Future State: Wonder Woman (comics)

Writers: Becky Cloonan, Joelle Jones, Dan Watters, L.L. McKinney

Artists: Jen Bartel, Joelle Jones, Alitha Martinez, Mark Morales, Leila Del Duca

Collects: Future State: Wonder Woman #1-2, Future State: Immortal Wonder Woman #1-2, Future State: Superman/Wonder Woman #1-2

I suppose it had to happen at some point. Didn't I say with Futures End I like alternate future stories? Today is my first foray into Future State, which was a two month "event" of sorts where the main line went on hiatus and were replaced with special two issue miniseries set in an alternate future. 

That's what it ended up being, at any rate. Originally, the idea was for this to just be the future of the DC Universe. Called 5G, it was essentially meant to move the DC Universe to the next generation by skipping five years, introducing new characters and letting some characters we knew take on familiar mantles. Bleeding Cool leaked a ton of information on it when it was still meant to be where DC Comics happened to be going. Ultimately, the idea of making it the new present of the DC Universe was scrapped, probably because it was a bridge too far, and the company ended up firing the long time editor in chief who spearheaded the move, Dan DiDio.

Credit given where credit is due, it was an incredibly ballsy idea. Dan DiDios time running DC was filled with moments like that for better or worse. Some worked out, some didn't. In my personal opinion, it's likely for the best this got canned. Merging the New 52, itself a ballsy initiative back when it happened, with the old pre-Flashpoint universe breathed a lot of new life into the line with the Rebirth initiative and there was no need to blow the whole thing up again with some radical change that shifted a bunch of characters around and forcibly changed the guard. Now, three years removed at the time of writing, a ton of books have had absolutely stellar runs in the continuing universe, proving it just wasn't necessary, and DC just announced an alternate line akin to Marvels Ultimate Universe, called the Absolute Universe, which will act as a fresh slate and new take.

But Future State was born from the ashes of 5G and I think it's worthwhile to look at them as their own books and ideas. Get a feel for what 5G might have been and see what might have been worth keeping. This volume collects everything on the Wonder Woman end of Future State with the idea seemingly that there were three Wonder Women, each with different mission statements.

The book starts by presenting the chapters involving Nubia, one of the new Wonder Women and the one who seems to still be active in the United States. Nubia is a character that's been around a long time, long enough I'd heard of her despite not being a Wonder Woman mark, but I'll be damned if I can remember much of anything that she's ever done before this. This seemed to do a lot for her, though; despite 5G's cancellation, Nubia's taken on a bit more spotlight in the years since, to the point she leads Themyscira now.

It's some meat and potatoes comics, probably the most familiar feeling sort of story in the book and it has its place as such. Grail, daughter of Darkseid, is gathering some artifacts for an unknown reason, and Nubis has to stop her. She looks to her family for help gathering artifacts, then ends up in another scrap with Grail that has Circe involved. A couple mysteries are teased that may or may not ever appear again in the main timeline, but it ends fairly tidily. Nothing super spectacular, nothing bad, I could see the character maybe holding something down for a bit, a miniseries at least if not an ongoing.

Diana Prince, Wonder Woman Classic, has something a bit more abstract, interesting and thematic. She's who the title Immortal Wonder Woman is referring to, now among the pantheon of gods, and her story takes place way past anything else in the entirety of Future State. In it, we're at the last moments of the universe, thousands of years into the future, as something called The Undoing is swallowing the stars and leaving emptiness in its wake. Earth is gone, what's left quickly follows and Diana is left alone struggling to hold on to hope and find some measure of life left, some reason to keep on fighting.

It's heavy stuff, with plenty of emotional moments. Everything is dying and even the amazons of Themyscira, mired in their ways, would rather fight and die rather than try and rebuild on some new planet in the universe. Swamp Thing is dying, itself the last hope if reviving something of life. Darkseid is in full nihilist mode, accepting the end coming and returning to Earth just hoping to find some challenge left worth fighting. Diana watches everything fall apart, wearing reminders of the people she loved, and has to find a reason to hope the universe can be saved.

The opening sequence is one of the most effective, as she returns to the long abandoned, decrepit, tomb quiet Batcave long, long after Batman is gone. She's looking for a memento of Bruce, something to take with her, and ends up conversing with what seems to be his spirit. She mourns him and obviously misses him, but he simply reminds her of who she is and what she meant to everyone. She was a light of hope. Batman and Wonder Woman have a great friendship, on rare occasion teased as something more, and the sequence leans into their connection as friends, comrades in arms and people who would trust the other with their lives. Of the many items she carries, Batmans utility belt is the one we directly see her acquire and gives us the mission statement of Immortal Wonder Woman.

She's hope. In the end, hope can save the universe, or at least leave it born anew. Two incredibly somber issues that end with her light shining. It's about as perfect a summation of the character as you could ask for.

Our last leading lady is probably the most interesting and, being a new character, has the most page space between her own two issue mini and the one she shares with Jon Kent, Superman in Future State. Yara Flor is immediately differentiated from the other two. Pigheaded but noble. Quick to lose herself in anger but not cruel. Enjoys the fight but not battle crazed. Mischievous but loyal enough to risk her very soul to dive into hell itself to attempt to rescue a departed sister Amazon. She seems to lean more into a modern fantasy sort of story. All in all, she makes a strong first impression, bouyed by some fantastic art, and I was immediately taken with the character. She has a nice friendship with Jon, too, being the voice of reason to his overworking himself. Even the place she seems to live, in the Amazon, gives her an interesting local of her own.

Unfortunately, it feels like she suffered the most for 5G being cancelled. Following this, she got a seven issue miniseries positioning her as DC's new Wonder Girl, but aside from appearing occasionally in Wonder Womans solo book she hasn't had any major spotlight that I've seen since a role in Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. I'm not entirely sure why, but DC would do well to get on some kind of ongoing place for her adventures, because she's pretty great in what little I've seen of her so far.

Yara and Diana got the best of the art duties in this. Joelle Jones pulls double duty with Yara and she draws the hell out of everything Yara goes through to save her amazonian sister, from jungle dangers to Cerberus to the ferryman at the River Styx. I'll be reading the Wonder Girl miniseries to get more of the character and this art. Diana, meanwhile, has Jen Bartel on art. Shout out to the coloring here. The linework is clean and expressive, but the coloring does so much for setting mood, from the cold, dead, forgotten Batcave to the bright colors of Themyscira, reflected nowhere else in the world, to the glittering stars in the lonely void. It sets a hell of a mood. Plus, I love it when space is depicted with  gentle hues of color, rather than a simple void. Top shelf all around.

This is obviously only one piece of the overall Future State event. Is it an event? I guess it qualifies. It feels more akin to something like Age of Apocalypse, which did the "replace the ongoings for a couple months" trick too. Regardless of what you call it, this volume only handles the amazonian end of things, so the jury is out on anything else. But what is here is, I think, worth at least reading, if only for the first appearance of Yara Flor. Who knows, your local library might have it if you don't feel like dropping some cash.

Wonder Woman: The Lies (comics)

Writer: Greg Rucka
Artist: Liam Sharp
Collects: Wonder Woman: Rebirth, Wonder Woman (2016) #1, #3, #5, #7, #9, #11

I might as well start by admitting something straight up; I've never liked Wonder Woman. I've always liked the idea of her, what she represents, but as a character, I can't think of a time she's ever done anything for me. Unlike most of her counterparts, she doesn't have a particularly spectacular roster of villains, she doesn't offer any unique settings that I find appealing or anything as a character that I found particularly interesting. The strength of Wonder Woman at times seems to be what she represents as opposed to any of her trappings. Wonder Woman has always been the icon, the most famous female superhero in the world, but I've always preferred the others, the Black Canary, the Huntress and even the Zatannas of the world.

I mean, unless we're talking about Kate Beatons grumpy, chain smoking take on the character. I'd read the hell out of a book about her.

Rebirth seemed like the perfect time to give her one more honest shot. The entire line has seen glowing reviews and the five or six I've tried a couple issues of through Comixology sales have lived up to the press. Not to mention, while I have no attachment to Wonder Woman, I do like Greg Ruckas work, even if a project or two left me cold. It's good, very good, but I'm not sure the direction they went with, or the implications, were the best place to start.

Why? Our new, Rebirth era Wonder Woman book deals almost entirely with her past. The big question of the volume regards her history and how much of it may or may not be true; the titular Lies from which this collection takes its name. Wonder Woman sets off in this volume in search of answers and Themyscira, because she senses something is off about it. Along the way, she drops in to deal with a cult in Africa rooted in some serious, old school misogyny, looking for the help of Cheetah, who may or may not have a new origin*.

Right away, this stokes a fear I had about Rebirth, mainly that this relaunch, meant to merge the New 52 with things from the old universe everyone knew and loved better, will be so concerned with the continuity of it and making sense of everything that it might be a turn-off. I've read comics for years, but don't know squat about Wonder Woman. The question of her continuity doesn't really grab me much. I can't imagine this approach would hold much appeal for anyone else like me, or someone who wanders in just looking for an accessible Wonder Woman story. This would have been fine if it were condensed into a Rebirth special, but it looks like the question of it is what is going to drive the entire run. Look, I've been a fan of Teen Titans for a long time, and I can tell you the whole "Who is Insert Character" schtick hasn't worked out well for her younger counterpart.

I've read enough Rebirth specials and first issues from the line to know that this, thankfully, is not the norm, but it kind of sucks that the one I probably needed to be the most accessible ended up so concerned with resetting the table and swiping at the New 52 era title**. I do wonder if it would have read better were the book collected in publication order rather than by arc. You may or may not have noticed the "collected" section had all the odd numbered issues. That's not a mistake. The book alternated issues with a classic Year One arc for the character, something long overdue. Personally, I think the book should have opened with that in itself, then gone on to new things, reconciling any continuity with the New 52 elsewhere, maybe a miniseries, but I also don't write comics, so hey.

Those misgivings aside, this is a good, well written book, as I'd expected it would be, and problems aside it did draw me in, whether in spite of that or not. Diana herself is exactly what you would want or expect the character to be. Her compassion and love for others is endearing. There's a moment where she's shopping with old friends for clothes and a bunch of fans show up, having been alerted to her presence through social media. She doesn't shy away from it, or treat it as much of a burden. In fact, she leaves the shop to greet the throng, not because she has to, not because it's some burden she has to deal with, but because, as another person remarks, she knows what it means to those people. That's awesome. That's likable. That's also so reminiscent of the way DC heroes used to be, the way they should be, that it's kind of hopeful in itself.

It's well drawn as well. I'm not familiar with Liam Sharpe, but they impressed me here. The linework has plenty of detail and the page composition is occasionally done in eye catching, interesting ways. One sequence in an early issue, when Cheetah goes almost feral and tears into attackers, frames panels of Wonder Woman reasoning her with gutters that have suddenly gone from black to a stark white. Over the course of several pages, the composition starts to make the panels line up, until one page before Wonder Woman breaks through resembles the bars of a cage that might trap an animal. On the page where Wonder Woman appeals to Cheetah and promises to free her from her curse, the gutters break down with jagged edges, as though the cage has been busted. I'm not sure it was intentional - the white gutters do appear in another place in the arc without the seeming pattern, so it's likely a happy coincidence I'm looking way too much into - but it works regardless. Other standouts include a similar page, where between the bars of a wooden cage are panels depicting soldiers planning an escape, then Wonder Woman appearing before them. Yet another has the vegetation of the surroundings act as the gutters.

Top shelf work all around.

The next trade is, as mentioned, a proper Year One arc, which ran in the even numbered issues opposite "The Lies". I'm a bit more interested in this one. But even with my misgivings, Wonder Woman's new Rebirth series is a fine read, good enough that I'll be continuing with it. That feels like a big win in itself.

My Opinion: Read It

* I genuinely have no idea if Cheetahs origin in this volume is all new or a holdover from a prior era. It doesn't resemble any I've ever heard mention of. This might just be my inexperience with Wonder Woman coming into play.

** I remember it had a lot of purists up in arms about how it depicted Wonder Womans lore and mythology, with the amazons in particular being a sticking point. I can understand that. I get the impression Greg Rucka feels the same, because the lies the book is centered around involve the New 52 history almost entirely. I never did get around to reading it, so I don't have much attachment to it - though the creative team enticed me and I'd meant to try it - but there's something a little... off-putting, I guess, about how directly this book seems to want to address and refute it. It's hard to explain. I don't want to say it feels petty, because I don't think that's the right word for it, but I'm not sure what you would call it.