The pause before the storm.
Creative Staff:
Story: Renae De Liz
Art: Renae De Liz, Ray Dillon
Colors: Ray Dillon
What They Say:
Steve Trevor is teaching Diana Prince to fly an airplane, without knowing that his admiration for Wonder Woman is quite awkward for his trainee!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a lot going on as Diana has assumed more the role of Wonder Woman, watching the way it’s making an impact has been a lot of fun to watch. There are some big moments to be sure as troops rally to her as she helps to set the pace a bit but she also proves inspirational in other ways, such as the bombshell imagery on Trevor’s plane that he shows her in this installment. It’s a familiar point to the period and how these hopes and dreams, realized or not, can provide just enough of what’s needed to carry these men through the horrors that they face. While Diana may not be fully on board with it in a way, she’s at least cognizant of it and what warriors have to do to ensure they carry through on their job. Seeing some of this here while also reading DC Comics Bombshells series just makes me grin.
This installment plays with the relationship between Steve and Diana pretty well as it turns out he’s actually running, to some degree, the small airfield that Diana and Etta have wandered into. There are some moments seeded about how Steve and Lawrence are working on training of pilots and repair of craft here since Steve himself still isn’t allowed to fly. Because of this, he’s eager to show it off to Diana by herself as Etta is all wrapped up in the appearance of the rest of the Holliday Girls that she needs to get on board with going to Paris in order to compete with Pamela some more. Steve’s doing his best to admit that he likes Diana and he does so in perfect Steve ways by talking about flying and planes a whole lot. He does get closer to admitting it, but what he does reveal is that he finds himself to feel right around her as the two have their connection from Themyscira that he can’t quite break through to remember. It’s very enjoyable to watch them get so close but be so far, especially when she cuts him off abruptly as her primary mission comes back into focus.
With the Duke of Deception getting her attention in a creative way, the encounter between the two in more familiar territory for Diana works very well. Deception is pretty straightforward with her in that he doesn’t think she’s a real threat considering her powers all come from items and the gods aren’t telling her anything. Diana’s in a difficult spot in general, but I like that she essentially holds firm and insists on finding out what’s going on and how Ares and Hades are doing all of this, changing the balance of events in the world through him. With his abilities within him, he definitely has some good confidence to him but it’s a kind of dismissive form that keeps him from taking Diana seriously, mostly because he does have the upperhand at the moment. There isn’t a lot going on here overall, but we get another solid push toward these two together for Diana to understand her opponent, who himself really is just a pawn.
In Summary:
With two separate storylines at play here, Legend of Wonder Woman provides for some good material that expands things well. Both of them could easily sustain the entirety of the issue and part of me wishes that it did because I’d love to have more Steve and Diana time as well as digging into the dynamic between Diana and Deception in how they’re testing each other. I’d even like to see an installment dedicated to seeing more of Etta and the Holliday girls as it looks like there’s a lot of fun to explore there. This issue gives us a good bit of material overall but it’s also just setting things up a bit more and working some placement without any big reveals of twists. De Liz and Dillon continue to find the right balance with all of this and this issue is no exception, both in story and art.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 24th, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
