Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 4: Revenge of the Gods trade paperback (DC Comics)

Wonder Woman Vol. 4: Revenge of the Gods collects three two-part stories. Among these are the lead-ins to Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods, issues #795–796; the two Lazarus Planet: Revenge tie-in issues, #797–798; and the “Whatever Happened to the Warrior of Truth?” story that finishes Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad’s run, issues #799–800.

Those tie-in issues, #797 and #798, take place after the first issue of Lazarus Planet: Revenge and before the last, respectively. They are integral enough that the Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods collection includes them in place, as described. Here, without Lazarus, the reader will clearly know something’s missing, as cliffhangers go unresolved and the chapters pick up with Diana in a different place than where they left off.

So it’s imperfect, as collections sometimes are; the good news is that, given the “three sets of two” organization, the audience can read #795–796 here, jump entirely to Lazarus Planet: Revenge, and then come back here for #799–800. It’s not seamless, but I’ve seen worse.

As I said in my review of Lazarus Planet: Revenge, I’m glad we got this era of a Wonder Woman expanded universe, with allies over a variety of titles that ultimately converge in this book; that’s the kind of attention one would hope DC would give the Wonder Woman franchise. Unfortunately, as with that other book, nothing here is very surprising, exciting, or novel. In the finale, especially, Cloonan and Conrad set themselves a high bar and then fail to meet it, what seems indicative of the problems with this run overall.

[Review contains spoilers]

The two parts of the “Before the Storm” story that begin this book are particularly relevant, given that they introduce a McGuffin on which the conclusion of Lazarus: Revenge turns. It’s further for this reason that I recommend if you’re going for Lazarus: Revenge, you might as well go in with this book as well; at least then Lazarus: Revenge’s conclusion doesn’t come (as much) out of nowhere.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

Though I felt the art here by Amancay Nahuelpan gets overwrought (see Diana’s smiling face verily frozen in rictus), I did enjoy Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl Yara Flor teamed up. The Wonder Woman franchise has a Wonder Girl problem — Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark are both of uncertain origin at this point, and each are held away by this book until the awkward end; even as I don’t think Yara was as successful as DC hoped, it’s still nice to have an issue where someone can play Nightwing to Diana’s Batman. And in using both Yara and the god Eros, Cloonan and Conrad tie it back to Joelle Jones' Wonder Girl: Homecoming miniseries, making the adventure not so incidental.

Much happens from this point, which again the book doesn’t explain even in a text page. The creative team writ large, including Lazarus: Revenge’s G. Willow Wilson, establish Diana once again as a god, a status she’s gained and lost a number of times now, including in this very run. Not many pages are given over to the actual physics (or metaphysics) of that divinity — Diana’s sleeping through most of it, and then resumes her super-career as normal. We know that up next is writer Tom King, of whom my general sense is that he’d want a more human than divine Wonder Woman; essentially, I’ll be curious to see how long this change to Wonder Woman lasts, and my guess is not long at all.

Many writers might fear to tread in a “Whatever Happened to” story — there’s Alan Moore’s famous Superman story, of course, and then it took no less than Neil Gaiman to dare to follow with Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader. I appreciate Cloonan and Conrad’s ambition with “Whatever Happened to the Warrior of Truth,” but their story of Diana floating through the dreams of her allies doesn’t approximate either one — that the story should be so tied to the creative team’s here and now lessens it for me, for instance.

I do like the scope of it all, including that the writers go so far as to include Donna, Cassie, and Artemis, even as they fell away from the title after Trial of the Amazons. Too, there’s any number of great artistic cameos, from Joelle Jones on Yara to Todd Nauck on Cassie, Alitha Martinez and Terry and Rachel Dodson, and Paulina Ganucheau with an encore of the “young Diana” stories that were parallel to so much of this.

But it’s altogether messy — see for instance Diana and Donna encountering New Cronus, because Donna’s origins are woefully unclear (letting alone Diana’s). In the span of three panels, the writers try to both establish and resolve the recent hard feelings between Diana and Donna, but only again make Donna, once a DC stalwart, seem petty and insecure. Sequences with both Batman and Superman see Diana affirming and building each hero back up; for a “Whatever Happened” story, and within spitting distance of its end, the writers seem to focus more on what Diana can do for others than on who she is herself.

And so it is. It was Wonder Woman’s sacrifice at the end of Dark Nights: Death Metal that kicked off Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad’s run, and again that’s something that’s seen an extended Wonder Woman universe through specials, miniseries, and events, coming to a head in Lazarus Planet and this final volume, Wonder Woman Vol. 4: Revenge of the Gods, veritably one of the backbones of the Infinite Frontier era. I’d like to see storytelling among the Wonder Woman titles improve, but the profile the franchise has had lately is just right.

[Includes original and variant covers, costume design]

Rating 2.0