“Lost in Fear”
Creative Staff:
Story: Josh Trujillo
Art: Hendry Prasetya
Colors: Ulises Arreola
Letterer: Andworld Design
What They Say:
Diana faces a new threat as her greatest nightmares are turned against her! Will truth be strong enough to overcome fear?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The latest installment of this series is one that, in the end, works the kind of thing that factors into a lot of superhero stories but is something I wish we saw more of. Josh Trujillo has worked some solid Digital First books this past year that I’ve enjoyed and this one works pretty well even if it’s a touch convoluted at times early on. Hendry Prasetya isn’t all that familiar to me but they put in a really good looking book overall and I really like the way they present Wonder Woman at times because she has the right kind of stern and stoic look but one that also knows how to comfort and bring the empathy to the surface in the right way.
The premise for this one involved Diana taking watch over a young woman who has survived darkness in her war-torn country where people like here are being killed. She’s come to speak to a larger audience but the master of fear and illusions, Phobia, has been hired to eliminate her. That turns into a crazy moment as Mari sees just dinosaurs in front of her, a fear from when she was younger, but the fear presented is strong enough that everyone else in the hall also falls to it and sees their own individual fears. For Diana, who is there with Etta as well, we see how she ends up seeing Giganta and Cheetah there and she works to stop them. But since it’s just a fear she’s seeing, she ends up causing more destruction to the hall than anything else.
The fallout from it focuses on Diana helping Mari – nobody’s giving her grief for nearly destroying the place – and it’s a nice bit of hospital time to reinforce what Mari’s life has been like and how Diana feels bonded to her. With the intent of going after Phobia, she doesn’t have long to wait as Phobia is excited to mess with Diana as it would give her quite the reputation to take the Amazon down, and it works well at first as you’d expect outside the hospital. There’s a good action sequence here that Prasetya handles nicely and showcases the power behind Diana and how she fights, even against fears. But I also like that we get a couple of pages of the fallout from it with what it’s like in prison for Phobia and, following on what Diana has done elsewhere in this series, the follow-up she does to those that she’s captured over the years.
In Summary:
I like the recurring theme in the Agent of Peace series with how Diana doesn’t just lock up and forget those that she’s dealt with but rather keeps following up on them. Hell, I could go for a series where we just see these kinds of sessions and explorations of characters in this form to dig into them more and the kind of empathy that Diana has. The team here does a solid job with this and even knowing that the people she fights are in her mind, the opening pages at the hall are a lot of fun with Giganta and Cheetah. There’s a lot going on in this issue and it may need a little more room to breathe in order to work smoother but it’s a solid entry.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology and Kindle
Release Date: December 23rd, 2020
MSRP: $0.99
