COVERGIRL: Forget finding a superhero to read; I want to BE Wonder Woman. To risk sounding too Christian Siriano, Diana is fierce. Hera is bonkers mad and wearing some sort of stunning, PETA-taunting peacock cloak and her eyes are glaring batshit-crazy red and she has a huge motherf*&%er of a knife and Wonder Woman is ROARING.
Bring it ON, crazy bird lady. Lemme hear you squawk.
Actually that’s what I would say faced with a pissed-off goddess with a big, bloody knife. In response, Hera might well die laughing.
Wonder Woman doesn’t need words. Just … ROAR.
INSIDE STORY: Wonder Woman lets her superguard down and sways with the crowd at a London club. Hermes doesn’t get it; Zola explains she just wants to feel part of a community for a moment. Zola turns out to understand a lot about Wonder Woman: the absent dad, the disappointing mom.
But Zola’s mom is dead, and Zola wishes she hadn’t been so hard on her. Wonder Woman realizes she needs her own mom, and rushes home to discover her Amazons turned to snakes and her mother, to stone.
Also, before leaving for Paradise Island, she smashes a broken champagne glass into Strife’s hand. Which Strife totally deserves.
Meanwhile, Apollo – the buff, oil-slicked dude from issue 1 - arrives in Darfur to chat with his weary, blood-spattered brother War. Apollo tells his brother the Weird Sisters told him that somehow Zeus, their dad, has yet to be born. In his absence, Apollo wants the crown. War says he could care less, but notes that war always rules the day.
RAMBLE: Not sure why Strife is following Diana around. Perhaps because she wants to keep an eye on her newest sibling, still gestating in Zola’s ridiculously flat belly; or perhaps because the baldy wants some of whatever Diana’s having that makes her hair so ridiculously luxuriant. The skull-stubble suits Strife, but she’s the jealous type.
Hippolyta’s fate, to be ever-frozen gaping in horror, serves to break Diana’s similarly stony countenance; when she sees her mother’s stone-cold face, she crumbles.
Touching moment and a suitable ending for this issue, but Azzarello and Chiang refuse to go for the easy close. Instead: the Darfur bit with War and Appollo. I loved the contrast between the brothers; one dark and slick with golden, glowing, mesmerizing eyes; the other old and grey, with flat, black, dead eyes.
Once I catch up, I’m diving into Greek mythology to re-acquaint myself with classical versions of these two and their clan; for now, I’m much satisfied with this iteration.