A couple of very different tales of Diana.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Parker, Steve Pugh
Art: Aneke, Marguerite Sauvage
Colors: Hi-Fi
Letterer: Travis Lanham
What They Say:
Story 1 – Wonder Woman responds to a distress call in a tiny village and discovers a displaced Valkyrie from Asgard, but is she friend…or foe?! Story 2 – It’s the Eighties, and greed is good for those that already have it all. Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor hunt down the reckless mastermind who makes the ultimate power move…the theft of Diana’s golden lasso!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
After a bit of a break between installments, Wonder Woman: Agent of Peace returns with two new short form stories. The opening comes from Jeff Parker as he delves into a kind of odd story that works for her but with an opponent that doesn’t come together well. The plus side is that Aneke is a fantastic artist and brings it to life wonderfully. Similar, the second story has Marguerite Sauvage delivering a great looking story as I’ve long enjoyed her style of artwork but Steve Pugh has such a scattershot feeling story that it took a couple of reads to really piece the thing together to try and understand the intent of it, only to realize that it doesn’t really accomplish much at all.
The first tale is one that feels odd but I kind of get how it fits in the larger pantheon of Wonder Woman works. Diana’s come to deal with an incident where tensions are high between two European-ish countries along the border only to discover the cause of the trouble is a Valkyrie warrior of some sort from another dimension. This leads to the expected tussle but it’s fun to watch how Diana’s calmer approach, even while fighting, serves to ease down her opponent while getting her to open up as well. Diana’s always interested in de-escalation where she can instead of making the fight worse, especially since doing so here could move both countries to war pretty quickly. Gundra the Valkyrie’s not a great character in how she comes across here in just about all quadrants but it does tie things together well enough that you can enjoy the way the two of them bond.
The second tale doesn’t work as well for me in regards to story, though I’m always happy to see Sauvage’s artwork. Here, Diana and Steve are interceding in a case with some kids that have been taken but it’s all a ruse for the kids – who hired the goons – to swipe her lasso of truth. That sets Diana off as she discovers the truth of what’s going on in that one of the slightly older kids has organized a lot of working-class kids whose parents do the dirty work together to basically building their own financial empire over the scraps they come across while cleaning the big buildings. It’s a little more complicated than that but Pugh doesn’t land the story well as it doesn’t flow and connect well right from the first panel in trying to figure it out. I do like how Steve copes with things here and Sauvage’s take on Diana will always be a favorite, but the art can carry it only so far.
In Summary:
This installment is one that is carried more by the artwork than the stories themselves, which is unfortunate. Both Aneke and Sauvage have a really strong and distinctive look to their works here but the stories for them are weak and not terribly interesting overall. I can see the intent and purpose but the execution just falls short of achieving it. Shorter stories like this just aren’t easy to do in general with the constraints but hopefully both get another shot at it and can hit the marks better.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Kindle
Release Date: June 17th, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
