As much as I thoroughly agree with this astute observation about the nature of the series (the superhero plots and throw-downs are always the least interesting part), this issue really is a setup for the annual, which is a major turning point in the series. I still prefer to view it as a natural conclusion to the series and stop reading there, as some aspects of the series go south pretty quickly after.

I couldn't agree more with pretty much every aspect of your review, Scott. Absolutely my favorite point in the series.

There's still a lot of good to come, but there's a lot of disappointment coming with it. You've just finished the Golden Age of Diana's Copper Age, so to speak.

Wonder Woman #25
written by George Perez, art by Chris Marrinan and Will Blyberg




Synopsis: Paradise Island comes under attack by... Thangarians? Wonder Woman accidentally on purpose destroys them all. She then heads to America, where she meets with Black Canary to coordinate a rescue mission for Etta Candy, who was involved in a subplot last issue I totally glossed over because Hermes' horrible perm made me want to upchuck. Anyway, turns out Etta was at a secret installation in the South Pacific monitoring stuff when she discovered aliens were about to invade. And now they have.

The Justice League joins Diana in the South pacific. They run interference while she, Rocket Red, and Guy Gardner try to find Etta. INstead, Diana and Guy start bickering over whether or not to kill the aliens, and also because Guy has no interest in their actual mission because he's too busy killing all the aliens to care why they are there. In the meantime, Rocket Red captures some aliens while he's off fighting alone because Diana and Guy can't be bothered. Diana almost gets Etta killed as well while distracted by Guy, but she manages to save Etta. TO BE CONTINUED!! IN INVASION!!! WHICH I DON'T OWN AND WOULD NOT READ EVEN IF I DID!!


Notes: Oof. George Perez abruptly leaves pencilling duties with this issue, and the transition is jarring. Marrinan is competent, but that's about it; compared to Perez's work, it's like fingernails on a chalk board.

The difference is more than just the beauty of the lines, though. The pacing in this issue seems off throughout. How much of that is George writing for someone else and how much of it is caused by the demands of this random crossover, I'm not sure. But it feels choppy and rushed, and the dialogue between Diana and the Justice league feels forced. It's just... off. The credits give an assist of some kind to Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, but they didn't assist quite enough for my taste, because everything just feels wrong. It's like George is trying to ape the banter from JLI and just doesn't get it.

The actual story has pretty much nothing to do with anything that has gone on in this title to date. So at least there's no Hermes. There are some continuity questions that come up, which I can't really address. Diana and Black Canary know each other and are on a first name basis, but I can't remember why that would be. Plus, Canary isn't even in the Justice League at this point, so I'm not sure why she's coordinating things with them; she vanishes as soon as the rest of the team shows up. I don't really get what's going on with her, but I guess it's not too important.

This is a tie-in with Invasion: First Strike, while the next issue is a tie-in with Invasion: Aftermath, so the entirety of the Invasion series takes place between issues. Meaning all the major events being set up and reacted to take place in other comics. The older I get, the more I dislike these corporate events. Could we please just skip this crap?

Speaking of crossovers being shoehorned in: another subplot that showed up in #23 which I glossed over was a non sequitor of a scene where some mysterious woman in a robe showed up, briefly accosted Diana, then vanished and was never mentioned again. She was holding a photo of Donna Troy, though. The lettercolumn for this issue explains that that was a lead-in to some story in teen Titans #50 about Donna and her connection to Wonder Woman. Okay. I guess it's... not very important?

Oh, and for some reason that escapes me, Steve Trevor leaves the issue to guest star in Captain Atom #24. So that's like four other titles you need to read to figure out what's going on in this book.

Frustrating.

Boston Notes: Nessie make a reference to Fenway Park. It feels a little shoehorned in, but whatever. At least it didn't send you to an issue of Batman to find out more about Nessie's trip to see the Red Sox. 

My Grade: C-. Choppy, uneven, and unimportant. And not very entertaining. About the only good part was Diana's interactions with Martian Manhunter. They seem very simpatico here. They would make a very interesting duo. I'd like to see that explored more. I somehow doubt it.

Diana meeting the Justice League members in Legends is referenced, so you are correct that they met there, but the relationship between Diana and the other Justice League members seems more distant. Guy seems to barely remember fighting her in Legends, and she calls Martian Manhunter "Mr. J'onzz" throughout the story. So being on a first name basis with Black Canary suggested to me there was some more personal connection. Black Canary is mentioned in #8, as Diana apparently was impressed to meet a female hero from man's world, but she only gets the same amount of text as her impressions of Martian Manhunter and Captain Marvel.

I dunno, it might just be from that meeting. It's probably just an editorial glitch.

I doubt it. I think I see what he's doing with Hermes and I'm not into it at all.

Wonder Woman #26
written by George Perez, art by Chris Marrinan and Will Blyberg




Synopsis: Diana returns to Boston for about three seconds and then is called to consult with Captain Atom, who reveals that Steve Trevor is missing thanks to a secret mission so top secret, we the readers aren't allowed to know what happened. I will be ranting about this shortly.

The upshot, as far as I can tell, is that Steve was captured and replaced by shape-shifting aliens. Captain Atom and Diana track down these aliens and, after a brief and perfunctory sequence where they both run into and defeat aliens pretending to be each other, they save Steve. Yay.

Meanwhile! Back in Boston, the divine skankbag known as Hermes returns of Boston to "make amends," which he does be being an arrogant tool. While he's using his powers to rebuild the city, he gets attacked by... The Creeper?! Yes, it's the Creeper! Of course, there's a bit of a power level discrepancy here, but Hermes is drained from hs rebuilding efforts, so Creeper manages to avoid him for a bit and get in some good shots, both physically and verbally. Just as Hermes is about to dust The Creeper, though, Diana shows up and breaks up the fight. Then... some stupid Invasion thing happens and the story ends abruptly. THE END!!


Notes: The cover claims that this is an Invasion: Aftermath extra. That implies to me that it's something that takes place after the end of Invasion, hence the"aftermath" part. However, at the end of the story, it says the events continue in Invasion #3. So clearly, this isn't the "aftermath" at all, unless it's talking about the reader fallout from yet another poorly thought out company crossover.

One very weird and frustrating part of the issue was Diana's initial meeting with Captain Atom. She goes in, and he explains to her the events of Captain Atom #24. Which is great. Except, he explains the events off panel! Instead of giving us the usual quick one-page recap of events so we're up to speed, George and company just assume that everyone has read both Invasion and Captain Atom, so we already know everything he would say. To say I hate this would be a massive understatement. These crossovers are annoying enough, but forcing people to read some other comic in order for this series to make any sense is just going too far. Even a couple panels would be enough to fill us in, but no. I find this arrogant, and also bad storytelling, which is a far more serious sin in my book.

So. Anyway. The best part of the issue was the sudden, unexpected cameo by The Creeper. The Creeper is apparently based in Boston, which makes his total absence from the first 25 issues a little odd. I don't know if someone in editorial finally mentioned this to George or what, but out of nowhere, it's The Creeper! I suspect he's going to be sent back to nowhere next issue, but it was fun to see him, and I think there's some interesting potential in seeing his nutso sensibilities come up against Diana's straight-laced approach. As with Diana and J'onn last issue, however, I expect this potential to be unaddressed. Which is fine, since George has other things on his plate, but if they're going to make George shoehorn in all these other DC characters, it would be nice to see how they actually affect Diana.

Speaking of random DC heroes shoehorned in for no reason, Captain Atom makes pretty much zero impression on me at all in this issue. He seems to be a pretty boilerplate superhero, complete with his idiotic secret identity hangups. I found it hilarious that he tells Wonder Woman his secret identity - in a long, rambling monologue that she really doesn't seem interested in at all and isn't even paying attention to - and laments his foolishness in not telling his best bud Steve Trevor that he's Captain Atom, yet at the end of the issue when they rescue Steve, he still doesn't tell him and makes up a dopey story to cover himself.

Back in the Annual, it seemed as though the book had turned a corner on a bold new direction, with the amazons deciding to open themselves up to man's world. Four issues later, this still hasn't been mentioned at all, probably because of this Invasion bullcrap. But apparently they're going to pick up that thread next issue, so it's about time.

This issue also contained a free 16 page bonus comic about the amazons, which I did not bother to read. I've read some of these inserts before, which are mostly to introduce new talent, and they have been uniformly bad. This story does introduce us to Neil Vokes, for what that's worth; previously he had been working for Comico, so I don't know if this is his first DC work or what, but it's... not that great. He'd do a lot better later.

Finally, there's a letter in the lettercolumn complaining about the annual, specifically the Myndi Mayer story. The writer accuses George of being anti-Semitic because he drew Jewish characters in the story with big noses. I looked through the issue, and while there are a couple characters with big noses, I can't say as how I noticed or really think this is some kind of intentional anti-Semitic statement. George just likes drawing all his characters with unique features, rather than cookie-cutter, boilerplate faces such as, say, John Byrne draws. This is essentially what editorial says as well, while apologizing for offending anyone unintentionally.

Boston Notes: Diana flies over the devastated city in this issue, but there are no recognizable landmarks. I wonder if we've seen the end of that now that George is no longer doing the pencils.

My Grade: C. Only the Creeper laughing at Hermes saves this issue.

Wonder Woman #27
written by George Perez, art by Chris Marrinan and Will Blyberg




Synopsis: Diana takes Steve and Etta to Paradise Island, where Steve visits the monument to his mother. Everyone is very moved, except for a handful of skeptical amazons who really aren't down with letting men onto the island.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, a mysterious group of mercenaries attacks an army convoy and steals their cargo. That cargo turns out to be the Khunds - the aliens Diana and Rocket Red captured in #25 - and the client is The Cheetah. Her plan is to let the Khunds loose to attack Diana. It seems like... well, an incredibly random plan, honestly. But the Khunds agree to go along with it, ostensibly because they hate Diana. Really, they just want to get free.

So they attack. Diana defeats one by tying him up with the lasso, but when she goes after the other, they flee. Turns out, the whole thing was a plot to steal the lasso. Which, okay. They deliver the lasso to the Cheetah, who promptly butchers them both and chucks them out of her helicopter, leaving Diana with two dead aliens but no lasso. I think Cheetah got the better of that exchange.

Oh, and Nakedman continues his quest to buy good favor with humanity by showing up at Julia's house and restoring the whole thing to the way it was before Decay ruined it back in the day. She seems to be a bit won over by his charm, somehow managing to overlook his creepy perm, which should be an immediate giveaway. Unless his name is John Oates, if a guy has a crappy perm like that, he's no good.


Notes: The Cheetah deciding to capture the Khunds and use them as agents against Diana is a decent way for George to try and make lemonade out of these crossover lemons he's been stuck with. It doesn't necessarily make any sense, mind you, but I guess we work with the tools we're given. I don't really buy it, mind you, but it's a nice effort on his part to try and make those stories relevant to the journey he's planning for Diana.

This issue felt a bit like a transition issue, where George is tying up the fractured pieces of the series - broken apart by this damn crossover - and piecing it back together. So we get portions of several unrelated storylines. The best part, of course, is Steve and Etta visiting Paradise island, because that's a direct continuation of the main storyline of the series, and as such, it's the part George is most invested in.

The other half of that equation, unfortunately, is the Hermes stuff. It seems pretty clear that George is using Hermes as a way to further explore Diana's relationship with both the gods and with humanity, as they seem to be on opposite sides of a see-saw, with her as the fulcrum. Which I get it, it's one of the major aspects of Diana's character arc, maybe the major one. I just wish he were exploring it in a different way, because I really loathe Hermes. I think I am supposed to, of course; they make their own opinions about Hermes clear in this month's lettercolumn, where they call him "arrogant," "boastful," and "holier-than-thou." They also say we haven't yet seen the real ramifications of Diana rebuking him at the end of #24. I for one am not looking forward to seeing that, unless those ramifications involve Diana tossing Olympus into the Negative Zone.

There's also a subplot this issue with Nessie getting revenge on a jerky boy at school who treated her bad, but frankly, I couldn't care less about seeing that. It just wasn't interesting to me.

My Grade: B-. Some good parts, and the series seems to be getting back on track, but it was very choppy. And still way too much Hermes.