Comic Log: Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka
I read a few different Wonder Woman runs of the early 2000s, and none of them particularly landed for me before Rucka came on board. They all felt like they were being purely imitative of George Perez's classic time on the title, as the compassionate warrior in an alien world, without meaningfully adding to what he'd developed.
Not so with Rucka! Rucka manages to toe the line between innovating and honoring, by having a strong concept, consistent and progressive characterization, and compelling emotional and thematic stakes.
The concept here is Diana is running the Themysciran embassy to the US, which introduces a charming staff as her supporting cast, and establishes a tension between her roles as hero, Amazon, and diplomat. It also gives her so much more room to breathe as a character - she has substantive relationships with her embassy staff (who are generally charming if a little underbaked), but unlike Perez's imitators she no longer feels primarily like an outsider trying to adapt to a new world. She's a lot more down-to-earth. Which makes sense - she's been here for years at this point! This setup reminds me a bit of Dan Slott's She-Hulk - office hijinks with a colorful supporting cast - but less pointed towards comedy and more towards political drama with some light comedy. I think that's a good genre meld for Wonder Woman, and a unique direction to take the character beyond mythology punch-ups.
Meanwhile, the overarching thread of the narrative centers on a new antagonist, Veronica Cale, who is basically Lex Luthor if he read Sheryl Sandberg. Cale is a pretty interesting if detestable character whose hatred of Wonder Woman springs from a sense of envy and desert, and a cold willingness to treat other people as purely means to an end: allying herself with the detestable rapist Dr. Psycho, upgrading Silver Swan with brutal cybernetics that will kill her, tossing her friend and partner Leslie aside after being caught for that last one. She makes a pretty strong foil to Diana. She's my favorite new addition to the cast aside from Ferdinand the minotaur chef, but unfortunately, she drops out of the narrative a touch awkwardly. More on that later.
As all this is going on, mythological conspiracies are playing out behind the character's backs, including the resurrection of Medusa, and Athena and Ares (now in kind of goofy, contemporary dress) jockeying for power against Zeus on Olympus. I liked how this created parallel politicking between the mortal and immortal worlds. @radiofreederry pointed out to me when she read this run that it was within a wave of sort of "hip," millennial takes on Greek mythology in the early 2000s - American Gods came out two years prior, and The Lightning Thief would be released while the run was ongoing. I like, conceptually and textually, what's done with that idea here - it's just that the designs are a little silly. Athena playing chess with her owl is really funny, though.
Aside from that nitpick, I quite enjoyed the artwork of Drew Johnson in the run's first half. Johnson's layouts are generally utilitarian, rarely going for huge splash pages or especially complex or creative paneling, but this dovetails nicely with the more dialogue-driven writing relative to other superhero books of the time. His designs and artistic tics remind me a little of Mike Wieringo in their cartoony qualities, though where Wieringo's characters were often very rounded, Johnson's are a bit sharper and leaner (see below). It's later taken over by Rags Morales and a couple other alternating artists; I don't like any of them on the book quite as much as Johnson, but they're all fine.
Unfortunately the story goes a little off the rails at around the two-thirds point to make way for the Infinite Crisis event (sigh). Not disastrously so, as there remains some sense of cohesion compared to how so many other comics lose their way as they wind down or feel the hammer of the dreaded crossover event. But it definitely feels more constrained, as we pivot from Diana navigating the thorny political situation around Themyscira/US relations - juggling the manipulation and antagonism from Cale, different factions of the Olympian gods, Circe, and the obligations of her relationships with her support staff - to Diana as representative of her people after she executes Maxwell Lord. Some of this stuff is a little played out, but Rucka manages to at least justify its more cliche moments - noting that it's not about whether she did the right thing but rather the perception of the act - "optics" has kind of been a major theme of the work, the ways in which the powerful will try to sink Diana's mission of compassion, and so although the Infinite Crisis elements are crowbarred in, they still *fit*. Just stiffly.
The book wobbles a bit here, and certain elements like Cale, or the arcs of the supporting staff, don't get resolved in an entirely satisfactory way - if at all. But, as far as Diana's character arc goes, I think the book still recovers some of its footing in those last few issues. It's unfortunate that it got cut short by editorial nonsense for an exhaustingly bad event, but at least it doesn't totally lose its way.
Favorite Arc/Issue: Sort of a toss-up for me between "Down to Earth," which sees Diana releasing her book and then having to navigate the conservative backlash engineered by Cale (which is shockingly pointed for a 2000s-era cape comic, honestly), and "Stoned," which sees Medusa unleashed on the White House.
I'm hoping to read Rucka's "Rebirth" era Wonder Woman as well, see how that stands up in comparison!
