Review – Wonder Woman: Rebirth #1

I remember believing that “wonder” meant “awe.” That the name they gave me spoke of admiration. Perhaps it did, once.
But the story keeps changing.

I’ve been curious about Wonder Woman: Rebirth #1 ever since it was announced: Diana has had a tough time reaching the same status as the rest of the DC Trinity, and I’m wondering if Rebirth is where she’ll finally hit her stride. (Warning, spoilers below.)

After all the changes to Diana in the past 75 years (including a heck of a lot in the past five) the reader’s got to be wondering what direction the story will go in now: is she the daughter of a god or made of clay, the Queen of Amazons or the god of war, Supe’s girlfriend or a humorless battle machine?

The way Greg Rucka is handling it is to have Diana herself ask the question. In this issue she seems just as confused as some readers, wondering which story is true. We don’t see why she’s confused, but we do see how she’s going to solve it: she ties the Lasso of Truth to her own arm and asks herself the question.

It was a neat scene, because she answers almost like she’s in a trance, it sounds like an oracle.

You are many to many. Peace maker and war-fighter. Supplicant, aspirant, penitent. The true friend and the boon companion, the trusted soul and the truth-speaker…
…and you have been deceived.

The last line and the look of shock on her face as she says it was particularly cool.

DC’s promised this isn’t a reboot, so I was wondering how they’d handle a big change to the character. They didn’t go with an alternate time-line or “it was all a dream” (thank god) but instead with “nothing you know is true, now go and find out why.” It’s a nice set-up for the story (stories, since the book will jump between two plot lines in alternating issues.)

It had the feel of an apology from DC. Diana says she feels lost, and at the WonderCon Rebirth panel Dan Didio said, regarding New 52, “sometimes you lose your way a little.” In a meta way Diana seems to be acknowledging that what’s come recently hasn’t been right, so now it’s time to fix it. We’ll see how that commitment turns out.

There were a total of five artists on the book: Matthew Clark on pencils and Sean Parsons on inks for the first half, Liam Sharp on both for the second half, with Jeremy Colwell and Laura Martin sharing colors. The art was fine, not spectacular but fine. I didn’t hate it. I know that’s damning with faint praise but I haven’t really loved any Wonder Woman art the way I loved how Cliff Chiang drew it. I think Clark and Parsons were trying to keep Wonder Woman from being too delicate and willowy, and I appreciated that, but she looked a little awkward around the shoulders sometimes. I liked Sharp’s work a little better but I liked Colwell’s colors a little better.

(Do I need to say that everybody involved draws way better than I ever could in a million years so any criticisms come with a sense of admiration anyway? I do? Consider it said.)

Not a lot happened in this book, taking a similar approach as Batman: Rebirth #1 – don’t make the first issue work too hard, just set things up for the big story later on. Despite a fight scene in the beginning and a battle in the end it was actually a quiet book.

It remains to be seen how well Wonder Woman does in Rebirth. There wasn’t anything about the story that bothered me personally, either as a comic book fan or as a woman, so I’m hoping for the best.