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Wonder Woman (1987) (Single Issues) #94-100
Wonder Woman: The Challenge of Artemis (Wonder Woman
Ever since it was determined that the Amazons were to send an emissary to man's world, that ambassadorship has been held by Princess Diana, daughter of Queen Hippolyta... champion of the Contest which determined her right to wear the costume of Wonder Woman.
But came the day Hippolyta decreed that Diana had failed in her mission; that she had not upheld the Amazon ideals and no longer deserved to wear the mantle of Wonder Woman... that a second Contest be held to choose a new champion!
Was it Diana's failure that led to Hippolyta's decision? Or was it a dark and shameful secret in the queen's past that ed to the upset victory by Artemis, champion of the lost tribe of Amazons... the new Wonder Woman?
Now stripped of her magic vestments, Diana continues the battle against injustice in the form of such evils as The Joker, Cheetah, Poison Ivy, and The White Magician while Artemis follows her own path... a trail rife with danger... with betrayal and death waiting at journey's end!
But came the day Hippolyta decreed that Diana had failed in her mission; that she had not upheld the Amazon ideals and no longer deserved to wear the mantle of Wonder Woman... that a second Contest be held to choose a new champion!
Was it Diana's failure that led to Hippolyta's decision? Or was it a dark and shameful secret in the queen's past that ed to the upset victory by Artemis, champion of the lost tribe of Amazons... the new Wonder Woman?
Now stripped of her magic vestments, Diana continues the battle against injustice in the form of such evils as The Joker, Cheetah, Poison Ivy, and The White Magician while Artemis follows her own path... a trail rife with danger... with betrayal and death waiting at journey's end!
176 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1996
138 people want to read
About the author
William Messner-Loebs
435 books38 followersWilliam Francis Messner-Loebs (born William Francis Loebs, Jr.) is an American comics artist and writer from Michigan, also known as Bill Loebs and Bill Messner-Loebs. His hyphenated surname is a combination of his and his wife Nadine's unmarried surnames.
In the 1980s and 1990s he wrote runs of series published by DC Comics, Image Comics, Comico, and other comics publishers, including DC's superhero series Flash and Wonder Woman among others. Additionally he has both written and drawn original creator-owned works, such as Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire.
In the 1980s and 1990s he wrote runs of series published by DC Comics, Image Comics, Comico, and other comics publishers, including DC's superhero series Flash and Wonder Woman among others. Additionally he has both written and drawn original creator-owned works, such as Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 1, 2022
In the introduction of The Challenge of Artemis, William Messner-Loebs talks about wanting to mature Wonder Woman beyond the young, wide-eyed version presented in George Pérez's run. He submits that Pérez's Diana was like a kid experiencing the world for the first time, still learning lessons about the human condition and very trusting of authority figures, namely her mother. He wanted to age the character beyond this, to open her eyes to the human failings of the people she trusted and grow beyond their influence into her own identity. While I have mixed thoughts on this interpretation, I can see where Messner-Loebs was coming from, and think a story with this concept could work.
This is not that story.
As with The Contest, there's some good ideas here. Diana learning new abilities from the gods. Diana trying to figure out her identity as a crime-fighter outside the mantle of Wonder Woman. Artemis being exposed to the world and realizing it's a lot more complicated than she believed. A man from a long line of heroes giving in to his worst impulses and tarnishing his family legacy. Diana getting to know her mother as a woman with her own baggage and failings. I enjoyed all of this on paper, and there were times where the execution wasn't half bad. The covers by Brian Bolland were a treat, and Deodato Jr occasionally delivered some good pages.
Unfortunately, this book is weighed down by 90's comic trappings, some questionable art choices, and poor pacing. Let's face it, Diana's new leather outfit is pretty ridiculous. I like the jacket, but not much else. Deodato Jr continues to illustrate women with weird proportions and pencil-thin waists. Diana spends 70% of the book dealing with a gang war that has little to do with her personal struggles, which would be fine if Messner-Loebs had 12 more issues to explore and resolve the Artemis Wonder Woman storyline. Alas, this is not the case. Artemis barely has any time to be Wonder Woman, and the doubt this instills in Diana seems a little silly when you think about how much more experience she has in man's world. This new status quo was never going to last, but the way it plays out here is almost "blink and you miss it."
Of course, there's still enjoyment to be had in the bonkers 90's-ness of it all. Some things that actually happen in this book:
*A villain compliments himself on being an "interesting villain."
*A juiced Supervillain called "The Chauvinist" shows up at a women's recovery center and whines about women "deserting their husbands."
*The Joker squirts Diana in the face with a suspicious-looking white cream.
*Diana punches a dude so hard he internally combusts.
While I appreciate what Messner-Loebs and Deodato Jr were trying to do here, I don't think they hit the mark. Recommend if you like 90's excess, but otherwise you can skip it.
This is not that story.
As with The Contest, there's some good ideas here. Diana learning new abilities from the gods. Diana trying to figure out her identity as a crime-fighter outside the mantle of Wonder Woman. Artemis being exposed to the world and realizing it's a lot more complicated than she believed. A man from a long line of heroes giving in to his worst impulses and tarnishing his family legacy. Diana getting to know her mother as a woman with her own baggage and failings. I enjoyed all of this on paper, and there were times where the execution wasn't half bad. The covers by Brian Bolland were a treat, and Deodato Jr occasionally delivered some good pages.
Unfortunately, this book is weighed down by 90's comic trappings, some questionable art choices, and poor pacing. Let's face it, Diana's new leather outfit is pretty ridiculous. I like the jacket, but not much else. Deodato Jr continues to illustrate women with weird proportions and pencil-thin waists. Diana spends 70% of the book dealing with a gang war that has little to do with her personal struggles, which would be fine if Messner-Loebs had 12 more issues to explore and resolve the Artemis Wonder Woman storyline. Alas, this is not the case. Artemis barely has any time to be Wonder Woman, and the doubt this instills in Diana seems a little silly when you think about how much more experience she has in man's world. This new status quo was never going to last, but the way it plays out here is almost "blink and you miss it."
Of course, there's still enjoyment to be had in the bonkers 90's-ness of it all. Some things that actually happen in this book:
*A villain compliments himself on being an "interesting villain."
*A juiced Supervillain called "The Chauvinist" shows up at a women's recovery center and whines about women "deserting their husbands."
*The Joker squirts Diana in the face with a suspicious-looking white cream.
*Diana punches a dude so hard he internally combusts.
While I appreciate what Messner-Loebs and Deodato Jr were trying to do here, I don't think they hit the mark. Recommend if you like 90's excess, but otherwise you can skip it.
June 4, 2017
Once again, Wonder Woman day is upon us. And so, to honor this modern day Greek Amazon, I spend the day reading about the time Diane lost the title of Wonder Woman, but still retained her honor and duty to mankind.
I read a few of the comics that make up this set back when they were release in the stores - I wasnt into DC comics as much as I was Marvel in those day, but I had enjoyed both the Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall stories, so I figured I would give this one a try. Alas, tragedy would hit me at the same time, and my interest in comics dropped off to ones that could make me feel good.
Flashforward 22 years and I return to the story of the Challenge of Artemis.
I read a few of the comics that make up this set back when they were release in the stores - I wasnt into DC comics as much as I was Marvel in those day, but I had enjoyed both the Death of Superman and Batman: Knightfall stories, so I figured I would give this one a try. Alas, tragedy would hit me at the same time, and my interest in comics dropped off to ones that could make me feel good.
Flashforward 22 years and I return to the story of the Challenge of Artemis.
dnf-or-not-gonna-happen
September 26, 2012Not going to happen. Wonder Woman: The Contest was almost completely unbearable, and I just can't face another book from the same writer/artist team.
January 10, 2017
I was reading a collection of of Mike Deodato’s Wonder Woman written by William Messner-Loebs and this is the closest thing I could find to that on Goodreads.
I read "Power Couple" by Charles Soule and Tony S. Daniel along with this and the comparison between the two is a pretty good example of cultural evolution/imaginative decay between the 90's and the teens.
In The Struggle Diana uncovers some creepy mysteries about her family and argues with her mum on Themyscria. Due to family and intra-Amazon drama, Diana has to do a contest thing to keep the mantle of 'Wonder Woman' and loses to another Amazon called Artemis who is the more violent and militaristic kind of amazon, a little more reminiscent of the original myths. So now Artimis is running around being a hyper-violent Wonder Woman with a bow and arrow.
So they both go back to Boston together and get involved in an escalating war between two crime lords who each keep pulling in ever more powerful metahuman badasses to screw each other over which finally ends up with one calling the Joker from Gothan and the other one being succeeded by his magical consigliere who turns into a demon. So far, so comics.
Aaand Power Couple is about Superman and Wonder Woman dating.
Soule and Daniel have few or no new ideas. They use old ideas from previous series and 'callbacks' to old stories presented in a reasonably 'not bad' way. Not bad here not meaning 'good', but simply 'less mistakes'.
Deotato and Messner-Loebs Wonder Woman, which I'm just going to call 'The Challenge' after its main arc, has many many many more mistakes than Soule, but it’s still better.
Deodatos work is like a spastic hieroglyph of mad 90's womanforms. Limbs are huge and long, backs are curved. Hair is so big it becomes the sky. Artemis's hair is like an extra character in the story and wraps around her in endless spiralling curves. His art is at its best when he loses hold on reality and lets it become its own thing. There's not much chance of page control or panel control, we get a common situation when the hyper-stylised heroine bursts out of her panel and effectively forms the backdrop and meta-structure to a whole page.
Men are mad and nuggety, throbbing and almost like ripe bursting fruits of muscle, tense under the rippling waves of their own gristle, bursting and spitting and straining and twitching, bound like bombs that won't explode.
Deodato's Wonder Woman ends up dressing in some kind of insane 90's getup, I think it’s some kind of pleather bondage bra with a cool blue domino jacket over it and what looks like lycra bike shorts with stars on them. She looks fucking mental but everything in here looks fucking mental.
I quite like this, it's atavistic and deranged but it has a powerful individual self although it never works perfectly.
And the art in Power Couple is just very good. There are no mistakes. This guy certainly knows how to draw a human. High grade sheen. Nothing really fascinated or interested me about the page or the way he used it.
The characters in Power Couple sound more like real people, that is, they speak in a less operatic and declamatory way. They are still starchy and on the nose compared to real people. It still feels a lot more like modern television writing, or writers room writing or MA writing. Here’s people discussing their own emotions, here’s their neat awareness and resolution of those feelings, here's a complex mishmash of psychosexual stuff neatly bound with a bow on it, Soules story feels more internally focused, less about things, more about the internal world. But it’s the internal world of modern bourgeoisie Americans, so it’s still not that interesting.
Dialogue in The Challenge is more agonistic, emotional, declamatory. Power couple is more collegial. people worry and internalise. In The Challenge people talk and react like they are in a telenovela, in Power Couple it’s like they are in a more bourgeois drama. The Challenge is intermittently funny, which is more than can be said for most comics
Diodato has wonder woman beat the joker after visiting the god pan in a dream state and learning his mad song, and this isn't brilliantly presented and would have been better done by a different or more finely tuned creative team, but it’s still a really cool idea, and a fresher, newer idea than anything that happens in Power Couple.
Power couple has doomsday showing up as a kind of negative zone ghost, but not doing much, Zod showing up from the negative zone, and being beaten, .. that’s it, that's all I can remember. Wait, Superman and Wonder Woman create a nuclear explosion by cutting an atom with a magic sword, that was good. Soule has Superman getting angry with the god Apollo like a bro, then being blasted by Apollo's sun powers, making him super-charged, which is interesting.
And then he deals with being super-charged by flying off to sit on the moon to have a sad conversation with batman about his relationship. He describes having flown around the world a bunch of times just to burn off the extra energy.
And that tells the difference between the rhythm and style of the two stories. If Deodato was telling that story we would have seen superman bombing it around the world, Soule cuts is straight to the conversation after.
There is much more graphic and visual experimentation in The Struggle., though it’s not necessarily that well done or well-integrated with the story, its is still there and it is vivid, the artist will try twenty new things and many will not work, or not work as expected, while the power couple artist will try maybe one new or unexpected thing and the rest of the time will use known techniques with a higher level of presentational skill.
And again, as usual, we have to choose between a 'positive' depiction of women - heroic, stable, knowing, RATIONAL and dull, and an exciting depiction of women, heroic, unstable, janky, irrational, weird, atavistic and original. Between sexy in a boring way and sexy in a possibly creepy, possibly stupid but more fun way.
Obviously I prefer the bonkers 90's brainmess to millennial competence, to the surprise of no-one.
I read "Power Couple" by Charles Soule and Tony S. Daniel along with this and the comparison between the two is a pretty good example of cultural evolution/imaginative decay between the 90's and the teens.
In The Struggle Diana uncovers some creepy mysteries about her family and argues with her mum on Themyscria. Due to family and intra-Amazon drama, Diana has to do a contest thing to keep the mantle of 'Wonder Woman' and loses to another Amazon called Artemis who is the more violent and militaristic kind of amazon, a little more reminiscent of the original myths. So now Artimis is running around being a hyper-violent Wonder Woman with a bow and arrow.
So they both go back to Boston together and get involved in an escalating war between two crime lords who each keep pulling in ever more powerful metahuman badasses to screw each other over which finally ends up with one calling the Joker from Gothan and the other one being succeeded by his magical consigliere who turns into a demon. So far, so comics.
Aaand Power Couple is about Superman and Wonder Woman dating.
Soule and Daniel have few or no new ideas. They use old ideas from previous series and 'callbacks' to old stories presented in a reasonably 'not bad' way. Not bad here not meaning 'good', but simply 'less mistakes'.
Deotato and Messner-Loebs Wonder Woman, which I'm just going to call 'The Challenge' after its main arc, has many many many more mistakes than Soule, but it’s still better.
Deodatos work is like a spastic hieroglyph of mad 90's womanforms. Limbs are huge and long, backs are curved. Hair is so big it becomes the sky. Artemis's hair is like an extra character in the story and wraps around her in endless spiralling curves. His art is at its best when he loses hold on reality and lets it become its own thing. There's not much chance of page control or panel control, we get a common situation when the hyper-stylised heroine bursts out of her panel and effectively forms the backdrop and meta-structure to a whole page.
Men are mad and nuggety, throbbing and almost like ripe bursting fruits of muscle, tense under the rippling waves of their own gristle, bursting and spitting and straining and twitching, bound like bombs that won't explode.
Deodato's Wonder Woman ends up dressing in some kind of insane 90's getup, I think it’s some kind of pleather bondage bra with a cool blue domino jacket over it and what looks like lycra bike shorts with stars on them. She looks fucking mental but everything in here looks fucking mental.
I quite like this, it's atavistic and deranged but it has a powerful individual self although it never works perfectly.
And the art in Power Couple is just very good. There are no mistakes. This guy certainly knows how to draw a human. High grade sheen. Nothing really fascinated or interested me about the page or the way he used it.
The characters in Power Couple sound more like real people, that is, they speak in a less operatic and declamatory way. They are still starchy and on the nose compared to real people. It still feels a lot more like modern television writing, or writers room writing or MA writing. Here’s people discussing their own emotions, here’s their neat awareness and resolution of those feelings, here's a complex mishmash of psychosexual stuff neatly bound with a bow on it, Soules story feels more internally focused, less about things, more about the internal world. But it’s the internal world of modern bourgeoisie Americans, so it’s still not that interesting.
Dialogue in The Challenge is more agonistic, emotional, declamatory. Power couple is more collegial. people worry and internalise. In The Challenge people talk and react like they are in a telenovela, in Power Couple it’s like they are in a more bourgeois drama. The Challenge is intermittently funny, which is more than can be said for most comics
Diodato has wonder woman beat the joker after visiting the god pan in a dream state and learning his mad song, and this isn't brilliantly presented and would have been better done by a different or more finely tuned creative team, but it’s still a really cool idea, and a fresher, newer idea than anything that happens in Power Couple.
Power couple has doomsday showing up as a kind of negative zone ghost, but not doing much, Zod showing up from the negative zone, and being beaten, .. that’s it, that's all I can remember. Wait, Superman and Wonder Woman create a nuclear explosion by cutting an atom with a magic sword, that was good. Soule has Superman getting angry with the god Apollo like a bro, then being blasted by Apollo's sun powers, making him super-charged, which is interesting.
And then he deals with being super-charged by flying off to sit on the moon to have a sad conversation with batman about his relationship. He describes having flown around the world a bunch of times just to burn off the extra energy.
And that tells the difference between the rhythm and style of the two stories. If Deodato was telling that story we would have seen superman bombing it around the world, Soule cuts is straight to the conversation after.
There is much more graphic and visual experimentation in The Struggle., though it’s not necessarily that well done or well-integrated with the story, its is still there and it is vivid, the artist will try twenty new things and many will not work, or not work as expected, while the power couple artist will try maybe one new or unexpected thing and the rest of the time will use known techniques with a higher level of presentational skill.
And again, as usual, we have to choose between a 'positive' depiction of women - heroic, stable, knowing, RATIONAL and dull, and an exciting depiction of women, heroic, unstable, janky, irrational, weird, atavistic and original. Between sexy in a boring way and sexy in a possibly creepy, possibly stupid but more fun way.
Obviously I prefer the bonkers 90's brainmess to millennial competence, to the surprise of no-one.
February 23, 2024
Once again, the premise of this arc is not that bad and the rivalry between Artemis and Diana could've made for great story-telling ... but alas, it's completely bonkers 90ies superhero shenanigans instead.
April 12, 2008
This collection contains Wonder Woman issues #94-100--right before Byrne happened. (>.>) Sorry, if you're a fan of Byrne, I apologize--but I am not. So, why 3 stars?
Overall, it's an "ok" read. I was never keen on the whole Boston Mafia thing, or Wonder Woman's new outfit and job, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between Artemis and Diana; I loved how Artemis realized that donning the suit also means you need to have a inkling of compassion, because dealing with humanity isn't always black and white--it's a constant walk through gray areas.
I liked seeing Joker show up to start trouble [though I feel WML as a writer, just don’t do Joker justice]. Also, the White Magician was just too shallow of a villain here--his build up was minimal and his power at the end just seemed to unreal--even for a superhero story. The end was sad, knowing full well that Artemis was honorable all along, and Diana--feeling dishonored because of Artemis's sacrifice.
The writing being uneven with high and low points, didn't help the book overall because of the exploitive artwork. How can anyone take Diana seriously in a mini-bustier, and Artemis doesn't need a thong to be strong. Sometimes you can stomach the art if the story has some depth, but not even the script kept me from getting annoyed at the cheesecake.
This book has an unofficial sequel of 6 individual issues never collected in paperback from by DC - it's called 'Artemis: Requiem'. Again cool stories, if you can take the oversexed artwork.
Overall, it's an "ok" read. I was never keen on the whole Boston Mafia thing, or Wonder Woman's new outfit and job, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction between Artemis and Diana; I loved how Artemis realized that donning the suit also means you need to have a inkling of compassion, because dealing with humanity isn't always black and white--it's a constant walk through gray areas.
I liked seeing Joker show up to start trouble [though I feel WML as a writer, just don’t do Joker justice]. Also, the White Magician was just too shallow of a villain here--his build up was minimal and his power at the end just seemed to unreal--even for a superhero story. The end was sad, knowing full well that Artemis was honorable all along, and Diana--feeling dishonored because of Artemis's sacrifice.
The writing being uneven with high and low points, didn't help the book overall because of the exploitive artwork. How can anyone take Diana seriously in a mini-bustier, and Artemis doesn't need a thong to be strong. Sometimes you can stomach the art if the story has some depth, but not even the script kept me from getting annoyed at the cheesecake.
This book has an unofficial sequel of 6 individual issues never collected in paperback from by DC - it's called 'Artemis: Requiem'. Again cool stories, if you can take the oversexed artwork.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2017
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I really liked Artemis (even if she is almost-unrelentingly hostile for a lot of the book), especially how she behaved at the end. Also, I liked how Diana handled herself as her mother expressed doubt in her, she lost the competition and the mantle of Wonder Woman, and had to find a way to cope in Man's World when she was no longer Themiscyra's representative.
But I don't like that Hippolyta's character was completely sacrificed in order to justify the developments. Hippolyta's reason for calling a new challenge was bad enough; the revisionist history of Heracles' betrayal and rape was totally unnecessary. A queen and a mother who was strong enough to lead her people through the many changes they endured--and to watch her daughter go out and fight for Amazonian ideals in a world frequently hostile to them--was revealed to be a fraud and hypocrite. Every new author wants to put his or her spin on the hero and his/her supporting characters, but someone should have told Messner-Loebs to come up with a better way to tell the story of Artemis and Diana--this explanation felt like a cheat.
But I don't like that Hippolyta's character was completely sacrificed in order to justify the developments. Hippolyta's reason for calling a new challenge was bad enough; the revisionist history of Heracles' betrayal and rape was totally unnecessary. A queen and a mother who was strong enough to lead her people through the many changes they endured--and to watch her daughter go out and fight for Amazonian ideals in a world frequently hostile to them--was revealed to be a fraud and hypocrite. Every new author wants to put his or her spin on the hero and his/her supporting characters, but someone should have told Messner-Loebs to come up with a better way to tell the story of Artemis and Diana--this explanation felt like a cheat.
May 23, 2018
Okay this was a hoot.
I am not an experienced comic book fan-- like, i've read some graphic novels, and a handful of comics here and there, but never anything in the DC or Marvel universes because there is just. So. Much.
But wonder woman! I loooooove wonder woman!! (Not quite enough to watch any of her movies in which batman appears, but still!)
So i was willing to jump in to this one, out of order, out of context, and give it a go.
And it was great fun! I wish i had the artistic skills of these artists, and the brassiness of the writer who could commit to paper such lines as "you want HELL Randolph? Let's visit it together!"
And, at the risk of revealing my own dirty mind, i spent the whole volume GIGGLING over the softcore imagery, baaaaaarely disguised as distinctive (eh hem BONDAGE) costuming, athletic poses and, um, joker's secret face paralyzing serum. Eh HEM!
I am not an experienced comic book fan-- like, i've read some graphic novels, and a handful of comics here and there, but never anything in the DC or Marvel universes because there is just. So. Much.
But wonder woman! I loooooove wonder woman!! (Not quite enough to watch any of her movies in which batman appears, but still!)
So i was willing to jump in to this one, out of order, out of context, and give it a go.
And it was great fun! I wish i had the artistic skills of these artists, and the brassiness of the writer who could commit to paper such lines as "you want HELL Randolph? Let's visit it together!"
And, at the risk of revealing my own dirty mind, i spent the whole volume GIGGLING over the softcore imagery, baaaaaarely disguised as distinctive (eh hem BONDAGE) costuming, athletic poses and, um, joker's secret face paralyzing serum. Eh HEM!
November 13, 2012
Everything that is wrong with comics, everything that is a specific problem with late 1980s/early 1990s comics? It's all encapsulated right here in The Challenge of Artemis. It's like a laundry list of bad ideas:
* Oversexualization of the female characters to the point of discomfort/absurdity? Check!
* A hodgepodge of villains designed seemingly for no other reason for them to be there ("The Chauvinist?" Really?) or to cross-pollinate (why is the Joker here at all?)? Check!
* Just a terrible, disjointed story with minimal conclusion? Check!
It makes me ashamed to be a fan of this character. That's how bad this was. Absurd.
* Oversexualization of the female characters to the point of discomfort/absurdity? Check!
* A hodgepodge of villains designed seemingly for no other reason for them to be there ("The Chauvinist?" Really?) or to cross-pollinate (why is the Joker here at all?)? Check!
* Just a terrible, disjointed story with minimal conclusion? Check!
It makes me ashamed to be a fan of this character. That's how bad this was. Absurd.
October 27, 2023
I remember the promotions for the Death of Wonder Woman when I was a kid, so it's nice to finally see what that was about. I've skimmed thru the first 100 issues of post-Crisis WW, & honestly most of George Perez's & Bill Messner-Loebs's works on the series haven't been to my taste even though I like other work by those two. However, in this collection, it finally clicks for me. Mike Deodato's art is delightfully 90s, hard-hitting, XTREMEE, & beefed up especially with the fake villains like the Chauvinist that Artemis whales on. Plus, we get some delightful exchanges between Diana & classic DC villains Poison Ivy, Cheshire, & the Joker. The appearance by Pan is especially good.
The only two downsides are that 1) the lead-in issues to this, collected as The Contest, aren't great & that 2) it's an attempt to do Knightquest or Reign of the Superman w/ WW, where she's replaced by a more violent antihero, which is a cool idea & Artemis a cool character, but the book doesn't commit to the idea, so Artemis isn't WW for very long, & Diana remains much more prominent in the book than Artemis.
The only two downsides are that 1) the lead-in issues to this, collected as The Contest, aren't great & that 2) it's an attempt to do Knightquest or Reign of the Superman w/ WW, where she's replaced by a more violent antihero, which is a cool idea & Artemis a cool character, but the book doesn't commit to the idea, so Artemis isn't WW for very long, & Diana remains much more prominent in the book than Artemis.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2019
I found the language melodramatic and the women drawn in a very sexualized manner. I do appreciate the fact that the heroes and many of the villains are female but am concerned about how Diana and Artemis are dressed. Do all ladies want to fight crime in thongs and crop tops in very sexually provocative poses. The artwork was clear and the colors good, the story moved quickly with a number of twists that I was not expecting, but I could not fully enjoy the story for the reasons mentioned earlier.
April 23, 2018
All I have to say is thank God Loebs's run is finally over.
December 22, 2011
Eh, not my favorite Wonder Woman story, but it was interesting to see Artemis as Wonder Woman. She was much more methodical and hard core than Diana. It was fun to see all of the random guest villians; Cheshire, Cheetah, Joker, Poison Ivy.
Read
August 10, 2011It was a good proposal...but it had not a great execution.
August 6, 2014
I don't feel like the writer Messner-Loebs understands Diana's character. But if you're looking to see her with more human failings then this might be the book for you.
November 29, 2022
One thing I'll say is that this was, definitely, a comic written in the 90s.
Read
August 29, 2017This is an improvement over the previous volume, though that's a low bar.
Despite the name of the volume, Artemis barely shows up -- which I think helps contribute to the storyline in this volume seeming somewhat rushed.
We get a lot of women -- as both adversaries and allies, and sometimes both -- and they're mostly all wearing clothes. So that's good. Though they also drop in and out, again contributing to the rushed feeling of the volume. (It doesn't feel rushed like we're rushing to a particular conclusion, more like haphazard like we never spend very much time with anything.)
We've also returned to Boston, which helps with the everyone-wearing-clothes thing.
The back-in-Boston plots are clearly continuations of previous issues, which makes it frustrating that we jumped past like 70 issues in collecting for trade paperbacks (though Editor Paul Kupperberg's intro to The Contest suggested that it was the first Wonder Woman collection, which, why anyone would think that's the cluster of issues you should start with?)
The monster-of-the-week villains are so simplistic (they literally name themselves things like "The Chauvinist" and "The Exploiter"), but they do enable some actually thoughtful commentary about superhero'ing:
Artemis: "They're all dead?"
woman whose name I don't know: "Yes, I'm afraid so. It's one thing our army does really well. This was a village of poachers. The army was just protecting the rain forest."
Artemis: "But.... the rain forest is a good thing. It is terrible to destroy it. So the army was right?"
woman: "In a sense. We are locked in a terrible puzzle here. For our country to pay back our debts to the world banks, we must be "developed." So the peoples of the forest are "resettled" into farming areas. But they have no farming skills and the land is poor for cash crops. So more and more land has to be cleared. And the country slips further and further into debt, slashing health and social programs, until small villages like this revolt. Since they are poorer every year, the people are forced to illegally cut into the forest and to poach protecting species. But to preserve their loans, the government must sign environmental accords, swearing to protect the forest."
Artemis: "This is dreadful. But why did you send for me? A situation like this is too complex for one person to solve."
(p.75)
Diana: "These files are locked. My guess is that they hold records that show your friends hired the villains you've been fighting... and beating. They've been paid to lose."
Artemis: "But why?"
Diana: "Because the media are lazy. Once you "defeated" an evil, no one bothered to check to see if the underlying problems were still there. Nothing has changed. You were just entertainment."
(p. 115)
Lastly: I love Diana's look in this -- except that it's not Diana at all. Give this hair and outfit to someone else.
Despite the name of the volume, Artemis barely shows up -- which I think helps contribute to the storyline in this volume seeming somewhat rushed.
We get a lot of women -- as both adversaries and allies, and sometimes both -- and they're mostly all wearing clothes. So that's good. Though they also drop in and out, again contributing to the rushed feeling of the volume. (It doesn't feel rushed like we're rushing to a particular conclusion, more like haphazard like we never spend very much time with anything.)
We've also returned to Boston, which helps with the everyone-wearing-clothes thing.
The back-in-Boston plots are clearly continuations of previous issues, which makes it frustrating that we jumped past like 70 issues in collecting for trade paperbacks (though Editor Paul Kupperberg's intro to The Contest suggested that it was the first Wonder Woman collection, which, why anyone would think that's the cluster of issues you should start with?)
The monster-of-the-week villains are so simplistic (they literally name themselves things like "The Chauvinist" and "The Exploiter"), but they do enable some actually thoughtful commentary about superhero'ing:
Artemis: "They're all dead?"
woman whose name I don't know: "Yes, I'm afraid so. It's one thing our army does really well. This was a village of poachers. The army was just protecting the rain forest."
Artemis: "But.... the rain forest is a good thing. It is terrible to destroy it. So the army was right?"
woman: "In a sense. We are locked in a terrible puzzle here. For our country to pay back our debts to the world banks, we must be "developed." So the peoples of the forest are "resettled" into farming areas. But they have no farming skills and the land is poor for cash crops. So more and more land has to be cleared. And the country slips further and further into debt, slashing health and social programs, until small villages like this revolt. Since they are poorer every year, the people are forced to illegally cut into the forest and to poach protecting species. But to preserve their loans, the government must sign environmental accords, swearing to protect the forest."
Artemis: "This is dreadful. But why did you send for me? A situation like this is too complex for one person to solve."
(p.75)
Diana: "These files are locked. My guess is that they hold records that show your friends hired the villains you've been fighting... and beating. They've been paid to lose."
Artemis: "But why?"
Diana: "Because the media are lazy. Once you "defeated" an evil, no one bothered to check to see if the underlying problems were still there. Nothing has changed. You were just entertainment."
(p. 115)
Lastly: I love Diana's look in this -- except that it's not Diana at all. Give this hair and outfit to someone else.
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