COVERGIRL: I’m a sucker for a simple cover, and this one fits the bill. Diana has, presumably, looked upon the face of Medusa and turned to stone. Or the artist is riffing on her clay creation myth, shattered at the end of last issue when Strife claimed Diana as a sister. Or Diana the goddess is about to be revealed as a mere human; the clay idol is shattered. Or Paradise Island is a nest of vipers. Or Diana is made of red licorice and the adders have an insatiable sweet tooth.

Getting carried away with the Ors.

Enough.

INSIDE STORY: Strife tells the truth: Hippolyta admits to a fling with Zeus, with Diana the sole souvenir. As Diana berates her mother, the other Amazons mourn their dead, the many who perished when Strife turned them against one another and who are now ceremoniously stacked on funeral pyres.

While most simply grieve, one angry cohort blames Diana, who storms in, burns all her dead sisters, knocks down a bunch of trees, announces she’s leaving, demands no one ever call her Diana again, and proclaims herself Wonder Woman.

RAMBLE: The Zeus-Hippolyta love scene was too cheesy for my taste, mostly due to Hippolyta’s extravagant word choices: “We were glorious. Strength supporting strength. Sinews entwined. Absolute control … given up.”

Days of our Olympian Lives. Or maybe All My Illegitimate Children.

However, Hippolyta is a goddess, and goddesses are allowed to embrace the grandiose in a way we mortals are not. And they are forgiven for their seeming lack of humor. Because if we don’t forgive them, they will smite us.

Otherwise, another comic book victory. All superheroes have estranged or dead relatives in their past; here, Diana is the one rejecting her mother, by choice. Neither criminal (Batman), terrorist (Batwoman), nor planetary explosion (Supergirl) has robbed Diana of her family; she is choosing to be alone. She is leaving Diana on Paradise Island and declaring herself a new person: “I am Wonder Woman.”