Writer: Meredith Finch
Artist: David Finch
Inker: Richard Friend
Colorist: Sonia Oback
Publisher: DC Entertainment
I love Wonder Woman. She’s one of my favorite characters and she’s also one of the longest lasting. Meredith Finch and David Finch, along with Richard Friend and Sonia Oback, are coming onto the scene as the newest creative team in the Amazon’s long history, and what we get doesn’t quite take the cake.
There are a lot of people out there that are instantly comparing this to the run that came before, but that is irrelevant in this review and really should be in any critique of a new team’s effort. Meredith Finch’s Wonder Woman is going to be different and that’s exactly what we get here. She presents a Wonder Woman who doesn’t exactly have every aspect of her world handled. There is a well-placed scene where Aquaman calls her out, and it doesn’t play out on just calling her on that specific event. What we get looks to be a general commentary on what Wonder Woman has become in the New 52. I think this is an important thing to do because it takes what has come before and says “now here’s what I’m going to do.” I hope we get the Diana that Meredith has promised us in this first issue.
David Finch really creates the biggest problem with this because his art come into conflict with what Meredith seems to want to do. In every scene it seems as if Wonder Woman is frightened and scared. She looks entirely timid. It takes away the power we’re shown in words and makes it look like she doesn’t want to be there. There’s also the problem of the age he portrays her as. Looking around it’s said that Diana is only twenty-three. Even if that is still true, she looks fourteen and even that seems to change from page to page. If this is the work we get in this first issue then I have no confidence in what is to come.
Wonder Woman #36 gives us a look at the inner thoughts of Diana, but ultimate fails as it comes into conflict with its art.
