Wonder Woman #2 - A Review

It has been an open but dirty secret of mine for years that I consider Greg Rucka to be highly overrated as a writer. Maybe I never worked past my assessment of his work on various Batman titles, but I've found all of his heroines to be the same one-note generic strong female protagonist. And I'll be damned if I can understand why his past run on Wonder Woman is so beloved compared to the likes of Gail Simone or Phil Jiminez.

So why am I reading this book? Purely because Nicola Scott is one of my favorite artists. It is for that reason and that reason alone that I threw down my 24 bits to pick up Wonder Woman #2. I wanted to see if an artist I love could make a writer I detest tolerable.


Alas, much as one cannot improve the smell of a cow pie by painting it, neither can Nicola Scott save such a lackluster and uninspired story. Rucka continues to plod along, retelling the tale of how Steve Trevor came to Themyscira without a single deviation from the classic text nor any innovation save the idea that Diana had at least one lesbian relationship before discovering boys and the idea that even life in a Utopian society will not stop the greatest of women from slut-shamming one another. Paradise Island indeed!

I suppose I can't blame Rucka for his take on Steve Trevor having the emotional range of a cardboard cut-out. It's not like Trevor was ever a memorable protagonist and the post-Crisis revamp of Wonder Woman did just fine without him as a love interest. Yet for all the New 52 got wrong, they did manage to give Trevor something of a personality and that's completely absent here.

Nicola Scott's artwork is beautiful, as expected. Yet what she's asked to draw is so lackluster and dull. Rucka's script tells us what is happening, allowing Scott no chance to show us the action - such as it is. The closest thing to an action sequence in this issue comes at the end, when Steve Trevor's transport crashes. Yet this scene is shown entirely from the perspective of Diana and her sisters spying the crash from a distance - not the soldiers inside as the crash occurs!

Bottom Line: As much as it pains me to not support one of my favorite artists, I cannot recommend the even-numbered issues of Wonder Woman in good conscience. Readers who want to read a good Wonder Woman comic would do well to check out Sensational Comics or the Wonder Woman '77 series.