds herself drawn back to her true role. But has she left it too late to take down a Rogues Gallery of anti-Amazonian bad guys?

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this book’s new direction when this story arc was so abruptly interrupted some months back. That only underlines what a shame it was that it’s taken so long for this finale to see print, because this enjoyable romp is a very strong conclusion to Heinberg’s setup of a reinvented status quo for Wonder Woman.

Fusing elements of the Perez mythos, the goofier villains of the Silver Age and a fun tip of the hat to the 1970s television series (that will have you humming a familiar theme tune before you know it!), Heinberg’s new direction embraces the character’s mythos and history but in a totally accessible manner. Watch out for the returns of a number of old WW bad guys, some not seen in decades. Kung, the Duke of Deception, a more traditional Angle Man and Doctor Cyber were particular highlights for me.

Artistically, the Dodsons sweep you into the tale with some dynamic storytelling. While always popular, their style has never been one that I’ve been particularly drawn to (art is the most subjective part of the comic book experience, I guess), but I was very impressed with their flowing visuals here. The energy in their battle scenes is intense and there’s a double-page spread of the assembled heroes that is just gorgeous in its execution.

The backup strip recounts the origins of a number of the book’s cast. This is a little more pedestrian but these kind of affairs are fairly traditional for Annuals and this one will certainly help to bring readers up to speed with the characters concerned. With Nemesis’s comment in a recent issue that he was an only child, I was dreading a rebooted origin being on the cards here (his entire raison d’etre surrounded redeeming his family name after his brother was brainwashed into murder). Fortunately that’s not the case, and his The Brave and the Bold beginnings are kept intact. I scratched my head a little in bewilderment at the mention of his membership of "Sarge Steel"’s Suicide Squad though, and the complete personality transplant Tom Tresser has shown in Wonder Woman, changing from pensive, honorable, reluctant hero to gung-ho, slightly lecherous, wisecracking spy has been a little less than welcome for me.

Now onto the question of the book’s lateness… While it could be argued that this in no way affects the quality of the work, it’s impossible to review this Annual without commenting on the several month delay between the fourth part of this arc and the concluding chapter.

This would have been ridiculous at the best of times but, given this was the much trumpeted relaunch of the character and her status quo, with Infinite Crisis having rebooted her continuity, ludicrous becomes a much more apt description. All momentum was lost, the regular title continued for months with readers scratching their heads in wonder at the huge hole in the book’s ongoing narrative and, personally, it was only my commitment to our Countdown-related articles here at Broken Frontier that kept me onboard as a reader.

It’s become far too easy of late to dismiss any genuine and justified complaints as simply fanboys moaning on the Internet. Rather than responding to questions of lateness with flippant, jokey responses though, perhaps it’s time someone actually addressed these issues and acknowledged the current situation is just not on. From WildStorm to Action Comics to All-Star Batman and Robin to Superman Confidential, this has long since crossed the boundaries of acceptability.

And, take note, that comes from a genuine fan of the company and its characters. Not from an alleged whiner ranting behind a false screen name…

Wonder Woman Annual #1 provides a fine wrap-up to the Who is Wonder Woman? arc but one that remains tainted by the delays and scheduling problems. I don’t normally advocate waiting for the trade but in this case we all would have been far better off doing just that!