An unusual tale of bonding.
Creative Staff:
Story: Carla Speed McNeil
Art: Carla Speed McNeil
What They Say:
Diana teaches a young thug a lesson about how having a pet forces you to train “Both Ends of the Leash.”
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After a couple of multi-part stories that have played more to traditional superhero antics rather than something that stands out as different, Sensation Comics shifts to a standalone story again, this time from Carla Speed McNeil. She’s worked on a pretty varied number of books over the years, but admittedly nothing that I’ve read myself, though she’s currently working with Alex de Campi on the new No Mercy series. So getting a taste of a story here from her that doesn’t have to deal with the bigger picture, and provides another look at the kind of childhood Diana could have had, is definitely interesting.
The larger story here is one of how relationships between man and anime can change over the years, as she’s come to an out of the way place where a guy has ownership of a lion that’s grown full sized at this point. While he had a lot of fun with it as a cub and bonded well with it, the times changed and he felt less and less safe with the lion as it grew and the two were less able to understand each other. He’s hating his position now in selling the lion to hunters for sport, but feels he has no choice. Diana’s arrival and her ability to communicate with the lion allows her to break through to him about what changed over the years, though some of that is more inferred than outright said, which works well for some nice open interpretation that each reader can bring to it. It helps to nudge the guy into the right place and reveal more about himself, and to understand just how much the animal really means to him.
Within it, we also get a look at some of Diana’s childhood back on Paradise Island. We’ve seen a lot of interpretations of this over the series run and McNeill has some fun with it, particularly in the visuals, as we get nine year old Diana, sent off on quests by her mother that allows her to learn and grow from the world since she’s not always the type to handle being in the more official areas of what her mother has to deal with. It has a good flow about it and seeing how she came to her own youthful understanding of powerful beasts, and reading what they’re really saying, works well. And it carries through into the present, which is a nice touch as well. McNeil’s artwork really sells it here, especially compared to the lifeless color and design of the real world, as Paradise Island simply feels so rich through the young Diana’s eyes.
In Summary:
With a lot more open ended interpretation to it, and an unusual lack of of setup that ties it together, it’s like we’re dropped into the third act of the story with a minor nod to the first act in flashback and no real cementing of the second. Which is fine, because I like unconventional storytelling within these standalone stories because it’s an ideal place to play with it and work it. There are some really nice moments to be had here, and it’s definitely visually appealing, but something about the lack of setup and understanding of how the situation came to be just left me feeling a bit too disconnected from it. I like the flashback we get for Diana though, and what she learned through it and imparts onto our young man here, as that helps to further establish another way of looking at her.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 18th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
