Exposition-ary!
Creative Staff:
Story: Renae De Liz
Art: Renae De Liz, Ray Dillon
Colors: Ray Dillon
What They Say:
Diana’s battle against the Duke of Deception leads her to a confrontation with the Greek pantheon!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we move past the halfway mark (I believe) of the series, The Legend of Wonder Woman is ready to shift gears once again. The book has done a lot of great stuff and in its own way keeps reinventing itself as we see so many different shades of who Diana of Themyscira is. The current arc has introduced us to the larger world through Diana’s eyes and her meeting of the enemy through their champion has shown her just how interconnected everything is. It’s worked very well to bring everything together and add a lot of weight to how Diana views things. The twenty issues we’ve had prior to this really does a great job in making her feel so fully realized in so many ways that you really get behind her in a way that the ongoings never have for me.
That said, as much as I enjoy this issue, it’s one that’s definitely serving a very distinct purpose. With the fight against the Duke of Deception hitting previously and her confrontation with him leading to her getting smacked down a bit, she’s able to see through to his weakness a bit in order to try and turn him. But she’s so far gone at this point herself that she ends up between time and space where a true choice that will determine her path is introduced. It’s a neat moment as we get to see Alcippe again and realize that her fate isn’t quite what we thought, but it’s all precursor to to the meeting with Zeus in this landscape. The book has set this larger stage for a while, and in the timeline of the gods you know that this is really a blip, but it’s a critical one.
It’s also something of an information dump. I’m not against those in the slightest and have zero issue with this one since they have to be done from time to time in order to get the big thoughts and ideas out there – and I’m glad they don’t do it amid quips and battle. Tying the events with the Duke as the champion of Ares to the titan faced in the past and the true nature of what Themyscira is all about is very well done. It sets the stage in a clearer form, mostly allowing for Diana to truly understand it, but also to finally allow her the true choice in all of this. She’s been pulled along by the manipulations of the gods for so long that seeing her make a choice (even if it is a nudge from Alcippe) works really well. Though the consequences are kept to a page or two at the moment, it provides the right closure for what’s come so far and opens us up to where it can go now.
In Summary:
Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon continue to knock it out of the park here, working the digital format style in all the right ways. The book has a great flow about it as it brings all this information to light and we see what Zeus’ larger plan is, which certainly fits in the context that we’ve seen from the gods before. There’s a whole lot to like in this issue as it brings a lot of things to a solid point while giving Diana a chance to become something even more, to truly become more of who she wants to be by choice rather than circumstances or the manipulations of others. It’s a great looking book that adds a lot of context to everything as it prepares to move forward.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 31st, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
