So far, it's Wonderful - DC's New 52 Review #10: "Wonder Woman"

She's the most famous female comic book hero of all-time, but she's never been given the high-quality treatment needed to carry her own book title, and so Wonder Woman has been best portrayed in comics as a member of the Justice League. So of all of DC's new line of comic reboots, it would seem like our favorite heroine from the Amazon was the classic character most in need of a fresh and compelling start.

Don't look now, but I think they've figured it out. With an engaging story by Brian Azzarello and some of the most unique art in the DC Universe courtesy of Cliff Chiang, "Wonder Woman" is as meaty of a title as any in the New 52.

Somewhere in Virginia, a young woman named Zola is being hunted. She doesn't know this yet until a strange, bluish alien man shows up to tell her that she's in danger. Two centaurs appear and send a spear right through the man's stomach, but he manages to throw Zola a key that teleports her to the London bedroom of Diana. Yes, Wonder Woman. When the two hold the key together, they return back to Zola's farm, where Diana discovers that the seriously-wounded man is Hermes. He wants Diana to protect Zola and tells them both that she is pregnant with Zeus' child.

On Mount Olympus, Hera is fully aware of the fact that Zeus has sent Hermes to protect the woman carrying his latest child. Diana learns this after taking Zola and the injured Hermes to Paradise Island, where she meets up with her mother, Queen Hippolyta, who shares the news. Meanwhile, Hermes tells Zola the story of how Hippolyta could not conceive a child and fashioned one out of clay on a moonless night, praying to the gods for a miracle and waking to find a live baby, Diana, the "perfect Amazon" because "no male seed created her."

Strife, one of Zeus' daughters, arrives at Paradise Island and taunts the Amazons. She tells Diana that they are sisters and that Zeus is, in fact, her father. Hippolyta regretfully confirms the news that Diana was not made from clay and swears that the story was designed to protect her from Hera's wrath, but Diana is inconsolable; her life has been a lie. Diana tells the Amazons that "Diana" is dead and she is now "Wonder Woman."

Hera arrives to seek revenge against Hippolyta but ultimately spares her when Hippolyta begs for her forgiveness. Or at least that's what the reader thinks until Diana returns to Paradise Island to discover that the embrace between Hera and Hippolyta was not one of forgiveness, but instead, one of condemnation; Hippolyta has been turned to stone.

Guest artist Tony Akins takes over for Chiang for issues #5 and #6, and the art, while still crisp, is noticeably more traditional and, therefore, not as striking as in the previous issues. Issue #5 introduces a mysterious man who calls himself Lennox and knows a lot about Wonder Woman, as well as Poseidon, with whom Wonder Woman spars. While Wonder Woman deals with Poseidon, Lennox is talking to Hades. After another confrontation with Hera, Hades snatches Zola and tells Wonder Woman that if she does not keep up her end of the bargain, Zeus' bloodline will end with her.

Wonder Woman and Hermes find Eros in Italy. Eros takes them to Hephaestus, where Wonder Woman gets the next big shock of her life as she is introduced to all of the male children of Amazons, rescued by Hephaestus in exchange for weapons he's created. Wonder Woman attempts to rally the men, her brothers, to help her in her fight, and is distraught when she learns that they want no part of it, or her.

Hephaestus gives Wonder Woman access to his arsenal of armor and weapons to prepare her for her march into Hell. Hermes delivers her there, along with Eros' golden guns. Wonder Woman finds Zola but Hades refuses to release her unless she delivers Hera to him to be his wife. But then, Hades notices that Wonder Woman is carrying the pistols of Eros and decides that he will release Zola for those instead. Wonder Woman agrees, and is promptly shot, her bullet-proof bracelets unable to stop a bullet from Eros' gun. Hades announces that he will marry Diana instead. He insists that Diana be bound by her truth lasso during the ceremony to guarantee that she tells the truth as to whether or not she loves him. But Diana escapes and, before leaving hell, shoots Hades with a bullet from Eros' gun.

That's how the first 10 issues end, but I've also purchased the next two, so I'll push the story a little further forward. Issue #11 returns to the team of Azzarello and Chiang alone, and I have to say that I prefer "Wonder Woman" when the two of them are in control. Sun and Moon, Apollo and Artemis, arrive as Wonder Woman and Hermes take Zola to a doctor's appointment. They take Zola and deliver her to Hera, where Apollo expects Zeus' throne in exchange. Hera acquiesces, but Wonder Woman and Hermes have already arrived to stop them.

As a fight commences in issue #12, Zola's water breaks. And when the baby is born, Hermes steals it and gives it to Demeter. Wonder Woman sets out to find the baby and return it to Zola, propelling this already exciting story further forward into future issues. The story will continue from here after September's origin issue #0.

I have loved Greek mythology ever since I was a kid, and so I've found myself really enjoying "Wonder Woman," a title I admit that I initially began purchasing mostly out of a sense of duty to check out one of the biggest names in the DC Universe at the start of this reboot. I don't recall ever having purchased any Wonder Woman comics before, except for a few special titles here and there, so I don't have much to compare it to, but I'm hearing that this is (so far) one of the stronger tellings of a Wonder Woman story. I would agree that it feels substantial and has kept my interest. I originally wanted to collect the first 10 issues of "Wonder Woman." Now, I actually want to keep reading to see what happens next!

Chiang's art alone makes "Wonder Woman" a title worth looking into. So as the entertainment gods continue to debate whether or not there will ever be a Wonder Woman television show or film franchise, here's some quality Wonder Woman storytelling to tie us over, and maybe even inspire what we'll hopefully one day see on the big screen.

He dies and comes back to life over and over...except for this one time... DC's New 52 Review #9: "Resurrection Man"

Mitch Shelley is an interesting guy. He can sense metal wherever he goes: metal plates in the joints of war veterans, tongue piercings. And he remembers the metal of the surgical tools used to attempt to save his life when he died. "Everything tastes of metal," he says.

But the next thing we know, Mitch isn't dead. He's "borrowing" an ATM card and boarding a plane. While on the plane, he meets an attractive woman who, on a dime, transforms into a winged creature who proclaims that Mitch's "soul is overdue." The ensuing chaos ends in a plane crash, killing everyone, including Mitch...

...who "un-dies" a half hour later. And so begins "Resurrection Man," one of the new titles in the DC Comics New 52 reboot.

I had never heard of Resurrection Man before and so did a little online research about him. The character, it turns out, previously existed but is nonetheless rather new to the DC Universe. He was created in 1997 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Jackson Guice and had a two-year run in print. Abnett and Lanning remain in charge of this, um, newly-resurrected version of the comic, this time along with Fernando Dagnino.

By virtue of his hesitant participation in a botched science experiment (perhaps the reason why his last name is Shelley, a nod to "Frankenstein"), Mitch experiences an odd sort of immortality; he loses much of his memory of what happened prior to each death, and is resurrected from the dead within minutes of dying. He feels all of the pain experienced with each death and is not immune to it. Even more interesting, each resurrection brings with it a new superpower unique to and informed by the situation that last killed him.

In this reboot, Mitch is being tracked down by a group of individuals who appear to share the mark of a red tear in the corner of each one's right eye. Unaware of his being pursued, Mitch visits the nursing home where his dad lived to find that he's died. Suffering from memory loss, Mitch asks the residents for details about his father. Two women who appear to have a history with Mitch show up to "retrieve" him, guns blazing. They "kill" Mitch and upon revival, he is able to take the form of water and put up a fight. He is killed again regardless and momentarily held captive in a sort of purgatory. Once he returns, he is killed  by the women again but then they are confronted by someone calling himself "The Transhuman," the same name that a man in the nursing home had earlier told Mitch was his super-villain name prior to his time there, a piece of information that Mitch would be unable to remember.

The women, identified in issue #4 as Carmen and Bonnie, engage in a gunfight with the Transhuman, but they are all overpowered by the return of the winged woman from the plane, Suriel, who claims to be a "special angel from Heaven" sent to nab Mitch. A confrontation follows that leaves Mitch so bloodied that Suriel is not even sure that he will be able to resurrect again, at least not on Earth. Of course he does, and the fact that he is alive despite the condition of his body, coupled with his confusion over who and where he is, leads medical personnel to admit him to Arkham Asylum, where he begs the guards and workers to kill him so that he can prove that the stories they find to be delusional are, in fact, true. They name him "Deathwish."

Mitch escapes from Arkham and heads for Metropolis, allowing this title to cross over with two of the most famous cities in the DC Universe. While being tracked down in Metropolis, in issue #7, a man named Mr. Untouchable (who is able to surround himself with a red glowing force field) causes the building to set on fire thanks to the presence of a meth lab in it that was being uncovered at that moment by the authorities. In probably the coolest moment for Resurrection Man up to that point, he starts to push aside his confusion and embrace his urges to save innocent people from the building and fight crime, doing most of this as a flame of blue fire. In this segment, he looks awesome.

In issue #8, Mitch is at the Metropolis Library researching clues about his past when he literally runs into a woman named Kim Rebecki who's been hired to track him down. Kim has psychic powers and knows that there's something unique about Mitch. But before they can get into it, a man called The Butcher - who hired her - arrives. "He steals lives to power his magic," Mitch is told. Naturally, he wants Mitch so that he can be eternally and powerfully refueled. After ridding of The Butcher, Kim tells Mitch that he was once the director of a military applications developer called The Lab. But once again, Mitch fails to gain more information before the two are interrupted, this time by the Suicide Squad.

The Suicide Squad plans to disassemble Mitch's again-dead body and transport the pieces separately in the hopes that it will prevent him from reviving, but Carmen and Bonnie show up to stop them. But Mitch resurrects as "living metal" and escapes. Before he finally gets away, though, his hand is cut off and sent to a lab to be studied. Nonetheless, a new hand grows in its place and Mitch can tell that there's something different about it.

In issue #10, Kim and Mitch make discoveries that could link the Transhuman's lab to Mitch's past. But dueling forces led by Suriel and the sarcastically sinister Outcast arrive to claim him, a virtual duel of heaven and hell on Earth for Mitch and his soul. Mitch makes a deal to buy him some time; he'd like one week to find out the truth about who he is and says he will then surrender to one of them.  This sets up a nice cliff-hanger for the end of the first ten issues. But since I've also purchased issues #11 and #12, I'll include them in this review.

The artwork in "Resurrection Man" begins to get more clear (and, more awesome) around issue #9, as Jesus Saiz takes over for Dagnino, and gets even better when Javier Pina joins Saiz with issue #11. Having noticed that Saiz only draws three issues and then, with #12, Pina takes over, I was a little worried about the consistency of the book. Indeed there is a difference, but I would say that they are improvements. 

Issue #12 opens with Resurrection Man flying over Gotham City. He doesn't know how he got back there or how he's able to fly. He only assumes bits and pieces about the lab that might hold the secrets of his past and how he came to be the way he is. But before he gets too far, Batman apprehends him as an escapee from Arkham, and Mitch is soon in the custody of the entire Justice League. This unexpected and thrilling crossover with the main characters from the DC Universe reach an even higher climax with the arrival of Darkseid. But even better than all of that is the end of this issue, which finds Mitch being picked up by a giant robot being operated by a man inside, who reveals himself to be...Mitchell Shelley? Huh? The last page says "Next: Issue #0...where everything is revealed!"

I have really been enjoying "Resurrection Man." I think it's one of the most interesting and engaging titles in the New 52, and it's been fun to follow a new character in a sturdy new title with a great storyline and a mysterious past to reveal. Unfortunately, only as I was researching a bit to write this review of the title did I learn that "Resurrection Man" is among four titles to be cancelled in the second wave of New 52 cancellations. I was lucky the first go-round, and I had not been reading any of the titles cancelled. This time, however, I'm reading half of them, this book and "Justice League International." This is the one that I'm really sad to see go! To say that I'm disappointed is an understatement.

So next month's issue is set to be a #0 origin story issue, which if nothing else might clarify the character of Mitch Shelley in the DC Universe and pave the way for him to show up in other titles sporadically. Still, it's a shame that readers didn't latch on to his own book, a standout favorite for me in the new 52. Here's hoping that at some point, Mitch will be capable of yet one more resurrection.

Not super enough - DC's New 52 Review #8: "Superman"

I think pretty much everybody likes Superman, but I've never loved him. In the comic book world of superheroes, I always thought he had it too easy. Batman is just a mortal. Green Lantern didn't want the task thrown at him and seemed emotionally ill-equipped to handle it. But Superman? He's just super-everything, and for me, that was always a little boring.

Now you can argue that his origins as an intergallactic orphan lend some grit to the Superman saga, and as I've grown older, I've come to appreciate that this is in fact the case, but only up to a point. And when it comes to Superman titles in the New 52, "Action Comics" directly plays on the emotions of how Kal-El came to Earth, whereas "Superman" really does not. And since this is one of the most interesting aspects of Superman, it is also the case that the "Superman" title has not - at least so far - kept my interest as well as the more nuanced "Action Comics" has.

For the first four issues, writer George Perez and artist Jesus Merino take Superman down a bizarre path, and in a manner that I found difficult to engage with. Wearing an updated costume that amounts to mostly minor tweaks when compared to "Action Comics"' more radical denim-and-work-boots makeover, a super-mysterious and slightly distant and unfriendly Superman presides over Metropolis, defending the city first from some sort of invisible enemy, then from a fire element being and finally from an ice element being that appears to have originally taken the form of (or has possessed) one of Clark Kent's co-workers. None of these beings speak an Earth language, but they appear to speak the same language, and it might be the language of Superman's home planet.

The Daily Planet building has been demolished but replaced with a new, Trump-ed up version, and a man named Morgan Edge now controls the company, putting Lois Lane in charge of its television division and thus adding a modern twist to the famous details of the Superman story we learned as kids. 

Superman is blamed for the destruction caused to Metropolis while fighting these enemies, and with each passing issue, his behavior seems less and less like the behavior of Superman that we're used to. People really start to panic after Superman appears to absorb the elements of his enemies and then begins speaking in the same alien language (Krypton?) as them. Before the end of issue #5, Superman is holding a man upside down from atop the Daily Planet and threatening to drop him. And before readers can get angry about this new, abrasive Superman, the issue concludes with what appears to be the real Superman, floating somewhere in space, somehow trapped, finding himself covered in some sort of black, dotted substance.

Meanwhile, Supergirl shows up in Metropolis and rescues the man that "Superman" almost kills. All of issue #6 is essentially a battle between Superman and Supergirl, with Lois and her camera crew led by a Jimmy Olsen who's drawn too look much to young following the brawl to capture footage. Somehow, the real Superman arrives to dispose of his impostor and repair things with Supergirl.

Had I not read further, I think I would have been done with "Superman" by the midway point of its run so far, but as was the case with many of the New 52 titles, a new team picked up with issue #7 with this title as well, generating some noticeable improvements. In fact, issue #7 on feels terribly disjointed from the first half; its story and approach are both very different. Jesus Merino remains on the title, but the book is now being written by Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen.

At the start of #7, an alien being arrives to level Superman, who still has not fully regained the trust of the people of Metropolis. This being turns out to be a soldier for Helspont, a scorned creature with a skull head lit in blue flames seeking Superman to serve him in seeking revenge on those who once imprisoned him. Helspont wants Superman - and any other "metahumans" he cares to enlist - to help him in his quest and, in return, offers Superman control over Earth. Superman, of course, refuses the deal.

Another startling change reveals itself in #7, when we find out that when Clark Kent changes into Superman, the "S" logo on his chest, worn on a t-shirt under his work clothes, now absorbs all of his street clothes and transforms Clark head-to-toe in his Superman gear. This is achieved, we learn in thought bubbles, through something called "Kryptonian biotech."

Helspont is actually a pretty cool villain, as is Anguish, a female character introduced in #9. Superman confronts her when she robs a bank simply to take an old locket and necklace from a safety deposit box. While attempting to engage Anguish in combat, Superman learns that she cannot feel anything, making her difficult to fight. Her back story, it turns out, is that she was severely abused and neglected as a child, leading to her powers of not being able to feel anything. I thought this was a cool origin story for a character. Issues #9 and #10 were probably the best of the first 11.

There are more things I don't like about this "Superman" than things that I do. The artwork looks great, and I really enjoyed it. But in terms of the writing, so much of the narrative is being told in Superman's thoughts as opposed to through actual dialogue or, even better, simple action and the illustration of it. This Superman is too chatty with the interior monologue, boxes and boxes of it. And since the opening half dozen issues present us with a Superman who might not have actually been the real Superman, it's been hard to connect with the character. Add in the fact that the title is nearing the dozen mark in issues and hasn't really dealt much with the historical elements of the Superman mythos, save for a few cryptic connections to Krypton that haven't panned out yet.

One final trait of "Superman" that I find irksome is that the writing team connects this title to so many others, from "Superboy" to "Action Comics" to "Supergirl." If I was reading all of those titles, that would probably be a good thing, and I guess it's cool that the writers work hard to make these connections and link up this family of characters in the DC Universe. (See my review of "Action Comics" for more on where that Superman fits in with this one in the grand scheme of things.) But I am not reading all of those titles and don't plan to, and thus find myself irritated with the frequent use of footnotes and reminders to issues and titles I haven't read. In this way, "Action Comics" feels more self-sustaining, and thus is easier to read.

I feel a bit guilty that I haven't really latched on to a Superman title, but if I had to pick one, "Action Comics" might edge out "Superman," though slightly. I think my verdict on both, however, is to discontinue monthly purchases of individual issues and wait to see if a story arc evolves in either title that is robust enough to spark my interest, in which case I could get caught up again through the purchase of trades. Until then, I suspect my monthly dose of Superman will come in the form of "Justice League."