Another take on a familiar origin.
Creative Staff:
Story: K. Perkins
Art: Marco Santucci, Jamal Campbell, David Yardin
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
“PARADISE LOST.” Ever since the overthrow of Superman’s regime, Wonder Woman—his most trusted ally—has been held a prisoner on her native Themyscira. How did she come to this low point? What is it about the Wonder Woman of this world that made her so very different from any other incarnation and susceptible to Superman’s brutal, world- conquering vision? When was love lost and when did the greatest heart harden? The tragic story is told here.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Injustice 2 main series has been working pretty well for me but I admittedly don’t pay much attention to annuals, which end up showing up out of the blue for me thanks to my digital subscription. They’ve always been a mixed bag going back to the 80’s when I started getting into comics and they still are now. This one has two stories to it with the larger main one coming from K. Perkins with a trio of artists working on it over the thirty-odd pages. It looks fairly consistent overall and most won’t notice or have issue with it, especially since the main Injustice series over the years regularly rotate. The problem with the book is that we’re essentially getting a new origin story for Wonder Woman, which having not read the original Injustice: Gods Among Us “year” has me wondering just how far it would diverge to give us this form of Diana.
With so many Wonder Woman origin stories out there one may be surprised that you can still throw twists into it, so I continue to be curious but wary. Here, this one feels like it works the standard material well with the World War II setting, the arrival of Trevor on the island, and Diana heading off to try and help the war to end all wars. We see a little bit earlier about how Diana is unsure about how to handle the responsibility she feels toward dealing with opponents weaker than her as there’s a “take them down hard so they don’t get back up” feeling, but when it ends up applied in a training session with fellow Amazons it causes a lot of ire. Her being exposed to the larger world and the dangers out there is a familiar one but it reinforces her desire to make sure nobody else suffers like this and to deal with it hard.
Where it takes a twist is when, after a terror attack that killed kids and exposed a traitor in the ranks, we see Trevor practically killing the guy to get information out of her. That has Diana wanting to retrieve the lasso from back home as a better way to interrogate, which obviously doesn’t go over well with the Queen and others that are divided about their place in the world. It’s from here that it takes a drastic turn to the different with Trevor stealing it and revealing who he really is and that helps to cement Diana’s lack of trust in general and making her a more aggressive protector when it comes to dealing with the enemy, especially those along the fascist line. Which makes it even more hilarious that she ends up aligning with Superman and his regime since that’s all that it was, essentially showing just how easy it was for her to get caught up in what she thought was right but was anything but that.
In Summary:
The main story is done well enough across the board and I liked the visuals for it as we got some great backgrounds when on the island and the color work definitely felt appropriately dark but vibrant in a way that clicked very well. I’m admittedly a bit burned out on Wonder Woman stories when it comes to the origin at this point but this one does present enough of an interesting angle to work with even if I don’t think it connects well with the main series. The bonus story in this is a lot more fun and weirdly upbeat as a kind of connecting piece from the Harley Injustice series as it follows her minions as we see what they were up to after the gang was finished. Seeing them still getting together under their gang names like Terry and Larry and the like is fun and it worked as a nice little lead-in to this main series with how the Suicide Squad types came after her. I’d rather read about this group more than another Wonder Woman story.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 29th, 2017
MSRP: $4.99
