Wonder Woman #762 Review

It's not Filler...Liar Liar!

Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Artist: Carlo Barberi, Matt Santorelli, Alejandro Sanchez, and Pat Brosseau
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 9, 2020

Mariko Tamaki continues her run of Wonder Woman this week, and I need things to pick up a bit.  So far, my two biggest problems are that I haven't been able to get a grip on Tamaki's Diana yet, and the overall story hasn't felt as big as it should.  We are getting a Wonder Woman/Maxwell Lord team up, for heaven's sake!  Let's jump into this issue and see if selfish me gets what I want...


I figured we would open the issue with Diana taking down the nuke that was a big deal from the last issue.  Yea, I envisioned her riding it Slim Pickens style, and while I didn't think we'd get that for real, I thought we'd get something.  Nope!  We open with Diana narrating about how Amazon's use deception in battle and then go off to see that Liar Liar is causing more trouble in town.

This is what I was talking about when I said this story feels smaller than it should. Diana stopping a nuclear missile is shrugged off as an aside (off-panel and through narration), while we get almost half an issue of her stopping/saving random people, mostly from themselves.  We've already seen what Liar Liar can do with the phone app, so why do we need to see it over and over?  The only thing new we get is Maxwell Lord acting like a jerk, but it came off a bit too jokey to be taken seriously anyway.

In between those scenes, Diana continues not to trust Maxwell Lord, while Lord says he's a changed man.  We get it!  Or should I say, "We got it" the last issue!  Now, Tamaki does a little sleight of hand here to make it seem like we got more with Maxwell, but it is all so vague and is just a repeat of what we already got.  Overall, the only thing that pushes the story forward happens at the end when Liar Liar introduces herself to Diana and Maxwell.  Since we already knew who was behind all the mind control, there is no surprise here.  Plus, the big thing, Liar Liar being Maxwell's daughter, is not dealt with here.

This issue was filler, and coming so early in Tamaki's run is not a good sign.  The last Tamaki book I read was X-23 at Marvel, and that went nowhere for a year before being canceled.  I'm not saying that is the case here, but I'm starting to worry.   Besides the slow pacing, though, I hope Tamaki broadens her stroke a bit and gets beyond the "TRUTH" aspect of Wonder Woman because it's starting to make this book feel one-dimensional.  There is a lot more to Wonder Woman, and I hope we get more soon.  I like Carlo Barberi's art, though I still wonder why Mikel Janin couldn't do the entire first arc.  

Bits and Pieces:

Wonder Woman #762 doesn't push the overall narrative ahead much but instead repeats things we saw and know already.  Liar Liar does introduce herself to Diana and Maxwell by the end of the issue, but that's about it.  The art is good, but I need a bit more story progression to recommend this to anyone.

5.0/10