Even aliens know that it’s all about flattering women.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gilbert Hernandez
Art: Gilbert Hernandez
What They Say:
“No Chains Can Hold Her” part 1 of 2! Wonder Woman allows an otherdimensional science-villain to capture her, but his android slaves throw a wrench in her plan to save the day!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
One of the things that can absolutely make this series a treat is that it can bring in a wide range of creators to tell stories that don’t have to conform to anything else. We can get traditional stories to be sure that would easily work within the ongoing series in a general sense, but we can also get a story like this one that brings in Gilbert Hernandez of all people to write and draw it. While I’ve not followed his work in recent years, I was like a lot of teens in the mid 80’s that was exposed to his Love & Rockets work and experienced something pretty unique and very entertaining. Getting him on a Wonder Woman story that works his particular style while also being a throwback to the older style of the character? Doubly sold.
The story here is a fun one as it gets rolling, first seeing Diana dealing with killer robots that tried to chain her at first and then outright kill her. With Diana having come across a suspicious spacecraft outside of the city, it gets pretty chaotic for her as it turns out that she’s being sought after by Kanjar Ro in order to be his slave that will dole out violence across star systems that have not fallen to his designs. That, obviously, does not sit well with her and we see her fighting back against it and getting all the information she needs in order to eliminate the threat. Things don’t always go easy, which is why the ship has to leap into space and make her problems even more complicated.
That event catches the eye of Supergirl, who isn’t sure she should really disobey her cousin, but ends up chasing after it because the whole thing feels suspicious. With Wonder Woman having been subverted with the mind control device that Kanjar Ro has come into that works only on humans, he’s got her to help defend against Supergirl, which means we get some very highly powered fight sequences across classic Hernandez style landscapes. With it all moving towards a conclusion in the next issue, this one is all about the setup and it’s just an utter delight to watch. Hernandez uses the old style designs to good effect, especially with Supergirl who feels like she stepped right out of the 1950’s in so many ways. Which is also something they do with the dialogue throughout, as we get some old style remarks made that shows how books used to be – and how far a lot of books have come since then to avoid such foolishness. There’s an appeal in the design and style, but it reminds me why so many of these older books are harder to read since they’re so dismissive.
In Summary:
Sensation Comics goes for the throwback style here in a big way and it largely works. In fact, I can’t really say it doesn’t work in the slightest. The area that will divisive for some is that it does play with the tone and style of the day with the dialogue and how male characters, from good guys to bad guys, are dismissive of the female characters. That it bothers so many people is a very good sign because even a few years ago I get the feeling that a lot of this wouldn’t fly. Presenting it in the old school style allows us to look at it in the context of the time but done through one of the more interesting artists in general and definitely one of the more interesting ones to work on this series so far. Hernandez is not a name you associate with working with superhero comics, but he’s ideally suited for this and there’s a lot of appeal in seeing his design aesthetic work the characters here, particularly with Supergirl for me.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: November 13th, 2014
MSRP: $0.99
