Sunday, April 3, 2016

Wonder Woman #50 Review and *SPOILERS*



Yadda Yadda Yadda Monsters, Yadda Yadda Yadda Beauty


Written By: Meredith Finch
Art By: David Finch, Johnny Desjardins, Scott Hanna, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: March 23, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Oh, it's another one of those big bad fifties coming at us and this time we're looking at what Wonder Woman has to offer and if it's anything like what we've been given........... Well, I'm not too optimistic.  That's a shitty attitude though and I'll go into this like I do everything else, hoping beyond hope that we'll get one of those redeeming stories that makes everything that hasn't been stellar worthwhile.  In the previous issue we saw our hero go on a task to cure Baby Zeke of his mysterious illness, which led us to the mother of the Earth: Gaia, but Gaia wasn't about to help any gods since she was betrayed by her children, which led us to Hecate, the Goddess of Witchcraft and Necromancy.......... and with a title like that, well I wouldn't be too trusting, but apparently Wonder Woman doesn't share my sentiment because after being told a story about how this God could restore Baby Zeke if she was given the orbs at the bottom of Hera's scrying pool, Diana went off on a journey to betray her Olympian family.  Let's jump into this over-sized issue and see how far Wonder Woman's willing to fall in the eyes of the Gods to save Baby Zeke.  Let's check it out.


Explain It!:

Our issue begins kind of where we left off last month, but instead of a big ass cyclops knocking our hero out and carrying her away, here we see that Diana was knocked out by a trap set by Hephaestus and then helped by the ever so gentle cyclopses....... cyclopsi...... the plural of cyclops.  Yeah, we get a big ol' spin in this issue about how things aren't exactly as you'd expect them to be and we get that line over and over again.  Diana realizes that these creatures aren't the monsters that she thought they were and after Hephaestus shows up and they hide our God of War, she sees how the Gods have kept the cyclopses as slaves and pretty much stolen their forging skills for their own benefit.  So just in case you weren't paying attention, Cyclopses equal good and Gods equal bad.  Yeah, Hephaestus is a big bag of dicks in this issue, but Diana doesn't have the time to free the cyclopses because she has to return Hera's orbs to Hecate in order to save Baby Zeke, but she vows to return for them when she's finished............ and I'll laugh my ass off if this story arc ends without anymore mention of cyclopses........... and I'll be pretty happy too because I hate writing cyclopses.  


After Wonder Woman returns to Hecate, we continue not to trust her because after a big ol' speech about how the Gods are assholes and how the orbs are actually Cyclopes' eyes, we find out that she lied to all of us in the previous issue about Gaia being all withdrawn inside herself, or stone unconscious because apparently she's the one who is behind Baby Zeke being all sick as hell and it's because Zeke/Zeus made Donna Troy the new Fate and since that character was created from the Earth, Gaia sees this as a huge disrespectful slap to the tits.  The only way to fix Baby Zeke now is to appease this mother of the Gods and to do that..............  Well, Wonder Woman has to go on a shit load of tasks.  She has to free the Cyclopses...... damn it....... the Hecatonchires and Typhoeus.  I have no idea what the Hecatonchires are, but Typhoeus is next up on Wonder Woman's to do list and it's the father of all monsters and it's up to our hero to save it from it's mountain prison.  Too bad Ares shows up out of nowhere looking for a fight because he wants his title back.


In the end, Ares and Diana fight while Ares says over and over again how Wonder Woman isn't cut out to be the God of War, but eventually the fight is put to an end when Wonder Woman releases Typhoeus and we find out once again that you can't judge a book by its cover because even though this dragon like creature is known as the Father of Monsters, he's a big ol' teddy bear and flies Diana away from Ares and back to Hecate, where the Goddess of Witchcraft and Sorcery tells our hero that her next task will require her to go back to Themyscira so that she can use it's secret entrance to the underworld........ Tartarus.


That's it for this issue of Wonder Woman and even though the main story was all about shoving a moral down our throats with the whole "Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover" cliche, I have to say that I somehow found myself enjoying this issue more than I have the previous ones lately.  The biggest problem with the issue is that it spent it's time just reiterating the same statements again and again.  Besides that though, the art was fantastic and even though I think Wonder Woman is a dope for trusting Hecate, this wasn't a terrible issue and in my opinion, the backup featuring Donna Troy was worth the price tag alone........ Yeah, that backup suffered from Donna acting like Wonder Woman in that she kept saying the same things over and over again, but I really dug the story about her becoming Fate and what that ultimately means and like the rest of the book, the art was wonderful.  Yeah, this book still has its problems, but it was at least fun........ and I just really loved the backup.

Bits and Pieces:

We continue our Wonder Woman trying to save Baby Zeke story with this over-sized fiftieth issue, but where this series has been a bit lackluster, I have to say that I liked this one a little more than usual, even though it was hurt by Wonder Woman stating the same things over and over again in what seemed like padding for the issue.  We did get a really good backup though featuring Donna Troy so even though this issue still had its problems, it was enjoyable for the most part and the art looked great.

6.8/10

2 comments:

  1. Have to agree. There are things about this issue that I like and the art is beyond gorgeous but, I have to say that Meredith Finch leaving the book come Rebirth is probably the best thing for Wonder Woman right now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear heavens, the Finch run has been absolutely dreadful. I'm counting down the days for when Rucka takes over and kicks this mediocre writer to the curb.

    ReplyDelete