The growing darkness.
Creative Staff:
Story: Renae De Liz
Art: Renae De Liz, Ray Dillon
Colors: Ray Dillon
What They Say:
Will Alcippe, an Amazon warrior of great renown, trust her instincts and take on a new pupil?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Legend of Wonder Woman had a strong and solid shift to the young Diana’s story the last time around as it introduced more of how this particular backstory works. As we’ve seen many times over the years, there are numerous ways to interpret the character and rework the origins while remaining true to the spirit of it. That’s one of the beauties of comics in that they do adjust, grow and adapt to the needs of the audience and the world itself. And Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon are a great pair to bring it all together, though admittedly part of me says that this will be an even stronger reader when it’s done up in full. The chemistry between artwork and story is spot on here as they bring the emotion and feeling to the surface – particularly with the color style here digitally.
Diana’s escape over the wall of Themyscira is definitely interesting and seeing her grasp the larger world is fascinating because it feels like it’s full of magic here, from the giant that we see to the lushness of the land. Bringing in a pegasus really amps it up all the more, especially tying into the innocence of childhood, and a dash of a look at Olympus paints it exactly how a young child of this time and place would view it – which has even more impact considering the struggles she’ll have with it and those that reside within it in the years to come. What helps at this point as well is that we get that real darkness brought in that she senses and it dominates with the color as the cloud rolls over where she is. And within that is a manticore, which has a kind of wonderfully twisted nature about it here that just feels completely of decay and threat as it accosts here.
Thes best aspect of it is that Diana cannot fight back as she hasn’t been taught and has no idea how to in true fashion, resulting in some well displayed and honest fear. The save by Alcippe is expected based on the setup before, but it’s the post-fight sequence that sells it. We know Alcippe is unlike the other immortals and has a different view of the world and what’s going on here and she has a side to her that’s resistant to teaching Diana no matter how much Diana asks. But with Diana making it clear she knows something is wrong here in the same way Alcippe does, it’s a kindred spirit element. We don’t know Alcippe’s story but it won’t surprise if there are parallels to Diana’s as well. It does progress as one would expect, but the journey itself is what makes it exciting to watch unfold and connect.
In Summary:
A third of the way into the series and it’s just as strong, interesting and beautiful to read. Origin tales almost always retain certain elements that are consistent telling to telling and that’s no surprise here. What helps make an origin story stand out is the quality of the writing, the tweaks and adjustments brought to it, and the passion as presented by the artwork. The duo here are crafting a great origin story that has me wanting to see more of it, a greater expansion on it, and simply more tales in the future from these two if given the opportunity. Wonder Woman has the ability to tell tales in numerous ways as we saw through Sensation Comics, stories that the other big core characters are unable to tell in the same way. This series is establishing itself well and has put both creators on the map for me to see what else they have in store in the future as I want to see more.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 24th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
Thank you for the lovely review (This is Renae De Liz, btw!) I really appreciate the time taken to write up each issue. 🙂
I thought I’d let you know that the series is 27 Digital Issues at 270 pages total, with 9 issues of the print version starting in January, and it will follow Diana all the way through her rise as Wonder Woman 🙂 There had been some confusion with a lot of people early on with how long the series really was!
Thank you again and have a lovely day!
Thank you for the kind words! I saw the nine issue part and thought it was the digital side where I saw it. That it’s 27 issues digitally just makes a whole lot of 2016 even better! Looking forward to seeing it all unfold!