Wonder Woman #1

by Brian Azzarello (W); Cliff Chiang (A)

If DC just put out 51 awful comics and paired them with Wonder Woman, I would still call the relaunch an impressive achievement. Fortunately, DC’s success rate is a little higher, and Wonder Woman #1 only serves to strengthen the new DCU. As a reader who knows little to nothing about Wonder Woman, and had no plans to change that, this is the perfect example of a well crafted story both in the sense of a reintroduction to a timeless character and as a hook to every subsequent issue that Brian Azzarello will be writing.

While I’d like to give Azzarello most of the credit, he’s matched with an artist of equal talent, Cliff Chiang, who gives the book a sinister, but not harsh, undertone which serves as a welcome beacon for fans otherwise unwilling to give a Wonder Woman comic a go. Chiang’s Wonder Woman feels like an authentic, six-foot-tall amazon, without the typical heaving breasts that she’s normally saddled with, allowing new readers to pick up the book without feeling like they’ve come across some cheap smut with centaurs and an optional black light poster of Wonder Woman in a chain mail bikini.

Make no mistake, this book is dark. Azzarello has pitted Dianna against age old evils in Greek mythology and introduces some truly gruesome and sociopathic villains. Never before have I wanted to learn more about Greek mythology, which isn’t due to Azarello’s failure to effectively introduce new characters, I just want to make sure I don’t miss any of the little details that Azzarello is well known for dispersing throughout his stories with (everyone go out and read 100 Bullets immediately – if you have, do it again). Basically, something wicked is going down at the house of the gods, and someway or another, Apollo is responsible for whatever is about to erupt. Azzarello certainly hasn’t put together a simple connect the dots kind of story, in fact, Apollo is never actually named anywhere in the issue; Azzarello gives the reader enough credit to recognize who he is, or at least understand that he’s evil. Beyond that, I’m ruining the story, but I can guarantee a solid issue.

Wonder Woman is what most of the new DC 52 should strive to be, a new take on an old character – no needless and repetitive reintroductions to the star of the damn book – and solid art and storytelling. For my money, this is one of the few series that has managed to challenge Animal Man as the best of the DCnU, which is something I would have never expected from a Wonder Woman comic.

-Farley Chicilo