Wonder Woman Annual #2 Review: New Planet, Same Bad Writing

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So, remember a few weeks back when Wonder Woman was fighting an angry god and she defeated him by channeling the power of love? Well, for only five American dollars, you can read a very similar story this week in Wonder Woman Annual #2. Honestly, gang, I don’t know what anyone involved in this series is thinking right now. James Robinson is either phoning it in or he’s forgotten everything he ever knew about storytelling. The editors must be checked out entirely at this point to let this dreck hit the stands every two weeks. The artists are doing their best, I suppose. I do appreciate that. But why has this mess been going on for so long? It’s embarrassing.

Also, one year and a few days ago, the Wonder Woman movie was the biggest thing in the dang world. And in response, DC introduced her brother? Tied the book into the remnants of an out of continuity event? And now they do this story, which ties into their latest big event book? None of this is accessible for new readers. None of this is what anyone who loved the movie (or who loved the character before the movie, frankly) wants to see in a Wonder Woman comic book. The folks at DC have dropped the ball spectacularly when it comes to Wonder Woman, and wasted the biggest opportunity the character’s had in decades. It’s stupid, and it’s sad, and I hope they figure something out by the time Wonder Woman 2 comes out, because the comic should be a dang powerhouse.

Anyway, let’s talk about this dopey annual, but first:

SPOILER ALERT!!

I am about to reveal all the details of Wonder Woman’s encounter with the Star Sapphires!

I said it before, but this book costs FIVE DOLLARS!

For what? A rehashed plot? Good lord.

Last we saw Wonder Woman, she was being whisked away from Earth by the Star Sapphires to help them face a grave threat on Zamaron. Turns out, the Zamaron threat is a lot like the Earth threat. They have a Dark God, too, and it’s killing them one by one because it detects impurities in their love or something? I don’t know. That bit, like most of this issue, was pretty dumb. Anyway, Wonder Woman swaps costumes and goes to fight the god, learns his boring backstory, and channels all the love of the Star Sapphires to defeat him. The end. Except in the comic, it took like forty pages of drawn out conversations and subpar action scenes.

The book’s first big problem is that the Dark Gods just aren’t interesting. I mean, here’s the rationale for their appearance: At the end of DC’s Metal event, Wonder Woman was too vague in the wording of a magic wish she made. Oof. Robinson gets paid to come up with that? She wanted HER gods to return, but she wished for THE gods to return, and so the Dark Gods showed up. Never mind the fact that they’re from a different universe and you can’t return to a place you’ve never been. Let’s just set that incongruity aside, because why even bother? There’s no point in giving this comic more thought than the writers and editors did. But yeah, the Dark Gods are wreaking havoc on the universe because Wonder Woman misspoke slightly. Cool story.

This particular Dark God has a tragic backstory, of course. He’s from the Dark Multiverse, after all. It’s not a nice place. It’s in no way interesting, though. And now he’s all mad at Wonder Woman for separating some of the gods from the rest of their family, even though the gods don’t seem to like each other very much? Again, let’s not overthink this comic book. It does not warrant careful analysis. Just in terms of pure entertainment value, the dude is boring, he doesn’t even look cool, and the fight sucks. A fun encounter can make up for some haphazard plotting, but this book’s got neither.

In the end, Wonder Woman wins, and she goes back to Earth to fight more of these things. Oh, the Star Sapphires are in this, too. I like the Star Sapphires, but they’re pretty much wasted here. They deliver the exposition then help with the final takedown, and that’s about it. Also, there’s a mention of Blackest Night, a DC event from their old universe that’s no longer in continuity. And it was an event that was DEEPLY rooted in that universe’s continuity because it involved old friends and foes coming back to life, evil zombie style. So how Wonder Woman was flashing back to that, I have no idea. Her entire world is different now, twice over, since then.

The artists try their best with this issue, and the end result is a bit of a jumble. There are four different artists, which is a bit jarring. Sometimes swapping between them works, like when Frazier Irving steps in to do flashbacks to the Dark Universe and such. But then Irving does a chunk of the main fight as well, and it just doesn’t fit with the styles of the other three dudes who are doing the present day art. Their art is serviceable, if not particularly strong or interesting. And the book is really missing Romulo Fajardo Jr., who doesn’t color this issue! You can tell, too. Fajardo brings so much life and texture to his pages, and this book just feels flat. Though to be fair to the colorists, when an issue’s got four different artists, it usually means one guy was late and other guys were brought in to help so pages were coming in last minute. The colorists may not have had much time.

Overall, I was sort of curious about this Zamaron adventure. Wonder Woman getting snatched away a couple weeks back amused me, and I was hoping that this annual might be mildly fun. It was not. It was long and dull and not especially nice to look at, and I’m very annoyed that I had to pay five dollars for it. American, too. That’s like six something Canadian. But here’s some happy news: We’ve only got three issues of this left, then we get new creators. We can do it, gang. It’s gonna be rough, but we can do it.