The second book in our tour of the new DCU is Wonder Woman #1.
What’s different: The most obvious difference is the costume. This Wonder Woman is wearing a costume closer to the Jim Lee redesign from about this time last year. But it’s not identical. It seems Diana has lost the jacket.
Whether or not the jacket is truly gone remains to be seen. But she’s not wearing it on either this cover or the cover to Justice League #1. Given that fans concentrated most of their ire on the jacket, it seems likely DC took the opportunity to drop it.
There are a couple other minor tweaks that may be attributed to style difference between Lee and Cliff Chiang. The design of the choker has changed. And it appears the coloring has gone from gold accents to silver. In general, the costume is a little less busy than Lee’s original redesign. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see additional tweaks and changes as artists settle in to the new look.
What’s the same: The solicit for Wonder Woman #1 didn’t reveal a lot of information. So I think we have to assume for the time being that not a lot has changed. Although the lasso isn’t visible on this cover, Diana clearly wields it on the cover to Justice League. Since there is blood on her sword, one can assume Diana is still a warrior. And she appears to be using her bracelets defensively. So, not a lot of readily apparent changes.
Having said that, I’m willing to be that there will be a lot of changes that can’t be determined by looking at the cover art. Wonder Woman is a tricky character and DC doesn’t have the best track record with her. In the last quasi-relaunch, One Year Later, Wonder Woman got a new number one issue. And it was a complete train wreck.
Brian Azzarello has most likely been given free reign to reinvent Wonder Woman for the 21st century however he sees fit. I look forward to the first interview he gives on the subject to see how closely he intends to stick to the traditional version of Wonder Woman. For example, I don’t expect to be reading about Nazis this time.
Chances for Succes: I didn’t see a lot of excitement for the first slate of announcements. Some where head-scratchers. Others were predictable. But Everyone seemed psyched for this creative team on Wonder Woman. It seems like DC has finally given their third most iconic character a superstar creative team.
If this book ships on time, it seems like a guaranteed success. But just like Justice League, that’s a big IF. Both Azzarello and Chiang have a history of late books. Hopefully DC has stockpiled enough issues to prevent a re-occurrence of what happened to the One Year Later relaunch of Wonder Woman.
Final Thought: Of all the books that were announced on Day 1, Wonder Woman was the one that excited me the most. It’s good to see DC finally giving her the treatment she deserves!
Green Lantern: The New Guardians #1
i am sorry, but no matter how you try nothing beats the Iconic Wonder Woman. Pants are inexcusable, There was no reason for the color changes. She is barely recognizable as the iconic WW we have come to know and Love, And Wonder Woman is a warrior only when necessary. It is a last resort. She is first and foremost an ambassador of Peace, Love and Truth,.sent to man’s world to promote the amazonian virtues of Love and Truth. To be the opposite message of Ares God of War! The last thing I want to see is a bloody sword wielding Amazon, To much like the Disastrous Amazons Attack which is best left forgotten for all time.
While I agree that the old costume is iconic, I can’t get on board with “pants are inexcusable.” I love the old look. I grew up with it. But the more I thought about the costume change from last year, the more I thought the pants made sense. If WW were created today, no way would she be wearing a one-piece. The look is great, but it’s so dated. I don’t think they’ve perfected the new look yet. But I get what they are going for.
More important than the costume is how the character is represented in the book. If they make her into Xena, Warrior Princess they have dropped the ball. As you pointed out, Diana’s primary objective is peace. But sometimes she achieves her objectives through violence. That contradiction is at the heart of the character. If Diana is only seen as a warrior like on this cover, that’s bad. But I’ve got faith that the cover was only meant to represent one dimension of a complex character.
At this point, sorry, but I think a lot of people are literally judging this book by its cover.
IMO, this will be another WW trainwreck. Azzarell has said at several convenions, I’ve attended, that he doesn’t like superheros. His run on Superman and Batman were terrible. His First Wave, book wasn’t much better. He writes mostly violent, cynical, dark crime dramas. Look at his current Batman Flashpoint for example. This is not the the writer I want re-introducing Wonder Woman.
Chiang: his art looks flat a two dimensional. It lacks detail. His Wonder Woman in the Brave and Bold was stick figure, no muscle defintion, no figure,
not very attractive. It reminded me of the old pre-crisis Wonder Woman and how she was drawn by many C list artists at the time.
The costume is still terrible, just a rehash of the one Lee designed for JMS’s Odyssey storyline. He should have started from scratch.
Regarding the costume, there were some rumblings that this might not be the final costume after all. According to Cully Hammer, the costume designs are still being worked out and the final version may be closer to the traditional costume than what we’re seeing here.
Having said that, this just doesn’t sound like the creative team for you regardless of the costume, huh.
Its NOT the creative team fro me.
I’ve seen Cully Hammer’s message. DC couldn’t have spared themselves alot of ill will and anger from fans if they had announced the costume designs were still being worked out instead of letting us think they were the final designs.
How in the world are the artists supposed to get 3 issues finished by 31 Aug, if the costumes are not finallized?
My guess is we’ll see costumes changes from one issue to the next.
Sounds like DC hasn’t given itself enough lead-time to work out the deatails
before September.
Well, you’ve hit the nail on the head with the time tables. When this was originally announced, I assumed that DC had worked out all the details in secret. Certainly some of the books have had a lot of lead time (like Justice League). But it sounds like DC is really flying by the seat of its pants with this one. And that’s not a good thing. Especially considering the stakes. I am still excited for the potential of the relaunch. But more and more, my concerns are catching up with my excitement. There is so much potential for this to fail!
Your read/rants are trite.
My only problem with the above article on Wonder Woman # ! is that once again there is a wrong assumption about Diana being a Warrior. Diana as an amazon was given warrior training, however Diana is first and foremost an amazon Princess, sent to America to be an ambassador of love and peace from matriarch world to patriarch world. She uses her warrior skills only when necessary and portraying her with bloody sword in hand ready and willing to leap into battle is an inaccurate description of the character. Also a Greek warrior would never wear pants into battle. Pants were proven to be to restricting, and did not allow a warrior freedom of movement. Greek warriors wore loin cloth type garments when battling, and played games and exercised in the nude. So the whole let’s put Wonder Woman in pants because it is more practical is just plain stupid!!!!!
For some reason visual media has fallen by the wayside when it comes to casting. They picked a girl to play Wonder Woman. Let’s find a real Woman please, not just some pretty(admittedly) girl who happens to be popular at the time.
God the art is shit…these guys got paid for this?
The book’s art us very flat, one dimensional almost csrtoon like quality. Not enjoyable at all a d does nothing to garner interest in the story. The revelation of Zeuss as her father is even more disturbing and dies mire harm than good to the character. WW is in thus case just another victim if this whole reboot
BrettJett–WonderWoman’s #1 admirer says:
The problem with the ideology of having WW be first & foremost a warrior that you the audience needs to see kick-azs, is that that pigeonholes her into a cubby that she doesn’t belong in. That is, she doesn’t belong in the cubby hole of warrior-foremost.
What I’m saying is that all of you fans who vote either “warrior” or lasso-wielding pacifist, are wrong to begin with.
The WW character was meant to be a modern take on the warrior hero, so that means SHE’S VERSATILE. She’s everything she needs to be at the moment, but appropriately so. To stray otherwise from this fact is to have ancient thinking which is not progressive, not civilized, and not full of wisdom at all.
In fact, the original concept that she was built from is Force adapted to Love…meaning she is all for Aphrodite’s ways, but since she is here on the Earthly plane, she also wields amazing force to do her job of defending those ways!!
She mixes the martial with the venerial in the right configuration!!
“Modern” means that we should be able to have our cake & eat it, that we needn’t choose Yin over Yang, that we can develop mixed martial arts rather than stay with one school of thought, and that we can roll with the circumstances rather than adhere to foolish, callow ways.
—Brett Jett,
Wonder Woman’s #1 Admirer.
I’ve got nothing. You’ve summed WW up perfectly. Are you enjoying the book even with the focus on her warrior half?