Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman Review

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I hoped Wonder Woman would be good, but I almost expected it wouldn’t be.  It is hard for a superhero movie to really surprise almost 20 years into them showing up regularly. Wonder Woman, though, was shockingly good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was such an earnest and sincere take on the genre that it was hard not to be swept away in its enthusiasm.  It was likely the most I’ve enjoyed seeing a movie this year.

The plot isn’t anything special; it is mostly a standard superhero origin story. Diana was raised on Themyscira, a Mediterranean Island created by the Greek Gods as a home for the mythological Amazons.  Diana is the only child among them, the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, who is reluctant to have her trained for combat. So Diana trains in secret with her aunt, Antiope.  Her training ends when WW1 pilot and spy Steve Trevor washes up on their shores.  Against her mother’s protests, Diana returns to the modern world with Steve to fulfill the Amazons’ duty to fight Ares, the God of War and end the war.

From there is combines scenes of Diana dealing with the modern world and even just parts of life with which she is unfamiliar, like children or snow, with war scenes.  It all works together, with Diana learning about the world without ever losing her optimism.

The movie works without Warner Bros merely copying what has worked for Marvel.  While it does bare some superficial similarities to the first Captain America and Thor movies, Wonder Woman maintains its own tone. The tone of the MCU movies, for better or worse, has been set by the sardonic voice of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. Recent DC movies have set their tone to Zack Snyder’s operatic earnestness.  Wonder Woman doesn’t abandon that, but it manages to find some levity with the sincerity, resulting in something that is wholly enjoyable.  Its tone is more like that of the original Superman or Spider-Man movies.  It revels in the emotion of its story instead of undercutting them for a laugh.

The movie works in large part thanks to the performances of Chris Pine and Gal Gadot.  Gadot is radiant as the lead, able to play both the character’s naivety and strength with equal skill.  She is truly believable as all facets of the character, helping to make Diana a rounded character and her growth believable. This is a star making performance.  Chris Pine also carries a heavy load, playing both the second lead, the love interest, and the comic relief.  He shines without ever taking the focus off of the title character.  Their chemistry together is great.  The rest of the cast is great as well, especially Robin Wright as Antiope.

There are flaws, especially at the end when it falls into the same sort of trap that many superhero movies, like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, do. For most of its runtime it is fresh and enjoyable, but its final battle descends into incoherence and pointless CGI.  It really isn’t any worse than the ends of similar movies, but the fall is further.

It is frankly ridiculous that it took this long in the modern superhero era to get one starring a woman.  (Yes, I know Supergirl exists, but it is far from modern, while Catwoman and Elektra are far from heroes) It is not like there haven’t been opportunities, with Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow being the glue that holds together a lot of the MCU but never getting her own starring role.  It has also been positioned as the savior of the critically floundering DCUE.  That put a lot of pressure on Wonder Woman to succeed and I am glad to say it did. It is a very good movie without any knowledge of outside factors, knowing those factors only makes its success all the sweeter. Wonder Woman is likely not the best movie I am going to see this year, but it was very good.

*****

All Roads lead to Helldorado

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I have a treat for readers today! Since the late 80’s DC Comics have labeled many of their intentionally out of continuity stories as “Elseworlds.” While great deals of these stories, like all comics, are crap, there have been some standouts. Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come is a true classic, and Batman Year 100, Gotham by Gaslight and The Golden Age are all good. (Some are probably clamoring for Superman: Red Son, but I’m not a huge fan of that one.) However, the best Elseworlds that DC ever published has to be Justice Riders.

Written by Chuck Dixon with art by J.H. Williams III, Justice Riders re-imagines the Justice League as cowboys. While the high-concept is good, it would have been easy to just crank out a passable but forgettable story with little effort. Nevertheless, Dixon wrote a western that if stripped of its Superhero trappings would still be compelling, if overly supernatural, tale.

It may come as a disappointment to some that the Justice League in Justice Riders does not feature Superman or Batman. There is a simple reason for this: in the 90’s they were most often not part of the Justice League. The exception being Grant Morrison’s spectacular run on the title that started the same year that this comic was released. No, the League used for Riders is most of the rest of DC’s big 7¾besides Superman and Batman, the big 7 includes Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter¾plus some favorites from the very popular, and also spectacular, Justice League International. The star of this book is Wonder Woman, re-imagined here as Sheriff Diana Prince.

After leaving her town, Paradise, to catch some horse thieves, she returns to find it destroyed. With the dying words of her faithful deputy, Oberon Sheriff Prince vows revenge on the people who destroyed her town. So she goes recruiting. The first gunslinger to joiner is Kid Flash, the fastest gun in the west.

Young Wally West, who still has his super speed, quickly agrees to join Diana, though he does question her recruiting a man with his reputation. She also turns down Booster Gold, a gambler who looks exactly like Bret Maverick, preferring to decide for herself who joins her posse.

Her next target is Katar Johnson, a Native American who joins no questions asked. All he needs is his gear, which includes hawk wings, a loincloth and a shotgun. Honestly, Native American Hawkman may be the best Hawkman.

Meanwhile, still wanting to help, Booster enlists the eccentric Beetle to give him an edge over the speedy Flash. The possibly insane Beetle has just what he’s looking for.

We also get our first look at the villains, of this tale, the murderous railroad kingpin Maxwell Lord, the otherworldly Faust and their army of killer robots.

So perhaps I oversold how true of a western this is. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Justice Riders is a comic where the Cowboy Justice League fights an army of killer robots. All beautifully drawn by the great J.H. Williams III. It is terrific. I simply can’t emphasize enough how great the art is, as the included pictures should attest.

There aren’t many true surprises in this book, and there doesn’t need to be. Aside from the plethora of supernatural and science fiction elements, Justice Riders is a straightforward revenge western. Sheriff Prince and her group, who eventually number 7, chase Max Lord across the Southwest before the final showdown in Helldorado. There are several sumptuously drawn gunfights, and some inspired appropriations of Superhero concepts into the western framework.

There is one more wrench thrown in, one that is what puts it over the top. Kid Flash is wanted for murder in Texas and there in only one man who can track him down. The incomparable Kid Baltimore, the bowler wearing Pinkerton Detective Guy Gardner. As is always true, Guy Gardner is awesome. And his appearance in this book is just a glorious cherry on this delicious, western sundae.

It shouldn’t be hard to track a copy of Justice Riders down; I highly recommend you do so. You can get it for about $10 on Amazon. I found it for less than 5 at a local comic shop. It is bound like a paperback, so it will sit perfectly on a bookshelf. Really, go get it.

Significantly Delayed by the 4th Sunday Comic Book Review

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The week of the 4th of July has really messed up my ability to get together posts for my fledgling blog, but this week I plan to review at least one more season 1 episode if Futurama and the new episode, with a mention of last week’s new ep.  Also at least one more installment of 25 Years of NES and one movie review.  There are many other things near completion that I hope to get out, but we’ll see.  On the the comics.  It was a big week for me buying comics and all in all a good one.
Flash 3:

Written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Francis Manapul and Scott Kolins.
The new Barry Allen Flash series continues to be one of the best books coming out.  This issue continues the Flash’s struggles with the Renegades, doppelgangers of Flash’s Rogues from the future, and with the resurrected, original Captain Boomerang as he escapes from prison.  The art is distinct.   I do not possess the vocabulary or knowledge to accurately describe it, but I do know that it is unlike most other comics.  Johns is also doing a good job of setting up Barry and Iris Allen.  I would agree with the complainers that so far there is no reason the series could not have starred Wally West, but it doesn’t.  There have been 20 years of Wally stories, if the man who writes the best of them wants to write some great Barry stories more power to him.  And these have been 3 really good issues.  Barry is a hero through and through.  Instead of focusing on all of the implications that paint him as a murderer, he is helping someone else who has possibly been wrongly imprisoned.  Iris is helpful and equally busy.  Yes, so far, Barry has acted like Superman, but since DC has Superman doing other stuff, maybe Barry can become the moral center of their universe.
Green Lantern 55:

Written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Doug Mahnke.
It’s big, loud, dumb and almost perfect.  Hal, Carol, Sinestro and Atrocitus fight with Lobo.  The leaders of four of the seven color corps throw power ring constructs all over the place in an over the top fight with one of superhero comic’s most over the top characters.  Lobo is a character, much like Marvel’s Deadpool, that is great in small doses but is easily over used.  His one issue appearance here is definitely a good thing.   Mahnke’s art is as over the top as the story.  This issue is just pure fun.  And the ending with the origin of Dex-Starr is both silly and somewhat touching.  While I was not a huge fan of Blackest Night, the Green Lantern book has come out of it still being great.
Justice Society of America 40:
written by Bill Willingham and drawn Jesus Merino.
This is the rather lackluster end to what has been a pretty good alternate reality story.  Obsidian returns and the JSA beats the bad guys.  I really do not know what to make of this issue.  It seems like it is either the last couple of pages of epilogue from the previous story extended to a full issue or 3 issues condensed down to one because after this James Robinson is taking over for three issues for a JLA/JSA crossover and Willingham could not set up the next story or fully finish this one.  So what is here is a few fun moments and lost of Obsidian monologue telling the reader what happened.  Everyone knows how this was going to end, so the least I expected was to be shown it in an interesting way, not having is flatly recited to me.  Not a good issue.  I’m growing increasing shaky on what is my favorite superhero team, especially since most of the interesting characters, Power Girl, Star Girl, Liberty Bell, Hourman, are going or gone.
Justice League of America 46:
written by James Robinson and drawn by Mark Bagley.
Robinson’s JLA/JSA team-up ramps up.  The story itself is actually pretty good.  The Starheart, a chuck of which is the source of Green Lantern‘s (Alan Scott) powers and through him powers his children Jade and Obsidian, is on Earth and driving many super powered individuals crazy.  It is an interesting start to the team up and a good way to involve both teams.  But his dialogue is terrible.  Jesse Quick, up until recently known as Liberty Bell, only thinks of her dad.  All the time.  Donna Troy rambles idiotically in what I believe is supposed to be funny dialogue.  Mr. Terrific talks down to Power Girl and she takes it.  Any of the instances could be forgotten, but they pile up enough to leave a bad taste in the reader’s mouth.  I’m sticking with this title through the team up out of love for the JSA, my interest in the line-up Robinson has for the JLA and my previous enjoyment of Robinson’s writing in Starman and JSA.  After that, I may drop both Justice team titles.
Thor 611:
written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Rich Elson.
This is my attempt to get back in to Marvel after a series of terrible events, culminating in the horrendous Dark Reign, thoroughly destroyed most of my interest in the line.  But the “Heroic Age” sounds good, so I’ll look.  And seeing how Thor is the best Marvel hero, I started here.  Not bad.  The Asgardians mourn Loki; they question the leadership of Balder and the Desir plot to destroy the dead Asgardians.  I do know of the bulk of the events from Siege even though I did not read it and I read most of JMS run on the title, so I’m not completely lost.  This issue is not great, but it is pretty good.  If the next issue pays off the set up in this one I’ll be happy, but this is not getting me too excited.
Wonder Woman 600:
So to cap off the month we get Wonder Woman’s big anniversary issue to go along with Superman’s and Batman’s.  It is also the start of Straszynski’s run on the title.  The first story is written by outgoing writer Gail Simone and drawn by the person responsible for Wonder Woman when she was the best George Perez.  It starts with a team up of numerous super heroines to defeat the “Cyber-Sirens.”  It shows how all of them look up to her and how Wonder Woman is the greatest.  Then she skips out on the President to attend Vanessa Kapatellis’ graduation.  I really liked this story.  Perez is one of the best artists in the business and Gail Simone has few misses on her record.  I can’t help but see the end of this as a bit of delayed backlash against the writers who came after Perez (Messner-Loebs and Byrne used other characters, Jimenez destroyed them) that ignored the great supporting cast he set up.  To see Vanessa recovered from the indignities put upon her in bad stories that made both her and Wonder Woman look bad feels great to those who read and loved Perez’s WW.  The next story is written and drawn by Amanda Conner and is the best thing in any book this month.  Power Girl, (I love me some Power Girl, especially drawn by Amanda Conner) Wonder Woman, and Batgirl beat-up Egg-fu (basically super villain Humpty Dumpty) then PG and WW go to PG’s place so WW can tell her what’s bothering her cat.  It’s cute, funny and gives me hope for more WW PG team ups.  Next is Louise Simonson and Eduardo Pansica’s story where Superman and Wonder Woman team up to take down a terrorist who stole Zeus’s lightning.  It’s adequate.  I had to reread it even after taking some review notes to really remember it.  It is followed by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins’s pointless lead-in to JMS’s story.  This was the most disappointing story because I really wanted to see Johns write Diana.  No writer is better at distilling why a character is cool into one sentence that can be used for years worth of stories.  Sure, his takes are often simplistic, but they lay great groundwork for other he and other writers to build on.  When he’s used Wonder Woman, it was generally in stories that were not about her and she did not feel right.  There was not enough to this story to even get that feeling.  Though the panel of young Diana staring out to sea wanting to see what else was out there was great.  Also in the issue were some great pin-ups by Adam Hughes, Francis Manapul and Phil Jimenez and one truly horrible one by Jock.
Then there is JMS’s highly anticipated debut.  I don’t like it.  The story could have potential.  It is going to end with the majority of her history restored to normal, maybe all of it, but the how could be intriguing.  The marketing is turning me off, as is the new costume.  WW old costume was just as messed up as Superman’s and Batman’s.  They are Superheroes; they are inherently ridiculous.  That is the fun of the stories.  And WW wears a patriotic one-piece bathing suit.  She looked like some sort of magical hooker.  DC decided to change this by making her look like an actual hooker.  They did not take out the suggestive part, they took out the magic that makes it okay.  And it’s not like this an original story.  Writers since Perez, except Simone, have destroyed Themyscira and the Amazons, only to return them with their version.  I see no reason to believe that this will be different of better.