3 out of 5

I seem to be the only internetted reviewer let down by the back half of Rucka’s latest Wonder Woman run, though reading my earlier reviews, I’m wondering if I was reading this series differently than intended.  That is: I sort of thought we were getting a new take on Diana, a la Greg’s way-back-when run, and we were, but – whether he’d intended to leave after 25 issues or not – only to sort of wind it back down and set WW back to a status quo.  The majesty of the character I felt reading The Truth and Year One gets lost behind plot wrap-ups and repositionings; nothing really has changed by 25’s end.  That’s not so unusual for a major character, but I really feel like we never even left our starting spot; that is, that majesty now feels disingenuous.  I don’t exactly think this is Greg’s fault, as I rather admire how he ended up tying the two sides of his story together, and it absolutely syncs up (plot-thread-wise) with the earlier arcs, so I’m sure the overall path we took was always in the works, but the writing felt like it took on a very narrow-minded focus of getting to the end and nothing more.  I am thankful that it was a complete story, at the very least, and one with some great moments sprinkled throughout, not to mention a talented art crew.  Liam Sharp delivered some funny character models here and there, but otherwise brought a lot of weight to his modern day contributions, with rich, enhancing colors from Laura Martin.  And Bilquis Evely was an unbelievably awesome swap-in for Nikola Scott; her work had a very classic Jurgens-esque vibe to it which I really dug, and a similarly classic buoyancy to the action sequences.  Ramulo Fajardo Jr. matched this vibe with a warm color palette.

The two halves our story this time out are ‘The Lies,’ and ‘Godwatch,’ and they much more directly intersect than issues 1-11, perhaps owing to my feeling that the series’ open-endedness changed.  This is, admittedly, rather inevitable, as the pieces of our What Happened and What’s Happening mysteries logically come together as we approach the conclusion: The Lies (the present) offers up some answers on Thmyscira’s function and location, while Godwatch (the past) fills us in on why Veronica Cale is, like, Veronica Cale.  There’s plenty of setup for future writers to play with, and a thanks-for-the-memories callback for another Rucka-created character, but a side effect of the storylines converging is a muddling of the themes I felt Greg was initially playing with… but I think I’ve beaten that “I was disappointed” horse to its wheezing final moments, so So Be It.

The bar was set high, Greg, alright?  I think this is fantastic mainstream DC writing, kicking ass amongst its peers, and getting me to make the rare (nowadays) purchase of a Big Two book, but I was reading this as a fresh start, and felt like it got curtailed just as it’d spread its wings to reveal a rather unique plumage.  Metaphors extended yonder, heathens.