Written By: Tim Seeley
Art By: Christian Duce
Published By: DC
Editor’s Note: I wrote this while drunk thinking it would go up on Friday. It didn’t. I then edited it while sober. There’s some NSFW language but remarkably less than draft one. Like, a lot less. A lot lot lot lot less.
It’s Friday, I’m drunk, and my ability to give a fuck is in the absolute dirt. (I’m also listening to Battle Beast, who are awesome. Check ‘em out!) This is normally the recipe for a “Quick Reviews of Stupid Comics” post; however, I’ve only read one truly stupid comic this week, meaning we’re getting a full review.
Hello Wonder Woman Steve Trevor Special #1.
I don’t even know where to start. The beginning, I guess. We open with Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor doing some fighting and talking about their upcoming date. Under normal circumstances it would be trite as hell with bad art, but these aren’t normal circumstances. Oh no! These villains are, get this, misogynists! We know this because Steve Trevor tells us through exposition.
Steve Trevor exposition vomits a lot in this book, by the way.
Now, misogynists suck. I won’t mix words or mince meat (is that a real phrase?) about that, but putting them in a Wonder Woman book is so on the nose that it’s superglued to said nose. It’s not coming off without some force and lots of blood. That’s a trip to the doctor.
This book makes me want to take a trip to the doctor.
It’s not that this book is shitty—it is—but that the first four pages are so exceptionally shitty that it’s almost comical. Wonder Woman lassos the villain and he says (and I quote), “I hate women because I’m insecure and full of self loathing.”
Fuck off.
If you want to play at the politics of today, which is exceptionally easy given that [redacted], then do so. I welcome it. But be smart about it, okay? This isn’t smart. This is lazy pretending to be smart. This is reading the cliff notes to a Shakespeare play you have a test on tomorrow but picking the wrong play. Congrats. You read 12th Night and were supposed to read Much Ado About Nothing. The F stands for stupid.
And good god it gets worse. This entire book just revels in being awful. It might be the worst thing I’ve read this year. The plot sucks, makes no sense, and just pales in comparison to everything Greg Rucka has spent the last 25 issues putting together. That man is a master of the Wonder Woman, and this, this is foul.
The whole thing reads like some drunken fever dream of plot and dialogue that only casually matches up. It’s a speed dating of two different books. Half of it is trying to be smart and witty, with children that live forever and some supernatural shit, and the other half is just bad DC writing with Trevor playing the straight man alongside awful villains.
“I suppose you could be forgiven for not knowing I am mistress of the necromantic arts, able to lift myself on black wings and reanimate the dead.” <= Actual dialogue from this book.
And no, it sucks in context.
Then that laughably tense moment ends with a laughably tense explosion and “THE END ?????” like we’re supposed to have given a shit over these last 24 pages.
Oh, and bonus points for page 11 where the proportions get so distorted that one guy turns into a giant. He’s not supposed to be a giant, but there he is, like twice as tall as normal. (It’s honestly kind of amazing in that train-wreck sort of way.)
Seriously. The only way this book could be worse is if it had The Flash or THE SPEED FORCE or time travel in it. Goddamn.
